Chris and Kim’s Homespun Rose Gold and Navy North Yorkshire Wedding by Mine and Thine Photography

Happy Friday everyone and how are you all? I have Covid, so not feeling great! Dexter has been off all week with it, so it is finally my turn! Nik has banished me to the office and the bedroom, so it’s going to be a looooong few days! BUT that does mean that I have extra time all weekend to work on content for the blog, which is never a bad thing. Today it’s the turn of Kim and Chris who had the most gorgeous rose gold and navy wedding in North Yorkshire. They both love crafting so they managed to create a lot of the wedding decoration themselves and the results are fantastic. Big thanks to James at Mine & Thine Photography for the beautiful images.

The happiest party we’ve ever been to, surrounded by the people we love the most. 

Kim and Chris were married on 15th August 2019 at The Fig House at Middleton Lodge, Richmond, North Yorkshire. ‘We’d found Middleton Lodge online and had never heard of it before, which really surprised us as we’ve been to quite a few wedding across Yorkshire… so we thought it must be a bit of a gem, but we didn’t realise how much so! We were shown around the main house and it was really beautiful, but just didn’t feel like ‘us’ – a little too grand for what we wanted. The wedding planner asked if we wanted to see the newly refurbished Fig House and told us it had just opened for weddings. When we first walked in through the quaint doorway and into the ceremony room we were sold. And from then on the tour just got even better, we were taken out into the garden and the space just blew us away. We knew we’d found the perfect place and could imagine all our guests outside, enjoying the summer sunshine. Another thing that really sold it to us were the staff at Middleton Lodge, it is such a friendly place. Our planner Rhiannon was just incredible, nothing was too much trouble and she made the day. We had 90 guests and it took around 18 months to plan.’ 

How they met 
We met in 2015, on a night out in Leeds, we had a mutual friend who was a DJ and he introduced us. We knew each other through various friends, but this was the first time we properly met. The next morning I woke up to a Facebook message from Chris asking me out and I actually said no, the timing wasn’t right. A few months later we went on our first date – the rest is history! We’ve been together six years.

Tell me about the proposal
Hilarious how un-romantic it was…. It was a Monday, I was on a day off from work doing boring house jobs and decided we needed to invest in a new hoover. So off I trotted to Argos to collect the new vacuum. At home I immediately got everything out of the box to give it a test run – feeling pretty chuffed with myself! Chris got home from work and by this time, I’d moved onto testing the attachments – I know, THRILLING! He walked over to me, which I thought was a bit odd, he’d never been interested in hoovers before… Then he just pulled the ring out of his pocket and asked me to be his wife! He says that he picked up the ring that day and got himself so worked up that he would lose it, he just wanted to get it on my finger as soon as possible. So, not your typical proposal story – but so typical of Chris to do it in this way, which I totally love because I didn’t see it coming, so it was definitely a surprise!

How did you allocate your budget?
We allocated our budget in terms of importance to us, the venue, food, drink, entertainment and photographer were our priorities and what we were happy to spend the most on. Then all the other things were negotiable, we would look at everything and think do we really need to spend money on this? Or, if we want it, can we just do it ourselves? How can we make it a bit cheaper? Or do we just have to save up for it!

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
We didn’t really splurged on anything to be honest. We really wanted to create a wedding that felt very like ‘Chris and Kim’, so we did quite a lot ourselves to give the day a personal touch. Luckily, we’re both very creative and love a project!
Chris made the wooden hexagon frame that we used in our ceremony, it was the focal point in the room. I decorated it with foliage from friends gardens that I’d collected the day before and a few bunches of supermarket flowers.
We also made the welcome sign, seating plan, evening neon sign and confetti cones – which ended up costing around £20 for all of it. I also, picked a lot of items up from vintage and charity shops to decorate the room, so we did save a huge amount. All my candles were from high street stores, so despite having about a hundred of various sizes, I probably only spent about £50 on all of them.

How did you choose your photographer?
We’d been to a friend’s wedding the previous year and they had James and Leanne as the photographers. We looked at their photos and loved the style, the colour and just how they captured special moments in the day. Every photo was beautiful and had heart to it.
It was really important for us to find a photographer who would capture the mood of the day and didn’t just have us all posing for hours on end. A couple of years on and I still get all the feels when the photos come out!

The dress 
My dress was by Watters, I bought it from the beautiful Bridal Emporium in Leeds. My shoes were found in a vintage shop and I bought my jewellery from various independent shops in Yorkshire.

