Happy Friday everyone! It’s time for you to take a break over a hot beverage, as I’m about to transport you to a groovy little wedding with a venue that’s steeped in UK history, full of colour and eclectic vintage touches, and *the* most gorgeous fifties lacy dress – all shot superbly by Laura Rhian Photography.
Meet our fashionable couple Marianne and James, who run the fabulous online vintage fashion boutique Minimum Mouse together. They tied the knot on 17th May 2014 at The Electric in Birmingham, which is the oldest working cinema in the UK, followed by a reception at Highbury Hall. The couple chose Costa Sister Productions for their wedding video – and the sisters captured the special day perfectly. Take a look at this sweet clip – you will instantly feel the love between the beautiful couple.
Film Production Copyright (c) 2015, Costa Sister Productions
The inspiration for the day was a mixture of vintage, a mutual love of films, lots of colour, plus a little bit of kitsch!
“James and I both have a love of the past, we both studied history at university and started up our vintage clothing business together in 2007 because of this shared fascination, so it was only natural that our wedding day would have a vintage feel. However, as vintage themed weddings have been such a huge trend over the last few years we didn’t want to overdo it for fear of it ending up looking a bit too generic, so we aimed for nostalgic touches rather than a full on theme.”
Photography Copyright (c) 2015, Laura Rhian Photography
“We’re big film lovers and our favourite ‘date night’ activity is going to the cinema, so when we discovered the The Electric Cinema was available as a ceremony venue, we knew straight away it was the place for us. The silver screen is the most romantic place on earth, so what better place to get married than the UK’s oldest cinema? We also wanted the emphasis to be on fun, and we love anything a bit kitsch, silly and colourful, and we tried to get a good mix of all the things we like, so the day was very personal to us.
We didn’t want a really rigid colour scheme, more just a mix of complimentary colours to run through the day. We picked these by discussing colours we both liked and using paint charts from B&Q to decide what shades looked good together.”
The bridesmaids look so elegant in their gowns, from Courtesan Boutique and JJ’s House. Their shoes were from Vivienne Westwood and Marks and Spencer, with hair and makeup by The Vintage Salon.
The reception venue didn’t require much in the way of decor – so Marianne and James incorporated little vintage touches. Mills and Boon book covers for their table numbers is one very clever idea!
“Highbury Hall is a beautiful venue and we really didn’t feel it needed much decoration. For the tables, I collected coloured glass vases and teacups for over a year before the wedding. I dyed vintage doilies in bright colours to lay on the tables and decorated a suitcase for the cards. We had a large pick-and-mix table with coloured glass bowls, large jars and cake stands that I collected. Our table numbers were made from kitsch Mills and Boon book covers with wedding related titles. We spent a lot of time scouring charity shops to track those down!”
Laura Rhian Photography captured their marvellous pictures and Laura made Marianne and James feel totally at ease, with her fun and friendly style.
“We both felt that photography was important to us, as looking back at the pictures would be our main way to remember the day in years to come. When we found Laura we were impressed with her work, but the main thing we liked about her was how friendly and enthusiastic she was. Neither of us are that keen on being in front of the lens, but Laura has a real knack for making you feel at ease and she makes the whole process fun.
Laura also has a great eye for detail – when we got our photos back we couldn’t believe all the little moments she had captured. It was so wonderful to look through the pictures and relive the day. You want to be everywhere all at once on your wedding day as there is so much going on, and so many people you want to spend time with, so the pictures allowed us to see all the little moments we might have missed.”
Together since 2004, the couple was engaged for a few years, as they wanted to take their time with planning the wedding.
“We met way back in 2004, when James was just finishing his master’s degree in Aberystwyth (my home town) and I was back home for the summer working at the local cinema. We got engaged the day before my 29th birthday, while we were out having a birthday meal with all our friends. At the end of the meal, James presented me with an ‘early birthday present’ which was in fact a giant model engagement ring! We were engaged just over two years before we tied the knot, we didn’t want to rush things, we wanted to enjoy the whole wedding planning process and take our time over it.”
“We’re big film lovers and our favourite ‘date night’ activity is going to the cinema, so when we discovered the The Electric Cinema was available as a ceremony venue, we knew straight away it was the place for us. The silver screen is the most romantic place on earth, so what better place to get married than the UK’s oldest cinema? We also wanted the emphasis to be on fun, and we love anything a bit kitsch, silly and colourful, and we tried to get a good mix of all the things we like, so the day was very personal to us. We didn’t want a really rigid colour scheme, more just a mix of complimentary colours to run through the day.
We picked these by discussing colours we both liked and using paint charts from B&Q to decide what shades looked good together.”
Peter Bowen Illustration designed a brilliant film poster that set the cinematic scene for their big day. I love it!
