Good morning all! We hope this brand new blog post on Love My Dress finds you feeling all bright and breezy this fine Tuesday morning.
Suzy, a buyer for shoes.co.uk married Ollie, owner of The Word Is Love on 11th October last year at St Peters Church in Hale, followed by a reception at Styal Lodge in Cheshire. Suzy and Ollie were assisted by Lauren at Twelfth Night Events – a friend of the bride, in styling their wedding.
“Everything on our wedding day was influenced by romance, the colour scheme was blush, light pinks, peaches and white. We wanted lights and more lights and fairy lights and blush flowers. Love My Dress and Pinterest were both a huge influence – I spent ages pinning everything that made my heart melt. I wanted our wedding to reflect a modern day kind of vintage – nothing too traditionally vintage, but still timeless. Basically, lots of ruffles and fun!”
Photography Copyright (c) 2014, Cotton Candy Weddings
“Ollie and I met in the Griffin pub in Bowdon when I was 17 he was 22 – quite an age difference back then, but now it doesn’t seem to be an issue at all. Our families know each other, but at the time, we didn’t – we lived less than half a mile away from each other and had never met! We spent every day together from then and went on to have our now 3 year old son, Oscar.
Ollie proposed to me on Christmas day 2012, by the Christmas tree, just before Oscar woke up, using the good old trick of a huge box under the tree with a tiny box containing and engagement ring inside! We planned the wedding in just nine months (10 years of planning in our heads!). We always wanted to have an Autumn wedding – we both felt somehow that we’d be less likely to get rained on, plus being huge photography fans, we love the natural light around that time of year. Blue skies and crisp walks – October 11th was a perfect Autumn day for our wedding.”
“The church that our ceremony took place in , St Peters in Hale, was the place where both my mother and father and grandparents were married, and our son Oscar, and I, were christened. It is a truly beautiful church with a warm welcoming feeling, and Georgina, the reverend was very laid back and allowed us to have our own piano music instead of the conventional organist. She did get a bit nervous when I arrived half an hour late however – oops!
Lauren at Twelfth Night Events helped me in a big way when organising our wedding. She was my bridesmaid who came all the way over from Canada, a high school best friend who knew how to organise me, my thoughts and how the day would be, ensuring everything I needed, I had. Lauren even assisted me in creating our order of service booklets just two days before the big day!”
“Boy oh boy, did we spend along time putting Ollie’s ensemble together! Ollie always knew he didnt want a top and tails formal suit – he doesn’t wear suits in his day job and feels so uncomfortable wearing one, so he knew he wanted a different jacket to the pants. This made it so much more difficult (or I guess fun, depending on how you look at it) and really depends on how much you like spending time in mens changing rooms!
In the end, Ollie got his beautiful navy jacket with silk patterened lining and button detail from Ted Baker and nis navy pants and waistcoat from Topman.”
Suzy wore a Pronovias gown called Peralta, which she purchased from The Bridal Path in Altrincham.
“I had tried every single shop in the north west and Cheshire and had come to the conclusion I don’t suit wedding dresses! Everything I saw look big and bad on me. Then I saw this one.”
“I knew I wanted tulle, lots of and lots flowing tulle, and I loved the simple yet stunning features on the tulle bodice with little beads on the sweetheart bust line. I also knew I wanted a belt and so the addition of a belt wtih the dress completely made my mind up.”
“I struggled with flowers – I did a lot of research into what I wanted and everywhere I went they just seemed so unhelpful and seemed to not want the business – maybe they were just too busy?!
In the end, we turned to one of Styal Lodge’s recommended suppliers and worked with Jill at Special Days to design the table centres and the bouquets, which I loved! My bouquet had succulents and roses in which is just what I wanted, and the centre pieces were so romantic, light and beautiful – created in jugs, birdcages and vases on wooden plinths.”
“I was struggling with the bridesmaids dresses, so I decided to Instagram search ‘ruffle bridesmaid dress’ and up came the perfect one! Bear in mind I had been watching the whole boxset of Gossip girl at the time and the same line of dresses were worn by Serena for Blairs first wedding! What an absolute nightmare to coordinate and buy they were, but totally worth it in the end.
We bought them from Vera Wang at Davids Bridal store in Canada, but I had to buy some sizes for my 6 bridesmaids to try on so I bought (or so I thought) a size 10 and a 12 which ended up being a size 12 and 14! My bridesmaid from Canada, Lauren, brought the rest of them over and they all had to be taken up by a seamstress friend the week before the wedding. They were the most beautiful light pink full length strapless dresses with ruffle detail and a black sash.
