Morning lovelies. I hope you guys had a great weekend :-) and are ready for some serious wedding inspiration…

Vicky and Alex were married in July at Hatton Village Hall. They wanted their wedding to represent them as a couple, with great music and a vintage feel with so many crafty and DIY details.

Vicky looks amazing in her Candy Anthony dress she found on eBay, with a gorgeous ruby red bouquet she said smelt lovely. There are so many things to love about this day, the relaxed feel, the wool pom poms, the pretty bridesmaids, the scrumptious looking cakes, the car and the pretty blooms to name a few. And just you wait until you hear about their honeymoon to Iceland, wow!

Thanks so much to the incredible Assassynation for sharing her beautiful images with us today.

Names…. Vicky & Alex

Wedding Date….14th July 2012

The Proposal…. There wasn’t one; we’d been together 6 years or so. I didn’t want a long engagement so we skipped it and started on the wedding. Alex did ask me to marry him about 3 weeks before the wedding and was pleased I hadn’t changed my mind at the last minute!!

The Vision for the day….  Relaxed day with cherry picked aspects for a day that would allow us to be ourselves.  Music was a big part of the preparation and we spent hours listening to our old CD’s and Ipod music lists. Over all the day evolved into a Part homemade / DIY, Part Vintage, Part hope for best; we had a pile of fabric, bean cans, old bottles, wool etc and just hoped it came together as we imagined. Big phew when it did!!

The Planning process…. Starting looking at venues, was looking for somewhere with a relaxed feel that we could put our own stamp on, nothing formal or structured food options etc. Once we found the venue at Hatton Village Hall the days details started to fall into place.

The Venue… Hatton Village Hall was perfect for us, came empty and we could do a little or as much as we liked, beautiful architecture, vaulted ceiling and wooden floors, a ceremony room available, a Bar room, kitchen facilities, great location for our guests with great local amenities. The hosts Janice and Paul were just great, the staff were happy and helpful and we can’t praise them enough.

The Dress + Accessories….. Dress: Candy Anthony from ebay. Jacket: Oasis ebay. Bag: French Connection Ebay. Hairslides: Ghostlove Etsy. Shoes: Schuh.

Finding the dress…. I didn’t go to even one wedding dress shop just the thought made me panic. I knew I would have a tea length vintage / vintage inspired cut /design, so looked on line, looked at a variety of suppliers, ruled out my favourite designer just on price, and hey presto Mum called to say she’d found a Candy Anthony on ebay. It was a tense week waiting for the auction to finish and for my Dad, I’m not sure who was most pleased when he won the auction and brought me the most perfect dress.

Groom’s attire… Online again, we looked at Ben Sherman range, and then we went to view in-store. We walked in Alex spotted a Tonic Blue suit tried it on, loved it and brought it. Tie: Black / Ben Sherman. Shirt: White Penny Collar / Ben Sherman. Shoes: Jones.

The Readings + Music…. We opted for no readings, we did look at some but we didn’t come across anything we both loved so we decided not to have any.

We both love a wide range of music, there were so many choices and we didn’t decide until a few weeks before the wedding. I choose the entrance song Bombay Bicycle – Fairytale Lullaby and Alex choose the exit song Black Keys The only one. During the cream tea and early evening Alex created playlists for the ipod with lots of our favourite tunes.  We then had a two piece band of fiddlers who were just great that was a wedding gift from my parents and to finish my friends Dad, was the DJ.

Beautiful bridesmaids….. My Daughter Robyn and her sister Chyna.  The girls are really close and we wanted them to have a special and lovely day, they looked beyond beautiful and they were so excited it was lovely to see them so happy and having so much fun.

The Flowers… David Austin, Strong scented English cream roses called patience for bridesmaids. Strong scented English raspberry roses Darcy Bussell for my bridal bouquet. The bouquets were from the standard bouquet range however if you know these roses there’s nothing standard about them except the prices!!

The Cake… we didn’t want a traditional wedding cake, about 3 months before we decided to have a cheese cake and found one from good old M&S. Our friends and family all brought cakes / biscuits for a homemade cake table with just about every cake option available. Everyone was so generous everyone left with cake to take home also!

