So much thought and attention to detail was apparent in WWW readers Samantha and Michael’s nuptials. They tied the knot on Friday 1st August 2014 at Matfen Hall in Newcastle.
They had a vintage glamour feel to their wedding, complete with the most lush royal blue Hydrangea flowers. Divine. They had pretty nail art, the most perfect gift for their flower girl and heart book art.
These two have so much style, with Samantha donning Davinia by Pronovias and a feather birdcage veil, while Michael looked dapper in a blue suit.
Thanks this morning goes to the utterly wonderful Sally T Photography for sharing her images.
THE PROPOSAL | How Michael managed to surprise me with his proposal I will never know, as I normally hunt out all surprises and until that day no one has ever been able to surprise me with anything. He had been planning it since October, and had hidden my engagement ring on the top of the fridge, as I’m only short it was the only place he thought I would never look. We normally exchange Christmas cards together every Christmas eve, it’s a bit of a tradition. That year, he didn’t seem as keen, instead just gave me the card and walked off without waiting. Inside it had a beautiful verse, and at the end he had simply writing “Will you marry me” I found him down on one knee in the next room in tears holding the most beautiful engagement ring. It was the most perfect proposal as he knows that I would of died of embarrassment had he done it in public, and I love keeping little mementos from everything we do so now every Christmas I can get this card out and re-live it all over again.
THE VISION | The most important thing for us was to have our close family and friends there. We wanted the day to show mine and Michael’s personalities and be something that all of our friends would love. I’m a huge fan of vintage glamour, and I have been a golf widow since the moment me and Michael started dating so we really wanted to incorporate those things in our day.
THE PLANNING PROCESS | The planning was my favourite bit. People always tell me I’m quite a creative person, and Michael was more than happy to let me run with my ideas as long as he was involved in the big stuff. Although I did have to put my foot down when he wanted to be involved in my dress, I would come home from work to find pages folded over in wedding magazines of dresses he liked!! My big sister Gemma was a huge help, and I honestly don’t think the day would have turned out as it did without her. She knows more about weddings and wedding etiquette than I ever will and made sure that I stayed on the right path without upsetting too many people!
Me and Michael had a great relationship with our wedding co-ordinator Victoria, and she made sure that not a single details was missed. I’m sure I bugged the heck out of her, and I sometimes felt like I was inundating her with questions, but no problem was too big or small for her.
BUDGET | £20,000
THE VENUE | Matfen Hall
THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was Pronovias – Davinia. My birdcage veil was custom made by What Katy Did Next, who managed to incorporate feathers to match my dress and make a miniature version for my flower girl. She also made my garter, which was beautiful with blue ribbon and cameo broach. My clutch bag was Lulu Guinness. My shoes are very special to me, with size 1 feet to get nice shoes that fit is a daily struggle, especially as I am a big lover of heels. I had leather ivory peep toe shoes made to measure and then had them hand painted with blue hydrangeas to match our wedding flowers, with our initials and the date on the heel.
FINDING THE DRESS | This was easy, when my sister was married the year earlier we had built up a really good relationship with a particular bridal shop and I knew I wanted to go back there. Not only are the girls amazing but the selection of dresses is so varied you are spoilt for choice. My dress for the second one I tried on and fell in love with it straight away. It wasn’t the traditional type of dress and I loved the feathers in the neckline as it tied in with my idea of vintage glamour.
So that I still got the full bridal experience my mum encouraged me to try on more dresses, even though I had already had my heart set on one I’m so glad I did, I mean how often do you get to try on a huge bright pink meringue dress?!
GROOM’S ATTIRE | We both don’t really like the tradition suit with the floral type waistcoat. I love Michael in a suit, he looks so handsome but he only ever wears them at big family events. We both picked an electric blue three piece suite, Michael with an ivory tie and his best men blue ties. They all scrubbed up really well.
THE READINGS & MUSIC | During the ceremony we had a jazz trio play Ella Fitzgerald Dream a Little Dream as I walked down the aisle. For the guest book I managed to find this song on 12” LP, had it frames and guest signed the frame. My younger sister Rachel read the first reading, she was so nervous but did amazing. The reading she had written herself and is was perfect and so personal to us both. Michael’s sister Emma read the second reading, a verse from Bob Marley “He’s not perfect” which sums up their relationship perfectly and resulted in a quite a few laughs. Michael’s face was a picture as this was a surprise for him.
BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My maid of honour was my big sister Gemma, and my bridesmaids, my little sister Rachel and my best friend Gemma. Their dresses where Dessy and hair bands Jenny Packham. Our niece Molly was our beautiful flower girl, her dress was from Debenhams and hair band was a miniature version of mine custom made by What Katy Did Next.
THE FLOWERS | Large blue hydrangeas for my bouquet, I wanted to keep it bold but simple. The bridesmaids also had blue hydrangeas but broken up with ivory roses, these flowers also incorporated into the button holes and corsages. We had large centre pieces made up of blue hydrangeas in tall glass vases with frozen petals scattered on the tables.
