Jane and Ben's Urban Chic Navy and Gold Leeds Wedding by Amber Marie Photography

When you own your own wedding venue, finding your dream location for your wedding day is pretty simple! Jane and Ben own New Craven Hall in Leeds, an urban luxe wedding venue, in the centre of Leeds, so it seemed pretty obvious to hold their wedding there. With their roots firmly in the wedding industry they knew straight away how they wanted the wedding to look and what suppliers they wanted to use. They went for a stunning colour scheme of Navy and Gold and filled the venue with a plethora of coordinated design details. From the 100s of candles to the metallic balloon display, this wedding is oozing style, sophistication and Urban chic goodness. Thank you to Jane the Bride for the gorgeous submission and to Amber Marie Photography for the lovely photos.

A complete reflection of us, both as individuals and as a couple. The most perfect day of our lives shared with all the people we wanted to share it with.

Jane and Ben were married on 12^th May 2018. ‘We held our ceremony in the Great Hall at Temple Newsam House, and our reception at our own venue, New Craven Hall in Leeds. Temple Newsam House was the first and only venue we looked at for our ceremony. We went for something more traditional for the ceremony. The house and gardens were the perfect location for us to capture some beautiful photos and enjoy the spring weather. It was important to have as many people there as possible. The ceremony hall held 100 guests, which was perfect. More guests then joined us for the reception at New Craven Hall, and even more for the evening party; around 160 in total. Jane had been planning this her whole life! But from engagement to wedding it was 15 months, which gave us plenty of time to get everything in order. As we wanted to use our own venue, we also needed to work around our own calendar and weddings we already had booked in.’

How they met
Well, it’s the 21^st Century and we met on Tinder! We actually married exactly four years to the date since we made it official, but our first date was on 30^th March 2014.

The proposal
We got engaged on Christmas Day 2016. We were on a winter walk with my dog Harvey around Temple Newsam, when suddenly Ben ran ahead with the dog and I found him hiding behind a huge tree down on one knee! This was another big reason we decided to get married at Temple Newsam, as it was so special to us.

How did you allocate your budget?
We saved a lot of money by using our own venue of course, which allowed us some extra room to spend in other areas. Working in the industry, we knew what to expect and were fully prepared to invest in great suppliers.

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
The most important things for us both were the food, the entertainment, the dress and the decorations. We knew going into it that for it to be perfect for us we would have to spend the right money with the right people, so although we didn’t hold back too much, we still managed to find some good bargains!

The dress
Having previously worked as a bridal stylist the dress was extremely important. I got my dress from The Bridal Collection, Harrogate. I knew I wanted something classic and vintage, falling in love with the Rene gown by Suzanne Neville. The long sleeve lace jacket created a vintage look which I could then take off for the evening party. My shoes were Ted Baker, and for jewellery I wore a Swarovski necklace gifted to me on the morning by my bridesmaids; and my pearl earrings were from Ben’s late mother, which she wore on his sister’s wedding day

The suit and bridesmaids
Ben wore a three-piece suit was from Next, matched with a tweed waistcoat and knitted navy tie from Moss Bros. The groomsmen and dads had three-piece navy suits with tweed ties and pocket squares from Slaters. The bridesmaids’ dresses were glamorous, fitted floor-length navy dresses from Coast which they all looked stunning in.

Did you have a theme or colour scheme?
Navy and gold, and plenty of each! Everything from the stationery to the table linens, the chairs to the macaroon wedding favours all matched the colour scheme, and it all looked as perfect as we imagined it would.

Flowers
The flowers for me were really important, and I love fresh flowers. Sally at Serendipity Floral Design created the bouquets and button holes, which were all simple white roses, peonies, plenty of greenery and to fit with the colour scheme, blue thistles. She decorated the reception venue with large hanging floral displays of plenty of greenery with a smattering of white roses, as well as greenery up the grand curtains at the sides of the hall.

Decoration
We wanted the venue to look absolutely magical, so along with the flowers we used navy table linens with gold runners and mirrors covered with chapel candles (no less than 360 in altogether!), accompanied by gold chiavari chairs. We had a navy and gold balloon bouquet next to the gorgeous cake table, and gold hoop arrangements displayed on areas of the wall.

Food
Our favourite caterers ever – The Hog & Apple from York – helped us put together the perfect menu, combining some of our favourite foods. We had Mexican style sharing boards followed by an incredible trio of pork main, with BBQ sides and a combination dessert of vanilla cheesecake and pana cotta with a mango sorbet. Later in the night, they laid out ploughman’s boards. Everyone said that it was the best wedding food ever. And it really was!

Wedding cake
Ben’s auntie lovingly made our wedding cake; three tiers with a layer each of victoria sponge, chocolate and lemon with ruffled icing and edible flowers.

Entertainment?
We knew from experience that you need to keep people entertained. Bare Brass Band joined in with our first dance song as a surprise for the guests, and then played a set to get everybody in the swing of things. Later on we had funk band Groove On Top, followed by our friend DJ Ziggy from Hi-life Entertainment. Viva La Booth were on hand to keep an embarrassing record of the whole night. Everyone had an amazing time.

Who supplied the stationery?
Jane’s brother is a really good graphic designer, and kindly designed all of the invitations, place names, table plan and table names, order of the day and menus for us.

Personal touches
more or less the whole day was reflective of us as a couple, and we (by that we mean Jane) put the whole thing together from start to finish, even having her own coordination meeting with herself!

Special moments
Ben’s brother delivered a heartfelt and emotional reading of a poem we’d written during the ceremony; we then had our golden retrievers join us in Temple Newsam gardens for photographs afterwards. Ben’s speech will go down in family history and had the whole room either roaring with laughter or reaching for the tissues. Finally, Ben’s family have a bizarre tradition of building human pyramids at family occasions (even funerals), and our wedding was the first time they’ve achieved an unprecedented 5-4-3-2-1 assembly!

Advice for other couples
Just try and enjoy it! It’s not meant to be a chore or a stress, it’s meant to be fun and exciting. Remember that everyone is there for you and rooting for you all the way through. We were advised by friends to get a videographer, and we’re so pleased we did as we now get to see the day from the other side, and catch the things we might have missed or forgotten from the day.

Biggest surprise
How relaxing and enjoyable the wedding morning was, and how excited we were as opposed to how nervous we thought we’d be.