Kris and Kate's Manchester Warehouse Wedding with Street Food and Pampas Grass by Ross Davidson Photography

Happy Wednesday everyone, I hope you are all well and happy! Today is an exciting day in our household as it’s Dexter’s 5th birthday! I have been soooo excited about it. After school we are meeting up with his best friend and 2 of his cousins and going to our local play centre and then to Pizza Hut for his tea. Saturday is his party, and then next weekend we are going to Alton Towers for the weekend and staying in the Splash Landings hotel! So the boy has a 2 week birthday celebration. I still can’t believe he is 5, he has grown up so fast since he started school, he really is such a character, so cheeky, funny and a total star! I really am the luckiest mum! Anyway moving on and onto today’s Manchester warehouse wedding. It’s a real beauty. Kate and Kris wanted something different to your standard wedding, with a Boho festival theme and an urban twist. This they delivered with so much style. The day includes the coolest venues, street food, a personalised sequin and denim jacket, pampas grass, an amazing cake and the most gorgeous flowers. Big thanks to Ross Davidson photography for capturing the day so perfectly, it all looks fab!

The ultimate night out. Brilliant music, food, friends and family

Kate and Kris were married on 18th April 2019 at FiveFour Studios, Salford with the reception at Fairfield Social Club, Manchester. ‘We’re from Wrexham and we wanted something a little different. I’d always dreamed of getting married in a tipi but when it came down to logistics and budget it just wasn’t possible for us. We still wanted the festival feel and street food so a warehouse wedding seemed the perfect match. I came across Fairfield Social Club on facebook and as soon as we saw pictures we knew it was the place for us. The space is amazing and forever evolving which was really exciting for us. As Manchester town hall is now closed for weddings though we struggled more on finding a ceremony venue. I spent hours trawling through all the registered venues in Manchester, when it dawned on me that Salford would be a separate council. FiveFour studios were a must see and as soon as we visited I knew it was the one. Studio one was the blank canvas I could do anything with and the speakeasy style bar was the perfect surprise factor for our guests. We had 72 guests in the day and 150 in the evening. We got engaged in November 2017 but Christmas got in the way so we didn’t properly start until January 2018 so it took around 15 months to plan.’

How they met
We met through a mutual friend at a local pub quiz in 2012. We started seeing each other but nothing really came of it and I went off to Australia for a year but absence made the heart grow fonder and whilst I was out there we decided to make a go of things again once I came home. In November 2014, I came home to surprise friends and family and Kris came to pick me up from the station. I knew straight away that things were going to be different this time around and we’re so glad that we gave things a second chance. We’ve been together ever since.

The proposal
I’ll be honest, I’d been nagging Kris to get engaged for ages but it was still a massive surprise when it eventually happened. I’d been winding Kris up for ages, if ever he went to bend down to pick something up I’d ask if he was proposing. So much so, that he’d do it on purpose to wind me up in return! We were on holiday in Tenby and I was doing lots of Christmas Crafting. Kris kneeled down in front of me so i did my usual ‘awh, are you proposing?’ to wish he answered, ‘Yes’. He got the ring out of his pocket and asked the big question. The engagement ring is my grandma’s which made me realised that my mum and dad must have already known his intention’s too! I was more shocked at how many people kept it all a secret.

How did you allocate your budget?
I didn’t do a very good job at budgeting initially. I just knew that i wanted to do everything as cheap or as reasonable as possible. Once deposits started going out then I kept a spreadsheet of how we were going to split up the budget. The most important things for me were the venues, the flowers and the food.

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
We splurged on the flowers and Kris and groomsmens suits. My pinterest board was full of different floral designs and i knew that flowers were going to be such an important part of dressing a bright white space. The flower wall was a bigger expense than what i had planned to spend on flowers but by not having a sit down meal and tables to dress, it meant that we actually had a lot more budget to play with than we were expecting. With the suits, Kris really wanted the groomsmen in grey tweed which wasn’t easy to come by. The ties were from Primark though so everywhere we splurged, we tried to save a little. Our biggest saving was probably the venues, compared to the country house, tipi wedding i was planning for originally. Also, we chose to get married at 3.30 so we didn’t have a sit down meal and this saved a lot of our budget. Not just for food and drinks but for decorations too.

How did you choose your photographer?
Ross is a friend of mine, we both used to work at the same place. He does a lot of landscape photography and at gigs too. Although, he hadn’t talked much about doing weddings so we didn’t really talk much about the idea of him doing our wedding. We had decided on doing a save the date with a picture of us stood in front of the date in big number balloons and we asked to Ross to take the picture for us – it turned into a mini engagement shoot session and we loved the pictures that he took of us. It was also great to have a friend taking the photos as it took away the awkwardness that i was worried about. I couldn’t be happier with the photos and I’m so proud of them – Ross did an exceptional job and I’m so glad that he’s now considering wedding photography as a career.

