This wedding is all sorts of brilliant. So brilliant that the awesome Source Images took over 1000 photos of the day. Yes, you heard me right, over 1000! And we have an immense selection of those to share with you today.
I’m not quite sure I’ve ever seen such a smiley couple. There isn’t a photo where there isn’t a smile radiating from the faces of our gorgeous bride and groom Beth and James.
There is serious outside wedding immenseness, a cake with a train track around the bottom (I KNOW!!), horses heads, glow stick madness and HRH the Queenie even makes an appearence – and no not our blog Queenie Charlotte, actual The Queen. Although I reckon our Charlotte would have very much enjoyed being a guest at this wedding.
Over to Beth…
House Party Vibe
Beth The Bride: Our wedding was on September 2012 at Lemore Manor which is in a small village in Herefordshire. Herefordshire has nothing to do with either of us (I’m from the North East and James is Australian) but we wanted to create a relaxed, house party vibe which Lemore was perfect for. Thirty of our closest friends stayed there with us the nights before and of the wedding, and we had a BBQ and Australia vs. England cricket match in the garden the day after.
The Aspen
During our engagement James and I lived in Hong Kong, California and London, and as a result became best friends with Google when planning the wedding. Pretty much straightaway I found Aspen by Jenny Packham online and decided it was the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen. Although I tried keeping an open mind when trying on other dresses, I couldn’t stop comparing everything to the Aspen. In the end I cracked, tried it on at the Jenny Packham showroom in London, and bought it.
To be honest I was super nervous about the dress, even up to the morning of the wedding. It’s very plungey, un-boned and ruched at the hips, so not exactly a dress you can hide behind. But once my bridesmaids had taped me in (there was a lot of tape!) it was too late to worry about whether it really suited me or not. And I still think it’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen.
Given the detail on the dress, I kept jewellery to a minimum. An antique bracelet belonging to my Mum acted as my something borrowed. A vintage tie clip, inherited from my Grandmother, attached to my bouquet was my something old.
Something Blue
I’m pretty tall and can’t walk in heels to save my life so I was always going to wear flats. I searched around for some dainty ballet pumps but everything was a bit too hospital chic for my liking so I decided to design my own and get them made in Hong Kong. When I ordered my duck-egg blue, scallop-edged pumps with a cream bow in my non-existent Cantonese using tiny swatches of leather I didn’t have the highest of hopes. But I was pretty pleased with the results and that was my something blue ticked off the list.
Given my dress was from the UK and my shoes from Hong Kong, I got it into my head that my hair accessories should come from America. I found my hairpins at BHLDN who also deliver to the UK.
I wanted to look like me, so after a disastrous trial with a lady who forbade me from wearing my hair down because “it didn’t go with the dress” I booked Louise, a mobile hairdresser in the area. Unluckily my hairpins broke, but resourceful Louise sewed them into my hair with a needle and some brown thread. This was utter genius and they stayed in all day, but slightly terrifying when James had to cut them out of my head with a pair of nail scissors at 3am.
Cat at Ivy Clara did my make-up and I can’t recommend her highly enough – she was great and more than happy to spend the morning hanging out with me and my bridesmaids.
Pastel And Puffy
We were after a relaxed look for the flowers so when we found Charlie from the Real Cut Flower Garden, who owns acres of flower fields near Lemore, we were sold. Charlie did the bouquets and the centrepieces, with gypsophila for the bridesmaids and a mix of wild flowers for me. For the centrepieces we let Charlie run with what she thought would look good, our only instructions being “pastel and puffy”. She arranged them for us in old teacups painted by my Grandmother (to tie in with the favours).
My Mum was a complete legend and did all the ceremony decoration herself. She spent hours on the morning of the wedding tying gypsophila to chairs and hanging jars of hydrangeas from the tree we held the ceremony under.
Pale Grey
I’m not a fan of bold colours so the bridesmaids wore pale grey dresses from Dessy. They each picked a style they wanted (which ended up being very similar) by trying them on at bridal/bridesmaid shops and I ordered them at a much cheaper price from American website www.netbride.com (who also deliver to the UK). The girls chose their own shoes (they were given free rein as long as they were different pastel colours) and wore grey pearl-drop necklaces which I picked up on Etsy.
