Hello you – thanks for stopping by Love My Dress® this Thursday afternoon. I hope you've had a chance to enjoy this morning's wedding already, it's an absolute beauty, one of my favourites ever. And now it's time again to share a lovely new wedding to keep you inspired for the rest of today.
Illustrator Helen and retail manager Luke tied the knot on 12th October last year at High House Farm Brewery, Matfen, Northumberland. Their day was full of colour, love and smiles with close friends and family members. I do love a pretty English wedding and I shall never tire of bunting and floral crown prettiness.
“When it came to planning and styling our wedding, we really just did what we liked. We had so many ideas and we did worry a little that they might not go together – I remember quite a few discussions about floral vintage bridesmaid dresses clashing with cardboard cutouts of our dog Ralph, and lace doilies, but somehowon the day it all just came together and the overall effect felt so personal to us as a couple.”
Photography Copyright (c) 2014, Katie Byram
“We met on mysinglefriend.com. Luke had just got back from a year of travelling and his best friend, Paulina, persuaded him that it was time he got back on the dating scene. My big sister, Kathleen, got me drunk on Valentines Day and signed me up. As soon as I saw Luke underneath the big clock in Newcastle Central Station I knew he was going to be a force to be reckoned with! Three years later Luke lured me to Central Station again, under false pretences, and popped the question under the big clock! We set the date for one year later."
"We chose High House Farm Brewery in Matfen, Northumberland because of the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. It gave us the opportunity to do an outdoor ceremony and a blank canvas to bring all of our crazy ideas to life. We are both very outdoorsy and we loved the idea of getting married outside (even in October!) As soon as we met Heather, she was so relaxed and friendly that we knew it was the place for us.”
“My dress was by designer Diane Harbridge and I got it from Yap Bridal Boutique in Newcastle upon Tyne. Right from the start I kept picturing a dress with ¾ length sleeves and a vintage feel. I went to quite a few lovely dress shops but none of the dresses I tried on felt like me. It sounds strange but I didn’t recognise myself in them but as soon as I tried on the Chloe dress I fell in love with it in all its ¾ length sleeve glory! It was exactly what I had pictured in my head.”
“My extremely talented and lovely big sister, Angela Crampsie, did our flowers. I visited the flower market with Angela and pointed out all the lovely blooms that caught my eye. Somehow she took all the random combinations and created the most stunning displays! They looked spectacular in the marquee and I was absolutely delighted with the bouquets.”
“To decorate our venue, we had large tissue pompoms in pale mint, cream and light pink. Angela created floral displays in mix-matched vases, jugs and sweetie jars. We had family and friends collecting jars of all shapes and sizes and my mum and I spent hours decorating each one with offcuts of lace and ribbons. We then filled these with leftover flowers and foliage.
Luke’s sister wrapped ivy around the bannisters of the barn in which we got married. My mum and dad filled old wooden apple crates with bright colourful plants and put these at the entrance to the barn and marquee. My dad painted wooden signs and arrows with directions to the wedding (and even added little Ralph's to these!) My mum created endless reams of bunting in bright floral prints and created beautiful bows for the backs of the chairs."
"We placed vintage crocheted circular placemats at the centre of the round tables and then the mismatched flower jars and photo frames were placed on top of these. My cousin created a gorgeous 2 tiered vanilla sponge cake complete with pale mint and pink flowers and with a gingerbread Luke, me and Ralph on the top. She also made delicious chocolate fudge Ralph cake-pops. Luke has a real sweet tooth so he insisted on a sweetie table which went down a storm. Even his nan went off with a bag of sweeties!
Ralph is a bit too energetic to have been there in person so I illustrated 3 life size cardboard cutouts and we placed them around the marquee (one of them was appropriately placed right next to the sweets table!)”
“For favours we gave the ladies bath bombs made by The Soap Salon (a local small business but they don’t have a website yet) in green apple and rhubarb and custard flavours, wrapped up in floral vintage-style handkerchiefs tied with twin/ribbon with a scalloped edged name tag. The gents received a gift-wrapped pack of Luke’s favourite sweets – the legendary Percy Pig sweets.”
