With a vintage 1950's theme, and a rustic-glamorous venue, this wedding is something of a humdinger! the bride and groom, Tania and Tegid threw themselves into the planning process, adding tonnes of personalised ideas, and doing a fair few DIY projects along the way. There's lots of money-saving tips in Tania's answers to the Before the Big Day Bride's Questionnaire, including print-your-own wedding stationery from Zazzle, make your own favours with Jen's Sweet Shop vintage bonbons, and original 1970s figurines of Princess Leia and Han Solo as a cake topper. I'm also a big fan of their heart-shaped blackboards - such a useful photo prop! Loving all their wedding pictures, published with thanks to the talented team of Ben and Hannah of HBA Photography.
We got married in the Midlands on 31st August 2013. The ceremony was held at St John the Baptist's Church in Middleton, followed by our reception at Shustoke Farm Barns in Coleshill.
We saw a lot of lovely old hotels full of character, but for the number of guests we had {approx. 90}, with most of them we would have had to have held our wedding breakfast in a marquee away from the main venue. So when we found Shustoke Farm Barns, a red brick 18th century building which was still being renovated {we saw it pretty much as a building site, without a roof!}, we thought it was perfect. It had all the beautiful traditional rustic charm, but with the added bonus of lots of capacity!
My bridesmaids’ outfits were a design from Mori Lee. We decided on an elegant chiffon design as it suited all my lovely ladies and had the same Hollywood 50s glamour feel we were looking for to complement my dress.
Our wedding photographers were Ben and Hannah of HBA Photography. We discovered them at a wedding fayre and they were the first supplier we booked! Their work stood out from the competition as they clearly had a natural talent for creating stunning and creative photos that were quirky and fun, as well as capturing the more traditional wedding shots.
As a bonus, HBA Photography were super friendly on the day, and worked tirelessly to capture the various types of shots we had included in our brief.
I am a big fan of Grace Kelly! So my dress was very much inspired by her timeless look. We therefore had a hint of a 50s vintage theme throughout the wedding, from the 50s inspired design on the stationery, the style of the bridesmaid dresses, the traditional bonbons for favours, all the way through to our vintage suitcase, which we used as a wedding card postbox.
We didn't have to do a lot to decorate the venue as the decor held its own. We just added some country-style flower arrangements on the tables in enamel jugs to add a burst of colour.
We chose Claretys for our wedding flowers. They're a local florist near to my mum's house. They were very professional, and I liked the look and feel of their previous displays. The two ladies who ran the shop were also very attentive and listened to what we were looking for, but were great at advising what combination of buds would complement each other, and which flowers might not work. I felt they also offered great value and I would certainly recommend them again!
For all our wedding stationery, we used a pre-designed invite from the website Zazzle, featuring a very 'Bewitched' style, bird and cake design. It seemed a perfect choice to go with the vintage-y feel we were going for, and also complemented our colour theme of taupe and purply/pinks. We used the same design theme and font for all our other stationery, including the order of service, our table place names and for creating our table plan.
A cousin of my husband's created our cake. She has her own small business, called The Bespoke Bakery, creating delicious and fabulous looking cakes. We gave her an outline of the theme/style/colour scheme of the wedding and she suggested the three-tier cake that she made for us.
It was made of lemon cake for the bottom two tiers, and a fruit cake for the top, with a simple but effective design of hydrangea petals cascading down the side. Sitting atop of the cake were original 1970s figurines of Princess Leia and Han Solo bride and groom, for my husband, lest we forget how big a Star Wars fan he is! ;-)
We had quite a few DIY projects! My groom, parents and I had a bit of a production line going on the week leading to the wedding, diligently making the table plans, favours and name cards. My friend also designed and made the order of service. We also fashioned our postbox from an old vintage suitcase and created a photo display of the wedding photos of our close family members, including all our grandparents.
Our wedding favours were vintage sweets {bonbons}, supplied by Jen's Sweet Shop. They continued the vintage theme, and were quite cost effective, as we made them up ourselves using cellophane bags and lots of pretty ribbon.
I did enjoy being so closely involved with so many aspects of the planning of the wedding, as it felt very personal by the end of it. However, I did find it challenging to balance all the wedding preparation with a full time job, and found it rather tiring by the end!
