21

Nov

2014

Holly and Ben’s Relaxed Garden Wedding With Lots of Pretty Pastels. By Paul Underhill

Happy Friday everyone, you made it to the end of another week, well done you! How has your week been? Personally I am really looking forward to a little glass of wine this evening. It is customery for Nik, Dexter and I to have a couple in our local on a Friday evening, Dexter is becoming quite the drinking companion! Before we get there though we have a fab garden wedding for you set in the gorgeous grounds of Parley Manor in Bournemouth. I have featured this venue a few times now on the blog and I was there last summer as a guest, such a lovely venue! The wonderful couple Holly and Ben chose a relaxed, chilled out day filled with beautiful blooms and lots of petty pastels, the decoration complements the venue perfectly. Big thanks to Paul Underhill for the wonderful images.

‘It was truly a magical, relaxed and fun filled day. It was better than we could ever have dreamed it would be.’

1a Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 2 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

Holly and Ben were married on 9th August 2014 at Corpus Christi RC Church, Boscombe and the reception was held at Parley Manor, Parley. ‘Holly grew up in Bournemouth and her family still live there. We wanted to get married in a church and we found this beautiful church with an amazing Priest just two minutes walk from Holly’s parents house. We fell in love with Parley Manor as soon as we saw the stunning gardens. No other venue we had seen in Dorset could compare. The garden venue was in keeping with the relaxed wedding we both wanted. There were 130 guests. We were planning for eleven months and Ben proposed on the August bank holiday weekend in 2013 and we got married eleven months later and cracked right on with the planning.

3 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

4 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

How they met
We met on the internet. We had our first date at The Enterprise in Camden on the 4th October 2012 and we were married within two years. A whirlwind romance.

The Proposal
Ben proposed in bed the morning after asking Holly’s dad for her hand in marriage. She told him to get up and stop messing around but when she saw the ring she knew he meant business and thankfully said yes

5 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 6 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 7 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 8 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 9 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 10 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

How did you allocate your budget
Music, food and the small, personal touches were all important to use. We spent a lot of time looking for the right band and luckily found a fantastic one called the Undercover Monkeys. In order to save money we tried to do as much as possible ourselves.

How did you choose your photographer
We found Paul Underhill when searching for Dorset wedding photographers on the internet. We really liked the photographs that we could see on his blog and his relaxed documentary style was just what we were looking for. We wanted to stay away from the traditional cheesy photographer

11 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 12 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 13 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 14 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 15 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 16 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 17 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 18 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 19 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 20 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

The Dress
The wedding dress was by the french designer Cymbeline. The dress was exactly what I had in mind before I started looking. I wanted something soft, elegant, fitted and slightly bohemian in style. And I love lace! The shoes were pale gold and from Hobbs. I kept jewellery and other accessories really simple.

The Suit and Bridesmaids
Ben got his suit before I had even started looking for a wedding dress!!! He found the exact one he wanted in Reiss and bought it pretty much right after the proposal. All the ushers wore their own navy suits but we got them all matching ties from Dessy that were the same colour as the bridesmaids’ dresses. We also bought some silk from liberty to make pocket squares for all the Ushers, best men and Father of the bride (10 of them!!)
Bridesmaids – I had two bridesmaids. My sister and my oldest, best friend from school. Both bridesmaids looked stunning in strapless, blush pink dresses by Dessy. Very simple and elegant in style.

21 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 22 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 23 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 24 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 25 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 26 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 27 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 28 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 29 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

Theme or Colour Scheme
I’m not sure if there was a theme but we wanted a relaxed garden wedding. The bridesmaids wore blush and the flowers were pale pink and peach with lots of greenery. I love flowers, so my Mum and I spent a LOT of time looking through blogs and magazines.

Flowers
I had a bouquet of pale pink and peach avalanche roses with lots of green foliage and some Juliette roses, white hydrangeas and touches of Gyphosphila.
My two bridesmaids had bunches of hand tied Gyphosphila.

Decoration
We had a wonderful lady called Julie Nicholls who helped us to style the marquee. We had peach, pink and grey pom poms hanging up in the marquee. The table centre pieces were varied. They all had flowers which were in keeping with our pale pink and peach colour scheme. Julie did a wonderful job of using old books, glass jars, vases and tea lights. The marquee looked stunning.

30 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 31 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 32 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 33 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 34 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 35 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 36 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 37 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 38 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

Food
At Parley Manor they offer a wedding BBQ and this was perfect for our relaxed summer day. There was steak, chicken, sausages, salmon and a plethora of sides and salads. Many friends have come back and complimented us on the food saying it was the best they’d ever had at a wedding. And the deserts were absolutely to die for…

Wedding Cake
We got our three tiered wedding cake from Cakes by Suzanne. It had three sponge tiers of different flavours, a chocolate orange tier, a Victoria sponge tier and a baileys and buttercream tier.

Entertainment
We had a ukulele band, the Mother Ukers playing when the canapés were on, this was a surprise to Holly booked by Ben. Everyone loved it and they put a ukulele spin on some modern classics. During the evening we had a great DJ and an amazing band, together they created an amazing party atmosphere. The dance floor was packed all night long!

39 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 40 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 41 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 42 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

Buy or DIY your Stationery
Holly designed the stationery. Brown kraft and cream card were used for the invitations which were kept quite simple.

Personal or Handmade Touches
Ben is a huge Only Fools and Horses fan and so he decided to have Del boys yellow van to take him and his best men to the church and the wedding venue.

43 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 44 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 45 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 46 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 47 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 48 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

Special Moments
Holly and her family (and now Ben also) are huge Bruce Springsteen fans. Holly’s sister Hannah is a great piano player and she recorded the piano part of Thunder Road which is what Holly walked down the aisle to. This was a a particularly special and personal part of the day. A definite highlight.

Advice to other couples
Think of what is important to you both as a couple and prioritise those things. The day is really made by the people who are all there because they love and support you so enjoy every moment and don’t get too hung up on small the details.

Biggest surprise
The Mother Ukers are a fantastic ukelele band that Holly is a huge fan of. Holly had no idea that they would playing during the canapes, so it was a wonderful surprise when she arrived to hear them playing.

49 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 50 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 51 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 52 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill 53 Relaxed Garden Wedding By Paul Underhill

 

Supplier Shout Outs

 

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

www.paulunderhill.com
www.paulunderhill.com/blog
TWITTER
FACEBOOK

 

Why not visit our Supplier Directory

Comments

Please leave your comment

We reserve the right to remove any comment that we feel is distasteful, rude, hurtful or inappropriate, so please be nice. Remember the weddings featured on this blog are real people and their weddings mean a lot to them. Please be mindful of this and other people's feelings. If youhave a problem with any of the content please contact me directly.

Thank you xx

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.