Paul and Rebecca were married at Spring Grove House on a really rather wintry day. They wanted their wedding to be without a theme, but with a grey and Cadburys purple colour scheme.
Rebecca wore the most amazing statement ombre ruffed dress by The Couture Company and she looked utterly beautiful. Paul decided on a grey three piece suit with purple tie, which looked just brilliant. They had many lovely touches throughout their wedding, with baby photos, customised m&ms, candelabras and feathers. Of course not forgetting that magical snow, which made for the loveliest of portraits.
Thanks so much to the incredible Steve Gerrard Photography for sharing his images with us today.
Names… Paul and Rebecca
Wedding date… 04/02/12
The Proposal…. We went on a Thanksgiving trip to New York, not that either one of us is American, but we decided to join them in their celebrations. We stayed at Hotel Metro where we’d stayed on a previous trip, so we knew that the location was perfect, over looked by the Empire State Building, a short distance from Macy’s and the start of the Thanksgiving parade. In fact the hotel’s location played a massive part in the proposal.
Originally Paul had planned getting down on one knee in Central Park, but when we were rudely awoken by the band rehearsals for the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade at 2 am, we grabbed our winter coats and ventured on to the freezing hotel rooftop to see what was going on. Paul sneakily had slipped the Harbio jelly ring into his pocket and then got down on one knee! (The ring is still in the box and lives in my make up bag!) Complete Surpise
The Vision for the day…. No Theme / Grey & Cadburys Purple
Budget…. 15k
The Venue… We’d been to look at one other venue, The old library at the Custard factory Birmingham when Rebecca found the venue on the internet at Spring Grove house. The Cellarz, down stairs in spring grove house helped to make the decision, and once we’d been to view the venue there was no need to look anywhere else.
The Dress + Accessories….. Rebecca wore a couture bridal gown, designed with the help of Jo at the couture company in the Custard factory. I knew that I wanted the dress to be ‘messy/ ruffled/ textured with a drop waist. I described my ideas to Jo and then she started drawing right in front of me, and managed to draw exactly what was in my head. With several appointments of measurements, try ons and material decisions my dress came to life. Jo had made a similar one before that I had seen on their website, but I knew that I wanted to incorporate the colour theme of greys and silvers in to my gown, as well as feathers. Jo dyed feathers and material, and pleated fabric to create the textured skirt to make my dress.
I wore an ivory feather shrug, also from the couture company, and a vintage looking hair piece that I wore at the back of my head, also from the couture company. I wore a heart shaped silver necklace (which was my something old) because it was a gift from my mom a few years ago, that was given to her by her twin sister for her 16 birthday. I also wore a silver bumblebee cuff bracelet and ring by a Birmingham jewellery designer, brought from Smithsonia in Birmingham city centre who sell lots of jewellery pieces made locally.
Groom’s attire… Grey three piece suit from gieves and hawkes, Cadbury purple tie, red or Dead Pointy shoes. Matched groomsmen apart from waist coat. Suit chosen by groom
The Readings + Music…. Readings: “You’ve Got A Friend in Me“ Read by Usher – David Jones. “A Lovely Love Story” Read by Esther Levassuer. Music: Pre Entrance – She’s Always a Women – By Fyfe Dangerfield. Entrance – Dark Fantasy – By Kanye West. Register Signing - Young Blood – By The Naked and Famous. Exit - I Believe in a thing Called Love – By The Darkness.
Beautiful bridesmaids….. We had four adult bridemaids, who wore silvery light grey bridal gowns from Monsoon, accessorised with purple fur shrugs and purple round toed heeled shoes. Each of them received an identical bird necklace as a bridesmaid gift on the morning of the wedding, ordered from ETSY.com. We had two little feather girls who wore ivory pleated dresses from Monsoon as well with feather shrugs, also from Monsoon. Their necklaces were from House of fraser, one was a zebra and one a giraffe, to make a link to the safari park venue. Two other mini one year olds were also part of the bridesmaid team, and wore light grey/silver dresses from tk maxx, and ivory fur shrugs too.
The Flowers… Because my dress was so different a textured, my bouquet needed to be simple. We had looked at lots of wintery flowers, but cala lillies were our favourite. The Flower centre in Northfield, Birmingham we extremely helpful and explained that we could get purple cala lillies as well as ivory.
The Cake… The cake was a four tier amazing grey and ivory cake made by Dan Cockerill at The Cake Gallery, kings Norton. Each tier was carefully designed to incorporate different parts of the wedding, the top tier was made from rice krispies and was shaped like a bird cage, ruffles were added to the bottom layer to link to the textures of the brides gown.
Your Photographer…. The moment we saw steves work and vast back catalogue that was only one choice. Brilliant, class beautiful photos.
