Felicity and Andrew’s Tweed Loving Yorkshire Wedding. By Paul Joseph Photography

I have a real treat for you today courtesy of my good friends Paul and Kelly from Paul Joseph Photography.  This wedding is FULL of Yorkshire goodness, as the couple decided to stay true to where they are from and really use Yorkshire as a theme for their wedding. With tweed suits, Yorkshire food and Yorkshire phrases dotted around the venue, this wedding is full of personality. I am also loving the colour combo of turquoise and pea green, mixed with the cream and the brown it really brings the wedding to life. Well done to Paul and Kelly on capturing the day so beautifully.

‘We wanted a wedding that was very ‘us’ and it certainly was, set amongst intimate venues in the beautiful snowy Yorkshire Dales with a back drop of the Three Peaks and the sun shining though on the frozen ground. The tweed attire, the split screen camper and outdoors feel complimented the Yorkshire theme of the flowers, food and drink and best of all everyone who came made witnessed two people in love see their dream come true by becoming husband and wife – perfect!’

Felicity and Andrew who were married on 24th February. ‘The ceremony was held at Austwick Hall, Austwick, Near Settle, with the reception at The Traddock, in North Yorkshire. We love the Yorkshire dales, spend a lot of time walking here and live only half an hour from Austwick, so it was perfect. We wanted a truly Yorkshire wedding and just thought that the village of Austwick and its surroundings helped with that! Austwick hall was very intimate for the ceremony and The Traddock the same as we had exclusivity of the place so it felt like home. We had 56 guests and it took a year to plan.’

How they met
We met unofficially at Parkside Middle School, probably around the age of 10, but we remember first meeting properly as friends at Bingley Grammar School when we were around 15. It wasn’t until January 29th 2011 that we got back in touch and on February 13th we met up for a drink at the Boathouse in Saltaire. We had dates pretty much every Sunday for a few weeks. When Andy went away to Portugal with his family in March, we missed each other so much and on his return things got serious pretty quick. Every week we would be out hill walking, camping, climbing up mountains and going to music gigs – we were never at home! Even when we moved in together in July 2011 we were never at home. We have really made the most of our time together – we live our life by Alfred Wainwright’s quote “time together should be spent, not saved”.

The proposal
I decided I wanted to propose to Fliss in the Summer of 2011. My original plan was to pop the question on top of Ben Nevis but I couldn’t find the right ring in time! Eventually, I settled on the 29th January – exactly a year since we first got in touch. I planned a weekend to Scotland, planning in all the things twe like doing together. We drove up in the snow and stayed at Barns Tower near Peebles – a beautifully restored medieval tower for 2 people. On Saturday we visited Edinburgh. On the Sunday I had planned a walk along the River Tweed and on to Neidpath Castle – a ruin of a castle not open to the public but I had arranged with the owner to open it up for 1 hour at 13:00 hours (13 being the date they got together and year they got married). Eventually, after getting lost, we arrived at the castle. Fliss was scared to go in because it wasn’t open to the public and she thought I was breaking in! But inside it was candlelit and romantic. They explored every room whilst I assessed where to ask the big question. Being indecisive, I left it until the last place in the castle, the top floor balcony. Down on one knee. Fliss, in shock, said “no no no no no”……then a few moments later “yes”. The rest of the weekend was a bit of a blur, so we went back to the exact same place for our minimoon after the wedding

Why did you choose your photographer?
Fliss had seen Paul and Kelly’s work a few years before when a friend got married. This happened to be their first ever wedding! After seeing the photographs I knew I definitely wanted to see more, and after meeting Paul and Kelly the decision was pretty much made. They are great guys, up for a laugh and willing to try anything to make good photos!

The dress
My dress was from Monsoon, a bargain in the sale!! Accessories- a mixture really, M&S, Accessorize, Andy bought me a chunky blue ring to match the theme! I wore my great grandmas earrings. My shoes were Irregular Choice.

The suit and bridesmaids
The Suit was second hand from eBay. We decided on a tweed one from the start really and it had a turquoise stripe running through which matched the bridesmaids. The Bridesmaids dressed were again from monsoon, and they’re cool tights from ASOS!

