Get ready to be dazzled today, by sensational flowers, a silvery gown and a whole heap of love.
WWW readers Lucy and Andrew were married on the 21st May 2016 at Hornington Manor in Yorkshire. Their priorities were to give their guests a right jolly good time with a personal feel and equal roles for the guys and girls. This is something I am really on board with and it’s so lovely to see this ethos at Lucy and Andrew’s wedding.
Lucy chose an original 1930s vintage dress made with real silver thread, which gave a beautiful iridescent shimmer to her gown. She looked utterly stunning. Andrew meanwhile chose a blue three piece suit from Reiss teamed with a black tie and pink shirt. Aren’t they just so very stylish? The flowers by Swallows and Damsons were out of this world gorgeous, with a large bouquet tied up with ribbon, which included broccoli and there were also delightful pampas grass arrangements in the barn.
Huge thanks today to Tim Dunk for sharing these exquisite images.
THE PROPOSAL | We had bought a wreck of a house in September 2014 and were in the process of doing it up, I had always intended on proposing on the first night we spent in the house but the building work was delayed and then extended, 6 months became 8, then 10…
In the midst of house renovations we went to Glastonbury. It was the Sunday evening, we’d had an absolutely lovely weekend and were watching The Who on the Sunday evening. I hadn’t planned it, and I am not a spontaneous person, but we had ‘a moment’, a moment that just felt right. I had always said I would never do it in public and there I was on one knee in a crowd of 80,000 people. But, no one knew, or cared, in a crowd we were alone, it was just us in a perfect moment. Even the friends we were with didn’t notice – they thought I was just getting a beer out of my bag!
We celebrated with prosecco and pie and danced the night away to an amazing and hilarious covers band called Doreen Doreen.
THE VISION | We knew we wanted to have a wedding that felt like us, so we looked at all the traditions and worked out what worked for us and what would feel forced. Our essential wedding must-haves were that we wanted everyone to have a good time, eat good food, drink and then dance for hours.
We also knew we wanted a humanist ceremony and for it to reflect who we were and be realistic but romantic about love, commitment and relationships.
I also had fairly strong views on what I wanted the wedding to look like, I wanted it to involve A LOT of foliage, I knew I would probably wear a vintage dress and I always like the colour white at weddings. I just wanted it to be non-fussy and a relaxed day for everyone involved.
THE PLANNING PROCESS | We both work in the arts so events like these aren’t too out of the ordinary for us. (we had a production schedule for the ‘get in’ the day before!)
We booked the ceremony and got married within 8 months, so we didn’t really hang about! I found some of the aspects of planning annoying, I felt a lot of bridal blogs and fairs were not on the same wave length as me, I’m a feminist and the whole ‘princess’ aspect of the wedding industry makes me feel very uneasy and the groom doesn’t feel very included at these events.
THE VENUE | We had almost given up hope of finding a venue that was affordable, to our taste and free in Summer 2016! Luckily my Auntie and Uncle were out running near their house and they found Hornington Manor! We loved it instantly.
We wanted somewhere that was a blank canvas and also somewhere that we could have a whole weekend with our friends and family, not just the traditional wedding day. Hornington Manor is beautiful and allowed us to have 32 of our friends and family stay at the manor house over the wedding weekend. Many of our friends were coming a long way and it was important to us that they have a lovely relaxed weekend as well.
We held the ceremony and party in the barn which comes as a black canvas, but is still beautiful in its own right and didn’t need a lot doing to it.
THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | 30s Vintage Dress: Elizabeth Avey Vintage, Shoes: Charlotte Mills, Headpiece: ASOS (bizarrely I think it was ALDO shoes and it was a bargain £15 in the sale!) Evening Dress: 70s Ossie Clark Vintage, given to me by my Auntie.
FINDING THE DRESS | I am a clothes obsessive and I could have bought thousands of dresses for the wedding. I tried on some new dresses but they weren’t for me. I then went to Elizabeth Avey and fell in love with a lot of the vintage dresses there. The dress I chose is from the 30s and has real silver in the thread so it’s very shimmery it also has a beautiful leaf and floral pattern on the fabric. It originally had a higher neckline and back and also larger 30s-esque sleeves. The amazing Satish at Elite Alterations made the dress absolutely perfect for me.
One thing I will say about the dress buying process is that I hated the pressure of finding ‘The One’. I think there are a multitude of dresses that would work and you have to pick one that works for your day and for you. Angels will not appear singing from the sky and the clouds won’t part, it’s a dress.
I’ve never heard the same pressures being applied to buying the grooms suit. And all of my friends who have previously got married all had a massive freak out about 2 months before the wedding about the dress. I was exactly the same. It’s weird.
None the less I do absolutely adore my wedding dress and I loved it came with a history.
I also changed into a party dress for the evening as the fabric on my dress was very delicate and I love to dance so I was worried it wouldn’t survive! A few years ago my Auntie had given me a 70s vintage Ossie Clark cream dress, it was perfect for the evening and for dancing.
GROOM’S ATTIRE | Three piece suit: Reiss, Shoes: Church’s.
THE READINGS & MUSIC | Entrance Music: Sea of Love by Cat Power, Certificate Signing Music: Tender by Blur, Exit Music: Ain’t Nobody, Chaka Khan.
We looked for quite a while for readings that we felt accurately described falling in love and successful relationships. We decided on a reading of the first verse and chorus of Ain’t Nobody by Chaka Khan. Our friend Jack, delivered it amazingly, it was funny and if you read the lyrics they’re actually pretty spot on about falling in love. Out friend Gemma then read out three thoughts on love that we had read and loved. There was a passage from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, a quote from Albert Einstein and a quote from Bob Marley.
BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My three beautiful bridesmaids, Sophie, Freya and Nicci could not be more different from each other and I have a notorious aversion to matching anything so I knew that were never going to be in the same dress. THANK GOD FOR ASOS. We bought pretty much most of ASOS and they had an epic trying on session at my house to find the right dresses and a good combination so they looked like they were all on the same night out and had a similar vibe.
THE FLOWERS | I am actually in love with the florist we chose; Swallows and Damsons. I had fan girled over them before I approached them and was absolutely over the moon when we realised that A. we could afford them and B. they were free on our wedding date! I shared my pinterest board with Anna and I had full trust she would produce exactly what I wanted.
We knew we wanted foliage to feature heavily so lots of eucalyptus leaves and ivy. I had also become obsessed with pampas grass pre-wedding but it’s not traditionally in season in May but Anna managed to find some for me.
She was also very game to include some purple sprouting broccoli in my bouquet (long running joke with my mum!).
They also constructed some flower swings to hang in the barn under the chandeliers. They absolutely made the wedding decorations and filled what was a very large space. They were a bit of a logistical nightmare to hang but Mr B rose to the challenge and they went up perfectly!
We had planned to have the ceremony outside in the courtyard but moved it inside due to the weather on the morning of the wedding and Anna just calmly constructed us a simple and beautiful ivy arch complete with pampas grass either side in the barn.
THE CAKE | My lovely mum knew Sarah at Pink Cocoa who made us a four layer naked cake. It was utterly delicious and I would happily eat it all again!
YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | We met Tim Dunk through recommendations of other photographers and I am so glad we did! Andrew usually hates having his photo taken but Tim made us feel so comfortable, it felt like the easiest thing. Everyone at the wedding fell in love with Tim and he felt like another wedding guest by the end of the day. He produced the most beautiful pictures and was an absolute dream to work with.
THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | We went for quite simple decorations as we didn’t want to spend loads of money and wanted quite a clean look. We re-potted succulents into jam jars for table decorations and had small cactuses on the tables in white pots. Swallows and Damsons made foliage heavy wreaths for each of the tables as well.
We had a large BISHARKES 4EVA IDST banner at one end of the barn which was made by my lovely bridesmaid Freya and her sister Mattie.
There was ivy everywhere, which I gathered from people’s gardens and we also had tonnes of jam jars with tea lights.
We had planned to have the drinks ceremony outside but alas it was raining so we used another event space at Hornington Manor instead and set up some lawn games inside and had white pin wheels along one wall. We did have a bouncy castle out on the lawn for the whole weekend though, which was great for adults and children alike.
My talented mum (always handy to have!) designed our invites and all our signage for the day. They really helped to set the ‘theme’ of foliage and white.
For the wedding breakfast we wanted food that was filling, tasty and would keep people going through the evening.
Pies have been a thing in our relationship and we were in Yorkshire so it had to be pie, mash, mushy peas, normal peas, new potatoes, 3 or 4 types of veg… you get the idea.. Oh and gravy – lots of gravy! It was all amazing, really great food that was affordable and oh so tasty.
We also had a snack of pulled pork rolls at about 11pm to soak up some of the alcohol to keep people going.
Andy Firth was great, all the food was amazing and he also suggested using the cake for the dessert dressed with berries, cream and crème fraiche. A great idea, it meant we didn’t have loads of cake left over and also saved us money as we didn’t have to pay for dessert as well.
We wanted a big party and good music so our friends band POWER played two sets, they are a power ballads cover band and I knew they would get everyone dancing. They were absolutely amazing! We also knew we wanted a DJ, so we got in contact with Disco Wed, they were also amazing and kept the party going until late.
As we got engaged at Glastonbury we wanted some of the Glasto traditions we have at the party. We had glitter for everyone’s faces and a polaroid camera so people could take their own photos and hang them under the banner throughout the night. The pictures are hilarious! We also had glow sticks which worked out so well and everyone was raving away with glitter covered faces and glow sticks in their hands.
THE HONEYMOON | We went to Majorca for four days after to lie down but then I had to go back to work. We are planning a big three week holiday to Sri Lanka over Christmas.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS | The ceremony was amazing, there were tears, laughter and swearing – absolutely perfect and also totally us. Sharon (our celebrant) did an excellent job.
We also didn’t agree with the fact that in traditional weddings you don’t hear women’s voices in the speeches, so it became an equal opps wedding! We had speeches from my mum and dad, the best man and one of the bridesmaids and both Andrew and I. I loved hearing from both point of views and they were moving and hilarious in equal measure, special shout out to bridesmaid Freya for learning some binary code to impress maths geek Andrew!
Also Total Eclipse of the Heart played by POWER in the party was a massive moment, it has long been a road trip favourite of ours and we actually have parts in the song. We just let loose and it was only after the song had ended I realised people had been watching us.
I could go on and on with memorable moments, it was categorically the best day of our lives and if I could I would get married and celebrate with the same people over and over again.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | The Yorkshire weather was against us on the day and our planned outside ceremony had to be relocated inside, same for our planned drinks reception on the lawn. I always thought that when people said it doesn’t matter if it rains, they were actually lying. But it really, really doesn’t, by the time we got started we could not have cared less! I actually think I preferred the set up inside for the ceremony in the end.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |
Photographer | Tim Dunk
Venue | Hornington Manor
Catering | Firth’s
Florist | Swallows and Damsons
Wedding Dress | Elizabeth Avey
Dress Alterations | Elite Alterations
Bride’s Shoes | Charlotte Mills
Band | POWER
DJ | DiscoWed
Cake | Pink Cocoa
Celebrant | Sharon Kent
Hair | Anna Garside
Oh my! I especially love their words of advice. It really doesn’t matter if it rains folks…
Thanks so much to Lucy and Andrew for sharing their spectacular nuptials with us today xo Lou