They all wore their own shoes, from Primark to Jimmy Choo!”
Following their wedding ceremony, Ollie and Suzy had a series of portrait images taken outside by their photographers Cotton Candy Weddings. Suzy wore this vintage mink coat that belonged to her Nanna – her ‘something old’ for the day.
“The biggest and most exciting thing about our wedding were the illuminted giant size light up letters we had, spelling our initials and ‘LOVE’. I’d seen them on Pitnerest – but no one could deliver them to our wedding, so, we decided to make them ourselves!
After having so many people asking me where I got them, we have now set up our own wedding hire business and rent them out for weddings and events across the North West. Our business, ‘The Word Is Love’ is growing so quickly – I could never have imagined having the whole alphabet and triple sets of words and letters to hire!”
“I purchased our big balloons from an American lady I came across on Pinterest, who creates huge balloons with tassels for a living! I wasn’t able to locate any UK suppliers of the same prouct, so I had fifteen of them shipped over in pink peach and white.”
Readers, if you want to purchase similar balloons with tassles from a UK seller, we recommend you look at Eagle Eyed Bride.
“Our photographers were Gemma and Philippa of Cotton Candy Weddings. They are based in the south, but we just couldn’t find anyone up north with the same signature style of romantic images that these girls create. The use of different cameras and the fact that there are two of them made it an easy decision. We enquired in 2012 before Ollie had proposed as I just wanted to get prices etc and when it came to booking they were our first purchase!
I would recommend Gemma and Philip in an instant – they experimented with our sparkler shots and spent a lot of time getting romantic shots of just the two of us which look great framed at home.”
“My Hair piece was from Love Bridal in Altrincham a beautiful store where they have the most stunning one off dresses and accessories. Emma at Love Bridal is so helpful. The headpiece I chose featured vintage diamonds and pearls.
My something new were my earrings that Ollie gave me as a gift on the morning of our wedding and my something borrowed was the Swarovski bracelet from my sister (and Bridesmaid).”
“I was going to do my hair and make up myself, then Lauren, my bridesmaid, told me I would be crazy as I would look so much better if someone else did it! She was right – I chose Samantha Parker, as she was recommended by a friend. Samantha uses Nars Make and we had a trial before the wedding – I loved the outcome. My wedding makeup also stayed on all day.”
“We both decided bow ties were the way forward, so we searched high and low on the high street but eventually discovered Two Guys Bow Tie, on Instagram, who specialise in creating wooden bow ties and are based in America. Sadly they couldn’t deliver what we wanted in time, so we ended up purchasing from Gutav Wooden Bow Ties on Etsy. Our products took just a week to arrive.
I also bought Ollie a pair of personalised cufflinks from Notonthehighstreet – I could customise them with any words I wanted. Finally, Ollie’s shoes were from Shoes.co.uk.”
“Transport on the day wasn’t my thing – I said I would be quite happy getting a lift down to the church in a friends car, it was a minute walk down the road after all! So I left this for Ollie to sort – which he did, with a little help from my father and a friend of his who is a VW campervan owner.
Ollie is atually a VW fanatic, so we chose this 1960’s VW Splitscreen camper that used to be an ambulance for a nunnery in Italy! It was a little bit rough around the edges but we didnt want a pristine car. It also sounded awsome and just about got us there (not so on time) with the help of Ollie’s brother and best man!”
“My father gave me away – we work together, laugh together and he’s my best friend. We were so relaxed when it came to it – it was perfect.”
“I love our rings – Ollie just wanted a plain titanium 5 mil. ring that would look good even when bashed about a bit- he loves DIY cars and getting messy so this suited him perfectly. He got his ring from Ernest Jones. I wanted a Chanel princess cut white gold ring but they all seemed too big as my engagement ring is dainty.
I asked, on Facebook, if anyone had any recomendations and a couple of people mentioned Slack and Andrews in Manchester – they make rings at an amazing price. With just a week to go, Slack and Andrews delivered my ring in a beautiful wooden box and it fit perfectly. Such great service. I went in to thank them and they cleaned and re coated my engagement ring too! I honestly couldn’t recommend them highly enough. They don’t have a website but they are in the Northen Quarter in Manchester.”
“Our favours were individual succulents, each potted with love and care in Wales by my mother in law. We sourced the pots on ebay, and as Chris, my Mother in Law loves to garden, each succulent was grown by her and each one bred from one another therefore making 100 mini succulents. It took about 6 months to get them all and it was totally worth it.”
