An Elegant Palm House Wedding

Its a small world isn’t it?  Today’s beautiful venue is just down the road from a close friend’s house and I’ve admired it many times during walks through the park.  Its a real pleasure to share today’s beautiful wedding here.

Meet Samantha, who works in marketing, and Adam, communications officer for an anti-trafficking charity, who married on the 2nd of September 2017 at Sefton Park Palm House in Liverpool.  The couple met at university and got engaged in some serious style in New Orleans while travelling through America in 2016.

“We chose the Palm House because it’s unique and visually stunning and it was saved from disrepair and restored to its former glory for the public to enjoy.  The gardens and plants make it a gorgeous setting for a wedding.”

Images by Rob Sanderson Photography

“The Palm House architecture and greenery inspired the day.  We also introduced some greenery that reminded us of our travels such as large tropical leaves that we saw in Costa Rica and our table names featured photos and quotes from our travel blog.  We used geometric shapes to tie in with the Palm House structure and copper, gold, slate accents – a colour combination we really like.  We added vintage elements too but kept these simple and classic.”

On her feet Samantha wore a gorgeous pair of heels by our lovely Little Book for Brides member, Rachel Simpson (Naomi, in ivory suede and champagne gold) while in her hair she wore a beautiful bespoke dried flower hair wire by Folky Dokey.  For scent she chose Wood Sage and Seasalt by Jo Malone and her earrings were the ‘Downton Earrings’ by Chez Bec via Notonthehighstreet.

“We wanted the flowers to feel irregular and natural, so used a mixture of greenery in-keeping with the Palm House, succulents and ivory flowers, as well as paper flowers in coppers, ivories, greys and book paper on rose gold wire.”

“Living Colour Flowers offered a truly bespoke service, talking through ideas and sketching out ideas with us and we liked the individual and creative feel they offered.”

Samatha looked wonderful in a fabulous lace fishtail gown by Justin Alexander, which she purchased from Puure Bride in Lymm, Cheshire.  I love the shape and the undeniable vintage glamour.

“It was classic and elegant.  I added the belt and delicate back chain (also from Puure Bride) to make it my own and I loved the fit and the gorgeous lace detailed back.”

Hair and make-up was the work of vintage stylists Russell and Browns.

The bridesmaids looked lovely in dove grey ‘Eva’ maxi dresses from Dorothy Perkins, worn with copper ballet pumps from ASOS and their own Folky Dokey flower combs.

Entertainment came in the form of The Cellists, who played during the ceremony and Bare Brass Band who provided the evening music.

“We had so many comments on the cellists who played songs we loved (including Nirvana when we signed the register) and the brass band who later on ended up getting the whole wedding party doing the conga with an inflatable unicorn – we would highly recommend them both.”

Transport to the ceremony came in the form of a super cute blue and white VW campervan which was hired as a present.

Adam wore a checked suit from Marc Darcy, paired with shoes from Loake and a red velvet tie.  He and his groomsmen also wore paper flower button holes finished with bakers twine and fern leaf, made by Samantha and her bridesmaids.

“We took a six month sabbatical from work to travel across South America and eighteen US States.  We got engaged in New Orleans.  We took a sunset jazz cruise on a paddle steamer along the Mississippi and Adam surprised me with his proposal afterwards overlooking Jackson Square in the French Quarter.  We celebrated with a Po-boy supper New Orleans style!”

Samantha’s dad accompanied her down the aisle to ‘Can’t help falling in love with you’ by Elvis, played live by The Cellists.

“Our readings were an extract from ‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemingway and an extract from a short story entitled ‘On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning’ by Haruki Murakami.  We chose these as Murakami is a favourite author of ours and we wanted unique readings that had meaning to us.”

Samantha’s vintage inspired engagement ring was purchased from Lowe and Sons of Chester, while the wedding rings were from Platinum Jewellers.

Today’s gorgeous light-filled pictures come to us courtesy of Rob Sanderson Photography and Samantha and Adam also hired New Venture Productions to capture their day on film as well.

“Rob did a great job capturing our day and we are very happy with our photos.  He met with us before to discuss his style etc. which really helped.”

For decor, Samantha and Adam bought a vintage bike locally and restored it, adding vintage tyres, a basket and a personalised slate sign from eBay.  Self assembly pots for confetti (which were stored in a parcel rack basket bought on eBay), as well as ‘sprinkle me’ stickers were available for guests and the guest book and stamps, pens and stickers, as well as the ‘Mr and ‘Mrs’ sign for the cake table and the copper initial letters for the top table all came from Hobbycraft.  The fun ‘I do’ balloons were purchased from My Dream Wedding.

Catering was the work of Deli Fonseca and as a nod to their engaement location, the wedding breakfast was a New Orleans style BBQ.  The beautiful red velvet cake was the work of Pink Cocoa and was served as dessert with winter berries and cream.

“Our florist provided the greenery for cake and the design was simple and classic with an irregular feel thanks to the ridged buttercream.  The copper initial topper came from Etsy.” 

For their first dance as newlyweds our couple chose ‘Stand by Me’ by BB King, learnt for the occasion and played by Bare Brass Band.

“We love the song and the film and it has lovely meaning to us.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“It’s a cliché but do remember to just enjoy the day and not sweat the details.  Focus on having fun with your partner, friends and family – this is one of the best days of your life after all!  Dance as much as you can and don’t worry about getting to speak to every guest, they are busy having fun and understand you don’t have time to talk to everyone. 

I was very nervous in the campervan on the way to the venue so my bridesmaids put on a cheesy 90s track that takes us all back to our teens and we sang together.  Ridiculous but it helped and is now a really fond memory.”

“On a practical note, focus on what you as a couple want, be true to things that really show your personality or have value to you both.  Think about the things that really matter on the day and put time, money and effort into those.  Music and having a great time dancing was important to us so we put our energy into getting live music that we absolutely loved rather than worrying about place settings.

Lastly trust good suppliers, this is their day job and they know what they’re doing, it will be fine!”

So many thanks to Samantha and Adam for sharing their day and to Rob Sanderson Photography for these beautiful photographs.  If you have fallen for Samantha’s gorgeous Justin Alexander gown, take a peek here for just a few more weddings featuring brides wearing this designer.  Grab a cup of tea first though- you may be some time!

Much love,

S x