Brighten up your day with this imaginative, comic-book themed wedding! It's packed full of stealworthy ideas, and I'm thrilled that the lovely Verity drew inspiration from Before the Big Day. We share a love of giant round balloons, along with a good wedding theme. Verity and Russell chose an old-school vibe of comic books and vintage board games to decorate their reception, and I reckon it's the first time I've seen a Monopoly board at a wedding! You'll have to wait for this afternoon's feature to see those details, but first, feast your eyes on Verity's fabulous Sophia Tolli wedding gown, her dramatic bouquet of red gerbera and Russell's fantastic red bow-tie. I also love her little bridemaids' dresses - their luxurious red sashes, and little ribbon wands. Verity has tonnes of great wedding advice on how to keep to your wedding budget - from DIY projects to winning competitions! Enjoy reading her answers to Before the Big Day's Bride's Questionnaire, and why not submit your wedding? Huge thanks to Rebecca L Weddings for her gorgeous pictures of this big day.
We got married on 18 May 2013 at Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire with a reception in Rosliston Forestry Centre. I won a competition by Wedding In A TeaCup so our wedding invitations were free. We went for a vintage look and used stamps to create the name tags.
My dress was made by Sophia Tolli and was called Martina - I knew as soon as I tried it on it would be the perfect dress. It was a corset fit, with a keyhole back and the material was so soft. I found it quite stressful towards the end of the planning, so it had to be adjusted as I'd lost weight. Seeing your dress all chopped up is awful two weeks before your wedding!
I wore Irregular Choice shoes - I'm a massive fan and love how quirky they are. The shoes had blue birds on them and were court style. I also ordered my veil from Etsy - the seller was from Miami and the first veil got lost in the post - the second veil arrived with just a week to go. The veil blew away when I got into the car to go to the reception, which was a shame.
Russ doesn't mind wearing bold colours and clothing which I think is fantastic. He chose a blue suit and striking red bow tie both from Debenhams. He also found a pocket watch online and had that to remind himself that I'll be late! His glasses were vintage style tortoiseshell - he works for Specsavers so has hundreds of pairs of glasses, but these are my favourite.
I have many close friends and family members that I would have loved to be bridesmaids, but I couldn't choose between them, so in the end I just had my three beautiful nieces.
The bridesmaids' dresses were used for my sisters wedding six months earlier {Jade married Russ's best friend who originally introduced us!} but we changed them by adding thick red silk ribbon around the waist. The dresses were from BHS and were perfect.
We actually had a rough ride with our reception. We booked a nearby barn but got told with 8 months to go that they were no longer doing weddings due to noise and neighbour problems. We were gutted! Thankfully Saffron Caterers put forward Rosliston Forestry Centre which was in the middle of the National Forest and has accommodation for all our guests so it was the perfect alternative, and better than our original choice.
Our wedding theme was a mash up of board games, music festival, comic books and vintage. As we invited our guests to stay for a whole weekend we called it Wedfest 2013! For decoration we had inspriation from childhood board games and used bright pops of colour - prominently red and blue.
I really didn't care about our wedding flowers, I wasn't even going to have a bouquet until my friend Roxanne persuaded me to have one. I'm so glad she did! I gave the colour scheme to the florist and she advised I went for a Freedom rose, a blue delphinium and red gerbera. For the table decorations, we also had gerbera in milk bottles, sourced by my sister from a flower market.
For me our wedding photographer was the most important element of the day. I love taking pictures, and documenting every moment. We came across an award-winning fashion and art photographer called Rebecca who was branching into weddings. She was running a competition to win your wedding photography - to enter you had to submit a style board from an engagement shoot, and I entered with a superhero theme.
Although we didn't win the overall competition, it gave us the opportunity to spend time with Rebecca, and it was a no brainer that she would be our photographer. I'm so proud of the pictures she produced, as I didn't want me or my family to spend the day formally posing. She captured the magic of Wedfest which is perfect.
Love Before the Big Day? Never want to miss a post? Sign up for our free newsletter, for exclusive content and special offers! Before the Big Day - The Best UK Wedding Blog.
We got married on 18 May 2013 at Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire with a reception in Rosliston Forestry Centre. I won a competition by Wedding In A TeaCup so our wedding invitations were free. We went for a vintage look and used stamps to create the name tags.
My dress was made by Sophia Tolli and was called Martina - I knew as soon as I tried it on it would be the perfect dress. It was a corset fit, with a keyhole back and the material was so soft. I found it quite stressful towards the end of the planning, so it had to be adjusted as I'd lost weight. Seeing your dress all chopped up is awful two weeks before your wedding!
I wore Irregular Choice shoes - I'm a massive fan and love how quirky they are. The shoes had blue birds on them and were court style. I also ordered my veil from Etsy - the seller was from Miami and the first veil got lost in the post - the second veil arrived with just a week to go. The veil blew away when I got into the car to go to the reception, which was a shame.
Russ doesn't mind wearing bold colours and clothing which I think is fantastic. He chose a blue suit and striking red bow tie both from Debenhams. He also found a pocket watch online and had that to remind himself that I'll be late! His glasses were vintage style tortoiseshell - he works for Specsavers so has hundreds of pairs of glasses, but these are my favourite.
I have many close friends and family members that I would have loved to be bridesmaids, but I couldn't choose between them, so in the end I just had my three beautiful nieces.
The bridesmaids' dresses were used for my sisters wedding six months earlier {Jade married Russ's best friend who originally introduced us!} but we changed them by adding thick red silk ribbon around the waist. The dresses were from BHS and were perfect.
We actually had a rough ride with our reception. We booked a nearby barn but got told with 8 months to go that they were no longer doing weddings due to noise and neighbour problems. We were gutted! Thankfully Saffron Caterers put forward Rosliston Forestry Centre which was in the middle of the National Forest and has accommodation for all our guests so it was the perfect alternative, and better than our original choice.
Our wedding theme was a mash up of board games, music festival, comic books and vintage. As we invited our guests to stay for a whole weekend we called it Wedfest 2013! For decoration we had inspriation from childhood board games and used bright pops of colour - prominently red and blue.
For me our wedding photographer was the most important element of the day. I love taking pictures, and documenting every moment. We came across an award-winning fashion and art photographer called Rebecca who was branching into weddings. She was running a competition to win your wedding photography - to enter you had to submit a style board from an engagement shoot, and I entered with a superhero theme.
Although we didn't win the overall competition, it gave us the opportunity to spend time with Rebecca, and it was a no brainer that she would be our photographer. I'm so proud of the pictures she produced, as I didn't want me or my family to spend the day formally posing. She captured the magic of Wedfest which is perfect.
Love Before the Big Day? Never want to miss a post? Sign up for our free newsletter, for exclusive content and special offers! Before the Big Day - The Best UK Wedding Blog.