The Details + Decor…. Our invitations by foto-fusion, displayed a baby photo of both the bride and the groom and on the front said ‘guess who’s getting married?’ This is where the idea came from for our baby photo seating plan, that saw all guests been asked to provide a baby snap of themselves when returning their rsvp.
The favours were customised M&MS (detailed further down in questionnaire.) in card birdcages to link them back to the feathery theme and birds. M&Ms are something we both love and we ate loads of them on our trip to new York.
Table centre pieces were large candelabras of varying heights to create a slightly funky/not perfect look(like the bride’s dress) as you looked around the room. These were hired from The Flower Centre, Northfield.
The seating plan was part of the entertainment, as day guests had been asked to send a baby photo of themselves along with their rsvp. In order to find their seat they had to find themselves as a baby on the seating plan. Lots of giggles were had looking at each other as little people.
Baileys hot chocolates were served after the wedding ceremony. A good choice considering it snowed on the day. Little people wedding guests were given a mixture of story books, colouring books and sticker books at their table to keep them entertained while they waited for their food.
Wedding favours on the tables were personalised M&Ms ordered online from America. They were purple, grey and ivory. Some of them had the date on, some our initials, some ‘to infinity’ and some ‘and beyond,’ a line said by buzz light year in Toy Story, one of the grooms favourite characters.
The Honeymoon…. Thailand for two weeks, starting in Bangkok at the Hilton, then we flew down south to Khao lak to a wonderful resort casa de la flora, and then to Bo Phut spa and resort in koh samui. We planned it ourselves with the help of trail finders in Birmingham city centre. We were there for valentine’s day and expected this to be uncelebrated in Thailand, but they loved it! It was an amazing place to begin life as Mr and Mrs S, being pampered and eating delicious food.
Memorable moments… From the moment we got engaged, I, Rebecca, had dreamed of a wintery wedding. Orginally we had hoped to get married in Norway at the Ice Hotel, but we would have been unable to view this venue prior to our big day, so instead opted to stay in England. I was desperate to get married in the snow, and we had even enquired about using the snow machine at the west midlands safari park to stage some wintery snowy photos.
On meeting our photographer, steve gerrard, we told him the date of our wedding, which he and Emma case ended up shooting together on this first meeting I (the bride) told him that on this day it would snow. In the end I would tell everyone that it was going to snow, and had convinced myself that it was definitely going to snow.
On the morning of our wedding, I woke up at my parents’ house with my friend and my sisters and there was no snow to be seen. We arrived at Spring Grove house for about 10.30pm to meet our hairdressers who were already there. We started to chill and slowly get ready, when we looked out of the window and it was snowing. I can’t recall the exact time that we noticed, but it must have been by about midday and then it just kept coming. All of our guests arrived in the snow, and it just kept snowing. After the ceremony the groom and best men had photos in the snow, whilst the group photos were taken in the warm inside in front of an open fire. Using a large umbrella and borrowing a guests big coat, me and paul and our photographers steve and emma set off to get some bride and groom shots in the snow. AMAZING!!
Hand dryers and hair dryers were used to dry off before returning to our guests and joining them for our wedding breakfast. It was still snowing and it was nearly dark. After dinner and the speeches we moved down to the evening venue in the Cellarz…it was still snowing. Some guests struggled to leave because of the snow, some guests unfortunately never made it because of the snow, some staff worked over to help clear the car park and the road, and our photographers had to spend an unplanned night in the hotel as well because they couldn’t get home either.
The bestmen had a recording of Paul singing karaoke from he was 17 which was played during the speech thinking he was the next craig david. Room was filled with laugher and a very embarrassed groom. Very funny and a complete surpise.
We’re thinking of returning to the venue with our guests for our 1 year anniversary. I promise not to wish for snow, and hopefully everybody will be able to see and enjoy the Cellarz venue.
Advice for other couples… Plan, plan plan and don’t listen to others.
Credit where credit is due…
Venue: www.springgrovehouse.co.uk
Photographer: www.stevegerrardphotography.com/
Bride’s dress (boutique): www.the-couture-company.com/
Bride’s accessories (boutique) Shoes – www.irregularchoice.com / customized by www.the-couture-company.com/
Jewellery: www.smithsoniagifts.co.uk/
Hair and make-up: http://www.stevensonshairsalon.com
Make up done by bride using clarins make-up
Bridesmaids’ dresses (boutique) http://uk.monsoon.co.uk/
Groom’s suit (store): www.gievesandhawkes.com
Ties: www.tmlewin.co.uk
Wedding cake: www.thecakegallery.co.uk
Flowers: www.flowercentrebirmingham.co.uk
Stationery: www.foto-fusion.co.uk
How amazing was it that they Paul and Rebecca ended up with their perfect snowy wedding day?! Thanks so much to Paul and Rebecca for sharing their beautiful wedding with us today XOXO Lou