Claire and Richard’s Grey and Rose Gold Industrial Wedding with Gin, Cheese and Botanicals by Anna Wood Photography

Today I am taking you on a trip to North Yorkshire for this gorgeous wedding of Claire and Richard. The couple held a wedding of two halves. The first half was a traditional Catholic ceremony, followed by a stunning reception in an industrial venue close by. They chose a colour scheme of grey and rose gold that could be seen throughout the wedding, from the decor to the stationery to the bridesmaids dresses. I just love the reception venue and how they have decorated it, the flowers, the copper and rose gold touches, the overall look and feel is cool and bang on trend. Big thanks to Anna Wood Photography for the fab photos.

Small and intimate real Yorkshire wedding, filled with beautiful botanicals and minimalist décor, with lots of laughter, love, gin and cheese!

Claire and Richard were married on Saturday 5th May 2018 at The Catholic Chapel, Broughton
hall Estate Skipton North Yorkshire, with the reception held at Holmes Mill, Clitheroe. ‘Broughton Hall is the dream wedding location for any local Skipton girl, and I had always wanted to get married here
and it was important to me to have a church wedding. As we were having a traditional church service, we really wanted a reception venue that was in-keeping with us, more informal and fun. We stumbled upon Holmes Mill and loved the rustic industrial feel – we had never been to a wedding reception like it, and hoped it would be a talking point amongst our guests. We had so many compliments on the venue and staff – every one of our guests loved the quirkiness. We invited 70 close friends and family. It took just over 1 year to plan.

How they met 
We have been together for over 12 years, we met when I was 17 and Rick was 19, at a friend of a friend’s house party – Richard wooed me with the great chat up line of ‘how do you turn this digital camera on then?’

The proposal
In short – didn’t go as expected. I always joke that rick is very laid back and unable to organise anything thoroughly and this came to light in the proposal. Rick had decided he wanted to propose in New York at the end of our 3 week road trip around America but he hadn’t planned much else. Rick finally suggested we go to Brooklyn Bridge Park – where there’s a lovely tree lined (with fairy lights) promenade where you can look over Brooklyn Bridge, the whole of Manhattan Island and Statue of Liberty, Rick started to garble something, started to get on one knee and started to topple over and took my right hand, I started to laugh as he had took the  wrong hand – but he finally proposed and I said yes. We wanted to go celebrate our engagement with a nice dinner and drinks, but in the city that is fabled to be the city that never sleeps, it seems it does on a Sunday as we couldn’t find anywhere open, so had to settle for a beer and a burger at the Irish pub round the corner…I like looking back at this imperfect proposal – as I really wouldn’t change it for the world, as it was just ‘us’.

How did you allocate your budget?
We first decided what our budget would be – we really wanted to pay for the wedding ourselves so we had total control of all the decisions. We first looked at our savings, decided when we wanted to get married and therefore how many months pay slips we could add on. Once we knew what the total budget was, I then used a useful budget breakdown sheet from Pinterest which gave a guide of what % of your budget should be spent on different elements. We knew we had talented friends and family who could design and make our wedding cake and stationery so we knew we could save on those bits. We then scoped out the most important parts that we really didn’t want to compromise on – for us this was food drink and entertainment, so this is where the biggest portion of our budget was spent. As I’m from a creative background I was really keen on getting a good photographer and videographer to capture our day, as these would be our lasting mementoes of our special day – so we made sure we budgeted for this. We also saved on bridesmaids and groomsmen outfits as we just picked out great cost-effective pieces from the High street that they could all wear again, if they wanted. I also saved on my beautiful wedding dress by picking up the sample dress…when I tried it on it luckily fit absolutely perfectly so I didn’t feel the need to have one specially made for me and paying a lot of££
for the pleasure, as the sample dress was in such good condition I bought it there and then.

How did you choose your photographer?
As I work in a creative industry, it was really important for me to get the right photographer, I did a lot of googling for local photographers but all of these seemed very posey and formal. I stumbled across Anna Wood’s page and I loved the natural happy shots she captured, and there was a lovely vintage feel to her photos; which really fit what I was looking for. We met up with Anna for a drink in a local bar, and she put us right at ease – which is what she continued to do on our engagement shoot and wedding day – something I really needed, as I hate having my photo taken.