James wore a blue three piece suit made for him at Thom Sweeney and shoes from Crocket & Jones.
The two best men and my Dad wore their own navy suits and grey ties.
Cheese Tower
After the venue, a photographer was the second thing we looked at. We found Jordan & Ines from Source Images online and loved their pictures, so after a few Skype conversations we booked. They did a great job, running around all day taking snaps of all the little details that we’d pulled together.
James isn’t a fan of cake so we went for a cheese tower from the Cheese Shed. Decoration duties were left to my Mum’s partner, who surprised us on the day with a battery powered train going around the base, flags from our travels and a kangaroo and lion (the animals on our respective passports).
Garden Games And The Queen
For the drinks reception we found various garden games, and a friend even made a cornhole for us to add an American element. We kept people entertained during and after dinner with a DIY photobooth which James and my elder brother spent hours hooking up. The most popular props were a cut-out of the Queen which my Dad had leftover from the Jubilee (don’t ask) and a blow-up kangaroo. The photobooth cost almost nothing to set up and was a huge hit with our guests. When we sent out our thank you cards after the wedding, we also sent each guest an old fashioned photostrip of their best shots.
Yeah Yeah Yeah
For the ceremony and drinks reception we hired Nero String Quartet who were fantastic and even learned Hysteric by Yeah Yeah Yeahs for me to walk down the aisle to and Kids by MGMT for us to sign our certificate by.
Neither of us were particularly keen on having a band to do cover songs so we booked Pete Stead to DJ for us at the party. James loves his music and painstakingly created a playlist for the whole night, with Pete then expertly picking which songs to play when.
We ummed and ahhed about our first dance as “our song”, One by The National, has some slightly dodgy lyrics. In the end we picked ‘Girl Like You’ by The Troggs which we both liked and wasn’t too horrifically cringey to dance to.
Fun And Games
I have a slight tea obsession so our favours were little tins of tea from a factory in Hong Kong. I had a frustrating conversation with UK customs about bringing 100 tins back to the country in one go – they just didn’t believe it could be for personal use – so in the end they were smuggled over in dribs and drabs by numerous friends and colleagues over the course of a year. Thanks everyone!
The wedding was quite DIY and I spent a few evenings after work crafting something or other. The biggest task was sewing 120 meters of pastel bunting (way too much by the way!) to hang in the marquee, but we also made a stop-motion save the date film, designed the invitations and orders of service, pulled together the photobooth and a biscuit bar and made various crafty things like signs and hanging garlands. We wanted everyone to feel like a part of the day so found a photo of each guest with one or both of us and converted them into polaroids which we hung at the entrance of the marquee.
We created a game by tying keys to each guest’s name tag, with one key opening a box in the corner of the marquee containing a bottle of champagne.
We also made some badges which we dotted around to tie together some of the themes of the wedding. I only designed them on a bored afternoon and to add some silliness to the day, but they proved to be pretty popular.
We had a loose travel theme going on, using vintage postcards of places we’ve lived as our table names. We borrowed old suitcases, cameras and globes from friends and family, made map pinwheels and set up a guest book using postcards which our guests posted into an American style post box.
Hot Tubs And Friends
When we were planning, we very much viewed the wedding as a massive party for all our friends and family, at which we happened to have a wedding ceremony first. The ceremony, which we helped write, was really personal, the day was relaxed, and the night turned into a blur of dance-offs and fancy dress. Our night finished in the early hours of the morning in a hot tub with friends, drinks and glowsticks and we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Click here & view all images from this wedding
Venue – Lemore Manor
Dress – Jenny Packham
Hair – Louise Mobile Stylist
Make-Up – Ivy Clara
Flowers – Cut Flower Gardenb
Maids – Net Bride
Groom – Thom Sweeney
Cake – The Cheese Shed
Photographer – Source Images
I LOVE the key game! How very cool is that.
How beautiful is the ceremony decor? Simple gyp to line the aisle…it looks completely effortless and how wonderful to see such fabulous weather and an outdoors UK wedding.
See what I mean about the smiles? This wedding just makes me so so happy.
I am also in love with the tea tins and the effort that went into getting them. Not only do they look brilliant (be sure to check the gallery to see more of them close up!) but what a great favour.
Tell me your favourite bits?
A simply beautiful happy day!
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