Classic, Real Weddings

17.12.2010

Natalie and Dan were married this October at the gorgeous South Lodge Hotel in Horsham. Natalie looks radiant in her Suzanne Neville gown and i just adore the whole feel to their wintry romantic day. The navy and dark pink colour scheme is simply stunning and works so well. This wedding is classic, timeless and just gorgeous and the photography exceptional.

Huge thanks to the fabulous London wedding photographer Rik Pennington, for allowing me to use his gorgeous work today…

The Proposal….

It was in a hotel in Brighton– one of our favourite places. It was very romantic with champagne and flowers and Dan down on one knee. I liked that fact that it was just the two of us in our room, the words that Dan said were so lovely but neither of us can remember much detail now we were both so emotional! I couldn’t stop shaking for about two hours afterward! We called all our favourite people before heading out to our favourite Brighton eatery for dinner and more champagne!

The Vision for the day….

We wanted a fairly small and intimate wedding with our closest friends and family and we wanted our day to be full of celebration, joy and most of all fun, fun, fun! We planned our evening celebrations to be fairly long to optimise the party time and we wanted us and our guests to be on the dance-floor all night. We had a great band playing all the classics so once the formalities were done we boogied the night away.

The Flowers…

The flowers were done by the sister of a friend of ours. I was very pedantic about them being the exact right shade of pink and she listened to my every whim and was incredibly helpful. I think the results speak for themselves! I wanted a bouquet which had more of a ‘rustic’ feel to it and when the flowers were delivered to my room at the hotel I couldn’t have been more pleased with the way they turned out!

The Planning Process….

Friends had advised us to enjoy every second of planning as the day itself goes so quickly. We allowed ourselves a year to plan and approached it as a team, splitting out the duties based on our strengths– it sounds really practical and unromantic but we are both very organised people and can’t bare leaving things to the last minute! We worked out what was mportant to us and what wasn’t both as a couple and individuals– there were A LOT of lists made!

I also got slightly addicted to wedding mags… they can be useful for ideas and inspiration but beware, it is very easy to let the addiction spiral out of control! We used ‘e-vites’ for friends and made the paper invites for family, which added to the fun. Friends and family got involved as much as possible with one of the bridesmaids making the name tags for the table, my mum making the cake and a good friend editing all the music for us.

We wanted the wedding planning process to mean that we had an excuse to see more of friends and family so ‘delegating’ meant we had an excuse for lots of meeting up. We had some lovely evenings with friends ‘doing wedding stuff’ over a bottle of wine!

The Venue…

We decided early on that a county manor house was what we wanted. When we went to South Lodge we didn’t ever expect it to be the place we eventually got married as it was a large hotel (converted from an old house) and we thought we wanted something much smaller and more intimate. We both fell in love with it straight away though and new as soon as we walked out that it was our dream venue. Set on the South Downs, surrounded by acres of land the views were stunning. We viewed n in October, the same weekend we eventually got married the following yea and the autumnal colours were beautiful. One of the major selling points for us was that the inside was as gorgeous as the outside. Knowing the English weather is not to be relied upon we wanted somewhere that was still gorgeous and spacious inside (some country houses can be a bit dark and dingy) in case we couldn’t go out much. As it was, the weather was an unseasonable 22 degrees with bright sunshine on the day! We were really keen for as many of our guests to stay as possible so we could catch up with people the following day. The guest rooms were simply wonderful with so much character and charm we knew that staying there would also be a great experience for our friends and family which was so important to us.

Beautiful bridesmaids…..

My gorgeous sister and two of my best friends were my bridesmaids on the day. They were all wonderful in helping with various bits of preparation and they all got on so well which was lovely and made life so much easier for me! They chose the dresses together– Audrey Hepburn style midnight blue dresses which weren’t overly formal and they all felt really comfortable in. They carried raspberry pink posies which created a gorgeous contrast against the dark blue. They also had pink shoes — again I wanted the overall look to be quite contemporary so contrasting shoes kept the look quite fresh.

The  Ceremony Readings + Music….

We chose the music together and it was so much fun going through a range of songs from the soppily romantic to the just plain silly! We ended up going for an instrumental version of ‘Dess’ree– Kissing You’ for me to walk in to (having had a bit of a Leo fixation when I was younger I have always loved Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo and Juliet!) for our exit music we had the Wannadies ‘You and Me’ song as we liked the sentiment of the chorus and it was fun and lively.

The Dress + Accessories…..

