Good morning 🙂 Welcome back to a regular schedule of Love My Dress content, after a pause for the Christmas holidays and New Year celebrations, it's going to be 'all-go' from here on on this wedding blog!
To kick start the season of real weddings I'd like to share on with you today that was submitted by West Midlands and Birmingham Wedding Photographers, Chris Barber Media. This is the wedding of Nicholas and Emma, who tied the knot on 4 September 2010 with a ceremony at St Agnes Church in Moseley, Birmingham, followed by a reception at Rowheath Pavilion, Bournville, Birmingham.
The couple described their wedding day style as 'eclectic' (Parisian Cafe and vintage inspired, with bits of Scotland thrown in for good measure, to be exact!) and I just adore how many of the elements were DIY and handmade by either the couple of their friends. Even Emily's 1950's inspired wedding dress with pretty yellow tulle petticoat was made by a friend…
"This was made by my friend Sarah Pickles who works in the costume department at the Welsh National Opera.Originally I wanted to make my dress myself and had asked Sarah for some advice. We started chatting about how to make it and after she saw the confusion on my face took all of the stress away by making it herself. What a wonderful woman! I wanted something that I could move in and after trying on some meringues last year (purely for comedy value you understand) knew that I couldn’t have anything too traditional.
I love the 1950’s look of it and think that it lent itself well to the style of the room. Although I never had any teary moments when I tried it on, I did jump up and down with excitement after my final fitting. Everyone that saw it said that it was ‘very me’. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not but I loved it!"
Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2010, Chris Barber Media
Emma explained the choice of colour scheme…
"As we were getting married in September we wanted warm autumnal colours but were also keen to add a little Parisian inspiration after that epic proposal! {more on that later in this feature!}. We settled on yellow as our main colour and then tied in reds and oranges to break it up. Obviously the handmade vintage look was also really important, I’ve lost count of the number of hours I spent making bunting!…"
Emma wore a pair of original vintage wedding shoes from Top Banana in Birmingham, which were customised and given some 'TLC' by Lady and Small – a small craft business owned by Emma and a friend…
Flowers and button-holes were provided by Shirley Ann Florist of Birmingham…
An Epic Proposal…
The couple met on a blind date and Nick proposed to Emma in Paris. Nick shared his proposal story…
"Unbeknown to Emi, I had arranged to recreate the music video to her favourite Snow Patrol song in all of its romantic glory. The song (‘Open Your Eyes’) featured footage from a 1970 cult French film called C'était un Rendezvous where a driver bolts a camera to his sports car and embarks on a high-speed jaunt through the streets of Paris to meet his lover at sunrise.
Accordingly I arranged for a taxi to pick us up from our hotel at 5:30am, telling Emi that we had to head the station for a day-trip. Instead we re-created the route of the video, darting through the pre-dawn streets of the city until we arrived at the steps of Le Sacre Couer in Montmatre. There, with the sun coming up over the sleeping city, I got down on one knee and popped the question with a ring that I had designed myself and had custom made by a family friend.
Needless to say, she said yes and I was let of the hook for being a bit slow off the mark when it came to asking important questions in rather romantic locations!"
The Groom wore family tartan, tailored by Slaters Menswear, Birmingham and Highland formalwear also supplied by Slaters Menswear…
Nick told me "My maternal Grandad was from Glasgow and I’ve always been proud of my Scottish heritage. I made a promise to my Nan before she died that I’d wear the Logan family tartan at the wedding and I’m so glad I did. Not only did it look awesome but it also made me feel that Nan and Grandad were playing a part in our big day…"
Emma says her most memorable part of the day was walking back up the aisle to ‘All You Need is Love’ by The Beatles with everyone clapping…
"We were grinning from ear to ear. We also had a fantastic end to the evening with an impromptu mass sing along to Bugsy Malone. Awesome."
The couple hired a Citroen DS and Ford Zodiac supplied by Self Drive Classics, Birmingham…
"We wanted vintage cars to go with the vintage them and were overjoyed when we found two absolute corkers in lemon yellow, matching our colour scheme for the big day. They were certainly head turners – so much so that we occasionally found ourselves fighting just to get near them with legions of friends and family queuing up to have their photos taken next to them!"
Going Hand-made and keeping costs down…
"We never wanted a big fancy wedding but we did want a day where everyone that we cared about could play a part. Also money was a factor so one of our biggest priorities was keeping costs down. It seemed to make perfect sense then to go down the handmade and homemade route, asking our friends and families to get stuck in and help us get our big day up and running. And boy did they come up trumps! From the dress, to the table decorations to the yummy Eiffel Tower-shaped biscuits that everyone munched on through the reception, the fingerprints of our favourite people were everywhere we looked.
