Laura & Ben's wedding was our first in April, and now the happy couple have returned from an epic honeymoon (which we're very jealous of!) we're really pleased to show you some of our favourite photos from the day. Ben & Laura put so much effort into personalising their day, from an F1 themed table plan, vintage style tealights in the bar area, right through to both Laura's step dad Ed's band and Ben's band performing at the evening reception. To view the full gallery please follow this link
Laura & Ben very kindly answered these questions for the blog:
Wedding date - 7th April 2012
Venue - Great Lumley Methodist Church & The Derwent Manor Hotel, Allensford
Dress - My dress was from Clifford Burr Bridal in Ware, Hertfordshire, and was
an Ellis Bridal design. My dress began life strapless and with quite a
lengthy train; however, from the outset I had a very clear vision of
having capped sleeves and no train and some altering later it was
complete!
Accessories - The hunt for my perfect shoes was possibly the most challenging part of
wedding planning - I always knew I wanted some bright, floral, whacky
and FLAT shoes and it proved extremely difficult to find some that fit
the bill. After much googling I finally came across the perfect ones by
Mellow Yellow bought from Zalando. In terms of jewellery, I wore none! Just fresh flowers in my hair (very Maid Marian)!
Suits - The suits were hired from Hatiara Bridal in Birtley and were just
perfect - the men looked dashing (and there were plenty of them)!
Which of your suppliers would you recommend? - Top of our list has to be Simon and Alison, who we honestly can't
praise enough!! Aside from Simon and Alison, we were lucky to have an
array of fantastic people and suppliers. I would highly recommend
Hatiara Bridal in Birtley, who's services and help in buying the
bridesmaid dresses and hiring the suits was invaluable, and their
seamstress Andrea was incredible in doing last minute alterations (and I
mean last minute, on the night before the wedding!) to four bridesmaid
dresses and my dress. I would also recommend Wild and Wonderful Flowers
who did an amazing job and brought our vision of the flowers perfectly
to life! All the staff at the Derwent Manor Hotel were brilliant,
especially the wedding coordinators, who allowed us free creativity in
setting up and decorating the room exactly as we wanted it! I would also highly recommend our extremely talented
and beautiful cake maker, Carol Roughley (my mother!) who not only
designed and made our perfect wedding cake (her first ever one!), but
made, iced and decorated 100 cupcakes! While I, and everyone else who
has ever seen her cakes, have encouraged her to go professional,
unfortunately this is not the case, but we'd recommend her nonetheless!
Honeymoon - Our honeymoon was a four week adventure to Singapore, Melbourne, Port Douglas, Sydney and Hong Kong - amazing!
Favourite memory from the day - Laura: My favourite memories from the day are definitely the church
service - seeing Ben waiting for me at the end of the aisle, the moment
he turned around to look at me, saying our vows, laughing when Ben got
my ring stuck on my finger, and leaving as husband and wife and the
happy faces of our family and friends. The whole day was truly magical,
from start to finish. It really is the best day of your life as everyone
says, and we just wanted to do it all over again the next day but for
everything to be exactly the same.
Ben: For
me personally, it has to be the moment I was stood at the altar and
turned round to see Laura for the first time. I was already feeling
slightly choked but seeing Laura look so stunningly beautiful just took
my breath (and composure!) away. Everything about that moment - the
music, all our smiling relatives and friends around us and Laura looking
so incredible - combined to make it the most beautiful moment I can
remember and my favourite memory of our big day. Well either that or
getting retweeted by Brazilian Formula 1 legend Rubens Barrichello after
sending him a photo of our F1 themed tables!
Advice to other couples - Laura: My piece of advice would be not to get overwhelmed or
pre-occupied with the grandeur of the day. With so many television
programmes these days about brides competiting to have the most
impressive wedding, it can be easy to lose sight of the real meaning of
the day. Instead of focusing on everything being bigger and better than
any wedding before, I wanted to make the day personal to me and Ben as a
couple (such as our love for F1!) and our families and loved ones and
thoroughly enjoyed spending time adding little touches, such as a slide
show of all of the weddings in our families (dating all the way back to
1938) which was played in the church as people were arriving. I also
discovered a love for craft and got a real sense of satisfaction
designing and making all the wedding stationary, favours, room and table
decorations. On this note (sorry this is much more than one piece of
advice), I set up a 'kids corner' at the reception filled with toys,
games and treats to keep the kids entertained (especially during the
speeches) which went down a treat! I would definitely recommend this to
anyone having a wedding with lots of children invited!
Ben: Hire
Simon and Alison! Once you've got that sorted, I'd recommend making,
and constantly revising, lists of what needs to be done and when. You
don't want to be trying to store all that in your head or you'll go
mad! Other that, I'd definitely say try and add as many of your own
personal touches to the day as possible. We had a slight F1 theme to our
day - with the tables named after drivers and the table plan a F1 grid -
and it went down really well. Laura also made the majority of our room
and table decorations, adding a special and unique touch that was
admired by many.
Labels: derwent manor wedding, durham wedding
