DIY Wedding at the Victoria Baths in Manchester | Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

DIY Wedding at the Victoria Baths in Manchester | Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

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Morning WWWers :-) Lets start the week with a happy and loved up celebration shall we?

Sam and Jim tied the knot on the 27 th April 2013, holding their reception at the striking Victoria Baths, Manchester. They wanted their day to be a DIY affair with personal touches and no set colour scheme.

Sam looked gorgeous in a custom made lace dress, while Jim went for a stylish bow tie with a burgundy suit. There were 7 pretty maids in blush dresses, fun sunflowers and an array of scrummy cakes.

Thanks goes to the brilliant Mr Sleeve for sharing his imagery with us today.

We did a lot of other things ourselves - we had a wishing tree for messages which we dug up! We also spent hours making over 9m of hessian table runners and printing over 60 Polaroid pictures for our table plan. Ebay was a life saver throughout, supplying us with chalkboards, sweet bags and various stationery. Jim and I also love antique and second hand shopping so we enjoyed many hours looking for vintage cake stands, tablecloths and crockery.

The Dress + Accessories... I did visit some bridal shops, but I actually found the experience really daunting - I knew what I didn't want, but not what I did want! I always had lace in mind for the material but the style and design was a bit of a mystery! In the end, I found a style I liked and got a dressmaker I found on ebay to make it. We had a limited budget for our wedding so this not only suited that, but I also knew of an excellent local lady who could make the necessary tweaks to the dress to make it fit perfectly and also add a couple of accessories to make it more bespoke to me.

I wore vintage lace shoes from the Rainbow range. My bridesmaid's all wore their own shoes.

I also wore a lace appliqué hair-piece made by the lady who did my dress alterations. My bridesmaids wore vintage hair clips which i found on Ebay.

I spent a lot of time shopping around to get the best price on shoes and jewellery. I wanted something that would suit the vintage look and would be simple and elegant. I chose pearls as it's my favourite jewel and some ivory lace peep-toe shoes which I got from the Rainbow range - they were so comfortable and went perfectly with my dress.

I wanted my hair and make-up to have a vintage feel to it, without being overly styled. My hair is really fine so my hairdresser did a fantastic job styling it and getting it exactly like the picture I gave her! My dress was made of organza lace and, by chance, the lady who did my dress alterations found a similar piece of appliqué material in her shop which we pinned in my hair - it was a really simple and cheap substitute for a veil or hair piece.

Both of our rings were hand made and bought from independent jewellers in the Manchester Arts & Crafts Centre (Oak Street N.Qtr).

As we were married in a church we had one religious reading - Song of Solomon and the other was a reading called Union by Robert Fulgham which we chose as it pretty much summed up our feelings without being too sentimental or overly romantic.

Our first dance was to Nina Simone's To Love Somebody. We chose this quite early on as the words seemed really pertinent and it's not a slow song. It also led nicely into our theme for the disco which was soul music - in particular Northern Soul which originates from Manchester and tied in nicely with our celebration of all things Manc!

Beautiful Bridesmaids... I chose neutral tones for my bridesmaids and flower girls and we got the dresses from the high street - it was the easiest option as I had 7 in total, all with different figures and fashion sense!

When we got the pictures back, they were everything we had hoped for! Steve had not only captured some beautiful shots of the two us, but there were some lovely natural shots of our guests as well as all the details and themes we had put so much time and effort into creating. The photos truly summed up our wedding day - from the colours and decoration to the beautiful St Ann's Church and Victoria Baths, Steve, in his own unique style had translated it into pictures beautifully!

Venue | St Ann's Church, Manchester

Venue | Victoria Baths

Photographer | Mr Sleeve

Printers | Marc The Printers

Jewellers | Manchester Arts and Crafts Centre

Oh such a wonderful venue, amazing.

Thanks so very much to Sam and Jim for sharing their super beautiful wedding day with us here at WWW XOXO Lou

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