Pink PomPoms and Marquees for a Pretty Maytime Wedding…

Morning guys and gals 🙂 How was your bank holiday weekend?  Hoping this post finds you settled into your Tuesday morning already, if not, go fetch a cuppa, pull up and enjoy a little bit of May-wedding day love.

Regular Love My Dress reader Becca and Pete tied the knot on 28 May last year with a ceremony at Nigg Old Church in the highlands of Scotland followed by a marquee reception at Becca's parents house.

Like most brides, Becca had a bit of a dress wobble during her wedding planning…

"I changed my dress five weeks before the wedding.  Originally, I had the most stunning, 1920’s Jenny Packham dress to wear but realised it wasn’t really very fitting with the tone of our day and so changed for this very fun dress from La Novia in Edinburgh. 

Liliana the owner was so accommodating and managed to make my dress in record time as well as add some lace to my shoes to tie them in with the dress – she was an absolute star and I couldn’t recommend her highly enough!" 

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Wes Kingston

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"We used all sorts that we could beg and borrow!  We got these amazing big cherry blossom pom poms from John Lewis window display – I love Cherry blossom and was so happy to incorporate some somewhere.  John Lewis were amazing, they also let us have the backdrop from the same window display – it consisted of lots of boards with a rolling hill and blue sky scene with a couple of beautiful cherry trees. 

Both of these really set off the marquee well, which was just as well as the weather was terrible and so we were inside most of the time!"

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"Pete had seen my wedding dress in a window and kept talking about it, saying he thought it was made for me and then because of the reasons above I went to try it on.  I loved how the bodice pulled me in at my waist and then how the skirt kicked out so much – perfect for ceilidh dancing! It was so unusual at the time and I felt amazing in it! 

Also when I tried it on my bridesmaids and Mum were all speechless – that was when I knew! I also loved the idea that with the wee jacket I could have a different look for the evening.  For this I changed to some ballet pumps, a gorgeous feather accessory that I picked up at a flea market and took my hair down into a messy side ponytail"

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Bridesmaids looking pretty in pink…

"The girls chose their Coast dresses, down to style colour and everything.  I loved that they clashed so amazingly with Katie’s red hair and that they would definitely be able to wear them again.  The texture was amazing and the shape suited them all so well…"

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"My Mum is an absolute star and as well as doing almost all of the food, having people coming and going from her house and organising loads of other stuff she also did the flowers!! My cousin helped her with the table arrangements but Mum did my gorgeous bouquet as well as the bridesmaids.  Mum loves her garden and we didn’t want anything too fancy so it was the perfect solution.  Also we really wanted to show that you could have an amazing day without massive cost.

She used anything and everything as vases – from old golden syrup tins to jars to unusual blue and green glass bottles.  With a little lace tied round each they looked completely perfect!"

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"Pete, like me almost did a last minute change and went for a Paul Smith suit.  This was his first ever suit and he managed to find it at a fantastic price.  I thought he looked completely dashing.

He also wore a Marc Wallace shirt, tie and cuff links.  His waistcoat was from Next…"

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"We had so many ideas and wanted to use them all.  Most of all I love the glamour and elegance of the 1920s, hence my engagement ring and beautiful bargain Jenny Packham dress (last season’s sample), but we kept coming back to the fact that we didn’t have or want to spend a lot of money.  We wanted to be near my parents and where I had grown up but with limited venue choice a marquee seemed the only option!   We wanted to still be able to put our own stamp on it, which I hope we did with the help of everyone and all the little touches.  Once we found the old style vintage marquee everything else just fell in to place really…"

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"Another of the extra little details was that our bread was baked in flowerpots – we wanted more than anything to make it a memorable day and hope that little things like that added to the memories.

We made our own wedding favours – little bottles of bramble brandy, sloe gin and strawberry vodka.  They went down a treat…mixed with prosecco it seems they make a mean cocktail!  We also had a hamper of sweets in the church for everyone t help themselves to when they arrived – we wanted to fill the gap when people are hanging around waiting and they were put together beautifully by Laura who has a little sweet shop in Pitlochry, unfortunately they don’t have a website…"

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"We had a humanist ceremony – we loved the ethos behind humanism – the fact that it brings together friends and family which are both so important to us.  We were able to tailor our ceremony exactly as we wanted with various ceremonies too which was a real highlight to the day.
The first of these involved lighting a candle each to symbolise us as individuals – at the end of the ceremony we then used these to light a larger candle which represented us coming together as a couple.

