A Red and White Polka Dot Kind Of Wedding!

Here’s something bright and fun for you to enjoy this Friday afternoon – that is if you are not glued to the Olympics! {GO JESSICA INNES!}

Bekki & Ian tied the knot on 6 May this year at The Mill at Madeley Court Hotel in Telford, Shropshire.

I adore how Becky embraced her love of all things bright red and polka dot beautiful on her big day…

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2012, Hannah Millard

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“I always planned to have a birdcage veil, but wanted something a little different to a standard piece of netting. The polka dot veil I purchased from Sibo Designs was perfect, and fit in with the bridesmaids dresses nicely too!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“Deciding upon which dress to wear was completely down to the way it made me feel. Quite early on, I fell totally in love with a tea length dress by Justin Alexander (8465), even going as far as purchasing it second hand without trying it on!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“Earlier in the year I also purchased another dress from Vivien of Holloway, with every intention of changing into it in the evening. As the time drew nearer to having the Justin Alexander altered, I slowly started to realise that as beautiful as the dress was, it didn’t make me feel beautiful.

In sharp contrast, whenever I tried on the Vivien of Holloway dress, the only thing that could take the grin from my face would be the dizziness from twirling around in it too much! So I chose to wear my evening dress for the entire day…”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Morrisons was our florist! Ian had said right from the beginning that he didn’t want to spend a huge amount of money on flowers, and we honoured that request with a massive spend of £2.50 the day before on some fresh blooms for the tables in the afternoon tea area.

The bouquets and centrepieces were all made with silk ribboned roses, put together by myself & my Mum. I jokingly refer to them as my ‘Blue Peter’ bouquets – beautiful on the outside but with a polystyrene ball, broom handle & plenty of double sided sticky tape underneath!”

Hehehe!

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Bridesmaids in red and white pola dots

“Our lovely afternoon tea was put together by my Mum, and was made up of home baked goodies made by her, and cupcakes put together by myself & my lovely friend Chris of Dulcie Blue Bakery.

This is one of the areas that running a cake decorating business came in handy; I already owned the majority of the beautiful stands that helped make the display look so scrumptious (although of course I couldn’t miss the opportunity to buy a few more…!)”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“Ian & his best man Rob were given the job of decorating the venue; as much as I would have liked to join them I knew the majority of the morning would be taken up with getting ready. As it was I just had enough time to pop over to the Mill & decorate the mirrors in the ladies toilets with photos from the hen weekend; something that went down very well with our female guests, especially those who weren’t able to make it.

I had a couple of people remark that I was brave to trust Ian with it all but I knew he’d want to make everything as perfect as much as I would, in fact he was still making adjustments as the guests were arriving!

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

With the exception of the fairy lights which we wound around every reachable surface, the majority of the decorations we DIY’d ourselves. With a background in graphic design, I had already created our invitations, thank you cards & place settings, I then used the fonts from these to paint onto wooden hearts which we then made into garlands & chalkboard signs which lead the guests from the car park.

Ian created the photobooth backdrop, the archway in front of which we said our vows & decorated the downstairs windows with photos from our life together. We were lucky in that the venue itself is so beautiful that we didn’t need to go overboard with the styling – otherwise I think we would have still been decorating during the ceremony!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“One thing we really struggled over was table names. Ian didn’t want just numbers, and I didn’t want something I’d seen done time & time again. Eventually we came upon something which was totally unique to us; important dates from our history together, from the very first message I ever sent him on Myspace (we met online) through to first meeting, first date, engagement & so on.

We put a little explanation of the date on the back of each table name & it was lovely to see guests going from table to table in order to read them all…”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“My love of all things polka dot led to our chosen bridesmaids dresses, and from there we had a loose fifties theme develop. I took a lot of inspiration from wedding blogs – almost two years of saving images of all my favourite bits from hundreds of weddings, followed by discussions with Ian to decide what things we wanted to include in our own day.

I received a wonderful service from the ladies at Flossy & Dossy – high quality made to measure bridesmaids dresses for less than you’d pay for some on the high street…” 

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“I consider finding our photographer Hannah Millard to be one of the best things about our wedding. Well, I say finding, technically she found us by following me on Twitter! We honestly could not have asked for a better photographer; she captured our day so perfectly that looking our photos immediately brings back how wonderful everything felt at the time they taken.

