Helen and Patrick's Vintage Inspired Train Museum Wedding by Marianne Chua

Happy Wednesday everyone, I hope the sun is shining where you are. It has been lovely here in Sheffield over the last few days, however I have been in the office, so today I am looking forward to enjoying a day with Dexter in the Park, ice creams all round! We are taking you back a couple of months today with this fab vintage inspired day. It’s a train museum wedding, a wonderful location in Essex, where Train loving Patrick took advantage of the location and lived out his passion for trains within his wedding venue and with lots of lovely details and decor. Helen the bride added in her own twist on things by adding in lots of pretty vintage elements, which worked perfectly with all the train memorabilia. Big thanks to Marianne Chua for the images.

There are very few experiences you wouldn’t change a thing and this was one of them. Trains for Patrick and vintage for Helen!

Helen and Patrick's Vintage Inspired Train Museum Wedding by Marianne Chua

Helen and Patrick were married on the 7^th May 2016, East Anglian Railway Museum, Chappel & Wakes Colne, Essex. ‘We both knew the venue from a Beer Festival we go to every year and Patrick lived and came to the museum as a little boy. We had 130 guests and the wedding took just over 18 months to plan.’

How they met
We met in 2005 and were friends for five years before getting together in 2010 after a cocktail filled evening in a bar next door to the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

The proposal
It was my 30^th birthday and being National Trust geeks, we went for a picnic and a nose around Melford Hall, Suffolk. Patrick had brought with his old family photo albums to show me and pointed out a lady called Annabella Henderson, his great great grandmother. He told me that her engagement ring had been passed down to his mum and now to him and he wondered if I might be the next person to wear it.

How did you allocate your budget?
We spent more than we anticipated but it was so worth it for the day we had. We were spot on with our third budget! We had to organise all suppliers, furniture, etc as the venue was a blank canvas, so lots of shopping around to find the ‘just-right’ things.

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
We made all the table runners, table names and signs for the day ourselves. We found our flower holders at a favourite antiques place – Battlesbridge in Essex – where I would buy everything from, given the chance. Our tipis were a big expense but we’d do it all over again for the magic, fairy light filled space we had for our meal and speeches.

How did you choose your photographer?
We met Marianne at a wedding fair and she was the only person who didn’t pounce on us to sell and just had a lovely smile (and camera headband) and we just loved her way of capturing people’s days. She was such as star and stayed with us on the day until the end at 11pm, to catch a photo of us all getting the last train back to the hotel.

The dress
My dress was White Rose – I chose it because it had a good swish! My shoes were Pink Paradox and my accessories were from Folksy (satin flower hair clips), earrings were from a tiny jewellery maker in Pembrokeshire, Wales that we know well when we visit on holiday, called John & Victoria. My bridesmaid, Clare, made me a bead bouquet made from clear beads and had some buttons in it from my mum’s wedding dress.

The suit and bridesmaids
The boy’s Chinos were good old John Lewis and waistcoats from Lloyd, Attree & Smith. Socks (train themed) and green braces from Amazon.
The bridesmaids wore dresses from LindyBop – gorgeous green dresses and petticoats, lovely earrings from Folksy and we made our own fabric flower corsages.

Theme or colour scheme
It didn’t start with a colour – but green featured heavily in the end. The flowers were a mass of oranges, purples, reds, greens, so anything went really. The bridesmaids has purple and red shoes as they chose a colour they loved from the flower colours. The theme was focused A LOT on trains (we were in a railway museum and Patrick loves steam trains), with ticket themed save the dates and invites, train motifs on name tags and our Brio figure of eight table plan.

Flowers
Our flowers were of so many of various colours – wild and bright and gorgeous!

Decoration
We borrowed lots and lots of bunting to decorate the Goods Shed where we had our ceremony and evening dancing and had flower arrangements on the window sills. The Goods Shed has such a lot of signage to look at we didn’t want to hide it. The tipi had lots of fairy lights and fire pits.

Food
Hog Roast, Veggie Paella, Cheese Board and handmade cake and Gin and Tonic cupcakes made by our very lovely friends.

Wedding Cake
We didn’t have a wedding cake as such, just lots of other cake to nibble!

Entertainment
The very wonderful 6 String Makeover – they were AMAZING and learnt our first dance (Hall and Oates – You Make My Dreams) and our friends were official backing singers.

Stationery
We designed all the stationary ourselves. Patrick is nifty on a computer and then lots of sticking together!

Personal Touches
In addition to the details mentioned above, we also wrote our own vows.

Special Moments or Highlights
That my grandparents were there to see the day, everyone chilling out on picnic blankets in the daisy filled field, dancing all night with churros (and each other!)

Advice for other couples
Make difficult decisions early on like kids or no kids. Make it as personal as you can, remember you can’t please everyone and just aim to have fun!

Biggest Surprise
That it all went so perfectly to plan – we wouldn’t have changed a thing!