27

Jun

2012

Nicola and John’s Relaxed Country Garden Wedding Complete with Bouncy Castle

Todays wedding has been sent into me by London based Photographer Laura Babb. I have wanted to feature a wedding of Laura’s for a while now so I’m very excited to be able to share with you the wedding of the gorgeous Nicola and John.

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They were married on 4th May at Stonehouse Court Hotel with 75 guests, ‘It took 9 very busy and stressful months to plan the wedding (who plans a wedding with a newborn in tow?!)’ says Nicola, describing their day as ‘Fun for all the family, a magical day for everybody’  I’m sure you will agree the day is full of personality, stunning details and lots of fun!

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How they met
We met randomly in a pub in Yorkshire, neither of us live anywhere near there we just so happened to be working there that week – it really was fate.

The proposal
We’d already booked the venue etc so John was under pressure to get The Proposal done as I was feeling silly meeting suppliers without a sparkler on my finger. So we went out for a meal for my birthday and somewhere between my main and dessert (whilst complaining about heartburn) he fell to his knees and popped the question. Hurrah!

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The venue
My cousin had gotten married on the 5th May 5 years previously and it has always been sunny on her anniversary. Trust me to choose the wettest May in history.

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Photographer
I’ve known Laura for around 10yrs from the days we used to go clubbing together. I’d noticed on facebook that she’d started doing photography and I’d followed her progress. It seemed the natural choice as I can look like Chandler from Friends when I try to pose for photo’s and I didn’t want to feel awkward. Plus she has the quirky style I was looking for.

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The Dress
I LOVE LOVE LOVE my dress. It’s by Justin Alexander and is a mermaid style lace gown with a high neckline. The gorgeous veil with flower appliqué came with the gown and can be attached to the back of the dress also. As I’d slightly overspent on my dress I had to cut back on other things, my earrings were less than £2 from ebay and were exactly what I was after as I couldn’t wear a necklace with the dress due to the neckline. My shoes were from Debenhams and my freshwater pearl bracelet was bought via a Groupon!

The suit and bridesmaids
John hired his suits from a company called Dyfed Menswear here in Wales, he was very particular about his suit and we took a long time finding someone that stocked one that he liked. The dress my bridesmaid, Leila, eventually wore was a bridal dress from BHS – which we changed less than 2 weeks before the big day. Originally she was in a floor length champagne number which is fondly referred to as the ‘tea stained dress’ now as it was actually pretty ugly once we took our blinkers off. The flowergirls wore dresses from BHS with lace and organza and the page boys wore 3 piece suits from Monsoon with a granddad collar shirt, waistcoat and trousers (no jacket), they then had cute sailor style espadrilles instead of formal shoes.

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Theme
The venue came with fantastic grounds and a large, private enclosed garden which we had hired a bouncy castle for so it followed naturally that it would be a relaxed, country garden theme which incorporated a lot of fun for adults and the kids.

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Food
We had a fairly traditional wedding breakfast of chicken liver parfait with toasted brioche and grape chutney followed by a lemon sorbet. Then it was roast chicken and goose fat spuds and a lovely light lemon and mascarpone tart with Chantilly cream.

Entertainment
We had a bouncy castle, space hoppers, garden games etc for everybody as well as a fantastic acoustic covers band in the evening which really got everybody up dancing and made the day the fun event we wanted it to be. They didn’t even mind when one of John’s friends took the mic and started with his own rendition of Parklife by Blur. It was off the cuff and brilliant and showed how relaxed everybody was.

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Flowers
My flowers were absolutely fantastic, I can’t convey just how pleased I was with them. I gave my florists a bit of a free reign as I am pretty rubbish when it comes to flowers usually. Me and my BM had avalanche roses, Miss Piggy roses, sweet peas and gypsophilla with lots and lots of brooches in them (which was the original plan but I lost steam and couldn’t be bothered in the end). There was also lots of happy looking hydrangeas in the centerpieces as well as the flowers that I had in my bouquets. As me and the BM’s were all in ivory and the chair covers/linen was all ivory we were relying heavily on flowers and decorations to bring the life in to the venue and it really did.

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Decoration
We had bunting. Lots of bunting. Which I made with my fair hands over the months. It was a labour of love and I ended up buying a few lengths towards the end as we used over 100m of it. It looked fantastic though and not many people could believe I’d done the vast majority of it myself. On the tables we had a variety of different vintage coloured favour boxes to add some more colours to the room.

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Personal touches
• Lots of bunting, see above I made nearly 100 meters of it.
• We also used the Jar of Hearts on the RMW blog which doubled up as place names and really got everybody talking. As expected, it descended in to debauchery and we had some very funny and very rude words of advice which were a pleasure to read after the big day. It was also fun to see some people decked out as Pearly Kings and Queens with all the spare badges.
• We also had a wedding crèche for the kids which was invaluable. We had 7 small kids (between 1-4) there and so we hired 3 fantastic ladies from Tinies Three Counties Childcare for 3hrs – starting 30 mins before the wedding breakfast and ending just before the evening do. It meant that all the adults could enjoy their meals in peace (I’d arranged for the kids to have basket meals instead of sit down dinners) and the nannies supervised them on the bouncy castle, got them doing games and working through the activity bags that I’d made them. The kids really liked the nannies and everybody was relaxed knowing that they were well looked after. I can’t recommend them highly enough.

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Special moments
The whole day was magical, I rarely enjoy my own parties as I spend the entire time worrying that people aren’t having a good time but I really let my hair down and enjoyed every minute of it. Plus I married the only man that can put up with me ;)

Biggest surprise
That I cried during the first dance. I very rarely cried but I sobbed like a baby as John and our daughter chose it and it was a surprise which knocked me sideways.

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Planning advice
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, I pretty much organised the whole thing myself and it obviously ended up being a big stress towards the end. Delegate as much as you can. Work out the cost of doing things yourself. If you don’t have the tools needed or can’t borrow the things that you need then it may end up more expensive/more hassle than buying it from a store. I had to buy a sewing machine etc to do the bunting and it probably didn’t end up being much cheaper than buying it all and it obviously took hours to complete too. I wouldn’t have changed it though, it was satisfying when it was all done.

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Supplier shout Outs
Photography – http://babbphoto.photoshelter.com/portfolio
Venue – www.stonehousecourt.co.uk
Crèche –  www.tinies.com
Dress – www.justinalexanderbridal.com
Suite – www.dyfedmenswear.co.uk
Flowers –  www.kopendcreations.co.uk
Hair: www.feelgood-factor.co.uk
MU: www.leesagoodwaymakeupartist.com
Bouncy castle: www.allaboutfunuk.com
Cake: my cousin
Band: Overheated Pilots

 
For more information on Laura’s work go to
http://babbphoto.photoshelter.com/portfolio
http://babbphotoblog.com
FACEBOOK
TWITTER

 

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