The ethos of Joanne and Dave’s wedding was simple…. it was all about the love. They had no bridesmaids, no best man, it was about them and their relationship.

But they wanted it to represent them too, and of course to have some fun. The details and decor of this reception are so charming, so quaint, so pretty. Gorgeous country cottage style blooms, mason jars, stripey straws, bakers twine, the knitted cake… so rustic and so personal… i heart it….

Thanks again to Christopher Currie Photography for sharing their images with us…. enjoy:

The Flowers…

Our gorgeous flowers were all taken care of by my big sister, Gillian. I was really touched when she offered to make my bouquet and then from there I roped her into making a buttonhole for Dave and our two Dads, and organising the flowers for the reception too. Gillian used tulips for my bouquet because she knows they are my favourite flower, and for the reception we wanted a kind of ‘cottage garden’ feel with the flowers and so she rounded up a perfect assortment which were arranged in all of the little bottles we had collected.

The Dress + Accessorise….

I went to two proper bridal boutiques with my mum – one of which was an amazing experience; I tried so many beautiful dresses on and was treated brilliantly. And the other one, well, I won’t say much about that other than it was at a totally different end of the scale but weirdly my mum and I found it pretty funny. I knew I wanted a vintage style dress, something from the styles of the 1930s/40s/50s, and I did fall in love with one dress. It was so much more than I had been planning to spend though, so I left without ordering it. The next day I went to a vintage boutique in Edinburgh and tried on a 1950s style circle dress. I felt as amazing in that as I had done in the proper bridal gown. So, the decision was made.

I ordered several different prints and patterns from Vivien of Holloway, invited my mum and one of my sisters round while I tried them on, and finally decided on the one I wore on the day. I loved it – to me it was the perfect combination of a 1950s style dress, but with a more 1940s style material. I decided to wear two petticoats underneath, one white and one pink, for extra bridal oomph.

I had my headpiece and veil custom made for me by Mairi Brunning Millinery, who did a great job of taking all of my scattered ideas and bringing them together. My mum still had her headpiece from her wedding day just over 40 years ago and so she looked it out for me. I loved it as it was just really sweet and simple and my mum was over the moon when I said that I would like to use it. We both met with Mairi and I asked her to use that as the basis for my headpiece. In the end she removed all of the flowers and crystals from my mum’s headpiece and gave them new life by hand stitching them onto the base she had created for me. It came together perfectly and had a lovely vintage look to it which complimented my dress, and the style of our whole day, and felt very special knowing what it was made from. For the perfect finishing touch I knew I had to have a birdcage veil.

Your Photographer….

We knew we didn’t want lots of staged photographs as neither of us are very comfortable getting our photo taken (not to mention the rest of our family) and wanted a more spontaneous documentary style, and we knew we wanted the photos to have a vintage element to them. Chris and Gillian at Christopher Currie Wedding Photography seemed to fit the bill on both counts, so that’s who we went with. They were great on the day, making everyone feel at ease and even managing to make Dave and I enjoy getting our shots taken.

The Details + Decor….

We decided to base this roughly on a summer tea party theme. We made the bunting ourselves and our mums and us scoured numerous charity shops finding all of the tea cups, cake stands and plates that we required. Joanne’s gran also gave us a couple of cake stands which have been in the family for years and which we felt very special to be given. Along with help from both sides we pulled it together after thinking nothing matched. We made bunting from scratch to decorate with and it really brightened the hall and made it cosy.

Reception Venue….

Broughton St Mary’s Garden Room

We really wanted a vintage style garden party reception, but with the unpredictable weather in Scotland this was a bit of a chancy direction to go in. The Garden Room gave us the best of both worlds, being a cute semi circle conservatory style room with access onto a walled garden. It felt right as soon as we walked in really and gave us loads of scope to decorate it how we wanted.

The Cake…

We both love cooking and baking and so we cooked and baked pretty much all of the food at the reception, plus we‘re both vegan and although there were a couple of options for catering we wanted to do it ourselves. As far as the cakes were concerned, we decided on cupcakes and had a variety on offer – ginger, carrot cake, chocolate, and mint chocolate… and all vegan. We didn’t have a main cake… although, that’s not quite true, because we ended up with the most amazing and most kitsch cake you’ve ever seen. Dave’s mum presented us with a homemade knitted cake the day before the wedding, complete with little knitted bride and groom on the top! Safe to say it got a lot of attention on the day!

Memorable moments…

This is going to sound soppy (but if that’s not okay on a wedding blog, then where is it okay), but just getting married to each other. All the extra bits and pieces are nice, but they were never the most important part.

Advice for other couples…

Stay focused on what you both want, not what you think you should do or what might be expected of you both or of a wedding.

The Honeymoon….

Ah we spent many hours planning this! To us, this was the time when it would just be the two of us and we could let everything sink in and start enjoying being Mr and Mrs! We spent 5 nights in New York, then flew to San Francisco where we spent another 5 nights, and then finally took a 12 hour train ride from there to Los Angeles and stayed in Hollywood for our final 5 nights. We stayed in apartments in each place so that it was like we had our own little home wherever we were.

Thanks so much to Joanne and Dave for sharing their amazing day with us today. I think you will agree that this couple certainly did things their way, and on a small budget too. Which just goes to show that you don’t need to splash out to have a beautiful and memorable wedding day :-) xoxo

Credit where credit’s due….

http://www.wix.com/mairibrunning/mairi-brunning

http://www.vivienofholloway.com/

http://www.christophercurrie.co.uk/

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