A 1950’s Cinema Wedding…

Morning everyone :)  By the time you read this, I'll be up on my way to the Designer Wedding Show in London – I'm really excited about reporting back for you all on the exhibitors I meet there today. It looks set to be a fabulous line up of the industry's finest!  However, for those of you who can't make it today {and of course, those of you that can but are cramming in a sneaky bit of blogging in between), I'd like to share this fabulous marriage celebration with you.

Now, how many people can claim to have accepted a marriage proposal and gone on to become Man and Wife all in the space of a week?  Alison & Tom did just that in September last year. I know! That's some pretty amazing planning there!  Alison told me more… 

"We planned the whole wedding in less than a week. We got engaged at Whitby – on the pier {we asked two passers by to be our witnesses} on the Saturday and by the Tuesday we’d booked both venues, decided on food and started planning how we wanted the ceremony to be. It meant we could relax and enjoy the fun little things like making flags and bunting.

We chose the ceremony venue, Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, because I work there and it’s one of our favourite places. We had one of our first dates there to watch Ghostbusters. It’s a Grade II listed building built in 1914 and is just magical, and we nipped home between the ceremony and the reception (it was only a minute’s walk from our house) – to feed the cat!…"

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Mark Tattersall

Tom picked Alison up from their house in his Grandad’s car, and together they drove down  to the cinema.  Alison wore a beautiful original vintage dress by the fabulous Love Miss Daisy (who regularly feature on Love My Dress).  Alison's Mum made the underskirt…

"It was the first and only dress I tried on. It was exactly what I wanted. Original 50s, perfect length, not too formal. We wanted the whole day to be relaxed and our outfits were part of this.

I hadn’t tried my dress on with the underskirt attached until 15mins before the ceremony when everyone else had already gone. When Tom arrived to pick me up I had to get him to cut a bit off my net skirt as you could see it below the line of my dress!  

My shoes were vintage 1930s Harrods of Knightsbridge, recovered in 1950s, from Upstaged of Leeds…"

Groom Tom wore a vintage 1950s suit from Upstaged of Leeds, and a pair of fabulous shoes from a PDSA Charity Shop…

"The little flags were given out when people arrived at the ceremony and we were really pleased with them. I made them using a template I found here…"

"I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of being ‘given away’ or the symbolism of me walking down an aisle to Tom waiting at the front, like it was just me that was making some kind of transition. We wanted our wedding to be about the joining of two families and the making of a new one, and so our parents walked down the two aisles of the cinema at the same time, followed by my sister and Tom’s brother.

The families then waited in front of the cinema stage and Tom and I walked down the aisles at the same time and greeted our families before walking onto the stage…"

The families walked down the cinema aisles to Ennio Morricone, “While thinking about her again” and we walked down to Ennio Morricone – “Love Theme”. Both instrumental tracks that feature on the soundtrack to Cinema Paradiso…"

"We wanted the chance to say how we felt about each other in venue that meant something to us and in a way that celebrated the fact that we have an equal partnership.  We have no religious beliefs and are not totally comfortable with the way civil ceremonies are designed, and so we went for a humanist wedding where we could have complete control over the ceremony and what was said.

We had a vaguely 1950s theme as we wanted a bit of old-fashioned glamour to match the grandeur of the cinema…"

"I had Tom’s grandmother’s ring and we just chose a simple band to match from Doltons jeweller’s, Leeds…"

"We chose the reception venue, the Meanwood Institute in Leeds, because it’s one minute from our house and also a Grade II listed building full of charm. We just wanted a big party with little cost and no pretensions so we could enjoy celebrating with our family and friends…"

 

"In the evening, we had an amazing pie and peas supper, supplied by A Charlesworth Butchers of Wakefield.

We don’t like traditional wedding cake but love cake in general, so had a ‘Glorious Cake Competition’ with our dads as the judges, and got guests to bring cakes to the reception.

We had a huge variety, ranging from Yorkshire parkin to blueberry surprise, to a blue tropical cake inspired by a Cath Kidston design!"

"My mum made paper hearts filled with a range of basil seeds (a nod to our honeymoon in Sicily!)

"For styling The Meanwood Institute, we wanted a simple village hall feel. I bought fabric from our local Community Shop and made 30m of bunting. We also made a photobooth area using one of our curtains.

My mum picked some flowers from her garden for the reception…"

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

"Relax. Have fun with it. Don’t feel you have to do anything just because everybody else does it like that. It’s your wedding – do what you want. Tradition can be nice but it’s not the be all and end all…"

Such a fun day, that I love so much, because the couple stayed true to themselves, and not least because like me, the couple also got engaged in Whitby!  There's also the not so small matter of that beautiful 50's frock 🙂

Thank you so much Alison for taking the time to share all the above details with Love My Dress – congratulations to you and Tom too, your day looked absolutely fantastic and full of fun.

Thanks too to Photographer Mark Tattersall for allowing me to reproduce these images.

You can view more cinema style weddings on Love My Dress here.

Much love all,

Annabel xXx

♥