If you’re thinking of holding your wedding in late Autumn/Winter, there are a few key points to consider. First and foremost, light images. You want gorgeous sunlit images of you both before the sun sets and stunning low level light images too, both of your décor and of the party of course. So finding the right photographer is crucial. Secondly, pretty lighting is super important, from candles to fairy lights and festoons, go bold or go home. You can really have fun with a winter wedding. Lastly, embrace the season, don’t fight it. Get cute cover ups, add sparklers and think about using seasonal flowers. Today’s couple followed all of the above and more, which made for the cosiest of celebrations.
Jenna and Jon were married on the Saturday 26th November 2016 at Dodmoor House in Northamptonshire. They envisioned a simple, rustic and elegant day, which was intimate in atmosphere. The barn setting really set the theme off, with the couple adding rustic wooden signage, glorious fresh florals and personal touches to the venue.
Jenna chose a lovely lace frock by Mori Lee which she accessorised with a long veil and navy bow heels. Continuing the navy hue, Jon wore a navy suit and tan shoes, while the bridesmaids wore floor length navy dresses. So very gorgeous.
Many thanks to Ania Ames for sharing these divine images today.
THE PROPOSAL | Jon had to go to Australia with work for 4 months in April 2015, I was lucky enough to join him for 3 weeks. On the very last day as we were saying our goodbyes at the airport, Jon pulled out a ring and asked me to marry him. Best goodbye ever!!! Did make for a very long flight home, with no one to talk to though!
THE VISION | Simple, rustic and elegant, an intimate day with our nearest and dearest.
THE PLANNING PROCESS | Once Jon was home from Australia, we started to look for a venue and once this was chosen, everything else was pretty straightforward. I had quite a clear vision for what I wanted and generally went with recommended suppliers which were all a dream to work with. As a project manager organising my own wedding was like a dream project. Jon and I agreed upfront what he wanted to have an input in and anything else I had free reign on :-) music to any brides ears!
THE VENUE | Dodmoor House, was exactly what we were looking for in a venue, the barns fitted perfectly with our vision and knowing we wanted a winter wedding we knew all the fairy lights in and around the venue would look beautiful. With a smaller number of guests to the day we were able to use the smaller barn for our wedding breakfast, which enabled us to create a really intimate feel with round tables and guests able to see out of the large doors on to the courtyard.
THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | I knew I wanted something lace and A line and tried multiple dresses on, but my Mori Lee designed dress was the one I kept being drawn back to. I accessorised it with a Mori Lee belt to add a bit of bling and then a lace trimmed veil, both sourced from eBay and total bargains! I recycled some beautiful lace shoes I wore for my brother’s wedding a few years ago and had them dyed blue to match the bridesmaid dresses. We had my wedding ring made using the diamonds from my gran’s ring, so this is really special to me as she is no longer with us.
FINDING THE DRESS | Finding the dress wasn’t too traumatic, I knew I wanted lace and A line and did a lot of online research. After deciding Mori Lee was the designer for me I hunted out some stockists to try them on. I narrowed it down to two dressed with the help of the lovely ladies at Stunning Bridal, my mum and best friend I finally chose my dress. I kept my dress a surprise from everyone else, which added to the day for me as no one knew what I would be wearing.
GROOM’S ATTIRE | Jon and groomsmen hired Navy Blue 3 piece suits from Moss Bros, and they looked super smart. One of my favourite things was seeing Jon for the first time and thinking how smart he was! He loved having it on and kept it all on all day!
THE READINGS & MUSIC | My chief bridesmaid Jemma, did a lovely reading for us, called ‘I will be here’ by Steven Curtis Chapman. I walked down the aisle to Cannon in D, Pachelbel which is my mum’s favourite and then we signed the register to string quartet versions of ‘Somewhere only we know’ and ‘Wonderful Tonight’. Our first dance was to ‘Wasn’t’ Expecting That’ by Jamie Lawson. We both first heard it when we were apart when Jon was in Australia and was the song we both felt carried a special meaning for us.
BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My four bridesmaids, Jemma (Chief Bridesmaid and best friend) Kerry (My sister in law), Gill (Jon’s sister) and Beth (My little sister) all wore floor length Navy blue with lace detailing dresses from Monsoon. I knew I wanted blue bridesmaid dresses and ideally with some lace on them so began hunting pretty much straight away. These dresses ended up coming up in the sale and were a bit of bargain. The girls all wore silver shoes of their choosing and a silver and blue gem bracelet that I bought them as a thank you.