I had so much fun trying on dresses in many different styles and as a lot of brides probably discover what I thought I wanted turned out to be completely different to what I eventually went for. After trying on many floaty ‘Grecian’ style gowns I opted for a slightly more structured dress with the most amazing in-built corsetry and beautiful pearl and crystal straps which added just the right amount of detail. I felt a million dollars on the day and I couldn’t believe how comfortable it was– I literally didn’t want to take off.

My dress and veil were from Suzanne Neville. My shoes were from Rachel Simpson and my crystal hair clips were from Luella’s Boudoir in Wimbledon Village.

Memorable moments…

All of it! We thought the ceremony would be a bit of a necessary formality before the fun really started but we were both shocked at how much we genuinely enjoyed it. From the moment I saw Dan waiting at the end of the aisle I was overcome with emotion and we laughed and cried throughout. Our guests also commented on how fantastic all of our speeches were. My dad’s speech had even the men in tears and the best man speech was hilarious without being too risqué! I lost count of the number of guests who said they were the best speeches they had ever heard at a wedding which is obviously a lovely thing to her.. I also loved getting ready in the morning and was pleasantly surprised at how calm I felt. Two of my best friends did mine and the bridesmaids hair and it was such a great time being surrounded by my favourite girls!

The Cake…

We didn’t want to spend a huge amount of money on the cake so we asked my mum to make it. It was a great way to cut costs and get her more involved. We kept the design very simple with midnight blue ribbon to match the bridesmaid dresses and a flower arrangement created by our florist to add on top.

The Details + Décor….

For the centrepieces we had silver candelabras with ivy and dark pink roses to tie in with the bride & bridesmaids bouquets. The candelabras were set on mirrors with small tea-lights which meant the light was reflected beautifully which made for a magical glow around the room. The venue was so stunning we didn’t want to overcomplicate by making it too busy with loads of additional detail so we kept things pretty simple.

In place of a wedding book we had little message cards for quests to fill out and place in stands – it was great because the absence of a formal book meant guests were more creative and the messages ranged form the poignant, to the silly, to the downright bizarre! We had a lovely time reading them when we woke the next morning before going to breakfast. As we had asked for donations to our honeymoon as our wedding gift, we also put up a map with pins showing people where they were kindly helping to send us. As a bit of an extra feature we asked each guest to initial a map pin and put it in their favourite place in the world. We though it would evoke nice memories for them and we are going to hang it n our new home as a lovely reminder of such a special day

Advice for other couples…

Just enjoy every minute and be prepared to work as a team– there is so much to do both of you need to be involved. Also don’t be scared to ask others to help out– you’ll be surprised at how many people want to lend a hand for the most special day of your life! But more than anything remember the reason you are doing it. When you are putting so much effort into making something so perfect there are bound to be slightly stressful moments but don’t let them get the better of you. The day is about how much you love each other no matter how much you want to strangle the other one at that particular moment! Also don’t be scared to be a little bit selfish. As much as you want your guests to have the most wonderful day, it is YOUR day and only compromise where you feel comfortable to. If politics or unnecessary complications are detracting from the day you want, know where to put your foot down. If people love you, they’ll understand.

We agonised over our first dance and changed our minds about four times! Eventually we discounted all the ‘lovey-dovey’ songs we had been considering and chose something that went with our ‘fun’ theme. We had ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey– a cheesy classic. We slow-danced to the first bit and then when the beat picked up everyone rushed the dance-floor. One of Dan’s ushers sliding in on his knees playing air-guitar was a definite highlight!

The Honeymoon….

We have delayed our honeymoon as we are taking five and a half weeks off over Christmas to go to Malaysia, New Zealand and Thailand. New Zealand is a place we both fell in love with when we visited it after finishing university (separately) and somewhere we always wanted to see together. We are travelling around in a camper van whilst we are there so we have added Malaysia and Thailand in for a bit of luxury! Straight after the wedding we went to Dubrovnik in Croatia for a few days. It pretty much rained the entire time we were there but we had a great time– we still were basking in the joy of our most perfect day!

Thanks so much to Natalie and Dan for sharing their day with {www}.

Credit where credit’s due.…

Brides dress & Veil: Suzanne Neville
Bridesmaid dresses: Alfred Sung
Brides shoes: Rachel Simpson
Photographer: Rik Pennington
Videographer: — Dream Capture
Florist: Wedding Blossom
Venue: South Lodge Hotel
Band : Plush Monkey
Make-up: Kirsty Bailey

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Tags: Blue, Navy, Pink, Real Weddings

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