I leave you with one final feature before Christmas and hope that you enjoy this warming heartfelt celebration as much as I did. Before I begin I just want to wish you a very Merry Christmas indeed. I hope that you are surrounded by love and happiness during your festive celebrations.
Steph and Theo tied the knot on 19th December 2013, hoping for a cosy, simply and wintry day. They kept their wedding colours to a chic palette of white and gold, with DIY details and pretty candles. There were sparkle nails, milk and cookies, home baked cupcakes, and pretty felt hearts.
Steph looked stunning in her romantic gown, while Theo wore a suit from Next and the bridesmaids were pretty in white frocks. Oh so pretty and so very festive.
Thanks so much to the fabulous Sally T Photography for sharing her images today.
THE PROPOSAL | We had always said we would like to get married before moving into our first house together, and when we started looking house hunting we had talked about getting engaged sooner rather than later. We found out my ring size and I had pointed out the styles of engagement rings that I liked, then the rest was down to him! During a holiday in the Canary Islands in November 2012 he told me he had a ring waiting at home. The night we got back he gave me the ring and asked me to marry him in front of his parents. It wasn’t a surprise but it was still lovely and the ring was perfect.
THE VISION | We decided to plan a winter wedding for the following December. We pictured simple, wintery, Christmassy colours – mainly white and gold. We wanted lanterns and candle light, Christmas decs and a big but cosy venue. We have many family members living abroad, so we wanted to bring everyone together for our special day and what better way to do it than at Christmas time.
THE PLANNING PROCESS | Planning the wedding involved lots of wedding fayres and LOTS of scrolling through Pinterest! We got a tonne of our decoration ideas from Pinterest including our table plan, centre pieces and invitations.
BUDGET | We aimed to spend around £10,000 but had extra saved up in case we needed it. We spent around £13,000 in total.
THE VENUE | St Josephs Church, Middlesbrough. Crathorne Hall, Yarm.
THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Dress, veil and hair band from the Bridal Factory Outlet in Middlesbrough.
FINDING THE DRESS | It’s funny because people had said “you will just know when you’ve found the perfect dress” – I was sceptical because I am very picky, I had this idea in my head of what I wanted and I thought my perfect dress probably wouldn’t exist. However, it was only in the 2nd shop we visited, the shop assistant fastened me into a dress and I instantly KNEW this was the one I wanted to walk down the aisle in. It was nothing how I imagined – I wanted no fish tail, no glitz and long sleeves. I walked out of the shop with a fish tail, glitzy, mid-sleeved dress! It was also a bonus that it was from the Bridal Factory Outlet and only set me back £400.
GROOM’S ATTIRE | Next suit and shirt, and a pair of Loakes.
BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My 2 sisters (Zoe and Ellen)and Theo’s cousin (Mia) were my bridesmaids, and my Mum’s 5 year old God Daughter (Megan) was my little flower girl. Their champagne-coloured dresses were from Elizabeth George Bridal in Middlesbrough.
THE FLOWERS | Our flowers came from Butterflies Florist in Middlesbrough. By the time we ordered our flowers, we had decided we were keeping the colour theme very neutral – mainly cream and champagne. We chose cream roses, gypsophila, ivy and a few other different small white flowers. Butterflies florist also created the beautiful wreaths, which surrounded the lanterns for the centre pieces.
THE CAKE | I run a small cupcake business from home so decided to take on the challenge of making my own wedding cake. We chose to have a giant cupcake on the top of a tiered stand with 150 smaller and mini cupcakes on the tiers beneath. The giant cupcake design fit in with the wintery theme of the wedding and (unbeknown to Theo) the little snowflake design on my dress. I saved a small fortune making our wedding cakes although I was still baking at 10pm the night before the wedding!!
YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | In my opinion, we had the BEST photographer around. All hail Sally Thurrell! She captured our day beautifully. She has a very artistic eye for photography, creating amazing and natural photographs. She was unobtrusive and felt like a guest at the wedding. Although it was the middle of December and pretty cold, she captured some perfect photos with us outdoors. Our favourite wedding photos are dotted around our house and I believe they would not have been so amazing if it wasn’t for Sally.
THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | My Mum and I spent hours sewing little stuffed felt hearts with personalised ribbon – Christmas tree decorations as little favours for our guests. Our guests also received a small packet of ‘Love Hearts’ sweets on the tables. We bought these online and had the packaging personalised with our names, the date and a little message.
We found the idea of having a ‘fingerprint tree’ on Pinterest but decided to make ours in the style of Disney’s ‘Up!’ with balloons lifting up our house. Each of our guests left a fingerprint as a ‘balloon’ and signed their name.
We hired chair covers and ‘old gold’ coloured organza bows from The First Class Wedding Company.
Our table centre pieces were cream Laura Ashley lanterns surrounded by a Christmassy wreath and votives with tealights. We bought pinecones online to be used with small pieces of pearlised card as name places.
We also collected large jars and made a sweetie table along with scoops, paper bags and our favourite sweets for our guests to enjoy.
We hired a photo booth from Zvisuals, which we would definitely recommend! All of our guests LOVED it and we have a fantastic scrap book full of photos from the night – some precious and some hilarious!
THE HONEYMOON | We spent the weekend after the wedding in a Log Cabin in Keldy Forest. The cabin was so cosy with a log burning fire and a hot tub. It was so nice to relax after a manic few months planning and organising the wedding! A few months later we went on a road trip in California, visiting San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, LA, Lake Tahoe and loads in between.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7fuyjagDi0&index=1&list=WL – Our road trip!
MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Cliché to say but it was simply all memorable.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | You’ve just got to remember what the day is about, you will see that all of the little things you spent months deciding on almost become unimportant when you realise you’re starting an amazing journey with someone you love, and getting to share that with your family and friends.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |
Flowers | Butterflies Florist Middlesbrough
Dress | Bridal Factory Outlet
Photography | Sally T Photography
Chair Covers | First Class Wedding Company
Photo Booth Hire | Z Visuals
How wonderful.
Steph and Theo, thank you both so very much for sharing your lovely story today.
Merry Christmas everyone :-) I shall see you on the other side XOXO Lou