13

Feb

2014

Valerie and Simon’s Weekend Long Snowdonia Wedding. By Mike Plunkett

It’s Friday today right? No only Thursday? It felt like Thursday yesterday, so I have no idea what is going on! Some weeks just go faster than others I guess! Anyway to speed up the week I have this lovely wedding showcasing the beautiful Snowdonia National Park. Valerie and Simon decided to hold their wedding over a weekend and chose Graig Wen self catering cottages which included a gorgeous yurt which they used for their wedding night! The wedding itself was full of fun, lots of dancing, a lot of moustaches and some beautiful portrait shots by Mike Plunkett that really take in the scenery! Enjoy the views and roll on Friday!

A day full of happiness and love. A wonderful magical day with our most special friends and loved ones.

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3 Weekend Long Snowdonia Wedding By Mike Plunkett

Valerie and Simon were married on the 31st of August at Bwyty Mawddach. ‘We wanted somewhere special where we could return time and again. Simon’s Sister recommended Graig Wen which is located in the beautiful Snowdonia National Park. We visited for a weekend and really fell in love with the location and stunning views. Graig Wen has lovely self catering cottages formerly slate cutting sheds, yurts (one of which became our bridal suite!) and camping pitches – The Slate Shed at Graig Wen has 5 lovely B&B rooms; so something to suit all our friend and families budgets as we knew that we were asking a lot when we invited everyone to come to our wedding ‘weekend’.We found the nearby Bwyty Mawddach Restaurant. It is in a converted barn with stunning views of Cadre Idris and the Mawddach Estuary. Owned and run by Will and Ifan Dunn, they were so flexible and accommodating, nothing was a problem. Good quality food was really important to us, we didn’t want standard ‘mass produced wedding food’. Ifan came up trumps with beautiful food including local lamb shanks, everyone commented that it was the best food that they had at a wedding. We had 60 guests and the wedding took about 3 and a half months the plan! It can be done!’

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How they met
We met on an online dating website although strangely we only lived two streets away from each other! We have been together for 2 and a half years.

The proposal
We were on holiday in Costa Rica. We were staying at a beautiful hotel beside the beach in a small village called Montezuma when Si surprised me with a romantic candle lit dinner on the beach. I had no idea, despite the sunset and our own personal waiter. When he got down on one knee I thought he had fallen off his chair!

How did you allocate your budget?
We didn’t have a large budget, we went a little bit over but weren’t too far off. Friends and family were fantastic offering skills such as cake making and flower arranging.

Why did you choose your photographer?
We knew that we wanted our friend Mike to take our wedding photos. We love his style and natural approach to photography. Mike’s energy and enthusiasm were second to none; he worked like a trooper taking photos all weekend. He has captured our weekend in a beautiful storybook like way. On our wedding day he was so unobtrusive and made us and our guests feel so relaxed. We now have an absolutely beautiful album that we treasure.

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The dress
My dress was by Annasul Y. It needed quite a few alterations; a friend recommended a great dress maker who worked wonders, including adding the sash. I wore shoes by Rachel Simpson, and my hair comb was from Glitzy Secrets. My jewellery was my ‘something borrowed’ from my sister and a good friend.

The suit and bridesmaids
Si’s suit was from Ted Baker, he wanted a more relaxed style of suit that he could wear again. The inside lining had a vintage postcard print which was quite apt given that he works in the travel industry. My sister bought her own dress after we asked her to choose something that she liked and would wear again.

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Theme or colour scheme
Not really – much to everyone else’s bemusement! I just knew that I didn’t want orange!

Flowers
Si’s Mum and her friend Hazel grew flowers for the venue; we had a mixture of gypsophilia, love in the mist, larkspur and blue cornflowers. My bouquet and my bridesmaid’s was from Living Flowers a florist close to where we live in Manchester. A friend brought them over to Wales the day before the wedding. Our bouquets included hydrangeas, peonies, roses and gerberas.

Decoration
We used a lot of fairy lights and bunting. A friend made us some really lovely bunting using material patterned with daffodils and thistles (Si is Welsh and I’m Scottish). At the camp-site we also used a lot of bunting and tea light candles.

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Food
We had smoked salmon for starters, lamb shank for the main and homemade pasta for the veggies followed by raspberry panacotta for pudding. The food was perfect.

Wedding cake
We had two cakes. We had a traditional fruit cake that was made by my Auntie Pat. Instead of an evening buffet we had a cake made of different cheese trugs (Isle of Mull cheddar, Perl Wen, Perl Las, stilton with apricot, wensleydale with cranberry, and neuf chatel . A friend made the mice to sit on top of our cheese and Simon’s sister made the chutney to go with the cheese and biscuits.

Entertainment
We had a brilliant band called Ginger and the Ninjas. They played through our ceremony, during our meal and on into the evening. Their thought and attention to detail was fantastic, they learned songs that we specifically requested and did a brilliant version of The Cure’s Love Cats for our first dance. They were absolutely fantastic.

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Buy or DIY your Stationery?
We made our own stationary; we had an idea of how we wanted it to look and with help from friends on the illustrations and formatting our idea came to life. My brother-in-law and his friend are printers; they did a fantastic job of printing our invitations and RSVPs.

Personal or handmade touches
• I made place settings using pebbles that we collected from a local beach.
• Our flowers were grown and arranged by Simon’s Mum and her friend Hazel.
• My sister made tablet (a Scottish sweet) for our wedding favours

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Special moments or highlights
So many! Particular moments were seeing Simon waiting for me, our ceremony which despite being a civil ceremony felt very personal, watching all our friends and families having such a good time, and dancing the night away to the fabulous Ginger and the Ninjas.

Biggest surprise
That we pulled it off! And the slideshow that Simon’s Mum and my sister put together of Si and I from baby years onwards.

Advice for other couples
Work out what is most important to you. Be organised – I laughed at Simon’s spreadsheet but it really did help. Don’t be afraid to ask for help – it’s amazing who wants to help, and how many recommendations people have.

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39 Weekend Long Snowdonia Wedding By Mike Plunkett

 

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For more information on Mike’s work go to:

www.mikeplunkettphotography.com
FACEBOOK
[email protected]
07875546132
@m_p_photos

I’m a Manchester based photographer but I do love to travel too. I love weddings and how good they can make us feel, there’s nothing more natural than two people in love wanting to celebrate that in their own way. My style is very natural and modern, reflecting and highlighting what’s unique about each wedding I attend and the people involved. Great people have great weddings and I feel so privileged and lucky for each one that I get to photograph and to tell their story through my photos.  

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