Nicks mom even hemmed all of the tablecloths – a real labour of love! The girls worked wonders and it was a fantastic surprise when we walked into the room, (they wouldn’t let me near the venue in the morning!) they had worked so hard and we’ll always be grateful."
"The catering in particular was a triumph with the hearty main buffet (provided by a friend’s aunty) being bolstered by a seemingly endless smorgasbord of deliciously naughty treats created by a small army of our closest friends. The fact that most of this was cooked up on the morning of the big day itself whilst everyone was also juggling hair rollers and mascara made this even more miraculous.
As we didn’t want a big wedding cake we bought cake stands for each table filled with macaroons, cupcakes and biscuits made by Emma and Alexa. We also spent months growing sunflowers to decorate some of the tables and the girls placed them in jam jars with sprigs of lavender.
Despite our tiny budget (£7000 for everything including the honeymoon in Paris, Venice and Milan) we had the wedding of our dreams. We had the perfect church, a charmingly ramshackle reception venue, fantastic food, gorgeous outfits and an awesome party that saw big cheesy grins plastered across everybody’s faces."
"After starting a small craft business (Lady and Small) with a friend last year it seemed silly for anyone else decorate the venue other then ourselves. With backgrounds in theatrical design and fine art, we have managed to collect a whole host of materials over the years and put this to very good use making around 60 metres of bunting. I was still making it 3 days before the wedding!"
Nick says…
"The speeches were really fun and I ended up being a lot less nervous than I thought. Emi’s dad’s speech was lovely whilst my best man, although nervous, dropped in a killer joke of such legendary inappropriateness that he has subsequently had to move to Switzerland to avoid the ire of Emi’s relatives (honestly, he did!)."
"In the end, our wedding cake was a VERY tasty (but slightly wonky) cheesecake made by my own fair hands. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t that pretty, it didn’t last that long anyway!"
Faaaab 'cheese cake' topper! hehehe 🙂
Reflections…
"After weeks of stress and worry, the big day itself was one of the calmest (well, for me anyway!). We had a late ceremony just in case we needed extra time in the day to sort things out. Nobody at home would let me lift a finger so until about 2 hours before the ceremony when I really did need to start getting ready, I just sat and drank tea. It was wonderful. As we were on a budget, I did my mom and chief bridesmaids hair (I was just grateful to be doing something!) while my friends that had been decorating the venue rushed in and worked miracles with my hair and make-up, it was a real beauty production line. We munched on cakes and sweets that my mom had prepared and in no time at all the cars were outside ready to whisk us away to the church.
All of my parents’ neighbours that I have known all my life were outside ready to wave us off, taking photos and checking out the fabulous cars. We finally set off and got to the church. I only started to feel nervous just before I walked down the aisle but as I saw so many familiar faces and was so busy saying hello to people that I forgot where I was! I hadn’t seen Nick in his kilt and was thrilled to see how handsome he looked, it was really difficult to walk demurely through the church when all I wanted to do was run up and jump on him."
Nick went on to comment…
"The first dance was excruciating though! We both loved the song (Audrey singing ‘Moon River’) but honestly it was so slow and schmaltzy that no-one dared to rescue us by joining us on the dance floor. Luckily the beer started flowing soon after and my DJ friend started playing a few floor fillers so it all turned out OK.
All in all, a fantastic time was had by all and indeed the party carried on long after we headed home. The perfect end to a perfect day."
Words of Wedded Wisdom…
"Ignore everyone that tells you what to do. Do what makes you happy and don’t be swayed by popular trends or what you’re ‘supposed’ to do. Make sure you enjoy yourselves and don’t worry about keeping guests happy, they’re old enough to look after themselves. Also, with a bit of imagination you can stretch your budget a bit further than you think. It also helps to have VERY creative friends!
Although it’s your big day, it is only one day so try and keep things in perspective. Having said that make sure you do soak up every minute because it will be the best day ever."
What a lovely way to start the day back to work (for most of you today anyway!). Happy New Year and Happy New Blog full of beautiful weddings and bridal inspiraiton for 2011! 🙂
Huge thanks once more to West Midlands and Birmingham Wedding Photographers, Chris Barber Media for sharing these photographs, and thank you Nick and Emma for sharing your wedding experience with us – congratulations guys, you look amazing on your big day and I'm totlly inspired by all the personal, hand-made touches.
Much love,
Annabel xXx
♥
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.