THE CAKE | Michaels mum is fantastic at making cakes, and when we started planning the wedding I joked with her that I would put her skills to the test with ours. I’ve asked her afterwards and apparently I definitely did! We had three tiers made up of miniature fruit cakes all individually iced with a mixture of 5 different designs either blue or ivory. We then had two more tiers made up of fruit cake with 2 ceramic swans as cake toppers. I was over the moon with the cake, I knew it would look good but didn’t think it would be as spectacular as it was. I can’t thank Ann enough for making this cake as I know a lot of painstaking hours went into it.
YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | I can’t remember who I found first either Sally our photographer of Katy who made my birdcage veil, as Sally does all of Katy’s photographs for her business. Whoever it was I couldn’t be more pleased. After looking at Sally’s website and other weddings she has done, we both loved her style of photography. Neither of us are very keen on having our photographs taken, so we knew straight away that we did not want a lot of ‘posed’ photographs, we wanted more natural moments to be captured.
We first met Sally when she came to our house to have a quick chat about what we wanted on the day, I think it was only supposed to be about ½ hour meeting. A few hours later, we were still chattering away about our ideas and just life in general. Sally has such a casual and warm way about her, that on the day she fitted in with my family and friends amazingly and even helped out on the morning. There was nothing forced or intrusive about her style we really couldn’t have asked for more. And now we have seen the photos we really can’t wait to share them with our family and friends. Sally has managed to capture such special moments, all very natural that we would never have gotten if she hadn’t taken the time to get to know us and make us feel so comfortable.
THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Stationery was something that I probably mulled over the most, for me it was so important as it was the first glimpse that family and friends would get of our big day. I must have looked at hundreds of designs, and couldn’t find anything that I liked. In the end I designed me own using adobe illustrator. Doing it myself meant that I could use my design right through the whole day and I have even incorporated my design with my thank you cards, at no extra cost.
In terms of decorations we were able to keep things quite simple, as Matfen Hall was an amazing venue and really didn’t need that much decorating. Down the aisle we had scattered frozen ivory rose petals, that our Flower Girl Molly added to as she walked ahead of me. The centrepieces were large blue hydrangeas in tall glass vases. Each table was named after one of our favourite books or films adapted from books. I managed to hunt all over ebay for these books and folded hearts into the pages to be used as a the table numbers.
For the evening reception we loved the idea of a photo booth, but we had seen it so many times and not ones to sick with the norm we booked the “Moonbooth” which not only fit in with our style of the day so well (they even brought along vintage golf clubs for Michael) but our guests loved it, it was something so different and unique that for months afterwards nearly all of our friends had their Moonbooth photo as their Facebook profile page.
THE HONEYMOON | For our honeymoon we have booked three weeks visiting Singapore, Borneo, Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi and finishing at Singapore again. Because of where we wanted to go, going straight after the wedding would have meant hitting their wet season so we are due to fly 30th October, to say we are excited is an understatement I’m currently counting down the hours.
We also booked a mini moon in the lakes and left the day after our wedding. We spent a lovely weekend together, giving us the perfect chance to just relax and recoup after a very hectic few weeks.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS | The night before the wedding as a lot of our family and friends had decided to spend the night at Matfen Hall, we organised a day of golf for the men during the day whist the women sampled the wine taking full advantage of the spa, finished off with a huge family meal. My family live in the Midlands and we live in the north east so it is rare to get us all together in one room, so this was extra special for us both.
In the run up to the wedding Michael had been so relaxed, we were getting married on our 10 year anniversary so his mind-set was “why should I be nervous?” I’ve asked him afterwards his most memorable moment, and he has said it was definitely on the morning with his dad. All of the boys played a round of golf on the morning, he said he was still very relaxed and chilled out, just another game of golf. Afterwards he had a drink with his dad who said “Come on son lets go get you married” Michael has described this moment as his legs going as the realisation of what we were about to do suddenly hit him.
I’ve really struggled to pick a favourite moment, as I honestly loved every single minute, in all the planning, preparation and throughout the whole day. Everything went as I planned, but one moment that I didn’t plan but still puts a huge smile on my face is the last dance before the DJ packed up. He played Oasis, Champagne Supernova, with our friends and families we all linked arms, singing and dancing along. Me and Michael got pushed into the centre to have our final dance, surrounded by all our family and friends I really have never been more happy.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | I kept a diary and scrap book when I was planning our wedding. There are so many amazing wedding ideas and blogs on line, that I wanted all my ideas in one place. So I spent so many nights cutting and pasting ideas into a scrap book. All big events, like picking my dress, viewing venues I wrote down what we did, how we both felt and the things that made us laugh. I love reading through this now, and there are already little details that you forget about.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |
Venue | Matfen Hall
Veil | What Katy Did Next
Photography | Sally T Photography
Jazz Trio | Dean Stockdale
Flowers | Flowers by Edwina
Suit | Bakers
Shoes | Pretty Small Shoes
Shoe Painter | Beautiful Moments
Dress Shop | Laura Day Bridal
Nails | Nancy Loves Nails
Bridesmaids | Dessy
Dress Shop | Elizabeth George Bridal
How lovely.
Samantha and Michael thank you both so very much for sharing your wedding with us today XOXO Lou
