A Vintage VW for a Charming Handmade Village Hall Wedding

Good afternoon lovely ones. We’ve already treated you to a charming Japanese and 1930’s inspired wedding and a peak inside the sparkly word of TheDiamondStore.co.uk today, but we’re not done just yet, because we still have the sweetest of handmade village hall weddings to share with you.

Ali, who is head of dance at a secondary school, tied the knot with photographer Dan on 1st August 2015. Their ceremony took place at the beautiful little St Mary’s Church in Swinbrook, followed by a reception at Great Barrington Village Hall, near Burford in Oxfordshire.  Both venues, say the newlyweds, are beautiful, cosy places which suited the vision they had for their wedding day perfectly. These photographs were taken by the talented Frankee Victoria, who we are absolutely delighted to have as a member of our Little Book For Brides.

“We wanted a hand made wedding which was personal to us – our vision for the day just sort of fell together. I have always loved vintage tea cups since my Grandma had a beautiful collection, and I love making things from scratch, Dan loves vintage VW’s and cameras so our wedding came from a mix of those ideas.”

Frankee Victoria is a member of Little Book For Brides

“Sourcing our decorations wasn’t hard – but this wedding was very personal to us with Dan’s camper van being fixed up and put back on the road by his friends as a surprise (after being off the road for a year), and his own collection of cameras used as table decor.”

“Our photographer Frankee Victoria, made us feel special from the moment we met her, she seemed to be instantly invested in our wedding and has been such a fantastic photographer. We had lots of contact before the day and were able to be really specific with the shots we wanted.”

“Frankee was lovely on the day – she really made us feel like the most beautiful couple in the world and we had such a great time having our couples portraits done with her.”

“My shoes were Miss Kurt Geiger, they were comfortable all day and I decided to glue my lucky sixpence to the bottom since I couldn’t wear it inside the shoe.”

“My wedding dress was by White Rose Bridal and was purchased from Maureen Myring Kesterton in Olton, Solihul. They were fantastic and I can’t speak highly enough about them – their seemstress did everything possible to make this dress perfect for me and I was so happy with the result.

I had looked in six other bridal boutiques, tried on countless dresses and just couldn’t find ‘the one’. I went into this particular shop on a whim when my bridesmaid Jess, my mother and I drove past. I was looking along the rails and stopped when I saw this dress, it was exactly what I wanted with the soft detailed lace, big skirt, fitted bodice, sweetheart neckline and elegant pearl beading on the top (I always wear pearls).

“I had never seen anything like it, it was the only dress I tried on in the shop and the only dress that made me cry. The instant I put it on I knew it was the one, and the look on my mom’s face absolutely confirmed it for me.

Also, I wore Chanel Chance – Au de Vive, I have never had a signature scent and looked long and hard to find one – to me this was the perfect light and elegant fragrance, it made me feel beautiful and is certainly my signature now!”

“My mother Jackie was our florist! My mom is very talented, she is a keen gardener and is wonderful at flower arranging. We wanted a handmade wedding and having my mom grow and arrange the flowers was a really special touch for us. She did a lot of research into how to create the beautiful bouquets, and how to tastefully decorate the church. We opted for green and white flowers which looked beautiful in the old church and complimented the bridesmaid dresses so well.

She also spent two years collecting and drying petals for our natural confetti, which we put in personalised gift bags for our guests at the church.”

“The bridesmaids dresses were from Island Bridal in Shirley, Solihull. They offered really beautiful dresses available to order in a huge range of colours. They also offered an alterations service and my bridesmaids were able to have their dresses altered at very reasonable costs.

We even had two of the dresses re shaped as we didn’t like the back design on them, which was no problem for the seamstress.”

“We dried petals and put them in personalised brown paper bags as confetti for the guests at the church.”

 

“Dan and I met at school, where we knew of each other but there wasn’t much to our relationship until we met in a bar ten years later. By then, we’d both had time to grow up, make mistakes and, in Dan’s case at least, grow some facial hair! We were together for two years before we got engaged, Dan proposed on the beach while we were on holiday with our friends – it was a huge surprise and I am never happier than when I am by the sea so it was perfect.

We spent a further two years saving for and planning our wedding day.”

“My veil was a single layer veil from Veils Direct. Very simple with no embelishments as my dress was so detailed.”

“We had a church wedding with one bible reading and an excerpt from the childrens book “The Velvetine Rabbit” – what is real. We wanted to mix traditional readings with something more alternative, the reading from the children’s book was really heartwarming and we felt that everyone could relate to it. The bible reading was chosen by the bride’s godmother, it meant a lot to have her choose it and read it.”

“The favourite moment for both of us was seeing each other when he turned around at the church – I can’t describe the joy of seeing him standing there waiting for me, we both cried straight away! Another favourite moment is when we snuck away from the wedding to have five minutes together, we went to look at the moon and this is when we were able to reflect on fact that we were married! I hope we both remember that moment forever.”

