Right, I think it’s time to be able to mention the ‘C’ word. Yes, Christmas. We’re past Halloween and bonfire night and are fast approaching December, so it’s allowed now right hehe? Anyway I know there will be those of you set to marry over the festive season and will be looking for some cosy winter nuptial inspiration, which is why I am thrilled to share this wedding with you today.
WWW readers Kerri and Rory chose to marry on the 27th December 2014 at Larchfield Estate in Northern Ireland. A relaxed and informal feel was order of the day with great food, wine and music. First up, the flower girls. Their outfits were just so lovely, with cosy cardies and peter pan collars, I am just working out if I can recreate a grown up version for myself. The rich burgundy blooms worked perfectly alongside the grey hues and created a warm feel throughout.
Kerri wore Delaney by Sarah Janks and Rachel Simpson shoes which looked heavenly, while Rory went for a suit from Marks and Spencer. So very lovely.
Thanks so much to Jonathan Ryder Photography for sharing these stunning images with us.
THE PROPOSAL | In our kitchen, after we booked the venue and our families knew we were getting married. I had always worried about where we were going to get married because I didn’t want a typical hotel wedding with chair covers, red carpet, tails and wedding cars. I wanted something less formal and a short engagement. We went to look at Larchfield Estate at the end of August, loved it and it was available on 27th December when all our friends would be home for Christmas anyway, so we booked it!
THE VISION | Something informal where all of our closest friends and family could be with us on the happiest day of our lives. We wanted a small church that would feel full, good food and wine, a relaxed atmosphere, good music and lots of dancing! We didn’t want to spend hours posing for unnatural photographs but wanted our whole day captured; Jonathan Ryder did this perfectly for us.
THE PLANNING PROCESS | We had 4 months to plan the wedding, the first 2 weeks were hectic but after that it was fine. I really enjoyed planning the wedding. There was no theme, the colours etc just emerged as we found things we liked. I discovered Pinterest and wedding websites such as WWW and became a bit addicted to them!
Given the limited time to plan the wedding, we didn’t have time to go around wedding shows, listening to bands, tasting cake or viewing stationery so I did a bit of research on line and asked for recommendations from the planners at Larchfield and Jonathan (the photographer). Their recommendations were great, the band were better than we could have imagined and certainty achieved our vision of plenty of dancing.
THE VENUE | Larchfield Estate; a barn on an Estate with beautiful grounds and a lake. There are 3 cottages for overnight accommodation, just enough for us and our 2 families. We put on a bus for our guests from our home town where the ceremony took place.
THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Delaney by Sarah Janks from The White Gallery. My shoes were Rachel Simpson, they were not too high as I wanted to be able to wear them all day, which I did. I also bought the bag to match the shoes with a cute little bow on it. My headpiece also came from The White Gallery, which Rachel kindly allowed me to swap when I couldn’t settle on the original one I chose.
FINDING THE DRESS | I was a little bit nervous about finding the dress because I had heard of people ordering their dresses over a year in advance. I saw a dress online that I liked and discovered that my local stockist was less than a mile from our house. We live in a semi-rural village and I wasn’t even aware there was a Bridal Boutique there!
I phoned Rachel at the White Gallery and she reassured me that the lead in time for ordering a dress was 12 weeks, so I made an appointment to see the dress I had seen online.
Rachel was very helpful, I ended up choosing a different dress to the one I had seen online. It was by Sarah Janks; a designer I hadn’t seen in all the wedding magazines which was perfect for me. I didn’t visit any other Bridal Boutiques, there were plenty of gorgeous dresses in The White Gallery to choose from.
GROOM’S ATTIRE | In keeping with the less formal approach, Rory wanted an ordinary suit rather than tails. We also preferred the idea of buying the suits than renting them. Finding the Groom’s, Best Man and Groomsman suits was actually more challenging than finding the Brides and Bridesmaids dresses!
Rory’s suit was from Marks and Spencer and the Best Man and Groomsman suits were from Next, they were all charcoal grey.
THE READINGS & MUSIC | Rory chose the readings from a selection given to us by the Priest. The music at the Church was by Wedding Music N.I. who were recommended by a friend. They played traditional Irish music and Christmas Carols rather than hymns because I wanted the music to be as upbeat as possible.
BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | The Bridesmaids dresses came from Coast, they had jackets from Great Plains and shoes from Next. We all went shopping and tried on dresses to see what everyone liked. The girls liked the grey colour short dresses from Coast and I found flower girls dresses in a burgundy colour, grey jumpers and grey converse style boots for our nieces, that is how the colour scheme emerged. The Bridesmaids got burgundy shoes and the flowers tied the whole thing together.
THE FLOWERS | I brought all the bits and pieces I had gathered to Bernie at Preston Flowers as well as a few pictures from the internet that I liked. Bernie designed the flowers and we’re delighted how they turned out.
THE CAKE | 2 of Rory’s sisters and brother in-law (to be in a couple of weeks) bought us the cake as a wedding present. Larchfield Estate have a cake tree which we liked and chose to use. Once again I supplied a few pictures of cakes we liked and the cake was a surprise to us. We saw it the day before the wedding. It was beautiful; we had one tier of traditional fruit wedding cake, one tier of strawberry and vanilla and a tier of biscuit cake. Biscuit cake is an Irish cake made from broken up biscuits and chocolate, this was a request from Rory. It was funny when we went to cut the cake, we didn’t know which tier was which and tried to cut the biscuit cake. It is much harder than either the sponge or fruit cake and we couldn’t get the knife through it! We served the cake with the evening food of chip butties after the band played before the DJ played, I had a piece of each and they were all delicious.
YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Jonathan Ryder was fantastic; he captured our day from start to finish. We spent approximately an hour getting photos taken before the guests arrived at Larchfield, the rest of the day we spent with our friends and family. It couldn’t have been better and we are absolutely delighted with the outcome, so much so that we can’t decide which photos to include in our album! I cannot recommend Jonathan highly enough, he is friendly, unobtrusive and clearly enjoys what he does. We felt at ease and able to be ourselves all day.
THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | We loved the simplicity of the barn the way it was. Larchfield keep the lovely fairy lights up permanently and there was a large Christmas tree in the barn. There really wasn’t a lot of decorating required! I did a bit of a DIY project of spray painting wine bottles as centre pieces for the tables which had flowers in them and we had lot of candles, a few small jars of flowers scattered around the place and a few Christmas decorations. The place names were made from Tunnocks Tea Cakes with a little flag made out from a cocktail stick and black paper. I saw the tea cakes on Pinterest, Rory and I both loved the simple idea.
I displayed a photograph of my mum who passed away 8 years ago along with a poem, a candle called ‘angles wings’ and my bouquet on a lovely old table provided by Larchfield. My Chief Bridesmaid Sinead gave me a present of a little charm containing a photograph of mum which hooked onto my bouquet so she was with me throughout the ceremony. I also used one of my mum’s rings as my wedding ring. It was tough not having my mum there on my wedding day, but she was remembered beautifully by the Priest who was a family friend and by my dad during his speech. I had my emotional moment in the house before leaving for the Church which was perfect. I remained tear free for the rest of the day which is the way mum would want it on the happiest day of my life.
THE HONEYMOON | We had a Mini-Moon to Cork for 4 days, I think I slept the whole journey down and for most of the first day. Perhaps planning the wedding took more out of me than I thought. It was just what we needed.
In July we went to Sardinia and Lake Como in Italy for our proper Honeymoon which was great, it gave us something to look forward to once we got back into our normal routines after the wedding.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS | There were so many; I loved looking up the aisle at Rory looking back at me before walking up with my dad to meet him. There were a couple of occasions where I saw all our friends and family together; old friends and new friends all enjoying themselves which made me smile. Rory’s slightly inappropriate sausage joke during his speech and the eruption of laughter that followed from everyone except my Dad! I also loved when the wedding was over, we went back to the Cottage where Rory picked me up and carried me through the door. We sat on the sofa in our lovely cottage where we took our shoes off, I pulled the pins out of my hair, sipped a glass of wine, Rory was rubbing my feet and we talked about the amazing day we had.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Do what you want to do, it is your day. Relax and enjoy it. There will be a few things that will not go exactly as planned but don’t let it ruin your day, the guests will probably not even notice.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |
Photographer | Jonathan Ryder Photography
Dress | The White Gallery
Venue | Larchfield Estate
Band | The Big Kahuna
Stationery | Love 22 Stationery
Florist | Preston Flowers
Ahh so romantic. I think it’s just the perfect timing for a family filled loved up celebration too.
Thanks so much to Kerri and Rory for sharing their wonderful nuptials today xo Lou