“Our venue Styal Lodge offered us a choice of three different catering companies to work with and we decided to go with Pink Pepper – a family run business who don’t allow traditional protocol – they make whatever menu you want in whatever way you want it!
Pink Pepper have beautiful vintage china for tea and Sophie Conran plates – so stylish, and that’s what sold us! Oh and the fact that they do a taster night for you which involves cooking for you and your family, and then once you have chosen your menu (including midnight munchies), they come to your house and cook for you and your parents!”
“Our wedding cake was our best handmade achievement! It was made by my mother in law – a fruit cake that had been fed with alcohol for months, with a chocolate fudge cake layer on the top. Lauren my bridesmaid, and I both decorated it. Lauren went on a cake decorating course and learned how to create ruffles and after watching many YouTube tutorials we mastered it. The cake took us 7 hours to ice and ruffle and it was my most favourite masterpiece of my wedding. I was so proud of it. I then made my sister in law transport it to the reception, which she did SO well!
The cake was to match the ruffles on the bridesmaids dress. I also decorated it with handmade sihouettes of Ollie and I, a banner from notonthehighstreet and my mother in laws home grown succulents!”
“We hated the idea of a first dance – slow and boring! We weren’t going to have one, but then we were listening to 80’s music one night and we knew ‘You drive me crazy’ by the Fine Young Cannibals was just perfect for us! It was fun, we enjoyed dancing to it and so did everyone else.”
Words of Wedded Wisdom…
“Make your wedding day fun, make time for adding little extras to allow you and your personality to shine through; for the evening food, we were going to have cheese stacked with crackers – thats not us – so we went for noodles, which is what everyone knows Ollie and I eat when drunk and everyone loved them being served in takeaway boxes.
Don’t get brought down with the planning – DELEGATE! The best thing I did was not to get involved with planning the hen do – I didn’t know anything about it and so didn’t stress about it and loved it.
Give little things for your partner to do and have responsibility for – let him organise the cars, or the music or the cake or the cake topper!”
“Love My Dress provided me with the most inspiration out of the wedding blogs I visited – I love the romance that is present in the weddings that are featured. I also love how genuine the blog feels, the way the features are written and the great suppliers that are advertised. Love My Dress provided all the supplier links we needed and when I left a comment asking where the brides nail varnish was purchased one day – Annabel got right back to me too!
Instead of fireworks we opted for what would look good in a photograph and I loved the idea of the sparkler shot. We had practised our prince charming throw back pose and the photogrpaher got the perfect shot!”
“We hired 48 Frames to create a wedding film. It was a last minute decision, as I didn’t think a videographer was needed – but boy was I mistaken. They were amazing! They also do photography and they have also kindly sent us some great shots. They were totally discreet – I honestly didn’t think they were recording and didn’t get nervous that they were there or even knew they were – not even when we were dancing!
There’s a lot of smiling in the video and I didn’t realise how much I laughed and smiled until I actually saw it. 48 Frames are a truly amazing couple; Alex and Laetitia went above and beyond to help us, from providing general advice, to suggesting music – I couldn’t recommend them enough! As there were two of them filming, I also got to see Ollie getting ready in the morning (whilst downing a shot or two of Jack Daniels!).
Film Production Copyright (c) 2014, 48 Frames
Wow, what a fun day! Congratulations to you Ollie and Suzy! I really felt the love and happiness preparing this piece, all those smiles and joy! Beautiful day indeed.
A huge big thank you to Cotton Candy Weddings for sharing these lovely uplifting photographs.
So, who else might be embarking on their own giant tassel balloons and wooden bow ties journey?
Love Annabel
Photographer – Cotton Candy Weddings
Wedding Planner/Stylist – Twelfth Night Event
Venue – Styal Lodge in Cheshire
Wedding Dress – The Bridal Path in Altrincham
Headpiece – Love Bridal in Altrincham
Brides’ shoes – The Martha, flat diamante satin leather pumps via Dune
Groom’s Attire – Ted Baker (jacket) + Topman (pants/waistcoat) + Gutav Wooden Bow Ties + Shoes
Bridesmaids – Vera Wang, Davids Bridal
Flowergirls – Monsoon Sale
Flowers – Special Days
Cake – Family
Transport – Vintage VW Campervan
Entertainment – Jack Goulding + Groovy Revolution
Rings – Slack and Andrews (no website), Northern Quarter, Manchester
Catering – Pink Pepper
Stationery – The bride and groom
Makeup Artist – Samantha Parker
Groomsmen – H&M + Marks and Spencers
Giant Light Up Letters – The Word Is Love
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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.