The dress
My dress was made by Kate at Mariee Bridal Boutique in Nantwich. I went to Kate after I couldn’t find what I wanted and she made the picture in my head become a reality. My shoes were from Asos. I wore a Oliver Bonas necklace that was a Bee – to represent Manchester. I also wore a Links of London charm bracelet that I had for my 21st birthday. Isolated heroes designed the sequin denim jacket for me. I already had the denim jacket that i wanted customised so I sent it up to them.

The suit and bridesmaids
All the boys wore chinos from M&S with a burgundy tie from Primark. The suits were hired from Groom in Chester. Kris wore a matching grey waistcoat from groom with a burgundy tweed jacket from M&S. His tie is liberty but came from ebay and was only £10! I asked the bridesmaids to wear black but pick their own dress. Everyone is completely different and there was varying ages too so i wanted them to be able to wear a dress that they felt amazing in. The dresses came from Monsoon, John Lewis, Boohoo and Wed2B

Theme or colour scheme
We had a burgundy, black and gold colour scheme. I really wanted to have flowers to match Kris’ suit as I love the moody style flowers in really dark colours.

Flowers
I had a mix of dried and fresh flowers. I am obsessed with pampas grass as i think it instantly creates a boho feel so I had it in my bouquet and it was in all the buttonholes. The flower grid that we had as a backdrop was beautiful and was made up of burgundy and pinks to match our bouquets. I picked up the demijohns which we used as aisle ends off gumtree for £20 and sprayed them copper on the bottom. I loved the way they looked with the dried flowers in and now we’ve got one in every room of the house as a decoration! I’m so glad we got some dried flowers as it meant we got to keep a little part of the day forever. The flowers were by Sassflower.

Decoration
In the ceremony room we had peacock chairs, I picked them both up off ebay for £50 which is probably the best bargain of the wedding. Sasha from Sassflower added dried flowers to them to tie them in with the other decorations. We also added carpet runners to create the aisles which we picked up from ebay and ikea.

Food
As we didn’t have a sit down meal we put out favours on each seat in the ceremony room. We had donuts from the doh’hut and they went down a storm. Each one had a different filling and topping. In the evening, we had a selection of burgers from What’s Your Beef and then hot dogs and loaded fries from Fat Annies. It was all cooked to order and guests could go up and get it whenever they wanted. We wanted a really relaxed wedding so taking out a formal sit down meal meant that the day was a lot more chilled out as we didn’t have to assign as much time.

Wedding cake
The wedding cake and dessert table was from bibblebakes who are based in Sale, Manchester. I found bibblebakes by checking out Makers Markets in Manchester on Instagram and came across her page. It was Lori-Anne’s first ever wedding – which no one could believe. She did a selection of cakes and the wedding cake to match our colour scheme. The wedding cake was perfect – considering we’d never met and sorted everything out over what’s app.

Entertainment
We had the Heavy Beat Brass Band who played on the bus that we had between FiveFour studios and Fairfield Social Club. They stuck around for 2 sets and really got the party going. In the evening, our Friends band played called Rhythym Train who are based in Wrexham. They’ve played a lot of our friends weddings and always get the dancefloor filled. We also had a glitter station which took a lot of convincing to get Kris on board. It went down a storm though – I wish we hired the ladies from Luna Glitter bar for longer though as they had to turn people away at the end. I really didn’t think it was as popular as it turned out to be.

Who supplied the stationery?
I got our save the dates and orders of the day from vistaprint. I ordered vellum paper off ebay and covered them in ribbon and sealed them with a personalised wax stamp. Our wedding invites were created by my friend, Lisi at Bets and Babs. She created a completely personalised invite using a picture of Tenby as the backdrop, where we got engaged. I got them printed on A4 at a local printers and folded them into origami envelopes. I sealed them with string and the personalised wax stamp. I do calligraphy so I addressed them myself.

Personal touches
Apart from the flowers and the cake, we did everything ourselves. I made a neon sign with ‘The Skones’ on and my dad built it into a wooden sign which i surrounded with a balloon arch. We then put a roll top bath in front, with ball pit balls to create a photo booth. My favourite, easiest, personal touch though was printing photos out from us as children and using them as signs for the gents and ladies toilets.

Special moments
The bus ride from the FiveFour studios to the Fairfield Social Club was when everything sunk in. Singing along to Lucky by Daft punk, surrounded by our nearest and dearest was when we got to appreciate how truly lucky we really were.

Advice for other couples
Just do you. We knew what we wanted and we stuck to our guns as much as we could. I think family were a little worried that we weren’t going to pull it off as we were giving ourselves so much to do but it all worked out on the day. If you’re stubborn like me then it’s going to be awesome!

Biggest surprise
We had an accidental first dance as we were called up to dance by the brass band. They played ‘I don’t want to miss a thing’ by Aerosmith which merged into ‘Killing in the name of’ by Rage Against the Machine and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We also received a brilliant painting of us by my cousin which we were blown away with.