A Vintage Country Wedding and All the Tea ‘n China…

Yes, there are gor­geous details. But this wed­ding isn’t all about styling and decor. It’s a very per­sonal cel­e­bra­tion; very York­shire! Chris told me for him the per­sonal touches really made the day sparkle, and also Louise’s words about her wed­ding dress — which she never loved — bring every­thing into perspective.

Of course she looked absolutely stun­ning in her Augusta Jones dress, but for today when we talk about ‘The One’ in the con­text of a wed­ding blog… it’s espe­cially nice that it means the groom.

I would heartily rec­om­mend a cup of York­shire tea with today’s real wed­ding, and in your best china. You’ll see why… Enjoy!

A vin­tage coun­try wed­ding in York­shire (with teacups)

We had Corinthi­ans 13 as our reli­gious read­ing and then an excerpt from the Vel­veteen Rab­bit. This was my favorite book as a child and was read beau­ti­fully by my Mum on the day.

Who pro­posed, and how?

Chris pro­posed. I had just got back from a week­end away vis­it­ing a friend in Copen­hagen; we were also try­ing to buy a house at the time. Hav­ing got back from the week­end Chris was keen to talk about putting in another offer and I wasn’t so sure. This might have ended up in a minor dis­agree­ment and me stomp­ing off to bed!

We made up later in the evening and I explained that I just wanted the per­fect house for us, our cat and any future mini-us. At this moment Chris pro­duced a ring! Was com­pletely out of the blue, he had appar­ently been out and bought the ring and asked my Dad that week­end but hadn’t yet quite decided how to pro­pose. I was so shocked that it took me a lit­tle while to say yes but Chris always laughs at my inde­ci­sive­ness – so he should have expected it!

The per­fect York­shire wed­ding venue:

We got mar­ried at South­well Min­ster and then had a mar­quee in my Dad’s gar­den; it was very impor­tant that our wed­ding loca­tion meant some­thing to us and this couldn’t have been more perfect.

A Sheffield con­tem­po­rary wed­ding photographer:

We really liked Mark Tier­ney’s mod­ern approach to wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. His pho­tos were stun­ning, cre­ative and cap­ture much more than is within the frame. He lis­tens to what you want and makes every­one feel relaxed. Many of the guests com­mented on how they hardly noticed he was there.

What did you wear?

Chris and the rest of the wed­ding party wore navy morn­ing suits hired from Pronup­tia in Sheffield – he looked very dashing.

I wore Kelly by Augusta Jones, I prob­a­bly never loved my dress although it is always a run­ning joke amongst my friends that I have never man­aged to like a dress I bought for more than 10 min­utes! On the day though it all seemed so unim­por­tant com­pared to the immense­ness of get­ting mar­ried.

A vin­tage coun­try wed­ding style — over 200 sets of china!

Early on I men­tioned to Chris’s mum, Linda, that I quite liked the idea of after­noon tea; she offered to col­lect some china for us and a theme of vin­tage coun­try was set (although Chris still denies that we had a theme!). Linda did a ster­ling job and nine months later had over 200 sets of china for our one hun­dred guests which meant that we could also have a cuppa at canapé time which turned out to be very for­tu­nate as it was a rather chilly day and a cup of tea went down very well!

The vin­tage coun­try wed­ding styling and details

As men­tioned above Linda col­lected vin­tage china, which was used both at the meal­time and for a cuppa dur­ing after­noon tea style canapés. The teapots were used as flower vases for the tables. My Mum also made metres and metres of bunting and there ended up not just being enough to dec­o­rate the mar­quee but also most of Dad’s gar­den. My Dad and I also spent a lot of time mak­ing signs to direct guests to the wed­ding and black­boards for the menu and table plan.

We wanted to try and ensure that the whole day felt fun and relaxed. We wanted to ensure that our guests were enter­tained dur­ing the drinks recep­tion so we arranged some games. We bor­rowed some ‘frogs’ from a friend. My Dad and I made a ‘Splat the Rat’ as a sur­prise for Chris and one of our best men Sandy made the most amaz­ing coconut shy that I have ever seen. He even made us our own per­son­alised balls. The style ended up as vin­tage meets coun­try fete and we were helped by fam­ily and friends to make it so special.

We also had big shep­herds pies to share as our main meal to try and keep the day relaxed. We nom­i­nated a per­son on each table as the server and pro­vided them with an apron to wear. Some peo­ple in par­tic­u­lar took this job very seri­ously!

Mem­o­rable moments:

Clichéd as it sounds but walk­ing down the aisle to marry my best friend was the best feel­ing in the world and hav­ing all of our friends there with us made it just per­fect. Danc­ing on a dance floor sur­rounded by all our friends was pretty good too!

Wed­ding day advice:

Don’t sweat the lit­tle details. I stressed about my dress and hair before the day and then all day I didn’t think twice about what I looked like I was hav­ing far too much fun.

Chris: I would say all the lit­tle details were worth all the effort, I spent a lot of time try­ing to keep things sim­ple, how­ever what really made the day sparkle (apart from my wife) were the per­sonal touches. It’s your wed­ding, make it about you, it’ll be much more mem­o­rable.

Music and entertainment:

We had a band called the Money that we found on the inter­net. This was a bit of a risk as we had only heard two short audio­clips but they were truly and utterly immense. We had the best time danc­ing and the dance floor was com­pletely packed from the first to the last song.

Rec­om­mended suppliers:

• Band The money
• Cater­ers Hazels cater­ing www.hazelscatering.co.uk
• Mar­quee Mans­field mar­quees www.mansfieldmarquees.co.uk
• Flow­ers Flo­ral dreams www.floral-dreams.co.uk

More from Louise and Chris’s wed­ding day on Mark Tierney’s own pho­tog­ra­phy blog. I had such a strug­gle choos­ing images for this blog post as Mark’s selec­tion was fab­u­lous. Speeches are notice­ably miss­ing here, and there are more fun and games over on Mark’s blog. I rec­om­mend you go and look. There’s a big­ger smile wait­ing over there for you… South­well Min­ster wed­ding blog…