Hazel and Benjamin’s Black and White Movie Themed Wedding in Edinburgh by Ieva Marija Photography

Happy Friday everyone! And welcome along to the (almost) weekend! I hope you have had a good week so far and havn’t got washed away by all this hideous rain we are having! Honestly where is spring, we all need some sunshine now. This week has been pretty exciting for me, as we have sold out house! which means we are now spending every waking hour looking at houses that we can move into. We have 3 more to look at today and then 3 more on Saturday and then a few next week. I’m hoping we fall in love with one of them! Watch this space! Today I am taking you to Edinburgh for Hazel and Benjamin’s gothic inspired wedding. They chose a fantastic venue called The Caves which, as you can imagine, is dark, moody and totally perfect for the vibe they were looking for. The wedding is full of personal details as well as so many smiles from this very happy couple. Big thanks to Ieva Marija for the wonderful photos.

Can we do it all again!? Everything went exactly how we planned and dreamed.

Hazel and Benjamin were married on 29th September at The Caves in Edinburgh. ‘We always knew we didn’t want to get married in a traditional hotel setting and had looked at a few venues before we stumbled on the Caves and fell in love with the venue. It had everything we needed practically but also had amazing character. We had 86 guests during the day and 110 in the evening. We booked the venue a year in advance but we were buying a house at the same time so the year flew by in a blink.’

How they met
We got married 11 years to the day we met and we’ve now been together for 13 years. We met through a mutual friend who Ben was attending university with. Hazel was a make up artist on a film that Ben’s friend was working on and they planned a night out which Ben was invited to. We immediately hit it off and made it official 3 months after meeting.

The proposal
It was a proper lock down proposal! I wasn’t able to go ring shopping through lock down obviously but had lots of time on my hands so I found a company that I could design a ring with. Got it shipped from Australia and it took about 2 weeks to arrive which was stressful! I knew I was either going to plan a big thing or it was going to be totally unplanned. Turned out to be the latter! I filled the living room with candles and called her through when she’d just hopped out of the shower. Got down on one knee with our song playing and popped the question.

How did you allocate your budget?
We wanted to prioritise the venue as we felt that this was going to be the most important aspect of the day that would reflect our personalities as a couple. We also wanted to make sure that we found a photographer that we loved as it was going to be important to capture the day so we could look back on the memories forever.

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
We overspent slightly on the venue because we loved it so much. We always planned on doing a lot of the personalisation ourselves and we happen to have a lot of talented and generous friends who made the day what it was.

How did you choose your photographer?
Hazel had spent months scrolling various Instagram profiles and websites but didn’t find anyone she liked and essentially gave up and told me to find a photographer. I found Ieva’s page and knew immediately that she was the photographer for us (much to Hazel’s annoyance). She had the exact style and temperament we were looking for. We had a brief zoom call with her to make sure we had the same vibe and pretty much straight away asked her if she would be available for our date!

The dress 
In all honesty she doesn’t even know who the dress was by, it wasn’t a massive priority for her and I think a lot of people were stressed about the fact that she didn’t have a dress a few months before the wedding day! Her veil was from her sisters wedding dress which she gifted to her so it was also her something borrowed for the day! Her charm bracelet was something old as she’s been collecting charms her whole life to mark various life events. Shoes were custom Vans with Mrs Cook on the heels.

The suit and bridesmaids
I hired a kilt from MacGregor & MacDuff, I was going to go for a traditional tartan but fell in love with the more minimalist and modern style which was darker and suited the venue.
The bridesmaids dresses were bought online and were black to match the colour scheme!

Theme or colour scheme
Black and white mostly with pops of red! We had a subtle movie theme as a nod to our love of films and Ben’s job as an editor but we were careful to not make it clique and tacky! For instance, during dinner, the music playing was classic movie themes which turned out to be a great conversation starter as people were constantly trying to guess the movie!

Flowers
Hazel got fake flowers made to her specifications because she wanted to keep the flowers forever rather than getting real ones and them dying. It was based around red roses. They now take pride in place on our oak table in the kitchen.

Decoration 
We actually used the Caves’ supplier to decorate the Venue in fairy lights which added a lovely atmosphere. This was accented with real candle sticks in candelabras which gave the whole venue a warm, magical feel.

Food
We went traditional and had steak pies, good hearty food to soak up the incoming alcohol!

Wedding cake
We struggled to get the cake we wanted as we wanted an all black wedding cake with no flares or decorations which proved to be challenging to find. Ben ended up going to the bakers in his home town who agreed to do it custom for us, one of Ben’s groomsmen paid for and collected the cake as a wedding gift!

Entertainment
We were very specific about wanting our own music at the reception so rather than hiring a band or a DJ we made up a playlist which was filled with our favourite songs and songs which the guests submitted as part of their invite!
We had a drunken ceilidh halfway through the night which is always a smash hit, especially with glow sticks which we got boxes of from Amazon a few days before the wedding!!

Who supplied the stationery?
Hazels family friend is a very talented graphic designer and as her wedding gift she designed all the save the dates, the invites and the daytime stationary. We had various movie titles of films that mean something to us for the table names and we now have them framed in the house!

Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We went to Kos in Greece a week after the wedding, we splurged and got a room with a private pool which we cannot recommend enough!

Personal touches
Pretty much everything that could be personalised was personalised by us. Even down to our favours were all bourbon or tequila miniatures which is our favourite tipple.

Special moments 
The ceremony itself was such a lovely part of the day, our celebrant was fantastic and he did such a good job of telling our story all the way through. Having everyone we love gathered together for a celebration was special as it rarely happens in life!

Advice for other couples
Do what you want with your day. We had so many questions about elements of our day regarding what’s traditional and normal, we threw out anything we didn’t want to do and made it individual to us as a couple and I think that showed on the day as we had so many comments on how beautiful and personal the day was.

Biggest surprise
People tell you how fast it goes but it really does go by in a blink. Having the photos and the video of the day has really helped cement it in our memory and is something that we can go back and relive for the rest of our lives.

Supplier Shout Outs

• Venue: The Caves
• Photography: Ieva Marija
• Video: Nicola Stevenson
• Stationery: Two Tabbies 
• Celebrant: Jim Mackintosh
• Chair covers & Photo Booth: Crackin Events

Ieva Marija Photography

www.ievamarija.com / www.ievamarija.com/portfolio /  [email protected] / 07522988977 / FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / PINTEREST

Ieva Marija is a Scotland based elopement and intimate wedding photographer. Her style is focused on capturing authentic moments with a strong fine art and cinema influence