It’s time for the last wedding of June!! Erm… how?! Hehe :-)

Nic and Paul were married in March at the gorgeous Woodborough Hall in Nottingham.

They wanted their wedding to have a vintage feel, with a focus on a relaxed informal vibe. Nic is a girl after my own heart, who never spent time dreaming of her wedding, and doesn’t proclaim to be girly.

But she went for a pink colour scheme, with some beautiful brown paper details. I think their reception looks just so romantic with all the candles and fairy lights, so pretty!

Thanks so much to the lovely Sophie Booth Photography for sharing her images with us today, here is what she had to say about the day;

“I’d been excited about Nicola and Paul’s wedding for weeks. Nicola is a very good friend of mine, so I’d been hearing and seeing little glimpses, of what was to come. It was wonderful to see everything come together on the day. Woodborough Hall is in stunning location and when I arrived on the morning I was met by a beautiful misty scene; all the guests were buzzing, sharing stories and photos of Nicola and Paul. The wedding had a great atmosphere and one of my favourite moments was when they played Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs. Robinson’ as they signed the register, the whole congregation erupted in fits of giggles as Nicola become ‘Mrs. Robinson’. The reception was stunning and full of home made touches. Like the favours wrapped in brown paper and hand stencilled with little notes like ‘Be Lucky!’ for the lottery tickets enclosed. The second hand crystal vases were sourced from car boot sales and filled with dusty pink roses. The tower of cupcakes in pink and cream decorated with little roses was truly scrumptious looking. In the evening we set up a photo studio with a suitcase full of props, everybody loved it and got very creative with their choices, creating Viking battles and bearded ladies, police to Native Americans! Needless to say I couldn’t resist jumping in for one or two.”

Names…. Nic and Paul

Wedding Date…. 23 March 2012

The Proposal…. We went out for a meal to celebrate being together for 6 years.  We have a 3 year old so getting an evening together is a treat.  Paul had arranged a really beautiful table and champagne was waiting for after he popped the question.  Whenever he had talked about proposing in the past I had told him to stop talking about it and show me the diamond!!!  He engineered the conversation so I said that and he showed me the diamond!!!  It is such a beautiful ring too! There were a few tears and it was a really special evening.  ( I said yes of course!!)

The Vision for the day…. We wanted a vintage feel to the day, certainly nothing too formal or uniform.  We wanted a relaxed day that everyone would enjoy.

The Planning process…. Originally we thought we might go away and get married on a beach somewhere and maybe have a party at home, neither of us particularly like being the centre of attention.  The more we talked about it, the more important it felt to have our family and friends around us.  The other difficulty was I am not a particularly girly girl, I had not dreamed of my perfect wedding my whole life so I wasn’t sure how to approach it!  I looked through lots of blogs and magazine, started a scrap book of the things I liked and eventually a picture came together.  (Pink was the colour I wanted……perhaps I am girly!!)  Once we had found the venue and secured that and the date, then we made a plan.

Budget…. We didn’t have a fixed budget but wanted to keep costs as low as possible.  Getting married in March meant we were able to take advantage of an offer that the venue had.  This saved us an awful lot of money.  With everything else, whenever we could, we would try and do it ourselves.

The Venue… We chose Woodborough Hall in Nottingham to be married in.  It is not far from where we live and it is a great size – with a relatively small wedding (50 guests), we wanted something that felt quite intimate but also where we could be in one place all day.  Woodborough Hall was the perfect choice, they also have an on-hand wedding co-ordinator (ours was Claire and general manager Matt) who guide you through the planning process and make sure everything runs smoothly on the day – they were brilliant.  The outdoor space is lovely too for photographs and for drinks if the weather is on side!!!  The real bonus of the venue is the wonderful chef Des Sweeney and his team  –  the food was AMAZING!

The Dress + Accessories….. When I was looking through magazines and blogs, the dresses that stood out for me were all lace so I think quite early on I had decided what I wanted!!

Finding the dress…. Finding the dress I wanted was a different matter!!!  I put it off for a long time.  I am not great at shopping at the best of times, things I often like don’t suit me and I knew this was the ultimate shopping experience…so I put it off.  I visited a few shops with my mum but nothing particularly stood out.    I also felt their approach was too salesy and not about what suited me, it felt a bit pressured.  In the end my good friend, Kate had a few words with me about getting on with it and dragged me into town!!  We went into every wedding dress shop and we didn’t see any dresses we liked, I was getting fed up and then we walked into ’Couture Bridal Designs’.  It was like an oasis in there, so calm and friendly.  Maxine and Dawn were wonderful and they handmake all their dresses.  They are beautiful.  There were a number I could have chosen but it was the beautiful French lace that drew me to the one I picked.  I honestly couldn’t recommend them highly enough. They made every fitting and visit there a total pleasure.  I also got my accessories from them, they provide a lovely range of hair accessories and jewellery to compliment the dresses.  The shoes I bought from Monsoon – matched perfectly!

Groom’s attire… Paul chose a three-piece suit from Next.  He didn’t want the traditional wedding suit and wanted to get something that he would wear again.  My brother, Andrew (who walked me down the aisle) and the Best Man, Steve wore their own suits but they all had the same ties and buttonholes.

