Emilie and Solomon’s Homespun Summer Wedding By Grace Elizabeth Photography

Happy Wednesday everyone, I do hope you are having a good week so far? We are heading over to the East Midlands today for this lovely wedding in Nottingham, courtesy of Grace Elizabeth Photography who happens to be a friend of the bride and groom. Emilie and Solomon chose a relaxed day where they could really put their mark on the ceremony and reception by adding in lots of homespun ideas. With a summer theme they kept things casual by putting on a BBQ for their guests, keeping the flower loose and relaxed and overall having a lovely laid back day. I am loving Solomons look, the tailored suit looks amazing, as do all of his groomsmen! Congratulations to Emilie and Solomon, what a fab day.

‘A beautiful relaxed day, full of dancing, food and vitality. Set in the warm outdoors,
surrounded by people that we love’

Solomon and Emilie were married on 7th August 2015 at Heart Church, Nottingham followed by a reception at Papplewick Pumping Station. ‘The ceremony venue is our home church, and the Pumping Station is a beautiful venue which is close to Solomon’s parents hearts. We had 150 guests for the meal and an additional 50 for the evening reception. The wedding took approximately a year to plan’

How they met
We met at church years ago, but we first properly talked, when we went on holiday with a group of friends to Greece. We were the only two people that didn’t really know each other. We had been together about a year before he proposed.

The Proposal
The proposal was like a dream. We arrived at Victoria station, London and I was expecting to go for dinner with friends when I saw the Orient Express. I had read a lot of the books and watch the Agatha Christie’s Poirot since I was rather young and never expected to be able to travel on it until I was older and had saved some money. I took a photo of the train and when I turned around Solomon looked fishy. He then pulled out two tickets and we got on board. It was all a bit of daze in my head. I love murder mystery’s and it was a special Murder Mystery journey in which different actors/characters would come into the carriages and we had to work out who had committed the crime. We were sat in a private carriage, eating a five course dinner and drinking champagne, and Solomon was taking a video of me (he’s a film maker) and when I turned around he was on one knee! And of course I said yes.

How did you allocate your budget
Its was a DIY wedding, so some things were really cheap but there is a lot of little bits and bobs you never think of, so our budget got pushed one way and another.

Where did you splurge and where did you save
The items that cost the most were the reception venue itself ( but even this was reasonable), Solomon’s suit and the marquee/carport of which we managed to get some money back since we sold it on afterwards, better investment than hiring. We saved on Emilie’s dress and the flowers due to lots of family and friends helping out. We have a big family of people from church that were very generous with their time and talents, which helped a lot. We didn’t hire a fancy car to take us to the reception and had a big bbq buffet overseen phenomenally by a friend, which were worked out a lot better than hiring a catering company for a sit down meal.

How did you choose your photographer
We had seen the beautiful an excellent work by Grace and Mitch before and we had also been friends with Grace for many years. Emilie and Grace used to go to school together. We think it’s a lot easier and more relaxed if you have the privilege of knowing your photographer and they were great fun to have there on the day!

The Dress
The dress was from Ebay and then we had a family friend alter the dress rather a lot to make it more original. Emilie went down the aisle bare foot (more comfortable) and then spent most of the reception in ballet shoes

The Suit and Bridesmaids
The bridesmaids dresses were frrom ASOS.
The suit was beautifully hand tailored by King and Allen. the suit was Mustard Colour, double breasted, and complemented with a blue tie with ducks on it.

Theme or Colour Scheme
We merely wanted it to be summery and wild, with lots of colour. We tried to bring the outdoors inside with a hessian runner and flowers down the aisles.

Flowers
Wild flowers, dahlias with lavender, cream roses and different flowers that were in season. We wanted lots of flowers dotted around. Other than the bouquet, the button holes and other bouquets were made my Emilie’s mum and nan and friends.This way you can save money but also have exactly what you wish.

Decoration
We had bunting and we wanted to have lots of flowers dotted around to make it feel summery. We had lots of cosmos down the aisle and then Emilie purchased a lace curtain from Ikea and created our backdrop. We bought a massive car port, since it looked exactly the same as a marquee and then we could sell it on. This was decorated with festoon lights and bunting. We also had some fired chairs and lots of hay bales for people to sit on.

Food
Some of our friends from church helped us massively by agreeing to cater three weeks before the wedding when our caterer dropped out. The food was delicious; we had a BBQ with many different types of burgers, salads. We also wanted light things so that people didn’t get hungry, so we had olives and breads and nuts whilst people waited to be seated.

Wedding Cake
The cake was naked. Beautiful crafted by one of Emilie’s friends, Rosie and her mother Claire.

Entertainment
We had a swing band whilst people arrived and whilst they were eating which was great music for people to relax and chat to. Then we had a folk band play that are also our friends which was great. They did lots of covers and great music for people to dance to.
We also had a game of rounders going off in a nearby field which was fun.

The Stationery
Emilie purchased napkins and twine and tied lavender round them.We didn’t really purchase stationary. We bought wooden cutlery and plates and bowls to make it easy to clear away but also because they looked nice aesthetically

Personal or Handmade Touches
All of the table planning and decor was done by ourselves, the bridal party and family the day before mainly.

Special Moments
Solomon has Jewish heritage and one of the traditions is being lifted onto a chair, and then him, his groomsman and his male family members all danced to klezmer music. To be honest, the dancing throughout the night was a lot of fun

Advice to other couples
Buy a tent, it’s so much cheaper than hiring if you want to have an outside wedding. We had friends and relatives make cakes/desserts, this is such a great way of getting people involved as most people really want to help out!

Biggest surprise
How quickly the day seems to fly by and how encouraging people were.

Supplier Shout Outs

• Venue – Papplewick Pumping Station
• Swing Gitan – www.swing-gitan.com
• B E hire-tables and chairs – www.beeventhire.co.uk
• Wooden plates and cutlery – www.littlecherry.co.uk
• Gala tent – www.galatent.co.uk
• Photographer – www.graceelizabethphoto.com

For more information on Grace’s work please go to:

www.graceelizabethphoto.com / www.graceelizabethphoto.com/blog [email protected] FACEBOOK / I:graceelizabeth_photo / @GraceEphoto

I am based in the Midlands UK but love to explore new places, I am happy to travel far and wide for photography. I love to photograph all things creative and people orientated. I tell love stories through artistic, honest and authentic photographs, capturing the quiet, candid and informal, as well as the significant big moments of a wedding day so that they can be re-lived again and again.