The suit and bridesmaids
I had my bridesmaid dresses made as it’s hard to get a good fit for everyone, so all the girls had an input into the one shoulder design. There had to be sequins as my dress and shoes both sparkled, so I wanted us all to be similar.
Chris wore a navy blue suit with his grandads cufflinks and his favourite dinosaur pin (Which Leanne and James captured in the photos perfectly)

Theme or colour scheme
Inspiration for the colour scheme came from my engagement rings which are rose gold. So I added dashes of that colour into my outfit through my shoes, hair slide, jewellery and flowers. Chris wanted navy as his colour and it seemed the right choice to go with the dusty pink.

Flowers 
Vintage bohemian feel, lots of eucalyptus, hydrangeas, David Austin roses, thistle and gypsophila. The bridesmaids had mini versions of the same bouquet. 

Decoration
As we had huge plates of food on the tables, we kept the table decorations fairly simple. I bought vintage lace from various places and cut them down to size to have a runner along every table, they were scattered with eucalyptus and small jar candles. Around the venue we had a lot of greenery to bring the outside in. I bought huge glass lanterns from a closing down sale, they we’re about £1.50 each and also some pom poms which we hung from beams just to add a little colour. To be honest the venue was so beautiful, we didn’t need much at all!

Food
We had canapes outside on the terrace to start and as it was August, we opted for sharing platters for the main food rather than a heavy meal. This included cooked meats, vegetable tarts, potatoes, fresh salad and vegetables from the kitchen garden. Dessert was sticky toffee pudding – Chris got to pick that one! In the evening we had a variety of hot sandwiches for our guests.

Wedding cake
We went for a 4 tier cheese cake from the Courtyard Dairy up in Austwick, it was so divine, we still go up to the dairy just to buy the same cheese!

Entertainment
We booked the incredible Back Chat Brass, who we’re a huge highlight for everyone. They crashed the first dance which took everyone by surprise and played a set for a couple of hours. As it was a hot day, we all ended up dancing in the garden until the sun went down.

Who supplied the stationery?
Papier.com – purely because they had great discount codes and we could personalise the invites. 

Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We had a mini moon in Wales the week after the wedding and had a great time. We just knew we would be so tired, we wanted somewhere to disappear to with the dog for some rest. We had planned to go travelling around Italy the following year, but then covid hit and everything was cancelled. So we’re still technically waiting to go on honeymoon!

Personal touches
We did so much of the wedding ourselves and are really proud of it. Few things mentioned in where we saved money. 

Special moments 
Where to start! There’s too many to mention…
On the morning of the wedding, I went to get breakfast with my rollers in and walked past the ceremony room, Chris was in there sorting out some things out and spotted me. We’re not superstitious so we didn’t care. It was a really sweet moment that we had checking in with each other before the wedding.
Chris and I did a first look, which was a really lovely moment for just us two a few minutes before the ceremony started. We didn’t know how we would feel on the day, so this was an opportunity to get out any emotion or nerves before I walked down the aisle. I think that way you can enjoy the ceremony more and take it all in. Hilariously, neither of us got emotional at all – we actually spent most of the day laughing our heads off!
My grandad being there, he was 98 at the time and is about to celebrate his 100^th Birthday. Made me so incredibly happy he came.
Back Chat Brass – I remember looking at everyone dancing outside, at one point a conga line took place around the garden. It was a great feeling to see all our loved ones having the best time and getting involved with the music.

Advice for other couples
Do not cave into what other people want, this is your day and you should celebrate your love in your own special way. Don’t bankrupt yourselves, there’s so many ways you can save money. Don’t forget to feed your suppliers.
Ask your wedding planner to put a plate of canapes to one side for you, so when you get back from your first load of photos you can have a bite to eat!

Biggest surprise 
Sounds cliché, but just how perfect the day was! We wouldn’t have changed anything.
Also, the weather! Both days either side of the wedding were an absolute downpour, we struck it lucky.

Supplier Shout Outs

• Venue: www.middletonlodge.co.uk
• Dress: www.bridalemporium.shop
• Flowers: www.facebook.com/lilyvalleyflowers
• Photography: www.mineandthine.co.uk
• Band: www.backchatbrass.com
• Laser Cutting: www.duke-makes.com
• Stationery: www.papier.com/wedding/wedding-invitations
• Hair and Make up: www.nalaandknot.co.uk
• Rings: www.yorkshirejewelleryltd.co.uk

For more information on Mine & Thine Photography

www.mineandthine.co.uk / www.mineandthine.co.uk/recent-weddings / [email protected] /  07906 333 905 / FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM 

 Mine & Thine Photography is all about colourful, fun photos for joyful Yorkshire folk. I have a soft spot for barn and farm weddings or anything that celebrates the beauty and character of Yorkshire. I’m based in York and Leeds and cover all of the North.