The Dress 
My Dress from Victoria Jayne collection by Ronald Joyce, amnd my Shoes were by Jenny Packham. My veil and headpiece were bespokely made by independent suppliers on Etsy, and my necklace was a Tiffany one Rick had bought me for our first anniversary – this was my something ‘old’

The suit and bridesmaids?
Rick’s Grey tweed jacket, white shirt and blue trousers and Blue knitted bow-tie were all from ASOS and his grey and blue waistcoat was from Moss Bros and shoes from Next. We matched the groomsmen in the same Jacket, Trousers and bow-tie to match with Rick. The bridesmaids wore beautiful floaty and light tulle dresses from Little Mistress for ASOS, matched with a Rose Gold Metallic belt from ASOS, Bridesmaids shows were all their own.

Theme or colour scheme
Our colour scheme was Grey and Rose Gold which ran through our stationery, bridesmaid’s dresses, and venue décor. We didn’t have a theme as such, just a lot of the things we like were included, such as gin, cheese, botanicals etc.

Flowers
I really liked the wild botanical look, and I found Sam who had an amazing Instagram portfolio of just what I was looking for. I wanted lots of greenery, such as eucalyptus, and just really simple white flowers. I also wanted simple flowers for my bridesmaid so we chose gypsophilia, as the neat bunch contrasted well with my wild bouquet. I also really like succulents so this was added in to Rick’s buttonhole too.

Decoration
As Holmes Mill is a really rustic industrial setting with beautiful Edison festoon lights, and raw exposed walls and beams – we really didn’t want to take away from this as the room décor was the star of the show. So I asked Louise our venue dresser from Vivi’s Venues to keep table décor really simple and incorporated our colour scheme into the centrepieces using rose gold candle holders placed on marble
slabs with beautiful eucalyptus leaves placed on top. Our Sweet heart table was laden with gorgeous floating candles, wire letters of our initials, and lots of foliage. This coupled with the beautiful copper frame that sat behind us; covered with sheer grey voile and foliage, topped off with our gorgeous ‘The kirkbrights’ sign really made this a focal point. We also had some beautiful large light letters (From SJ Venue dressing) spelling ‘Love’ placed next to us, which provided great photo opportunity

Food
We were given a menu choice by our venue, Holmes Mill, which meant we could have 2 choices plus vegetarian for all our courses – which was great. We chose to go with crowd-pleasers such as Oriental duck salad and Broccoli and Stilton Soup for starter, Main courses were a traditional Roast Beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding and vegetables, and Roast Chicken with potato rosti and a Goats Cheese and Fig tart for our vegetarian guests. We did ask our venue to include my favourite dessert – Sticky toffee
pudding and ice cream and Rick’s favourite Strawberry Cheesecake, which felt more personal. We also had canapes at the reception drinks. We also had an evening buffet with easy to pick up food such as Nachos, Ribs etc. We also had our 4 tier cheese tower with grapes, figs, crackers and assortment of chutneys, as well as our beautifully made wedding cake.

Wedding cake
Our Beautiful semi-naked wedding cake was made by hand by one of my Best Friends, Alex Campbell…we wanted something simple and flavours that again were crowd pleasers so we opted for vanilla madeira cake with lots of strawberry jam and of course lashings of buttercream. The cake was simply yet beautifully decorated with faux eucalyptus leaves and a simple ‘Just Married’ Rose gold cake topper – both inkeeping with our theme

Entertainment
We really wanted to ensure our friends and family had a night to remember, my friends love dancing to dancefloor classics, so I really wanted a live band for the atmosphere, we came across the wonderful ‘Easy band’ at another friend’s wedding in 2017, they did 2 live sets and DJ’d for the rest of the night. Rick’s friends enjoy casinos, so we thought having Roulette and Blackjack tables would keep the men entertained, the tables were full all night, definitely one of the best things we did for our wedding. We also hired a magic mirror photobooth from Carey events which was great to dress up and have all the funny shots captured in a photo album so we can cherish forever.