The second involved tying a knot – with two lengths of material to represent each of us our celebrant bonded us, at the same time tying the knot. It’s actually very pretty, we have it lying across our headboard now!"

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"The big flower was one given to me by one of my very best friends – I’d wanted something really big to make a bit of a statement and the one she found was perfect, with different textures just like my dress…"

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"Our ceremony was at Nigg Old Church in the highlands of Scotland, a gorgeous wee church where my parents got married many years before.  It was packed full with all of our friends and family and the beautiful flowers, decorated by my Mum and aunty – I couldn’t have hoped for a better setting!  It is now a non-practising church so we were able to have a humanist ceremony which set a really lovely tone for the rest of the day and meant we were able to completely personalise the ceremony and include as many loved ones as we could.  We were so excited to be able to include so many people in the process of our day – to give back to them for all the support they had given us over the years…"

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"My Dad gave me away  – it was very emotional but couldn’t have been anyone else!  Poor Dad I was clutching on to him for dear life with all my nerves!  I walked down the aisle to Etta James, ‘At last’.  Pete had chosen the song without my knowing and it was perfect – utterly beautiful and a really special moment for me…"

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"We hadn’t intended to have a wedding car but when my little brother saw this beautiful old jag on the ramp at the local garage he thought we’d love it and arranged with the garage to get the owners contact details and for him to drive us.  I think it was the first ever wedding he’d done but we were so glad he did – it made everything feel that wee bit more special"

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"We had dried rose petals for months (a great excuse to buy yourself flowers!) leading up to the wedding and made confetti  cones out of beautiful butterfly wrapping paper to carry them as confetti – they made beautiful pictures as everyone lined either side of the path in the churchyard for us to walk down – they are some of my favourite images of the whole day, we look so blissfully happy I think!"

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"We had our reception in a vintage style marquee in a rugged wee field near my parents house – we’d struggled to find a venue (there isn’t a lot of choice up there) and this seemed perfect.  It added to the informal feel which we were going for and meant that we could do everything ourselves, which again helped cut down on costs.

We did all the planning ourselves – we had so many ideas that we wanted to use but didn’t even manage to do half of them! However with the help of friends and family (a massive thank you to my Mum and Dad!) we did everything ourselves – even all of the food!!"

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"I’d collected teasets from charity shops and hours of ebay trawling so we had them as well as cake stands and teapots.  Another ebay purchase was some vintage bird cages which we put around the bar covered in fabric butterflies which I had found..."

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"Pete’s sister and her husband are tech teachers and they laser cut our Bell & Boo image onto slices of tree trunk which we used for serving canapés and again as cheese boards.  After the wedding we then gave these away as thank you presents to people who had helped out..."

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"We had a cake made of cheese which was supplied by Mellis Cheese in Edinburgh.  My amazing aunty decorated it and turned it into an absolute master piece!! I wish there was a better photo to show you what she did – it really was so clever!  Cheese was then served on our Bell & Boo wooden boards with homemade quince and lots of port which went down a treat!"

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Words of Wedded Wisdom…

"I would say not to let the preparations stress you out as nothing actually matters on the day except the fact that you are getting married to your best friend in the world and with all your wonderful friends and family there to support you.  Our day was the most amazing wonderful day ever and it didn’t matter that it rained and was blowing a gale, that my hair was falling out, that the heater broke or anything because when it comes down to it you don’t even notice!

The other thing I would say is that afterwards you will be exhausted!!! We had no idea we would feel so tired for so many days – its definitely important to take some time out together to rest and enjoy being away from all of the organising! Oh and one other thing – remember to spend time with each other, Pete and I didn’t enough as we were so busy seeing everyone who had travelled so far but it is important to make sure you share your day together.

Also, I visited a few blogs at the beginning, but by the end I really only followed Love My Dress – it was by far my favourite and I have still been reading it since!"

Wise words Becca!! 🙂

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Big thanks to Photographer Wes Kingston for allowing these images to be shared and wishing Becca and Pete a wonderful first anniversary celebration in just a couple of weeks time! 🙂

Let's show Becca and Pete some love for their pretty wedding day.

Much love all,

Annabel

 

Photographer – Wes Kingston
Venue – Marquee in Brides' parents garden
Brides dress – La Novia
Brides Shoes – Debenhams, with alterations by La Novia
Brides hair accessories – gift from Brides best friend
Groom – Paul Smith + Marc Wallace + Next
Bridesmaids – Coast
Flowers – The Brides Mum
Cake – Mellis Cheese
Makeup Artist – Aa Cruzalegui for MAC

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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