THE FLOWERS | We kept the flowers quite simple using lots of grey foliage, white and hints of blue to bring together our colour scheme. We celebrated my Scottish heritage by incorporating thistles into my bouquet, the table decorations and my family’s button holes. We also used beautiful anemones to add the hint of blue to the flowers on top of the blue thistles. Our amazing florist created beautiful table arrangements using our own wooden lanterns and surrounding them with flowers. We also had a large lantern sat in a wreath of flowers for during the ceremony. My four bridesmaids had small gypsophila bouquets and we also had little sprigs of this around the window ledges with lots of candles.
THE CAKE | We kept this simple and had a 3 tier cake that was wrapped in a cream buttercream with a few clusters of flowers to add some detail. We had 3 flavours, lemon and poppy seed, carrot and chocolate fudge! Each of them were absolutely delicious and the leftovers got demolished pretty quickly in the days following the wedding.
YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Ania Ames was our incredible photographer for the day! Ania had a tricky job on her hands with both a bride and groom who are not confident in having their picture taken. In fact when we met Ania for our engagement shoot, one of the first things Jon said was ‘he didn’t like having his photo taken’, just what every photographer wants to hear at the start of a photo shoot. It’s hard not to relax in Ania’s company though, she has such a relaxed style to her work and you can’t help but feel that you are just out for a walk with your friend. All our friends commented on how lovely Ania was and what an infectious personality she has. The way in which Ania captures light and natural beauty is exquisite, she is an incredibly talented photographer. We were so lucky to have Ania capture our special day and couldn’t be happier with our pictures, in fact we love them that much, we are struggling to work out which ones to put on the wall!
THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | I absolutely loved creating the look for our wedding and spent hours on Pinterest finding ideas that I liked and could replicate. I love being crafty and making things myself so knew that we would make a lot of things for the wedding. We are very lucky that Jon’s mum loves crafting too and she created the look for our invitations, which I then carried through the rest of the stationery. She also made an amazing guest book with each page carrying a unique design. We kept it simple with craft coloured card, natural ribbon and accents of blue ribbon.
Our table plan sat on a revamped ladder of my dad’s which is probably about 30 years old, that I painted and then wrapped fairy lights round. Our tables were all names after Game of Thrones families as this is Jon’s favourite programme EVER!!!
We bought some old crates and used these to continue the rustic feel and put giant LOVE letters in them along with another lantern. My sister in law, decorated some glass jars in glitter and we put these within the crates and around the room.
We used an old pallet to display the timings for the day and painted these on ourselves and then again wrapped fairy lights round it….. I love fairy lights!!
We had a sparkler runaway, which was great fun and a good chance to get everyone organised and together before we cut the cake and had our first dance.
THE HONEYMOON | We booked a last minute deal on the Monday after the wedding with the very generation donations that all our family and friends give us as gifts. We flew to Cape Verde on the Wednesday and enjoyed 2 weeks of beautiful sunshine. This was our first holiday in 3 years and it was so nice to just relax and enjoy each other’s company.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS | So many special moments but a few of my favourite were probably:
Seeing Jon for the first time, my husband is not known for showing his emotions so to see him so emotional really got me and needless to say there were a few tears on all accounts. It was such an amazing feeling to be finally walking down the aisle towards him.
Spending the day with all our favourite people. We kept the day fairly small on purpose, which allowed us to create a really intimate day and felt like I could spend time with everyone and really enjoy everyone’s company.
Seeing Dodmoor all set up with our decorations and how everything had come together just as I had hoped.
Giving my own speech, you don’t very often get to say thank you to the important people in your life and even though very nerve wracking I was glad I got to say a few words.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Organising a wedding can be stressful and it’s easy to get carried away with it all, but just try to stay focussed on what’s really important to you for the day and don’t lose sight of why you are getting married. I always had a little self-reminder that what really mattered was that I got to marry my best friend and the rest would all work itself out!
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |
Photographer | Ania Ames
Wedding Dress | Stunning Bridal
Bridesmaid Dress | Monsoon
Hair | Mix Hair
Make Up | Aimee Garner
Groomsmen | Moss Bros
Florist | The Green Room
Cake | J’aime Gateux
Venue | Dodmoor House
Band | Jack Starr Band
Caterers | Portfolio Events
Just magic!
Jenna and Jon, many thanks to you both for sharing your darling celebrations here on WWW xo Lou