“Our rings, including the engagement ring are from Diamond Heaven in Birmingham’s jewellery quarter. One of Dan’s groomsmen works there which is why he initially went to him. We were really impressed with the way we could customise every aspect of the rings, essentially creating our dream rings! We also chose to have our rings engraved with the wedding date which was a nice touch.”

“We went for the digital package and received our discs in a beautiful wooden box with our names and wedding date printed on it, inside was the discs, a hand written note from Frankee and a few prints as well. This was really un expected but such a beautiful way to present our photographs to us – this just tops off the wonderful, personal service Frankee provided for us.”

“We wanted a vintage, mismatched style for the men in the wedding party and the suits were put together from a few different places. Shirts were from Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Navy blue and brown waistcoats were from Debenhams and a shop in Banbury which is now closed down, navy blue trousers are Jasper Conran. We decided on a mix of bow ties for the groom, best man and dad’s, and straight ties for the ushers to add some variety.”

“Banbury Catering Company covered us with a gorgeous selection of hampers for the tables and tea sets for all the guests, including the lovely vintage Twinnings tea boxes. My mom grew and arranged all the flowers, adding to the personal feel of our day, she did such a beautiful job with the flowers in the church, our bouquets and the flowers in the venue.

The fresh green and white colour scheme was inspired by the beautiful Cotswold surroundings of our venue, with a hint of feminine vintage pink.  We had sparklers on the tables for guests to create some magic and sparkle after sun down. We wanted favours which would be fun and would add to the experience of the day.

Dan’s own vintage cameras, home made bunting, glass kilner jars with green and white flowers, vintage tea sets, frosted glass tea light votives, giant garden games provided the decor.”

“LoobyLoo Cake Company in Banbury supplied our cake. After a detailed planning meeting and cake tasting, they created the perfect cake for us which matched the vintage lace on my dress, they even mirrored the beading from my dress in the icing! Having vintage pink icing on the cake and the raised top tier made this cake really special and different.”

“We hired the band The Monday Blues – a group of young musicians from Oxfordshire. They played a mix of old classic jazz and swing style tunes and covers of modern songs in their own style, including a couple of requests from us. The first set was chilled out and the second set got everyone up and dancing. We followed the live band with a playlist we had created ourselves. We tried to cater for everybody and it was good to know that every song in the list was one we would dance to – we loved seeing different people proclaiming ‘I love this song’ every time a new song came on.

We have a shared passion for music and found it hard to settle on a song. What we would call “our song” wasn’t really suitable to be our first dance in front of family and friends, and narrowing our favourite songs down was hard. We eventually decided on a song called Fifty Four by Deaf Havana, a band we bonded over when we first got together who are close to our hearts. As I am a dance teacher I think everyone was expecting a choreographed dance routine, but we were really happy to sway back and forth with an added twirl and dip here and there.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“Be organised and utilise your wedding party – your bridesmaids and groomsmen are there to support you and make sure your wedding goes to plan, keep them involved. Making sure everyone was in the right place at the right time was very important for our wedding as we had a church with a separate reception venue and people coming from all over the country. We had a wedding party BBQ a couple of weeks before the wedding which was a great opportunity to give everyone their plan for the day with timings, addresses and duties – doing this meant that we didn’t have to worry about asking people to do things on the big day, and we were able to sit back and let our wedding happen with the support of our fantastic family and friends.

Another piece of advice would just be to let things go if they don’t go quite right on the day – we were supposed to have a small bunch of flowers on top of our cake, it got lost in the chaos but on reflection it really didn’t matter. The cake still looked great and no one even knew the flowers were supposed to be there!

The only other thing we’d have done differently would be to have the service at midday, instead of 1pm. This would have allowed us to have a much more laid back feel to the afternoon with more time for photos and general mingling before sitting down for the wedding breakfast. We managed to get everything done that we wanted to but felt that timing was tight.”

What a beautiful, joy and love filled day! Huge, huge thanks to photographer Frankee Victoria and all our love in the world to couple Ali and Dan too. If you love Frankee’s photography as much as I do, you can find out more about hiring Frankee to shoot your wedding day over on Little Book For Brides.

Love Annabel xx

 

Photographer – Frankee Victoria
Venue – Great Barrington Village Hall,
Wedding Dress – White Rose Bridal via Maureen Myring Kesterton in Olton, Solihul
Veil – Veils Direct
Shoes – Miss Kurt Geiger
Perfume – Chanel Chance – Au de Vive
Accessories – Earrings via H Samuel
Groom – Edinburgh Woollen Mill shirts + Debenhams waistcoat + Jasper Conran trousers
Bridesmaids – Island Bridal
Florist – styled by the brides Mum
Cake – LoobyLoo Cake Company
Entertainment – The Monday Blues
Rings – Diamond Heaven
Catering Company – Banbury Catering Company
Stationery – Handmade
Hair Stylist – L’academie in Shipston on Stour