twenty ninth, six, two thousand and twelve

Since this blog is going to be a documentation of my life as a newly wed what better place to start than the wedding itself.
Ever since Stuart proposed at Leeds Castle we always knew that we wanted a small wedding with our nearest and dearest! We were really lucky that so many people offered to help us out which gave our wedding a real family feel.

The Venue:
After getting engaged Stuart and I sat down and discussed what we wanted from our wedding, the only thing I was insistent on was that it was in a church. My families local church refused to marry us as Stuart isn't christened and I really thought that was going to be it. Luckily, whilst walking around the NEC wedding fair we stumbled across Wroxall Abbey and fell completely and utterly in love. We quickly arranged a viewing a following weekend, confirmed that the venue was amazing and got it booked!
Scenery like this really helped:

We really can't thank the people at Wroxall enough for all their help in making sure the day ran smoothly, they were always at the end of the phone to give advice in the run up to the day, and made sure that everything was perfect on the day itself.

The Dress:
From a really young age I knew I wanted a wedding dress like this one:

I have been an Audrey Hepburn fan for as long as I can remember and I love how different this dress is to traditional wedding dresses. I wanted something different, which no other bride was going to be able to wear so I chose to have my dress made for me - luckily I have an amazing family friend who is a dress maker! My final dress looked like this:

The band around the middle came from the bridesmaid dresses and so was a complete colour match with the rest of the wedding. What you can't see in this picture is the embroidery which was all along the very bottom of the dress, incorporated into this were small blue beads again to match the colour theme! The dress was easily one of my favourite parts of the whole wedding - I loved putting it on. I am now at a loss which what to do with it though, some people have suggested having it shortened so I can wear it again - has anyone else done this?

The Flowers:

The flowers and the cake were the only 2 surprises I had on our wedding day. Since I was a toddler I have always helped my fairy Godmother with her floristry business and so whilst I had 2 request for the wedding day - Cala Lillies for my bouquet and Cream roses for the bridesmaids, everything else was left to Jo to decide and what a fantastic job she did. The church was filled with the most delicious scent which really took my breathe away when I waled in, the memory of that smell and seeing everyone in the church will last forever.

The Cake:

Our wedding cake was a complete and utter surprise to the both of us. My fabulous mom decided that she wanted there to be a part of our day that neither of us knew about, the only inkling that we had was that she was using blue ribbon! It turned out perfectly and tasted delicious :)

The Music:

The music to us was really personal, we had both fallen in love with this song which was my entrance music into the church. The evening entertainment was provided by the fantastic Steve Steinhaus Swing Band, with our first dance coming curtesy of Eden.

Photography:

We were incredibly lucky with our photography in that we had 2 amazing photographers who captured every part of the day perfectly. I would highly recommend them both and suggest you take a look at their work! Peter Reynolds and Siobhan Healey.

Something Old - A silver cross necklace given to me by my grandfather at my Christening many years ago.

Something New - My Dress!

Something Borrowed -  This amazing veil lent to me by Lynnette Peck of Lovelys Vintage Emporium.

Something Blue - My shoes, which I absolutely love!

Finally I end this epic blog post with a small video clip created for us by the lovely Lindsay:

http://player.vimeo.com/video/45877756

Feeling - happy (writing a post about my wedding will do that!)

Listening to - The Real Housewives of the OC (my guilty trashy viewing)

To Do - Bake a banana bread and some flapjacks for my husband (recipes to follow)