Cerian and Daniel’s Mint, Pink and Gold Cardiff Wedding by Lewis Fackrell Photography

Today we are heading off to Cardiff for this super pretty wedding from Lewis Fackrell Photography. Cerian and Daniel decided to get married on their 10 year anniversary, what a fabulous date for a wedding. They held their gorgeous summer wedding at Canada Lake and Lodge after falling in love with the venue on their first visit. They added in lots of DIY details from the paper pom pom arch to the spray painted gold vases, and the results are gorgeous. Add in a colour palette of Mint, Pink and Gold and you have the prettiest wedding you could ever wish for.

A happy day surrounded by everyone we love and care about. It was just my favourite day ever, and I didn’t want it to end!

Cerian and Daniel were married on the 25th June 2016 at Canada Lake and Lodge, Cardiff. ‘We knew we wanted to get married in Cardiff as we moved here together five years ago, and it was equal distance for all of our family to travel. We looked at a few venues but I can remember pulling up to this place and being wowed. When you travel down the long driveway, it’s very unassuming but as soon as you park and look over the fence, you see this beautiful building and lake with a huge fountain. I was blown away and took about a million photos! We had 70 guests to the day, and a total of 100 to the evening. We booked it in November 2014 but didn’t start planning until I bought my dress in August 2015. Around 10 months in total. I wouldn’t say we started really planning the detail until about four months before.’

How they met
Our wedding day was our 10 year anniversary since we first got together. We met when we were 18. I’m from a small town in Mid Wales and Dan is from Hereford. My friends and I used to visit Hereford regularly and started making a couple of friends there. Dan and I met and soon started talking and texting a lot and then met up a few times. 10 years later, we’re still going strong!

The Proposal
We had spoken about getting married, but I still didn’t expect the proposal. Dan and I went for a lovely winter walk just before Christmas 2013. We were speaking about it but even then, I had no idea he was about to propose. It was just a perfect moment and it was as though no one else was around. I can still remember Dan’s face and the butterflies in my stomach. It felt very personal and just perfect for us!

How did you allocate your budget?
We went slightly over budget. It’s so difficult not to! We wanted to do a lot of DIY and have personal touches that represented us. We had a lot of spreadsheets but it’s so easy to get carried away!

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
I don’t think we realised that catering could be so expensive. That’s where a lot of our budget went, but you don’t want guests to be hungry! We saved in a few areas. Buying vases from IKEA and spray-painting them gold rather than buying expensive vases with the same effect. Making a pom-pom arch over the aisle rather than flowers (I roped in two of my friends to fluff pom-poms one night!). Buying ivory carpet to make a runner rather than hiring one.

Why did you choose your photographer?
I used to work with Lewis in his old day-job. I always admired his photos. When Lewis came around to our place and we were chatting about the style of photography, he just understood what we wanted. It helped that our dog loved him too!

The Dress and Shoes
I chose a Justin Alexander strapless dress and customised it with a lace bardot crop on top. There were so many beautiful dresses but this one was different to the others I had tried on. The dress was satin whereas every other dress I had tried on was lace. It felt classic and I don’t think it will date. I would love to have an excuse to wear it again.
My accessories were fairly simple which is unusual for me. I wore a vintage headband. I can remember buying it and thinking it could be my something old for my wedding one day. I wore a gold midi ring on my right hand, simple earrings and my shoes were from Asos. I looked everywhere for shoes but I loved these as they tied in with my colour scheme and also counted as my something blue with the turquoise gemstones!

The Suit and Bridesmaids
The boys bought their suits from Next. Dan wanted something a bit different rather than a plain white shirt. I have to admit, I was dubious but absolutely loved it when I saw it all pulled together! My mum made their pocket squares out of the same fabric as our bridesmaids’ dresses. Our page boy matched the adults. His suit was also from Next with a shirt from John Lewis.
The dresses for the adult bridesmaids were from Asos and our nieces wore dresses from Monsoon. Luckily, the colour matched perfectly!

Theme or Colour Scheme
We didn’t go for a theme, just colours. We went for mint, pink and gold. Mint can be quite hard to match but the different shades looked lovely when all put together.

