Taylor & Andy

Taylor & Andy

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How incredible is that floral arch?!? In fact all of the blooms from today's wedding are simply divine...just wait until you see the bouquets!

Taylor & Andy chose to have an Alice in Wonderland themed wedding and their day is brimming with fun decor ideas. From the tiny heart shaped trees for name places, to the full sized silver giraffes - it's all just so well put together.

I love that Taylor finishes her report by saying 'enjoy your moment, and just remember you look stunning!' A wedding day is truly special and (hopefully) once in a lifetime, so channel your inner Taylor and enjoy your moment!!

Taylor The Bride: Our wedding took place in my parent's home in West Sussex on Saturday 2nd August 2014. It was always my dream to have our wedding at my parent's home as it has given us all years of happiness. Following this, our decision to marry in St Peters Church, Petersfield was easy. Andrew's Grandparents have a strong link with St Peter's and his parents had also married there 31 years ago. We always wanted everyone to be at both the ceremony and reception so this was the best to fit everyone in.

The Proposal

Andrew proposed to me on 1st November 2013 - the first thing my father asked me was..."When is the wedding?" Being naïve our answer was, "in August". Not knowing the huge amount of organisation needed to plan a wedding, we left everything until after Christmas...big mistake!
When Andrew & I sat together to decide what type of wedding we wanted we realised we might be on different pages. With him wanting traditional and me wanting a vintage style tea party we had to decide the best way to combine.

The Decor

From that we ended up with an Alice in Wonderland inspired dream wedding. We chose a light and floral colour palette of white, cream and pastels to suit the theme.

We used many different forms of inspiration; Pinterest, magazines and blogs ( RMW being our go to blog). I'd like to say we were hugely organised and used mood boards and scrap books to collate ideas, but that would be a lie. Instead, over a 7-month period, between us we collected anything we could from the internet and boutiques, to charity shops. Our home soon became a storage unit for everything Wonderland.

The Cake

The first thing we decided on was our wedding cake. My Mum had heard of an amazing cake designer, Rosalind Miller. We made an appointment with her and we couldn't have been more wowed! We went to her studio to go through all the colour palettes and designs and the final cake we chose was the 'Bees & Blooms' cake. It featured cascading flowers and petals and golden bees (my school emblem). On the day they couldn't have been more professional - they arrived on time, set the cake up, checked we loved it and left - a Brides dream!

The Stationery

For our invitations we really wanted something quirky and personal. We found an absolute talent from Bristol, Craft Birds. She designed them to exactly what we wanted. When we received them we tried to think of the best way to display them. We displayed them in an artificial meadow line box with a clear front to start to set the scene. She also designed our order of service.

The Dress

When the dress search started I must have tried on over 50 and then I found THE DRESS! A Suzanne Neville ivory strapless A-line dress, not at all what I thought my style was. The fabric was printed silk - but the pattern was barely visible unless up close. It had an internal corset with an ivory ribbon round the waist. It really was breathtaking! We used the Suzanne Neville boutique in Guildford therefore the dress 100% made to measure. We styled the dress with a lace Suzanne Neville bolero jacket, for church, teamed with a cathedral length ribbon edged veil. I also had a shorter veil for the evening.

To accessorise the outfit I found a small boutique, Gillian Million, that designed a gorgeous pearl and crystal headpiece with matching grips for the bridesmaids and bands for the flower girls. My favourite part were my shoes, designed by Freya Rose, I went to see her at Brides the Show and they were hand embellished in front of my very eyes. They were crystal and pearl embellished lace with a gorgeous mother of pearl heel.

The Wedding Party

My bridesmaids were my three sister-in-laws and my best friend. They wore dresses by Maids to Measure in antique rose chiffon with my Best Lady in a different styled dress in matching colour. Their made to measure option was fabulous as they all varied in shape. From start to finish they showed absolute professionalism with a relaxing and friendly feel. To accessorise, the bridesmaids wore pearl drop earrings and pearl bracelets with teatime charm custom designed by Hawkwood Creations and Rainbow Club dyed shoes.

My two beautiful flower girls wore pearl collared silk dresses from Nicki Macfarlane with Rainbow Club Shoes and Gillian Million pearl shoe clips. They also had pearl earrings and teatime pearl bracelet from Hawkwood.

