Andrew & Glenn’s Mr Perfect Manchester Wedding. By Nicola Thompson

There’s one word that describes today’s wedding perfectly and that’s SPECTACULAR! Andrew and Glenn, with the help of Boho regular Nicola Thompson, have created a marvel of a wedding for you feast your eyes upon today. The dapper suits, the sophisticated ceremony with an abundance of flowers and candles and then the massive party with an array of incredible dance moves from grooms and guests alike.

‘Our wedding was a spring spectacular, full of fun, fabulousness and frolics. A beautiful and classic start to a civilised day slowly turned into party central, with the dance floor rocking from 6pm, an amazing band to keep us going and amazing guests who just never stopped.’

Andrew and Glenn were married on 17th May at The Monastery in Gorton, Manchester. “We wanted to get married in Manchester and originally had our hearts set on a City Centre location, until we stumbled across this venue, which neither of us had ever heard of, and it took our breath away.”

How they met
We met on a beautiful summer’s evening in August, both surrounded by groups of friends and fuelled with plenty of alcohol. This August will be our 2 year anniversary

The proposal
Glenn proposed at my favourite restaurant on Christmas Eve, where he had organised a private booth for the two of us only. Following a few cocktails for courage, I was led to the booth by our waitress and greeted by hundreds of fairy lights spelling, “MARRY ME!”, a beautiful bouquet of white roses (the only flowers Glenn ever buys for me) and a bottle of champagne.

How did you allocate your budget?
We had initially planned a smaller, more intimate wedding, so when we found the venue, which seated a huge amount of people, we tripled the guest numbers and double the budget! The venue took about one third of our budget, and this included hire for the day/evening, a three course dinner, evening buffet, canapes, wine and toasting champagne. With 6 bridesmaids, 2 best men, a flower girl and a page boy, in addition to other bits and bobs, the rest soon added up. Luckily we managed to get both honeymoon and mini-moon accommodation free of charge, so only had to pay for flights to NYC and Thailand, and this didn’t impact our budget hugely

Why did you choose your photographer?
We initially came across our photographer online as she was chosen as Manchester’s best wedding photographer by Manchester Confidential. After looking at her work for only a few minutes we were sold on her work. We met for a good hour and a half to discuss how she could get the most of the big day and there was no turning back. We never had a second thought and now that the pictures have come through we realise it was one of the best decisions that we made

The suits
Our suits were from Ted Baker and chosen by Glenn (he will kill me if I don’t say that). Our shirts were from Reiss and we mixed our shoes and belts to give each outfit a little of our own style whilst remaining matching

The theme
We didn’t settle on a colour scheme until closer to the day. We knew that we wanted our girls all in white, and our favourite colour was blue, so we mixed some blue in the rest of the room to give it a vibrant feel, which matched our theme of Mr Perfect as he is a blue Mr Men character

The flowers
We had white roses (keeping with Glenn’s theme) and we mixed these in with some peonies for the bouquets

The decoration
We wanted minimal decoration to keep it feeling simple and classic. We had beautiful candelabra with our white roses and candles in at each side of the aisle which were then reused as a centrepiece on each table for dinner. We also had a navy sash on the back of our chairs. As our theme was Mr Men, each table had a Mr Men or little miss character as it’s name and the seating plan was also laid out in a similar fashion. We had candles everywhere, down the aisle, on the register table, on the altar, on the main tables, in the hall way and anywhere else we could fit them.

The food and wedding cake
Canapes, 3 course dinner, fish & chips and bacon sandwiches in the evening. The cake was made by Cakes by Beth and was possibly the tastiest cake I have ever tasted. It was strawberry and champagne flavour and was soooo yummy

The entertainment
We had a Photo Booth for our guests to take their own pictures with some funny props, an absolutely amazing singer/piano player over dinner who then belted out some huge tunes and got the party started straight after dinner (in fact nobody ate dessert) and a band who rocked the evening out. All of which were amazing

Buy or DIY your stationery?
We helped design all of our stationery, but other people printed them for us.

Personal or handmade touches
Our wedding favours were Mr Men or Little Miss books, and most (but not all) characters were personally placed which added a nice touch and helped with my speech

Special moments
We met for photos before the ceremony which helped with the nerves and with getting some awesome shots. It was a special moment. We were also both walked down the aisle by our mothers, which was just as special.

Advice to other couples
Make sure you have a good buffer in case your budget crumbles, there are lots of costs which you don’t initially anticipate

Biggest surprise
No huge surprises, everything went to plan

Supplier Shout Outs:

• Nicola Thompson Photography – absolutely incredible photos, so interesting and fun
• Philip White Weddings – Amazing videography
• Jackstar Productions – Photo booth and beautiful dance floor
• Cakes by Beth – some of the best tasting cake ever
• Beautiful Chairs – great range of wedding chair covers and candles
• Flowers by Jemma Holmes
• Jump – great wedding band, but took a long time to set up
• Kim – singer at The Lowry hotel, Manchester – some of the most special times of the wedding were when she was singing – absolutely stunning and so much fun

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

www.nicolathompsonphotography.co.uk

FACEBOOK

@nicthomphoto