“Before our ceremony we showed a short film on the screen that we had made to set the scene. Having never made a film before we were unsure how it would turn out, but everyone enjoyed it. It showed us going on a road trip back to the house where we met, in my home town, Aberystwyth, followed by lots of silly pictures of us over the years. Creating the film was lots of fun and I think it added a really personal touch to the ceremony.
Peter Bowen designed our film poster, which we used for our invitations and also displayed on the poster boxes outside the cinema on the day. We love the artwork style of a lot of sixties comedy film posters and he took this idea and ran with it, mixing in our colour scheme and portraits of us both. We absolutely loved the finished product, it really set the tone for what was to come and we had so many compliments on it! We had a copy of the poster laid out at the reception for everyone to sign; it’s one of my favourite mementos of the day.”
Marianne was walked down the aisle by her dad Andy, to ‘First Day Of My Life’ by Bright Eyes. And the couple had a little surprise for their guests before the ceremony in keeping with their theme – a short and personal film they had made together.
I just love a bride who wears glasses on her wedding day – so very stylish. And Marianne looks beautiful in her fifties-style lace dress. Like many brides, she did initially find choosing her dress a hard process.
“Choosing the dress was one of the hardest things for me, I had a good idea of what I wanted but I didn’t know where to find it. As a plus size bride I was quite reluctant to go to traditional wedding dress shops as I had heard some horror stories from friends, so my first port of call was online. I trawled Etsy for handmade dresses, and found some lovely vintage style dress companies too, but then one day I stumbled upon a website called JJ’s House. I found the dress, and it was just what I wanted: a mix of tulle and lace, fifties tea length shape, V-neck and elbow length sleeves. It ticked all of the boxes but I was initially very dubious of what quality it would be, or if it would look anything like it did on the website.
So I kept looking elsewhere, but my mind kept going back to this one dress. In the end I decided to just order it anyway, since it was so reasonably priced, if it came and it was unsuitable I would still have the time and budget to find something else. About two weeks after it was ordered it arrived, and it was great! I was so pleased that the whole process was so hassle free, and even though it wasn’t my reason from ordering from the site, I had saved a small fortune. I ended up ordering two of my bridesmaids’ dresses from there too.”
“We found it hard to decide on readings as we didn’t want anything too serious or overly sentimental. After a lot of research we found two poems that we felt summed up our relationship and our wishes for how our marriage will be: “I’ll Be There For You” by Louise Cuddon and ‘I Wanna Be Yours’, by John Cooper Clarke.”
“My engagement ring is art deco, so I wanted something to compliment it and found my starburst engraved white gold band by Adam Foster on Etsy. James wanted something simple and found just the thing at Beaverbrooks.”
“Our Midland Red double decker bus was hired from Wythall Transport Museum, who we can’t recommend highly enough! We even had our own bus conductor who issued us with date stamped tickets as mementos of the day, and he was happy to chat away to all the guests to tell them all about the history of the bus.”
“Our Midland Red double decker bus was hired from Wythall Transport Museum, who we can’t recommend highly enough! We even had our own bus conductor who issued us with date stamped tickets as mementos of the day, and he was happy to chat away to all the guests to tell them all about the history of the bus.”
James sported a stylish suit by Gieves and Hawkes, shoes from Hugo Boss, a funky shirt from Marc Wallace, and cufflinks and tie from TM Lewin.
“The ushers and best man wore their own suits, we didn’t want everything too formal or matching as that wouldn’t fit with the relaxed feel we wanted for the day. Nic, the best man, had a Paul Smith floral shirt. For the ushers, we had ties made from Liberty print floral fabric by Stag Handmade on Etsy.”
The reception venue didn’t require much in the way of decor – so Marianne and James incorporated little vintage touches. Mills and Boon book covers for their table numbers is one very clever idea!
Little A supplied the vibrant blooms and was highly recommended by friends of Marianne.
“Little A were recommended to me by three of my friends who had all used them for their weddings. Amy was excellent, neither of us knows much about flowers so we took in some pictures of the sort of things we liked, and we even used paint charts to explain the colours we were using, and she knew exactly what to do. I wanted the flowers to be loose and colourful with a cottage garden feel, reflecting the pastel shades used for the bridesmaid’s dresses, but with some brighter flashes of yellow and deep purple to add a bit of drama.”
“We met Nirvana from Pastel and Lace at a wedding fair and were immediately impressed with her designs. She created a bespoke design for us with polka dot layers and floral decoration using colours from our invitation. We had a different flavour for each tier; classic Victoria sponge, lemon and chocolate and black cherry. It tasted incredible. Our cake topper was designed by my friend Hannah, who made it out of fimo and matched everything perfectly, even down to my earrings!”
