Fiona and Tom’s Red and Blue Homemade Spring Wedding. By Jen Owens Images

Today’s wedding sees us head back to April for this sunny spring wedding courtesy of  Jen Owens Images. This gorgeous Glasgow wedding sees us at the bride’s local church, which made the day even more special to her. With lots of handmade elements and a theme of red and blue, this wedding is full of crafty goodness and lots of cute and personal touches.

‘Our wedding felt very ‘us’, it was a nice mix of homemade craft and a traditional family wedding. The day was wonderful and my main memory is of not being able to stop smiling.’

Fiona and Tom Sieber were married on 19th April at St Mary Immaculate, Pollokshaws and then the reception was in Pollokshields Burgh Hall. ‘I wanted to get married in my own church and although Tom isn’t religious we managed to make the ceremony about both of us.We had about 90 people during the day with another 20 joining us in the evening. It took just over a year to plan. We got engaged on my birthday, March 28th the year before and I liked the idea of a spring wedding so we decided on April the following year. We ended up booking the date of my parents-in-law’s anniversary.’

How they met
Tom and I met through online dating 3 years ago when we were both living in London. Our best man ended his speech by summing up our relationship as… “Forged on the internet, made on the mean streets of London and garlanded in the sunny meadows of Glasgow”.

The proposal
We had talked about getting married but Tom wanted the proposal to be a surprise so, on my birthday, he sent a bunch of flowers to my work with a note asking me to meet him for lunch at the Abbey near my work in Paisley. I think he had pictured a quiet spot but he didn’t realise that is where all the office workers from the building opposite take their lunch breaks, so he had a bit of an audience. He had brought a picnic and got down on one knee by the cloisters and asked me to marry him. I nervously laughed but quickly said yes. It was hard to go back to work afterwards.

How did you allocate your budget?
My parents helped us with the budget for the wedding, my sister had been married the year before so as a family we felt we’d had some practice. Their were some things I wanted to spend more on, like the flowers, but some things I wanted to make ourselves, like the cakes.

The dress
I got my dress from John Lewis and it was called Maria by Phase Eight, my gorgeous shoes were from Beholden Bridal via Etsy, and my hair piece was also via Etsy from Camilla Christine.

The suit and bridesmaids
Tom’s suit was from A Suit That Fits, he was keen to get a tailored suit and I loved the red lining to match the bridesmaids shoes. The bridesmaid’s dresses were from Angelina Bridal in Glasgow.

Theme or colour scheme
Early on Tom liked the idea of having a red and blue colour scheme and I was keen to have it as colourful as possible. I liked the hints of vintage and homemade craft that we had as it fitted in well with the venue and the relaxed feel of the day.

Decoration
We decorated the hall with some homemade red and blue bunting and then had different houseplants as the table centrepieces. The hall had stained glass windows and a wooden surround so didn’t need much decoration to make it look special.

Personal / Handmade touches
• On the table we made name plates out of scrabble letters, which ended up taking forever! It felt worth it though as they looked great and most people kept them. We also had a prize on each table for the person with the highest scrabble score.
• My bridesmaids helped me make our cake table, we had a two tiered red and blue ‘naked’ cake with a lego bride and groom on top, then cupcakes in teacups with beautiful chocolate writing and icing flowers decorations, then heart shaped brownies with white chocolate on top and heart shaped cookies with red and blue icing. I had floral china plates, cake stands and tea cups to display them all on.

Food
We had 3 courses of soup or melon, chicken or salmon and cheesecake or ice cream. Then for the evening buffet we had mini fish and chips.

Entertainment
Our band really made the evening, they were brilliant. They are called the Masters of Ceremony and based in Glasgow. The music and dancing was going to be a highlight for us and they got the balance just right. We had a couple of ceilidh songs and they learned a Bob Dylan song for our first dance and then played some Van Morrison for Tom later on.

Flowers
My flowers arriving was one of my memorable moments of the day, they were just what I’d wanted. They were a mix of red peonies, blue hydrangeas, mini daffodils, little daisies and other wild looking flowers in purple and blue. I had asked the florist for a bouquet that was very colourful and looked like it had been picked from a wildflower garden. She got what I meant straight away and suggested some beautiful flowers.

Special moments
Before the wedding I was most nervous about walking in to the church and everyone looking at me as I don’t love being centre of attention, but this ended up my favourite moment of walking in with my dad and seeing everyone I knew together and smiling.
I remember feeling really happy holding Tom’s hand at the altar and starting to enjoy the moment.
I had asked some friends to put up the decorations in the hall in the morning and help the caterers put out our cakes, so when I walked in to see the hall all done up I was really pleased and excited that all the planning and work had come together.
I loved the dancing and I felt like I was grinning like a Cheshire cat on the dance floor.

Advice
The best advice I got was not to worry about everything, to pick a few things that are most important to you and put energy into organising them and try to delegate the rest. What made our wedding special was everyone’s efforts to make it great for us.

Biggest surprise
There were two unexpected things happen that stick in my mind, firstly on the way to the church the car broke down, twice! I thought this would make me worry and be upsetting but the driver was so worried and upset himself I ended up reassuring him and oddly that made me feel calmer, poor George – 15 years and he’d never broken down!
I was also really touched my dad’s speech, he is a good speaker and had the crowd laughing but he also got in some personal compliments which really meant something to me.

Supplier shout Outs

I would like to highly recommend, Jen Owens who did our photos. Sophie our florist and the band – The Masters of Ceremony. They all helped us make the day just as we imagined, managed to put us at ease and make things seem natural and calm at the same time.

For more information on Jen’s work go to

http://jenowensimages.com
http://jenowensimages.com/blog/
[email protected]
FACEBOOK
@jenowensimages