Hannah not only has a true talent but has a real passion for what she does; if you’re looking for a photographer who is as excited about your wedding as you are, Hannah is the woman for you!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

6-arrivals-reflection

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress 

“We fell in love with the idea of a barn venue quite early on in our search; the result of reading too many American wedding blogs I believe! Unfortunately we soon found that the few we could find in our area were either too far for our guests to travel or well outside of our budget. Eventually we did locate a barn venue that with a mid-week wedding was affordable, and so with a year & a half still to go until the big day we were relieved to have crossed one of the biggest decisions off our to-do list. Except, we hadn’t.

Four months on, after little or no communication from the venue (despite us repeatedly trying to pay a deposit!) we made the hard decision to look elsewhere. It was heart breaking at the time, as obviously all the planning done so far had been based around that venue…”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“Luckily however fate was on our side and a week later after deciding to attend a wedding fair at Madeley Court Hotel, you can imagine our delight when we discovered they had a beautiful converted barn on-site. As an added bonus, they were completely open to the ideas we had, as well as having a dedicated wedding co-ordinator to deal with our enquiries.

We booked our new wedding date there and then, and we couldn’t have wished for a more helpful & accommodating venue. As upsetting as the treatment our previous venue had given us was, it really did work out for the best in the end!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

These pretty red heart-shape umbrellas are from Find Me a Gift

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“Although I make cakes for a living myself, I knew I didn’t want the stress of putting something together so close to the wedding day. Luckily I have made some close friends within the industry, and it was one of these wonderful ladies who offered to make our wedding cake dreams a reality – Laura, the owner of Mamma Jamma Cakes.

The top tier was red velvet & vanilla, followed by chocolate & white chocolate, with the third tier being neopolitan. I sat down with Ian to design the cake, pulling together all of our favourite elements from other cakes we’d seen, and Laura pulled it all together wonderfully. It also tasted as good as it looked, which of course is just as important!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“We had ‘Rose of my Heart’ by Johnny Cash for our first dance. We both wanted something a bit different, and although neither of us are huge fans, we loved the lyrics. It was also a bit easier to dance to than our second choice, Muse’s version of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ which would have resulted in a fair bit of head banging!

Changing from heels to converse in the evening turned out to be one of my favourite memories from the day – the feeling of relief was that wonderful! The converse were a total hit with our guests as well – I don’t think I’ve ever quite had that many photos of my feet taken before!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

“We hired the band All Fired Up to play in the evening, otherwise known as the Good Times band to us – Ian was once the chairman of our local Young Farmers club, and every year we would attend a ball on Boxing Day where they would play. We were so pleased they were available on our date, as it was good to know they’d get everybody on the dance floor!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

“I never thought I’d say this as I had no intention of having one, but if you can afford to budget for a wedding video, do so. Our day was over so quickly that it felt like a blur, and the video combined with our photographs really helped to put all the pieces back together again. It’s something I’m really glad we changed our minds on.

Find a photographer whose work you love. Despite what some may say, wedding photography is not ‘all the same’. If you go with somebody whose portfolio excites you, odds are your wedding photos will too!

A photobooth is a great idea if you want to keep your guests entertained whilst you’re busy having photos of your own taken. It went down a storm with our guests, and we have some fab photographs as a result!

Want to make sure the dance floor is full? Include a section on your RSVP for music suggestions. We made sure we included the most popular floor fillers by letting guests choose what they like to dance to!”

Vivien of Holloway 1950s vintage style wedding dress

Congratulations Bekki & Ian on your perfect, polkda dot wedding day 😉  Thank you so much for sharing all your lovely photographs 🙂

I’m noticing something funny going on around here. Last Friday was full of polka dots too!

You can see more lovely ‘red weddings’ right here.

Let’s show Bekki and Ian lots of dotty love 😉

Annabel

Heart

 
Photographer – Hannah Millard
Venue – The Mill at Madeley Court Hotel in Telford, Shropshire
Brides dress – Vivien of Holloway + Petticoat by Destiny Designs
Brides Veil – Polka dot blusher veil by Sibo Designs
Brides Shoes – Primark red kitten heels for during the day, red polka dot converse for the evening
Grooms Suit – Matalan
Bridesmaids Dresses – Flossy & Dossy + petticoats by Destiny Designs
Hair and make-up Artist- Kassi Ellis
Flowers – Morrisons
Cake – Mamma Jamma Cakes + Cake Topper by Miss Cake
Photobooth Photographer – Andy Li
Entertainment – All Fired Up
Red heart shaped umbrellas – via Find Me a Gift

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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