It Must Be Love! an Athelhampton wedding
Paul proposed to me on my birthday after we’d been together for 5 years. To be honest I (and all my family and friends!) thought it would never happen so I was very surprised when he asked! He’d spoken to both my Mum and Dad a few days before and also his parents and sisters all knew he was going to ask as well. I’m surprised nobody let it slip, although looking back they were all avoiding me in the run up to my birthday!
Wedding venue: Athelhampton House, Dorset with photograpy by Linus Moran
How would you describe your wedding style? Relaxed and personal
Religious or civil? Civil
What readings did you choose? “The Union” by Robert Fulghum; & “Wedding” — Author unknown
Venue styling and details: … All of our flowers were supplied by PM Read of Weymouth (www.pmreadflorist.staticloud.com) they did the most amazing job especially considering I wasn’t very good at explaining what I wanted — I just kept saying ‘messy and unstructured’! They come up with exactly what I wanted even though I’d not actually said it!
We didn’t have a ‘theme’ as such we just went for a cream and green color scheme. I just tried to make sure that everything that we did reflected us rather than trying to fit to a specific theme.
We were very lucky to have a very talented friend who helped us make all of our wedding stationery which saved us a fortune but also made it a lot more personal to us. We ended up making all the invites, order of service, menu cards and wedding favours ourselves.
We kept our decorations quite minimal as the Coach House at Athelhampton is so lovely it didn’t need any fancying up! The only decorations, apart from the table flowers, were some fairy lights and cream organza that we tied around the pillars. For the tables we hired some large glass disks which stood on tealight votives (www.Nomadfood.co.uk) as something a bit different and it also gave our flowers more height.
We had a tower of cupcakes made by Rex’s Heavenly Cupcakes (www.cupcakesbournemouth.co.uk) which fitted perfectly with our cream and green theme. We also had a fruit cake (from M&S) which we used to cut and also so we could send pieces to people that were not able to join us on the day.
What were your highlights?
Being surrounded by our family and friends, the speeches & our first dance.
The dress was an Augusta Jones design and was a beautiful floaty grecian style dress with one shoulder strap and a gorgeous vintage style brooch on the bust. Shoes from Kurt Geiger.
Paul wore a gray suit hired from Well Groomed in Poole (www.wellgroomeddorset.co.uk) and had a gray lower Marcella style waistcoat made by Tessa’s Tiaras (www.tessatiaras.co.uk)
Our most memorable moments were seeing each other when I arrived and our first dance. We’re not very good dancers so we’d asked our close family and friends to join us about 30 seconds into the song (It must be love by Madness) and we have really happy memories of that moment.
Wedding day advice:
Relax, enjoy, take in every moment it goes so quickly!
Recommended wedding suppliers:
- Linus Moran (www.linusmoranphotography.co.uk)
- Athelhampton House (www.athelhampton.co.uk)
- P&M Read Florists (www.pmreadflorist.staticloud.com)
- Rex’s Heavenly Cupcakes (www.cupcakesbournemouth.co.uk)
- Tessa’s Tiaras (www.tessatiaras.co.uk)
- Dr Disco (www.dr-disco.co.uk)
- NKW Weddings (www.nkwweddings.co.uk)
- Smiley Booth (www.smileybooth.co.uk)
Wedding music and entertainment:
In the evening we had a DJ (www.dr-disco.co.uk) who did a fantastic job of keeping the dance floor full all night! He also had a big screen which had photographs streaming of the Stag and Hen do on.
We also hired a photo booth in the evening to entertain the guests which was a huge hit!