“I work as an illustrator (see Helen Turner and Rosie & Radish) so I absolutely loved the stationery aspect of planning our wedding – although my ideas ranged from quirky to crazy to impossible! I spent ages coming up with our invitations, which were a set of large postcards that told the story of how we met and our life together (including the acquisition of our nutty little dog, Ralph). These were boxed up and sealed with a sticker featuring the print from the bridesmaid dresses. The table plan was a piece of wooden trellis that I spray painted cream and my mum helped me to attach strips of ribbon, whilst my dad hand-printed names onto little luggage tags using letter stamps. I entwined flowers and bits of foliage through the trellis.
The table names also told the story of key places and things that are important to us ie. ‘Central Station Clock’, ‘Snap It, Sketch It’ (whenever we go away I keep a travel sketchbook whilst Luke takes photographs). We had photo frames on the tables featuring photographs that illustrated the names. My lovely little nieces, Eve, Alice and Mabel drew pictures of our wedding day and we turned these into signs for the sweets table and fingerprint tree. I drew a tree with mine and Luke’s initials carved into the trunk (and Ralph peeking behind the trunk) for people to fingerprint leaves on as an alternative guestbook.”
"Luke never wears jewellery (bar a watch) so he went for a plain and simple ring so it wouldn’t freak him out too much!”
“We hried a vehicle from the amazing Valley Retro – the car has to be seen to be believed! It is unbelievably cool and Chris, the dapper chauffeur was an absolute gentleman going above and beyond driver duties. He proved himself to be a brilliant impromptu photographer’s assistant to Katie.
We went off on a little adventure after the ceremony in the super cool car to get a few photos in some nearby woodland. A lot of friends had told us that you get to spend very little time together on the actual day so it was so lovely to be able to hang out together for an hour messing around for photos in the woods and getting used to being a Mr and Mrs. It was especially funny when we were posing in a cluster of trees only to realise we were in the middle of a ‘Go Ape’ experience and to hear some evening guests shouting our names and congratulations from the high wire!”
“Our photographer was the lovely Katie Byram. We can't recommend Katie highly enough. We were won over by the beautiful photographs on her website and when we met her in person she was so bubbly and likeable that she managed to put us both at ease in front of the camera. She is so creative and imaginative in her approach and her enthusiasm to embrace even some of our (slightly crazy) ideas is infectious.
Luke hates getting his photo taken (he prefers being behind the camera) so it was really important that we found someone who could make him feel relaxed and capture him with his eyes open! Katie’s informal style really appealed to us and we had such a funny time on the pre-wedding shoot that it took all the nerves away. If you are getting married and want photographs from the day which really capture the special relaxed moments then you should definitely give Katie a call!”
“I wore an opal necklace Luke had given me for my birthday, vintage opal earrings and a pearl and gold bracelet borrowed from my mum.”
"My mum made so much bunting for the wedding and came up with an excellent recycling idea afterwards – she has cut quite a lot of it into small patches and is currently transforming it into a patchwork quilt for us to keep as a memory blanket."
“My dad, Davie, gave me away to the sound of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. The whole ceremony was so personal to us. We wrote our own vows as we couldn’t find any that were really ‘us’. They were very moving to read, despite having a little bit of humour in them and we later learned that we made quite a few guests cry which wasn’t our intention!
We both felt like the ceremony was extra special. It felt really intimate and personal to us and just so so happy. A real celebration (despite all the tears!)"
Luke’s vows to Helen…
‘Helen, for the rest of our lives, I promise to love you with all of my heart, honour you with all of my actions, and treasure you always. I promise to make your cup of tea just how you like it and let you warm your cold hands and feet on me. Although I may moan a bit about it. I promise to stand next to you and support you in achieving all of your dreams. I am looking forward to sharing in your successes and will be there to help pick you up when things go wrong. You are my best friend, the person I want to share and experience everything the world has to offer with. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. So let’s take the next step in our wonky adventure.
Thank you for marrying me.’