Flowers
I love peonies and June is the perfect time for these. For the flowers, I had a peony bouquet with freesias and gypsophila. Our bridesmaids had pink roses (same as the buttonholes) and our two flowergirls had gypsophila bouquets.

Decoration
For the ceremony, we had a pom-pom arch over the aisle, pink petals along the sides of our aisle runner and wicker hearts with pink roses on the chiavari chairs.
Downstairs, for the meal, my mum had made mint chevron table runners, my dad had spray-painted our gold accented vases which were filled with pink peonies and we had personalised gold laser-cut place settings for everyone.
After the meal, we went back upstairs for the evening. We hired D&C marquee letters and our dessert table with our wedding cake had been set up. I loved these little changes as no-one expected them.

The Food
We had vegetable soup to start, roast chicken dinner and eton mess. Dan and I aren’t the biggest foodies so we struggled with this. I’m vegetarian and Dan doesn’t like vegetables or sauce! Our guests enjoyed it though and I think sometimes, simple is better! In the evening, we had a buffet and our dessert table.

Wedding Cake
The wedding cake was incredible. Zoe from the Vale Cake Boutique just completely understood what we wanted and I loved working with her. We had three tiers – vanilla and buttercream, belgian chocolate and salted caramel and lemon sponge with lemon curd. We hoped the flavours would suit all of our guests. It was decorated with sugarcraft peonies, mint chevrons and gorgeous detailing. We also included a dessert table with cupcakes and cakepops for the children and lots of sweets.

Entertainment
We had a DJ in the evening and had asked our guests to include a song choice on their RSVPs, we gave him quite an interesting playlist!
Although not planned, the Euros were taking place so quite a few guests enjoyed watching Wales play during the break between the meal and the evening party.

Stationery
We designed everything ourselves. We’re actually hoping to start our own business designing stationery as we enjoyed it so much! Everything matched perfectly and we created so many different pieces. From the table plan to the message in the ladies bathroom.

Personal Touches
We tried to have as many as we could. We made quite a lot. Lewis took the cutest photo of our nephew helping to attach our homemade “Dan & Cerian’s Wedding’ sign. I don’t know if people would realise how much we personalised but I think those touches make everything more perfect!

Special Moments or Highlights
So many special moments and highlights! Getting ready in the morning and feeling totally relaxed. Our nieces and nephew leading the way down the aisle for me and my dad. Looking across all of the seats and seeing all of our loved ones together. Seeing everything we had pictured in our heads all put together. The speeches. Our dog, Kopper, joining us for photos. Dancing until 2AM with some of our best friends to Sum41 and Blink 182 as a flashback to our youth. And finally, getting back to our log cabin and chatting with Dan about how perfect our day was.

Advice for other couples
Enjoy it and use Pinterest for inspiration, not with a plan to emulate it! Make the most of the day and do what you want to do. Speak to everyone, dance with your husband/ wife and hire a good photographer to relive everything after!

Biggest Surprise
Even though everyone said it, I can’t believe how fast it went. I didn’t get emotional on the day and I really thought I would. I cry at adverts and Home and Away! I just felt so happy and loved being with everyone. I couldn’t ruin it by crying!

Supplier Shout Outs

• Canada Lake and Lodge – Venue – www.canadalodgeandlake.co.uk
• Lewis Fackrell Photography – Photography – www.lewisfackrell.co.uk 
• Vale Cake Boutique – Cake – www.thevalecakeboutique.com 
• Cariad Design – Flowers – www.cariaddesigns.co.uk 
• Chair Covers & Bows – Chair hire – www.chaircoversandbows.co.uk
• Written in Lights – Marquee lights – www.writteninlights.com
• Spiro’s – Catering – www.spiros.co.uk

For more information about Lewis’ work go to:

www.lewisfackrell.co.uk / [email protected] / 07796232924 / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram

‘Hello, I am a wedding photographer based in Cardiff serving South Wales and UK.   My style is to keep things as natural and relaxed as possible with adding a touch of creativity and fun. I like to intervene as little as possible to ensure everyone is at ease and captured in a relaxed setting and most of all enjoys the experience with their photographer.’