I am a little bit in love with today’s wedding, it is SO pretty! I have to admit I’m not a massive fan of pink, (I know shock horror) BUT when it is coupled with blue and turquoise I think the colour combo is gorgeous. This wedding has so many pretty details, and a huge amount of homemade decorations that have been put together by the bride and her wedding party that it is hard not to love it. The balloons, the paper pom poms, the table centers and the super cute bride and groom are all things that make this wedding so perfectly pretty and just the thing you’ll need for this Wednesday morning! Thanks to Emma from Emma B Photography

‘Our wedding was relaxed and down-to-earth with lots of homemade personal touches.’

Kate and Andy who were married on 27th April at Trafford Hall, Chester. ‘There were lots of things that drew us to Trafford Hall. It has a really earthy feel with all the eco -friendly chalets, woodland and gardens but it also has a beautiful Georgian building. It is run as a charity for youth groups and mostly caters for kids, tenant and study groups. We were able to decorate the ballroom as we wanted and apart from twelve students, we and our guests were the only people staying there. We had lots of friends travelling so it was good they could stay there with us – the chalets were really affordable as well as being cute and a bit different. We had 46 guests in the day and 90 in total for evening. We thought about it for a long time but really only began properly planning it and booking things three months before. We were really lucky in that we knew lots of people in the wedding business plus we did lots of the creative stuff ourselves. So flowers, chair covers, hair, disco, stationery, cake topper and decorations were all done either by ourselves or our friends.’

How they met
We met at work and knew each other for about a year before I plucked up the courage to ask him out! Now we’ve been together for 12 years.

The proposal
Andy proposed to me on our ten year anniversary of being together. We’d planned a weekend in Hawkshead in the Lake District to celebrate and while out on a walk he insisted we climb a hill called Latterbarrow. It was bright sunshine on the way up but as we reached the top it was raining and blowing a gale! He still got down on one knee though! I’ll never forget that day, it was lovely. Andy bought my ring from an antiques fair in wilmslow. It’s beautiful and has an old mine cut diamond with detailing and tiny diamonds either side.

Why did you choose your photographer?
We loved Emma’s portfolio – her composition and ability to catch people unaware for a natural shot are brilliant. When she said she was available we were over the moon. The package we chose gave us the photos from the day on disk plus an engagement shoot. Emma’s photography captured the day beautifully and lots of people said how nice she was. I love the woodland photos of us with our bridesmaids and best men. I also love the photos of the speeches and the expressions on everyone’s faces – I never even realised she was there!

The dress
My dress was made by Melanie James Bridal. Melanie is an independent designer on Beech road in Chorlton. I’d visited a few bridal boutiques but most had said I hadn’t enough time to get one specially made and that I’d have to buy a display dress and have it altered, but Melenie wasn’t worried at all and said 12 weeks was plenty of time. Melanie, her mum and seamstress Tracey are lovely and the boutique is beautiful and a really relaxing place to be.
My friend kindly lent me her veil so that was perfect for my something borrowed! I’m definitely more flower fairy than princess so I bought a floral head piece from Serenity Crystal on Etsy. I wanted shoes I could wear again so I bought some bronze sandals from Oasis and some gold flats for dancing from Accessorize. My pearl necklace was a gift from my sister (something old!), my pearl earrings were from Beaverbrooks and my leaf bracelet was from Debenhams.

The suit and bridesmaids
Andy had a dark navy suit from The Kooples. My two pretty Bridesmaids wore delicate light pink petal dresses from coast.

Theme or colour scheme
I guess you’d say our wedding was woodland themed with a touch of vintage. Most of our wedding decor was homemade so maybe that was a theme too. We started off with pinks and purples then Andy found the blue glass paint which he loved so we changed it to pink and blue.

Decoration
I’m a graphic designer and love making things so my decorations were all handmade. In total I made over 150 tissue paper pompoms. I found a tutorial online – they were really easy to make but it took a while! We attached the small ones to jute string and used them as garlands on the walls and the large ones we hung in the windows with fishing wire. Our cake was a simple sponge three tier from marks and spencer, we commissioned Melly Moo to make blue birds as a cake topper to match our invitations – it’s gorgeous and something we can keep as a memento of our wedding.