Helen’s vows to Luke…
‘Luke, for the rest of our lives. I promise to love you with all of my heart, honour you with all of my actions, and treasure you always. I promise to give you a hug and a kiss when you get in from a long day, and I will try to make you laugh with my silly ways. I promise to listen to you when you want to chat and I will try very hard not to wake you up at night with random questions – although I can’t rule this out completely. No matter how many more strange gadgets and ceramic mugs you bring home, I will find room for them in our tiny kitchen because I know this makes you happy. I will sketch the people while you photograph the scenery and wherever we go, I promise to be there, by your side and telling you, “I love you.”
You’re my best friend, and you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.
So I hope we can grow really old together and remain as happy as we are today.
Thank you for marrying me.’
“Our rings were from Fraser Hart. I went for a very dainty and slim white gold wedding ring as my fingers are tiny and it looked lovely with my engagement ring."
“My Grandpa did the first reading called ‘The One’, which again was incredibly moving and my best friend Laura read the ‘Lovely Love Story’ by Edward Monkton which went down really well. As soon as we first read it we felt like it described us to a tee and it really made us smile. Luke’s friend Claire read an ‘Apache Blessing’."
‘The One’ (Anon)
'When the one whose hand you’re holding
Is the one who holds your heart
When the one whose eyes you gaze into
Gives your hopes and dreams their start,
When the one you think of first and last
Is the one who holds you tight,
And the things you plan together
Make the whole world seem just right,
When the one whom you believe in
puts their faith and trust in you,
You’ve found the one and only love
You’ll share your whole life through.’
"Luke’s mum is a Methodist minister and although we had a civil ceremony she performed a blessing before the meal."
“The food provided by High House Farm Brewery was absolutely delicious! We suggested to Heather that we liked the idea of having different flavor mini scones instead of canapés and they whipped up a range of scrumptious flavours both sweet and savoury.
We had ice cream from Wheelbirks on the evening and that was a big hit with the guests.
My cousin, Marie Hampson, created a gorgeous 2 tiered vanilla sponge cake complete with pale mint and pink flowers and with a gingerbread Luke, me and Ralph on the top. She also made delicious chocolate fudge Ralph cake pops.”
“Our first dance was to ‘Ho Hey’ by The Lumineers. Whenever we listened to this track at home our little dog Ralph would bark at the chorus like he was trying to join in. We can’t listen to it without smiling and we wanted a song that had an upbeat feel (Luke hates slow dancing) so that we could just have fun with it and I could do some good dress spinning!”
Words of Wedded Wisdom…
“Don’t worry too much about all of your ideas going together and everything matching – somehow everything just works on the day even if it is a bit mismatched!
Get family and friends involved in the preparations – it made the day extra special that it had been such a group effort. Even the set up the day before was good fun because everybody played a part. We also discovered talents we never knew people had such as my mum’s imagination being unleashed creating underskirts, dress sashes, bunting, bow ties and seat bows!”
What a lovely day – huge congratulations to you Helen and Luke – brides, take a moment to visit Helens illustration websites here and here, and if you love this photography, please also take a moment to visit Katie Byram's website too.
Love Annabel
Photographer – Katie Byram
Venue + Catering – High House Farm Brewery, Matfen, Northumberland
Brides Dress – Diane Harbridge via Yap Bridal Boutique
Brides Veil – Yap Bridal Boutique
Brides Shoes – Rachel Simpson Mimosa in pale green
Floral Crown - Amore Bride on Etsy
Grooms Suit – Reiss + Soprano ties
Bridesmaids – dresses via Kikis boutique + shoes via ASOS
Flowergirl Dresses – BHS
Page boy – Marks and Spencer (tie made by Grandma!)
Cake – Family member
Transport – Valley Retro
Flowers – the bride's sister
Rings – Fraser Hart
Stationery – Helen Turner + Rosie & Radish (the bride!)
Hair and make-up Artist – Vikky Johnston
Disclosure: This post contains an Etsy Affiliate link
Follow Love My Dress® on Google
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.