The Readings + Music…. My cousin, Helen did a reading – ‘On Your Wedding Day’ [author unknown].  It is relaxed and says the things we wanted to say.  I was pretty composed up until that point to be honest, she read it beautifully.   We signed the register to Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs Robinson’ (I am now a Robinson!!!) and had a cheesy disco in the evening which kept the dance floor full all night.

The Flowers… I bought a number of different crystal vases/fruit bowls/trifle dishes (!!) from a car boot sale early on which I think came to about £15 for all of them.  We had dusky pink roses mixed with other ivory and pink flowers.  Each table had the same theme but were all slightly different.   We also had tiny vases and old bottles with a few flowers dotted all around the venue to keep the theme going.  My mum knows Christina and she did a beautiful job with the flowers.

The Cake… My friend Helen’s mum, Gill has a catering business called The Village Kitchen and she along with her business partner Joanne made the most beautiful cupcakes for our wedding.  Not only did they look amazing but they tasted divine and I think we have had more compliments about the cakes than anything else!!  We chose cupcakes as we could put them out in the evening and if people still wanted something to eat they could help themselves.  They flew off the cake stands!!!!!  We also had a little party at my mum’s the day the wedding after which they also catered with amazing food – they are fantastic!

Your Photographer…. I am a portrait photographer and as Paul and I don’t really like having our pictures taken, I asked the girls I worked with if they would do them for us (they also regularly do weddings).  Luckily they agreed and they did a wonderful job.  It was so relaxed.  They also agreed to do a photobooth in the evening which was great and went down so well, we have some fantastic pictures from there!!

The Details + Decor…. For the room decoration, we asked our friend Charlotte for advice – she is great with interior design and used to do event planning – she gave us some great ideas and also lent us loads of tea light holders and fairy lights.  We wanted the room to feel intimate and cosy and it is pretty much a blank canvas so we had candles, fairy lights and flowers everywhere.  The table plan my brother Andrew made from a bit of board, wallpaper samples and cheap frames, the trunk and the small suitcase were my Grandad’s.  For the favours we bought silver photo frames for the girls and spent a few months trawling through old photo albums to find pictures of me or Paul with the guests.  The idea was that it was funny (in most cases) so not necessarily our most flattering moments, to be conversation starters on the tables or at the very least for people to have a laugh at our bad haircuts!!! For the boys we bought lottery tickets (we haven’t heard of any winners – either the lucky dips weren’t that lucky or they are just not telling us!!!).  We wrapped these in brown paper and ribbon that we had had made with our names and the wedding date on.

The Honeymoon…. Kindly my mum, brother and his girlfriend Helen offered to share childcare of Thomas for a week which enabled us to have the most amazing honeymoon in the Maldives.  It was blissful and idyllic and with Thomas and Paul’s son, (my lovely step-son), Josh we probably won’t have many opportunities like that again…at least not for a while.  It was wonderful.

Memorable moments… I honestly don’t think you can underestimate having all the people you love in one room together all at the same time and two families coming together, it is so special.  Other things are seeing Paul waiting for me at the end of the aisle smiling.  Josh and Thomas were so lovely all day – so proud of them.  My brother arranged a car for us as a surprise for us to go in from mum’s house but also for Paul and I to have a drive around after the service which was brilliant for just catching our breath and being with each other for just a few minutes – it was a real treat.   Some people made a real effort to be there too – we had people from all over the country and also friends from Switzerland.  The fact my dad was part of the day in speeches and conversation even though he wasn’t there (he passed away in 2010) meant so much.  The weather was amazing – we had a string quartet and drinks outside.  (We were so lucky, we picked the one week in the middle of March and April that wasn’t raining and was actually warm!)  The photobooth was brilliant – seeing your nearest and dearest in their finery wearing fake beards, masks and hats is hilarious!

Advice for other couples… Everyone is different and what one bride likes another may not – just go with what you like, it will all come together. Our venue requested that we drop everything off there the week before.  In hindsight this was brilliant because once that was done, there was nothing major to do at all which gave us a few days to relax and deal with any last minute things that cropped up – I would definitely recommend that if you can. (We were also lucky as our venue set up everything for us).  The day before was spent with guests that had travelled to see us which meant we had more time with them. Use your friends and family and their contacts – it helps enormously and they want to help!!! I kept reading over and over again ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’ and it’s really true, the fact everyone is there to be with the pair of you is the important part!

Credit where credit is due…

Venue: www.woodboroughhall.co.uk

Dress and Accessories: www.couturebridaldesignsltd.co.uk

Shoes: Monsoon

Flowers: Christina Lindley at BJPoppies  0115 9313926

Cakes: The Village Kitchen Gill on 01949 20625 and Joanne on 01949 829095

Photographers:

Sophie Booth at www.sophieboothphotography.co.uk

Jenny Duckworth at www.onehauscollective.com

Suit: Next

Personalised Ribbon: www.squeakgiftandparty.co.uk

Jumping on your bed at the end of your wedding is a sure sign of a successful day :-)

Thanks so much to Nic and Paul for sharing their beautiful day with us today XOXO Lou

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