Who supplied the stationery?
Luckily for us Rick’s Dad is a greeting cards designer by trade, and he really wanted to create our stationery for us. As I am from a creative industry too I had lots of ideas but sadly not the talent to execute, so it was nice to work with Rick’s dad on this as abit of bonding. It was important to incorporate our colour theme of grey and rose gold and wanted the tone of voice to match our personalities rather than be too formal – Rick’s dad captured this really well.

Personal touches
We had a few personal touches weaved into our day, we are both big gin lovers so we wanted incorporate this so looked at naming of all of our tables after our favourite gin brands, and used empty
bottles as our table plan we also had D.I.Y G&T’s as part of our reception drinks. We also had a personalised beer made as Holmes Mill runs its own Brewery. We also had personalised drink reservers on each guest’s place setting which said ‘Please don’t take my drink I’m dancing at Mr and Mrs Kirkbright’s Wedding Reception’. I also had a beautiful ‘The Kirkbrights’ sign commissioned to hang from the copper frame that sat behind our sweetheart table. The things I tended to hand-make were gifts for my mum and bridesmaids; I got creative and made personalised dress hangers and champagne flutes with their individual names and roles on. I also had personalised Mr Kirkbright and Mrs Kirkbright champagne flutes made, and had these placed on our table settings ready for our first toast as a married couple.

Special moments 
Definitely the ceremony was the most special, we had a traditional church wedding so unfortunately we couldn’t personalise our vows but still standing there in front of all our friends and family saying our vows was very special, and nerve-racking. I also really enjoyed the speeches, I’m usually not good with surprises so I was a little unsure of not knowing what either my Dad, Rick or his best man were going to say but hearing them for the first time on the day was really lovely. The best part of the day had to be the final dance, where all our friends and family got into a large circle on the dancefloor, around us, as we all drunkenly sang along and swayed to Oasis’ Wonderwall.

Advice for other couples
Don’t sweat the small stuff – if you haven’t thought about a certain detail by the week leading up to the wedding, then it’s not important. I am also usually a massive control freak, but I tried not to get my heart set on things looking a certain way, I briefed all of my suppliers what I wanted but didn’t fret too
much if they didn’t adhere to every small detail – it was actually nice on the day to see their twist on my ideas and it all came out even better than I imagined it to. And finally, it’s your day so do what you want to do, invite who you want to invite – you have to be able to look back fondly and be proud and happy with all that money you spent on that one day, so make sure you spend it on the things and people that really matter to you.

Biggest surprise
Neither of us are good at handling surprises so we made sure no-one threw anything at us on the day, but definitely the absolutely gorgeous weather we had was definitely something we weren’t expecting but put everyone in the best mood…but saying that the thing that most surprised me on the day was how calm and not nervous I felt. I was just really excited to go marry my best friend, and all the little details that you have been pawing over for months suddenly pale into insignificance.

Supplier Shout Outs

• Venue Dresser: www.vivisvenues.com
• Light up letters: www.sjvenuedressing.co.uk
• Flowers and ‘The Kirkbrights sign’: www.samwilliamsflowers.co.uk
• Hair: www.meganhair.uk
• Makeup: www.facebook.com/bluschmakeupandbeauty
• Videogrpaher: www.worthingtonfilms.co.uk
• Photogrpaher: www.annawoodphotography.com
• Bride and groom camper van: www.facebook.com/vdubdreamsnorthwest
• Vintage Bus: http://www.redbusdays.com
• Ceremony venue: www.broughtonhall.co.uk
• Reception Venue and food: www.holmesmill.co.uk
• Casino tables: www.jokerswildfuncasino.co.uk
• Band: www.easybanduk.com
• Photobooth: www.photoboothhirelancashire.co.uk

For more information on Anna Wood Photography go to

www.annawoodphotography.com / [email protected] / FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM 

I’m a wedding photographer based in Leeds and travelling across Yorkshire and the North of England. I specialising in unique, relaxed and creative weddings and love nothing more than a wedding full of laughter.