Joanna and Gavin were married in March at the beautiful Rookery Hall in Cheshire. They wanted a day to represent both of their personalities, whilst being elegant, timeless and traditional in style.

Joanna wears the most stunning custom made dress, and those red soled shoes?! Swoon!! I love the modern and stylish touches along with the stunning Springlike portraits in the daffodils.

Thanks so much to the brilliant Nicola Thompson Photography for sharing her images with us today, here is what she had to say about the day;

“I’m so lucky to be able to see each couples dream come to life and enjoy the features and ideas that they spend so long planning. I knew Jo and Gavin had planned each part meticulously which meant it was fabulous to photograph, of course the dress and Jo’s gorgeousness helped! We were so lucky to have a sunny, hot day in March and the light caught on the skirt of the dress, perfectly showing off the detail. Jo was so relaxed which makes my job nice and simple, and I had a great day – enjoying the features and great food along with all the guests. I particularly loved the table centrepieces which really stood out and also the cake. Yummy! I always try to capture the real goings on, the emotion and the atmosphere – Jo and Gavin’s lovely wedding provided this for me in abundance.”

Names…. Joanna and Gavin

Wedding Date…. 24/03/12

The Proposal…. Gavin is originally from Scotland so we went up for a weekend in Glasgow to see his family. We went out for a walk on Sunday and Gavin stopped at a bench next to a waterfall. He bent down on one knee and asked me to marry him. The ring was beautiful too, exactly what I had wanted. Then our phones went into overdrive telling all our friends and family, and then the planning began!

The Vision for the day…. We wanted something elegant, traditional and timeless, something we could look back at in years to come and not regret the decisions we had made for the day. We also wanted to reflect our personalities, I love anything quirky and vintage whereas Gavin likes modern and sleek clean lines (complete opposites!)

The Planning process…. We started planning and every detail took lots of time and research. We both wanted to be happy and each of us compromised on certain things.  I was glad we took 18months to plan everything. It meant we had time to source exactly what we wanted. I am also very good at changing my mind so it gave me time to become secure in what I thought I wanted. We visited loads of wedding fairs and went sourced suppliers from all over the world to give us the perfect look we wanted

Budget…. We started with a budget of 15k but this soon got blown out of the water! We just realised  we wouldn’t get everything we wanted in that budget. So instead we decided to try and get everything we wanted for the best price we could

The Venue… Rookery Hall Nantwich Cheshire (where posh and becks got engaged!)

The Dress + Accessories….. My dress was designed and made by the fantastic Kate Britton at Mariee Bridal. I knew exactly what I wanted and Kate rose to the challenge!

My shoes were Christian Louboutin, one thing I didn’t want to compromise on was my shoes and I fell in love with them.

My jewellery was from Swarovski Crystalized

Finding the dress…. I had seen the wedding dress worn by Nicole Richie in a magazine, and I knew I wanted something similar. I must have tried on over 50 dresses but I just couldn’t find “the one”

I then found Kate who was fantastic and was totally on board with my crazy ideas! we changed a few bits in the design but my main requirement was to make it big! And big it was, Kate used 120meters of tulle in the skirt, she admitted it was the most she had ever used on one dress!

Groom’s attire… Gavin’s suit was from Hugo Boss. His waist coat was grey to match the bridesmaids and a purple tie and pocket square.

The Readings + Music…. Our friend Brid offered to play the harp for the ceremony, I walked down the aisle to pachabels cannon it was beautiful.

Beautiful bridesmaids….. The bridesmaids dresses were from dessy by the designer lela rose. The shrugs were from monsoon and jewellery from debenhams.

The Flowers… roses, hydrangeas and peonies all provided from Eventures venue dressers

The Cake… Slatterys. We had 4 types of cake, the bottom layer was white chocolate with jam sponge, the middle tier was milk chocolate and chocolate cake, and the top layer dark chocolate and chocolate orange. We also got a fruit cutting cake

Your Photographer…. Nicola Thompson. We fell in love with Nicola’s photos and when we met her we fell in love with her! She totally understood what we wanted and we were confident we would get fantastic pictures we would love forever. Nicola also had some really interesting and unique albums, much better than a traditional one!

The Details + Decor…. all the venue was decorated by Eventures. The favours were engraved lego bricks. I got flip flops for the girls (and boys!) who had sore feet from dancing. The band was the Toni James band. The stationary was from Love Story Stationary. We also had a photobooth from say fromage.

The Honeymoon…. Dubai, Le Royal Meridien. We spent a lovely time away and got to go to the Dubai world cup horse racing. People gave us some very generous gifts and it enabled us to have the holiday of a life time.

Memorable moments… The whole day was amazing! The weather was amazing which really made the day amazing. The photobooth was a highlight everyone loved it.

Advice for other couples… Plan plan plan! If you know what you want but cant find it don’t give up, there is always a way of getting it, even if you have to ship it in from the otherside of the world! We got our favours from the US and it was so worth it. Remember to enjoy your day, it only happens once.

Credit where credit is due…

Eventures  http://www.venuedressers.co.uk/

Nicola Thompson  www.nicolathompsonphotography.co.uk/

SayFromage www.sayfromage.co.uk

Love Story Stationary www.yourlovestory.co.uk/

The cake was slatterys 0161 767 9303 http://www.slattery.co.uk/contact_us.cfm

Thanks so much to Joanna and Gavin for sharing their gorgeous wedding with us today. Are you planning on getting a custom wedding dress? XOXO Lou

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