Your Photographer…. Sassy & Frank, photographer & Videographer. We seen Sassy’s pictures online and they are just amazing, Sassy manages to see, create & capture the best moments. The moment our booking was confirmed was just great I smiled all day long. Few months later we found a video online of Franks, we hadn’t really even considered a videographer, we emailed to say we had a photographer and was he available on the date and couldn’t believe it when we got a mail back from Sassy saying her & frank had a new business together. It was just an extraordinary coincidence that couldn’t have been better if it was planned!! We’re delighted with the photos and video and feel quite lucky to have the day captured so beautifully.

The Details + Decor…. The decor was homemade with a dash of complementary accessories. Alex made the wooden signs, I made a woolly welcome wreath, my friend Hannah made porcelain leaves with the table numbers on, my dad & Alex white-washed the furniture, our mums collected everything from vintage china,  jam jars, games, tin cans, the girls crafted for hours making bunting, winding pom poms, decorating jars, bottles and tins, most of the table centre decorations were from our home, we collected retro styled postcards and framed them, we brought a free standing mirror, another ebay buy, for the table planner complete with drawer for cards and white-washed it. Alex created a beautiful floral display in a vintage suit given to us by my daughter Robyn.  The table flowers were English garden varieties loosely put together in vintage glass bottles, vases and even jam pans! We brought a template on Etsy for the programmes a cootie catcher with a tree image. On the eve about 10 of us arrived at the hall with 3 vehicles loaded to the hilt with furniture some borrowed from my mum’s house, flowers from the wholesalers, vintage china for 70, 2 white washed dressers,  water & juice, jam, all our homemade decorations , a lamp and a rocking chair amongst other thing!! It took us 7 hours to set up from scratch; everyone was amazing, helped along by a bulk buy from the fish n chip shop by dad!!

The Honeymoon… Iceland, 9 days in Reykjavik. As soon as we arrived at Reykjavik airport the peacefulness and relaxed Icelandic atmosphere hits you. The pace of life is gentle, relaxed and happy. As we travelled over to central Reykjavik the scenery was beautiful the sparsely populated landscape fascinating. We spent the first couple of days exploring the old harbour area by our apartment and visiting the local sights including Hallgrimskirkja Church the view from the top is just amazing with all the coloured house tops just striking. The midnight sun was intriguing you can’t help but lose track of time when the sun doesn’t set!  We went on the Golden circle tour seeing the highlights of the South amazing Gullfoss waterful and the hot springs Geysir and the Pingvellir National park. We went swimming most days in the local thermal heated pools it’s no wonder why the Icelandic are relaxed people with this well loved past-time. We used the local buses to get around to the parks, gardens, museums and pools often getting lost and finding great places of the beaten track like the ice-cream parlour in Laugardaslaug. Found a  free concert for a local indie band and had the most expensive but best fish n chips of our lives; Iceland really is the country of extremes! On Our final night we stayed at The Blue Lagoon a wedding gift from Alex’s mum, and was just fantastic, beautiful, relaxing the view from our hotel room just endless space of lava fields and just a great end to a wonderful trip. We left talking about going back and touring the rest of the island.

Memorable moments… the delight when the car arrived, this was a delightful surprise for us all …. the lovely scent of the roses and scented stocks in the ceremony room…. my Dad and I laughing as we walked into the ceremony…. me trying to take Alex’s right hand for his ring……. trying to leave the ceremony room and the registrars reminding us the ceremony needed to be closed before we could leave!!…wondering if the evening guests arrived early … no they hadn’t time just went very quick!! …The cake table and all the wonderful items made by all the guests and the overall atmosphere and the long list of our favourite music playing.

Advice for other couples… When people say the day goes quick, it really does, so try to be flexible with your timings not everything will happen to schedule so leave a bit of flex in the days timings. Get your friends and family involved we had so much fun crafting on the run up to the day and have some wonderful memories and everyone enjoyed see their crafty & home baked contributions on the day. Decide what’s important to you and focus on these aspects and if you’re not sure then it’s probably not for you.

Credit where credit is due…

Ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk
Schuh  http://www.schuh.co.uk
Ben Sherman www.bensherman.com
M&S http://www.marksandspencer.com/Marks-and-Spencer-Cheese-Celebration/dp/B005KGODPW
Jones the Bootmaker http://www.jonesbootmaker.com
Branded ebay Buys www.frenchconnection.com http://www.candyanthony.com
Hairslides  http://www.ghostlove.com/

Thanks so very  much to Vicky and Alex for sharing their amazing wedding with us today. Ohhh how i want to visit Iceland now :-) XOXO Lou

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