Theme or colour scheme
Colours were Turquoise and pea green with a bit of brown and of course cream

Decoration
The Traddock and Austwick Hall are both quite elaborate places so we felt we didn’t need much. We collected milk bottles for the year before the wedding and spray painted them in the colours of the wedding. We then put one white rose in each. We also had Yorkshire phrases spread about the place!

Food
We had a Yorkshire themed menu. To start we had Yorkshire Ham Hock Terrain, Main course we had Roast Yorkshire beef with all the trimmings and for dessert we had Yorkshire curd tart cheese cake with Ilkley moor Heather Honey ice cream. Delicious. In the evening we had a mixture of Bacon and Sausage butties.

Entertainment
We hired a band from Leeds called Northern Vinyl, they were fab.

Flowers
White Roses of course- to symbolise Yorkshire with mixed white and cream flowers including, bovardia and dill – bound with raffia

Personal /DIY touches
It was all done ourselves really.
• Fliss is a designer and in her spare time designs personalised wedding stationery, so this was great. I did everything in our colours and style, from the save the dates, invites, table names, menu cards, Order of the day, Yorkshire phrase cards.
• We made the table plan by saving beer bottles, green for the girls, brown for the blokes. I designed a beer bottle label with mountains on and each one had a guests name on and the name of the table they were sat at, when they went to the table there was a beer mat with the same design on and their name to show them where to sit!
• The table decorations were the sprayed milk bottles again with roses in, they were sat in a wicker basket with some straw.
• The table names we named after our favourite Yorkshire Dales and on the back of each we had a fact about the Dale and our favourite memory from that place.
• We also had wedding bingo and some silly pictures where people had to make up phrases to go with them!

Special moments
The whole weekend rocked! The day before we journeyed to the Yorkshire Dales Ice Cream Parlour for an American breakfast and enjoyed an evening meal with our friends and family in the pub we used to go to for our dates when we first met.
On the day itself, getting ready was fun because we were both imagining what the other was up to! For Andy, seeing everyone arrive at Austwick Hall and waiting for Fliss to arrive. For Fliss, dressing up like a princess and stepping out of the camper van (Otto) in the snow. It was very special when they first saw each other on the day, and then reading the vows they had written themselves to each other. The readings were cool, because they were unusual and modern but sentimental and appropriate to our lifestyle. The music was a big part of the day and set the tone, and the most special moment of the day was when we were proclaimed husband and wife and had our first kiss. The wedding breakfast was delicious and the speeches were all original and heartfelt and the band were great. We had practised our first dance and had a couple of lessons, but we were so caught up in the moment we forgot how to dance. We had a couple of last dances though to make up for it. And the BATH! Fliss loved the bath in our room!
We were really happy the people we care about could come and join in the celebrations with us. Some people made a massive effort to be there and that meant a lot to us. We wouldn’t change anything about our day.

Advice
Just enjoy every moment, we had so much fun just planning it an organising everything, particularly because we did most things ourselves, it was great to see it all come together. Our day ran perfectly, I think just because we were both just so relaxed and looking forward to being married.

Biggest surprise
Surprisingly for Fliss, Andy had decided to not turn around as she entered Austwick Hall and walked down the aisle! Andy was in two minds but the final decision was made on the advice of his best man Mark – who said it was tradition to not look back. As they aisle was very small anyway, Andy didn’t have to wait long to see his Bride arrive. She was stood next to him but he thought she would still be walking down, so didn’t turn around until a few moments later!

Supplier Shout Outs

• Paul Joseph Photography – www.pauljosephphotography.co.uk Fab photographers,and great people, fitted in to the wedding party and all our friends and family loved them!
• The Hedgerow- www.floristsinskiptonandthedales.co.uk
• Northern Vinyl- www.northernvinyl.co.uk/ – Great music, really got everyone up dancing!!

Fore more information on Paul and Kelly’s work go to

www.pauljosephphotography.co.uk
http://pauljosephphotography.co.uk/blog/
FACEBOOK
Paul on Twitter
Kelly on Twitter