Food
We had afternoon tea served on some lovely cake stands my Aunt managed to get for us. The venue had vintage tea cups and saucers so it all looked really pretty. We also had sugared almonds for favours just to be traditional.

Entertainment
We had table football and connect four games outside and a disco in the evening.

Flowers
I adored our flowers! They were a mixture of white, cream, pink and peach and included roses, ranunculus, eucalyptus, stock, chrysanthemums, hypernicum berries, pussy willow and succulents beautifully arranged by Bev Coghlan. To bring the woodland inside we had tree trunk slices (cut by a tree surgeon friend) as table centres with jam jars and milk bottles full of flowers. Andy spent quite a few evenings painting the jars and bottles blue with glass paint – they looked lovely! He also painted some small pickled mussel jars and we used them as tea light votives hanging in the trees.

Personal / handmade touches
• I designed and printed all our invitations, order of service and thank you cards.
• With the help of my bridesmaids and hens I also made napkin rings from lace and patterned material and attached handwritten cardboard luggage tag names to them.
• I fancied having props for some of the photos so I bought cardboard 3D letters saying KATE & ANDY from hobbycraft and covered them with fabric using PVA glue. We also had helium filled balloons to hold which look great in the photos.
• For the table plan I handmade name list cards with roses on to hang onto jute string by mini wooden pegs then wrapped them around a big mirror.

Special moments
There were so many special moments throughout the day but the biggest highlight I think for both of us was the ceremony. As I walked down the aisle I tried to take it all in, so many smiling faces and the room looked beautiful – completely transformed from how it looked the night before – Andy and my friends had done a brilliant job of finishing the decorations after I’d gone to bed! After the ceremony we went outside into the gardens and the sun was shining – amazing considering the weather had been so cold and rainy in April – it all felt perfect!

Biggest surprise
I think the biggest surprise of the day for both of us was that I wasn’t late!

Advice
• Enjoy the planning and run up to your wedding as much as you can. Your wedding is only one day so I like to think of my wedding as the whole experience – choosing our vows together, days out looking for the perfect venue, the dress fittings, my hen do, making decorations – everything was part of the getting hitched experience!
• Wedding blogs are brilliant for ideas and I would highly recommend Pinterest as a way of collating pictures of the things you like. Make a different board for each aspect of your wedding to make it easy to focus on one thing at a time.
• On the day, have someone other than yourself who knows the plan for the day. Andy spent ages putting together a music playlist for the day but because we were outside having photos taken there was no one to press play on the ipod! We only noticed there was no music half way through the meal! Don’t worry if things don’t go exactly to plan though – none of our guests noticed and had a good time regardless of the little things we forgot.
• Give yourself lots of time the day before if you can and get an early night!

 

Supplier Shout Outs Venue – Trafford Hall, Chester http://traffordhall.com Photographer – Emma B Photography www.emmabphotography.com
Bridal gown – Melanie James Bridal www.melaniejamesbridal.co.uk Floral headpiece – Serenity crystal, Etsy www.etsy.com/uk/shop/serenitycrystal Flowers – Bev Coghlan Hair – Lisa Simms www.lisasimms.co.uk Birds cake topper – Melly Moo Chair covers and bows - www.chaircoverscheshire.com Invitations, table plan, napkin rings, place names, decorations – me, my bridesmaids and my hens! Grooms suit – the Kooples www.thekooples.co.uk Bridesmaids dresses – Coast www.coast-stores.com

 

For more information on Emma’s work go to

www.emmabphotography.com
emma-b-photography.blog
[email protected]
FACEBOOK
@elmobilbo
07734425950

I’d describe my style as relaxed, natural and real. I like to photograph things as they happen rather than directing/posing too much and love the way that, nowadays, a lot of weddings are less traditional and more a reflection of the bride and groom and their style.

 

 

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