It's really tempting to try and be involved in every aspect of planning your day, but sometimes you have to trust other people/suppliers to help you along the way, otherwise, you can get overwhelmed by it all. So delegate, delegate, delegate wherever you can and on the day, try to forget all the planning and just let your hair down!
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We got married in the Midlands on 31st August 2013. The ceremony was held at St John the Baptist's Church in Middleton, followed by our reception at Shustoke Farm Barns in Coleshill.
We saw a lot of lovely old hotels full of character, but for the number of guests we had {approx. 90}, with most of them we would have had to have held our wedding breakfast in a marquee away from the main venue. So when we found Shustoke Farm Barns, a red brick 18th century building which was still being renovated {we saw it pretty much as a building site, without a roof!}, we thought it was perfect. It had all the beautiful traditional rustic charm, but with the added bonus of lots of capacity!
My bridesmaids’ outfits were a design from Mori Lee. We decided on an elegant chiffon design as it suited all my lovely ladies and had the same Hollywood 50s glamour feel we were looking for to complement my dress.
Our wedding photographers were Ben and Hannah of HBA Photography. We discovered them at a wedding fayre and they were the first supplier we booked! Their work stood out from the competition as they clearly had a natural talent for creating stunning and creative photos that were quirky and fun, as well as capturing the more traditional wedding shots.
As a bonus, HBA Photography were super friendly on the day, and worked tirelessly to capture the various types of shots we had included in our brief.
I am a big fan of Grace Kelly! So my dress was very much inspired by her timeless look. We therefore had a hint of a 50s vintage theme throughout the wedding, from the 50s inspired design on the stationery, the style of the bridesmaid dresses, the traditional bonbons for favours, all the way through to our vintage suitcase, which we used as a wedding card postbox.
We didn't have to do a lot to decorate the venue as the decor held its own. We just added some country-style flower arrangements on the tables in enamel jugs to add a burst of colour.
We chose Claretys for our wedding flowers. They're a local florist near to my mum's house. They were very professional, and I liked the look and feel of their previous displays. The two ladies who ran the shop were also very attentive and listened to what we were looking for, but were great at advising what combination of buds would complement each other, and which flowers might not work. I felt they also offered great value and I would certainly recommend them again!
For all our wedding stationery, we used a pre-designed invite from the website Zazzle, featuring a very 'Bewitched' style, bird and cake design. It seemed a perfect choice to go with the vintage-y feel we were going for, and also complemented our colour theme of taupe and purply/pinks. We used the same design theme and font for all our other stationery, including the order of service, our table place names and for creating our table plan.
A cousin of my husband's created our cake. She has her own small business, called The Bespoke Bakery, creating delicious and fabulous looking cakes. We gave her an outline of the theme/style/colour scheme of the wedding and she suggested the three-tier cake that she made for us.
It was made of lemon cake for the bottom two tiers, and a fruit cake for the top, with a simple but effective design of hydrangea petals cascading down the side. Sitting atop of the cake were original 1970s figurines of Princess Leia and Han Solo bride and groom, for my husband, lest we forget how big a Star Wars fan he is! ;-)
We had quite a few DIY projects! My groom, parents and I had a bit of a production line going on the week leading to the wedding, diligently making the table plans, favours and name cards. My friend also designed and made the order of service. We also fashioned our postbox from an old vintage suitcase and created a photo display of the wedding photos of our close family members, including all our grandparents.
Our wedding favours were vintage sweets {bonbons}, supplied by Jen's Sweet Shop. They continued the vintage theme, and were quite cost effective, as we made them up ourselves using cellophane bags and lots of pretty ribbon.
I did enjoy being so closely involved with so many aspects of the planning of the wedding, as it felt very personal by the end of it. However, I did find it challenging to balance all the wedding preparation with a full time job, and found it rather tiring by the end!
It's really tempting to try and be involved in every aspect of planning your day, but sometimes you have to trust other people/suppliers to help you along the way, otherwise, you can get overwhelmed by it all. So delegate, delegate, delegate wherever you can and on the day, try to forget all the planning and just let your hair down!
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