A Blush Pink Dress for a Charming and Rustic Woodland Inspired Wedding

Happy Friday lovely ones. I’ll be heading up to the stunning north west coast of Ireland for a few days, how will you be spending your weekend? Do let us know if you’re undertaking some wedmin or simply just taking some time out.

The wedding you’re about to see is that of Mr & Mrs Gooch, both Management Consultants, they tied the knot on the first of October 2016, at the magnificent grade 1 listed Howden Minster in Yorkshire. The bride is lucky to have grown up just a short walk away. I love the juxtaposition of the grand church with the North Star Club, their rustic, outdoorsy style reception venue. Despite being very different, they compliment each other and the day has a lovely flow to it. The photographer capturing this gorgeously romantic celebration is Jemma King, she has really caught the essence of the day and comes highly recommended by the couple.

Photography by Jemma King

Mrs Gooch’s blush dress is by Martina Liana, from Isabella Grace in Tunbridge Wells. Just over half way through her pregnancy, the dress skims her small bump beautifully. She added an exquisite headpiece from Little book for Brides member, Liberty in Love.

“I loved the blush colour and the light floaty material of my dress. It felt very elegant and complimented the grandeur of the church but was also quite whimsical which worked well with the reception venue.”Abi’s beautiful blush Badgley Mischka shoes had to be sourced on eBay as they’re only sold in America. She added a spritz of Coco Mademoiselle perfume and accessorised with pearl earrings, a gift from Simon, as well as her usual gold and silver bangles.

“Our florist was actually one of our bridesmaids Zoe, who has recently set up her own business called The Little London Bunch. It was really important to us to involve our friends and family in our wedding as much as possible, to put a personal stamp on it, so when Zoe offered to do the flowers we were delighted.”

“She bought the flowers from the Covent Garden Flower Market, and drove them up from London the day before the wedding. She worked so hard, and we were delighted with the results. We wanted quite wild, unstructured flowers, mostly pale pink and peach with lots of green foliage, to compliment the bridesmaids dresses.”

Thinking about gifts for your bridesmaids? What about these gorgeous Katie Loxton pouches? The perfect, slim clutch bag, we adore them!

The gorgeous bridesmaids shine in their stunning floral skirted dresses from Coast with hot pink shawls and nude strappy sandals from Debenhams. The bride also gave them each a Bella Jane bracelet to wear.

“We met through work about 11 years ago. Simon was living in London at the time and I was living in Manchester. We attended a training course, got chatting at the bar and hit it off immediately, but at the time we both felt the distance was too much so nothing really came of it.”

“We did, however, loosely stay in touch and I think both always wondered/hoped if something might eventually happen between us. We got back in touch properly in early 2013, when I was working in Ghana and Simon in Abu Dhabi and then got together in August 2013.”

“Simon proposed whilst we were on holiday in Sardinia in September 2015. It was incredibly romantic, we went for a walk along the coast path soon after we had arrived, no one else was around and Simon got down on one knee. It was complete surprise, which was lovely. We then planned the wedding for a year later, during which I got the lovely news that we were expecting a baby. Slightly earlier than planned but we were super excited and feel incredibly lucky.”

The bride walked down the aisle accompanied by her dad. ‘The Flower Duet’ from Lakmé by Léo Delibes, one of her dad’s favourite songs was sung by members of Snaith Choral Society.

The couple had three readings, all chosen by the reader. Simon’s mum read 1 Corinthians 13, Abi’s mum chose an extract from ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ by Edward Lear, and Abi’s good friend Fiona read ‘Love Monkey’ by Edward Monkton, in reference to the bride’s love of monkeys and ‘Monk’, her beloved teddy monkey.

“We also wanted the ceremony part of the wedding to be quite traditional, so Howden Minster was perfect. It’s a beautiful church and the reverend was very accommodating allowing us to really make the ceremony our own and Simon’s stepdad Steve was able to deliver the sermon.”

Yorkshire based photographer Jemma King tells the story of the day beautifully through these gorgeous images.

“Jemma was an absolute pleasure to work with. She totally adapted to what we wanted which was great. We were conscious not to spend too long having photos at any one point, as we didn’t want to miss out on the celebrations. We just snuck off for 5-10 minutes at a time which worked really well.”

“Jemma worked so hard and had so much energy, I don’t know how she does it. Apparently she was lying on the floor taking photos from underneath us during our first dance, but we had no idea. We absolutely love the photos and would definitely recommend Jemma. She really captured the relaxed feel of our wedding so well.”

“My dad’s 50 year old Land Rover, roof down, served as transport for the day. It was amazing.”

“We both love walking in the outdoors and really wanted a wedding that represented our personalities. The North Star Club just felt very ‘us’. We stumbled across it on Google, it hadn’t been open long at the time so wasn’t particularly well known.”

“As soon as we saw it we knew it was right for us – very outdoorsy, lots of fairy lights, candles and log fires. It really captured the essence of what we were looking for. We have also become embarrassingly obsessed with the word hygge (Danish word which means cosy/warm atmosphere etc), so the phrase we kept using for our wedding was that we wanted it to be ‘deliciously hygge’.”

“The papakåta and woodshed are already beautifully decorated, so we didn’t need to do too much to them. We just added lots and lots of candles, fairy lights and flowers. Our good friend Pam made African style bunting.”

“The Hog and Apple Food Co. did the catering, it was absolutely outstanding. The food was a really important part of our wedding and it met, and exceeded expectations.”

“I could not recommend the them enough, they were great to work with. We’ve had so many compliments on the food since the wedding, with many people saying it’s the best wedding food they’ve ever had.”

“We gave homemade chilli jam as favours. My family have historically had an annual ‘chutney competition’ whereby everyone makes a chutney and we all vote on the best one. My brother’s ‘Dr Ben’s Chilli Jam’ won a couple of years ago, and has since been published in a book.”

“The whole day went so quickly. We loved the seriousness of the ceremony, standing together at the front of the church, making our vows to each other in front of our friends and family. The speeches were also excellent with a great balance of humour and emotion.

Towards the end of the night a group of us also sat around the fire drinking sloe gin and eating toasted marshmallows, whilst the band played acoustic camp fire songs (it sounds super naff but was really lovely).”

“I made the cake myself. I’ve made wedding cakes for a couple of friends in the past, and love baking, so really enjoyed doing it. It was quite simple, but did the job. We’ve kept the top layer for our baby’s christening.”

“We had our first dance to ‘So Good to Me’ by Chris Malinchak. It’s a dance track that we both love, and was being played a lot when we first got together. Shortly after which Simon spent three months cycling across America (as you do) so we used to play it a lot, separately, to remind ourselves of each other. It has always been ‘our song’ but it didn’t really feel appropriate for first dance so our band, really kindly, learned an acoustic version of it for us. Whilst no one else had a clue what we were dancing to, it felt very special and personal to us.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom
“Plan plenty of contingency time for the morning. Getting ready takes so much longer than you anticipate. We were unintentionally quite late to the church.
We planned breakfast and a walk the day after the wedding which was a lovely way to extend the time with our friends and family. The day itself goes so quickly that it was great to be able catch up with people the next day too.”

Thank you so very much to Mr and Mrs Gooch, it has been a delight to share your wedding. Also to the fabulous Jemma King, whose images are heartfelt and capture the feel of the day beautifully.

Love Caoimhe xx