Central Manchester Wedding By Nicola Thompson

Happy Monday everyone and welcome along to another week! I hope it is a good one for everyone! Did you all have a good weekend? I have a lovely wedding for you today brought to you by my friend Nicola Thompson. This wedding takes place in Manchester city centre, and is full of city chic details, Plus THE most amazing food! I do love it when photographers get photos of the wedding food and as this wedding reception takes place in a restaurant Nicola stuck around for the food shots and I think you will agree it looks like the most amazing wedding breakfast!

‘We had an absolutely brilliant day; we couldn’t have asked for anything else – beautiful venues, fabulous food and all our family and friends coming together for a good old knees up! The sun was even shining which makes Manchester even more special.’

Katie and Daniel who were married on 31st March 2013 (Easter Sunday) ‘We had the ceremony at Manchester Town Hall and reception at Stock Restaurant in the city centre. Dan grew up in Manchester and Katie went to University in the city and has lived here ever since. The Town Hall is a phenomenal and iconic building and we both work in the city centre, so we have a great reminder of our wedding every day. There were roughly 75 guests in the day with a further 20 in the evening, it took about 12 months to plan.’

How they met
Over a cocktail fountain at a corporate event. We’ve been together for nearly 6 years.

The proposal
I proposed to Katie on her birthday in our apartment. I set the living room out as a picnic with rose petals everywhere and gave Katie her engagement ring as a birthday present after getting down on one knee.

Why did you choose your photographer?
We knew we wanted a modern and less formal style – as soon as we saw Nicola’s work it was pretty much a given and this was cemented after she popped round for a chat and left a bottle of wine later!

The dress
Dress is Abaco by Pronovias, Acacia headdress by Jenny Packham and the shoes were by Rainbow Club.

The suit and bridesmaids
Bridesmaids dresses were from ASOS and the groom’s suit was from Kooples.

Theme or colour scheme
Not strictly, but we ended up with quite a lot of navy and cream.

Flowers
White ranunculus, arctic roses, white freesia, larkspur tips, curly willow and eucalyptus

Decoration
Both the Town Hall and Stock have beautiful interiors so we didn’t have to do too much to decorate. We had bud vases on the tables with a single arctic rose, freesias and eucalyptus, and there were a lot of tea lights dotted around.

Personal / DIY touches
We did the wedding stationary and table planner ourselves so were pretty familiar with spray mount and a guillotine by the end of it! All the guests had a crème egg at their table setting as it was Easter Sunday.

Food
Starter – Caprese (V) Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella, Heirloom Tomato with Extra Virgin Olive Oil & Topped with Basil
Pasta Dish – Ravioli Neri Squid Ink Parcels Filled with Seabass & Crabmeat in a Sauté of Cherry Tomatoes
Main Course – Agnello Al Taleggio Roast Rump of Lamb Served with Broad Beans, Asparagus & Spinach and Rosemary & Taleggio Dauphinoise Potatoes
Desert – We had a trio of deserts – Tiramasu, fruit jelly and chocolate gateau

Entertainment
We hired a fab band called Purple Cloud of Funk who also DJ’d into the early hours!

Special moments
Seeing Katie for the first time at the Town Hall. Also taking the time to look around and see all our friends and family being there for us and enjoying themselves.

Advice
Try not to stress about things too much, even if something did go slightly wrong it’s probably only you that will notice, everyone else is too busy having a good time!

Biggest surprise
One of our wedding guests was a bit late to the ceremony and walked in at a very inopportune moment – luckily she didn’t have any real objection to us getting married!