The Groom

Andrew wore a traditional morning suit with pale blue linen waistcoat and dove grey silk tie, all from Gieves & Hawkes. He teamed this Paul Smith shoes and stripy Paul Smith socks. The Groomsmen all wore morning suits, they wore this with pale blue ties, dove grey waistcoats and awesome pocket watch cufflinks.

The Ceremony

Our church service started at 3pm and was probably the best part. I entered to a string trio, Rigaudon, playing Pachelbel's Canon in D. Our service was conducted by our great family friend Rev'd Alice Wood. She made the service so special with stories from Andy's childhood and memories from our relationship. We had such a fantastic time singing, laughing and joking. We chose hymns that everyone knew such as Jerusalem & Lord Of The Dance. We also asked the church choir to sing, this ensured that the church was filled with a great atmosphere. We left the church to bells and showers of petals and got into a vintage Rolls Royce. From there we went to the reception at my family home.

The Reception

We chose to have a marquee for our main area with two connected marquees, one for a children's area and one for an adults 'chill' room, equipped with candy cart! Outside we had two areas, the front grass area for the arrival and a rear decked area for the drinks reception and to watch the fabulous Vernon Sisters! The walkway entrance was decorated with giant giraffes, rose trees and a hanging seating plan, for our guests to find their place. This idea came from our bridesmaids, as the rain that came in the morning stopped our original plan.

The majority of our decorations were thought up and designed by my family and me, with the table centres and various other bits from Essential Wedding Hire. The tree centres made our Whimsical Wonderland come to life. Even the smallest details were created the few days before the wedding by my busy little helpers. Everyone was so fantastic designing different features from the Tea Cup Tree to the All Things Alice Tree (both of which are still up!) Our tables were set with moss number and vintage tea sets to create the tea party feeling.

The Flowers

All the flowers at both the church and the reception were done by a fantastic local florist, Bonica. They were so fantastic and so prepared - we gave them a lot of free rein with the design and let them create a masterpiece. They had a huge task on their hands with my Mother calling them on the day to say..."Bring everything you can". The top table was a forest of gorgeous flowers. The flowers were one of the points that no one will ever forget.

The Details

Our guest favours consisted of mini meringues for the men (hand made by mums best friend, Victoria) and pashminas for the women.

Unlike most weddings we held our speeches before dinner. This was a request of our best man - this allowed them all to relax and enjoy dinner. The speeches included stories and reflections of our life and relationship from my dad, new husband, best man and best lady. After laughing, gasping and crying our guests were ready for their food.

The Food

Our menu consisted of various yummy canapés at the start and for the sit down meal we started with a 'Wedding Breakfast Salad', main course of Cote du Boeuf with peppercorn sauce (made by Dad's best friend, Steve) and for desserts a duo of chocolate box and raspberry syllabub.

The Entertainment

During dinner The Vernon Sisters did their second performance and after a short break the evening entertainment started.
For the evenings entertainment we had the fantastic band, Ignition. They started with our first dance and the father daughter dance. Following that they played a mixture of old and new music that kept everyone on the dance floor!

At around 22:30 we served a Hog Roast by Matt Atkinson to feed any peckish guests.

The Photography

Our wedding was captured by the amazing Camilla Arnhold of Millie & Belle Photography. She was an absolute dream to work with and her natural approach to photography made everyone feel comfortable. We will cherish her photographs forever.

Our amazing day would not have been possible without the help and support from our friends and family. They were all fantastic and we couldn't have asked for more. We also want to say thank you a massive thank you to both our parents for making it all possible - we love you.

The Videography

We also had both the ceremony and the reception filmed by the very talented videographer Jamie Robinson. He used both traditional filming methods and drone style filming (for aerial shots). The outcome was a fantastic video that contains everything we never want to forget!

Advice

No matter what happens don't panic. It will always work out better than you expected. I spent so much time worrying I forgot to sit back and enjoy it.

Accept help from everyone! I had so many offers from friends and family to assist in different ways. Without them I doubt we would have been ready in time.

Most importantly don't try and talk to everyone. We did a greeting line at the reception entrance along with canapés and welcome drinks to make sure we saw each of our guests. Although it may have taken a while it meant we were able speak to everyone. At the end of the day your guests are there celebrate, they understand you can't spend your whole night with them!

Enjoy your moment and just remember you look stunning!

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