“It is impossible to pick a favourite moment of the day, there are so many, from my bridesmaids arriving at my house in the morning with a bottle of champagne and lots of hugs, seeing James waiting at the end of the aisle looking surprisingly relaxed, the bus ride, the wedding quiz, and dancing the night away.
The whole day was an absolute blast, with all of the people we love most all around us. It was wonderful.”
Words of Wedded Wisdom
“Planning a wedding is a large task, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. I think it is a good idea to sit down with your partner and talk about what matters most to you, which will help you allocate your time and your money early on. For example, we knew we didn’t want a wedding band, so that saved us a large chunk of money straight away. It’s a good idea to involve your friends and family too – if someone offers to help, let them! We had so much help in the run up to our wedding, both our mums helped us with finding vases and china to use on the day, our friend Guy did a very entertaining wedding quiz between courses at the wedding breakfast which was a real highlight of the day, and my friends helped with making favours and the confetti bags. People enjoy getting involved and it makes life easier for you too.
Whenever I was getting stressed in the run up to my wedding, I tried to remind myself that there are no set rules of what you have to do on your wedding day, except the legal bit! Don’t get hung up on convention, or what people expect. And most importantly, never allow yourself to get caught up with trying to impress your guests. As long as your guests are well fed, the wine is flowing and there is some good music playing, everyone will have a wonderful time whatever form your day takes.”
“After buying a few wedding magazines at the early stages of planning, I soon realised that they weren’t for me. Most of the weddings featured were not to my taste and had massive budgets. Discovering wedding blogs really helped, as they are much more down to earth and the weddings featured tend to be much more varied and interesting. These blogs in particular featured gorgeous photography and really creative ideas, but these were balanced with practical, no nonsense advice which I found very helpful when we were finding ourselves getting a bit carried away with everything!
I love Love My Dress – the weddings featured are often very different from each other but they always have in common that the personalities of the couples really shine through, which is something we really wanted for our day. I love the look of it too; it is classy and elegant without being at all stuffy. The content is aspirational without being over the top. It is my favourite wedding blog.”
A huge heartfelt thank you to the lovely couple for these very wise words of advice and kind words! As soon as I saw your little video and pictures you transported me right back to my own movie-inspired wedding. And thank you to Laura Rhian Photography for sharing the magical moments between Marianne and James. Laura is based in Staffordshire, but will travel all around the UK and the world for wedding photography.
For more weddings inspired by cinema, movies and film that featured on Love My Dress you can click here.
Happy browsing!
Love Jo -xxx-
Photographer – Laura Rhian Photography
Film – Costa Sister Productions
Venue – The Electric and Highbury Hall, Birmingham
Bride’s Dress – JJ’s House
Bride’s Shoes – Vivienne Westwood
Bride’s Hair Accessory – Etsy
Bride’s Jewellery – Necklace from Lou Lou’s Vintage Fair and pearl earrings from H Samuel
Bride’s Scent/Perfume – Marc Jacobs ‘Daisy Eau So Fresh’
Bridesmaid’s Dresses – Courtesan Boutique and JJ’s House
Bridesmaid’s Shoes – Vivienne Westwood and Marks and Spencer
Groom – Suit from Gieves and Hawkes, shoes via Hugo Boss, shirt via Marc Wallace, cufflinks/tia via TM Lewin
Groomsmen/Ushers – own suits, Bestman’s floral shirt from Paul Smith, and usher ties from Stag Handmade on Etsy
Florist –Little A
Catering – Highbury Hall
Cake – Pastel and Lace
Rings – Adam Foster on Etsy and Beaverbrooks
Stationery – Peter Bowen Illustration
Hair & Makeup – The Vintage Salon
Transport – Red double-decker bus from Wythall Transport Museum
Jo Singletary View all Jo's articles
Jo hails from and lives in sunny Australia, is currently working towards her dream of being a career coach and a few of her favourite things are watching the sunrise over the ocean, morning walks on the beach, butterflies, and supporting the guide dogs charity.
Awesome wedding – one of the things I love most about love my dress is the celebration of love whatever form it takes. Seeing people’s tastes and ideas and the way they choose to express themselves is so awesome and every wedding is unique and lovely. This couple look particularly and very cutely loved up and the personal touches are awesome! Congratulations!
I am in love with this wedding. Love the vintage themed and all the details of the wedding. The colourful flowers are breathtaking and her shoes are just beautiful. As a plus size woman myself I love the confidence and happiness that this bride show in all of her images which I think is very important and we can not miss the way that the groom looks at her. It is just WOW! The photographer and all of the vendors did an amazing job. LOVE YOUR BLOG!
xo,
Kareem
Incredible wedding! So creative and innovating. It’s very refreshing to see these kind of photos! Loved it, awesome work!
Very beautiful wedding.