Hello there my lovelies… Well I can’t believe the time has come, not only planning our wedding but sharing the journey with you. Can I first say a great big thank you for choosing us to be one of your RMW brides.
When we first announced our engagement we wanted nothing but to be married and began planning a Cyprus wedding…. Warm weather and family and friends – what more could we ask for… Well this is me we are talking about, after lengthy discussions about the time of year, who wouldn’t and would be attending and what style we wanted we decided it just wasn’t right… We wanted to get married in a church and have a fun and relaxed atmosphere with ALL of our friends and family there to celebrate the beginning of our journey as Mr & Mrs and to have full control over our big day. As my background is art and I have an amazing designer as a sister it felt only right that we do our wedding ourselves.
Since starting to plan the big day my little sister, Lucy, has decided to turn what was going to be her two gorgeous girls christening this summer into a triple celebration and tie the knot with her fiancé, Ash! With just 10 weeks to plan their whole day it has been all hands on deck – helping with invitations, dress shopping, accessory making etc… And my pile of bridal magazines has certainly come in handy! It has been so nice to talk weddings with her – she is the one person I know is as excited as I am and it’s lovely to share planning our special days together! It is also really interesting to see that even though we have been brought up the same and had the same sources of inspiration our days are looking like they will be as different as they will be amazing! She is also going for a vintage look but much more polished with lots of pearls and glamour rather than the rustic feel which me and Mikey want. It will also be a chance for Mikey and Ash to practice their speech writing skills as Mikey will be Ash’s best man this August and vice versa for us next year!
I have always loved the idea of an outdoor wedding but what are the chances of that happening in this country with the typical English wether. Then we found the perfect compromise in The Fisherman’s Retreat – the inside has undergone a make over and it is set in the most amazing rural location, surrounded by fields so we can hopefully make use of the space for the outdoor activities we want to entertain our guests.
It is a local, family run restaurant which is the ideal location for the rustic wedding of our dreams without having to travel too far. The venue holds fond memories for me & my family as we used to go up each year for their bonfire party and often went for Sunday lunch, stopping off to feed the trout along the way! When we explained the theme we were going far they were really encouraging and said we had a free reign on the day. I was ecstatic as this meant everything will be perfect and just what we want.
The church we have chosen to tie the knot in is St Aidan’s, it is our local church where my big sister got married and my little sister is doing so this month. It is a lovely church and we felt we couldn’t break our new little family tradition.
After we had booked the church and venue and I had logged onto Pinterest (which I am now completely obsessed with)… We went straight my sisters studio, Betsy Button, and began work on our save the dates. We had so much fun looking at all the designs and creations. So many designs to choose from. As I have a love of all things lace and have been collecting bridal magazines for what seems like forever I got my scrap book out to give Gem an idea of what I wanted the stationery to look like, after showing her the images within no time she had come up with an amazing design inspired by the eclectic effect scrapbook which will suit our theme perfectly!
We then set about planning just how we want the venue to look which means lots of lace, bunting and fabric and collecting glass jars, bottles, vases of all shapes and sizes and lots of them. We will probably be doing this until the day before the wedding knowing me, roping in friends & family to help decorate. I want them to all be individual and have them dotted around the centre pieces, on the tables and the keg barrels on the decking – filling them with either candles or flowers, bringing the outdoors in. We want a relaxed atmosphere and don’t want anything to look too formal as that just isn’t who we are.
Having fun is what our day is going to be about, we want all our guests to have a fabby dabby time and interact with one another which is one of the reasons we are going to have a variety of games throughout the day… Jenga, Connect 4, croquet, ring toss etc. All nostalgic games which we hope will take everyone back to their childhood!
I am on a mission at the moment searching for super size garden games, my Grandad and uncle are amazing carpenters and would relish the idea of making some of them which would be fantastic. I am in the process of getting them on board
I love photos and as soon as we had everything booked we contacted the amazing Seb from Stella photography. I first met him at a wedding fair so had seen his work and loved it. It is all so natural and stage free, the one thing we don’t want is our day taken up posing. Him and Zuzi are amazing and capture the most wonderful shots. They are both brilliant at making you feel relaxed and have great personality which we know will add to the excitement of the day! I have no worries that they will capture our special moments perfectly.
To help us relax Seb has arranged for us to have a pre-wedding shoot which I’m terrified about and Mikey can’t wait for, ha ha. I’ve been assured that it will be fine though.
Carly x