A Wow Factor Wedding: Peacock Feathers, Gold Dress and a Fairytale Castle!

It’s very, very dif­fi­cult to know where to start! Rachel’s gold, bespoke wed­ding dress by Terry Fox is breath­tak­ing. The theme for the day — pea­cock feath­ers and a riot of color — works beau­ti­fully. The atten­tion to detail with every­thing from invi­ta­tions to brides­maids and but­ton­holes is sheer indul­gence and I love every lit­tle bit of it. The wed­ding pho­tographs speak of love — the way Rachel looks at Neil (and vice versa) is so roman­tic. The wed­ding venue — round the cor­ner from my very own apart­ment! — is mag­nif­i­cent and full of character.

Once again I feel I should intro­duce a glo­ri­ous and excit­ing wed­ding with a ringmaster’s flour­ish: you will LOVE read­ing about and see­ing Rachel and Neil’s ele­gant, fun, infor­mal, colour­ful and quirky wed­ding. Rachel’s writ­ten a bril­liant wed­ding report to share with you — thanks ever so much, Rachel! With thanks also to Steve Hill­man for shar­ing his lovely images of the day with us all today. Enjoy! Claire xxx

Rachel and Neil’s vibrant Muncaster Cas­tle wedding

Who pro­posed, and how?

Neil pro­posed to me in Jan­u­ary 2010 on a trip to New York dur­ing a walk through Cen­tral Park. It was no secret to our fam­ily and friends how much I wanted to get mar­ried so I was so happy when Neil asked me after 6 and half years together. I got to choose my own ring which he bought there in New York.

Wed­ding venue: Muncaster Cas­tle

We chose Muncaster Cas­tle in Raven­glass, Cum­bria as our wed­ding venue. I really wanted a wow fac­tor venue for the cer­e­mony as this is essen­tially the most impor­tant part of the day. I knew I was going to love it before I even walked in and if I’m hon­est I had actu­ally been look­ing at venues online for a while before Neil even pro­posed! I’m so fussy I thought it might save a bit of time if I had an idea of places I’d like see when the time came. I looked at hun­dreds of venues on line and nar­rowed it down to 4. Neil was happy to let me have the venue I wanted but I still dragged him round with me!

As nei­ther of us is reli­gious we chose to have a civil cer­e­mony, and because it’s such a beau­ti­ful cas­tle I didn’t feel like we were miss­ing out on the beau­ti­ful pho­tographs and atmos­phere you get from a church wed­ding because the great hall where we were mar­ried was just as spe­cial. It has very dra­matic rich red and wood pan­elled walls which date from the medieval age, with pic­tures of past ances­tors adorn­ing the walls in ornate gold frames, with a huge fire place and a beau­ti­ful bay win­dow to marry in front of look­ing into the gar­dens. Not only is the venue stun­ning but the staff who work there are amaz­ing espe­cially Sue the wed­ding coor­di­na­tor! Every­thing just ran smoothly from start to fin­ish. I would rec­om­mend this as a wed­ding venue to any­body. The cas­tle is actu­ally home to the Pen­ning­ton fam­ily and we were lucky enough to meet the owner on the day too.

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Steve Hillman

Steve Hill­man, amaz­ing pho­tog­ra­pher! We both would highly rec­om­mended him, Unob­tru­sive, beau­ti­ful wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy. Happy to lis­ten to ideas of your own which I had many!! Very rea­son­ably priced and just a really lovely guy.

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Ele­gant, fun, infor­mal, colour­ful and quirky.

What did you wear?

Rachel — My dress was a haute cou­ture bespoke dress made by Terry Fox in Bury St Edmunds, which was a 6 hour drive from where I live but worth all the trav­el­ling I did. I knew I wanted a gold dress right from the start and had lots of ideas of what I wanted it to look like so I knew I wouldn’t be able to find one in a nor­mal bridal shop.

I came across an advert in a wed­ding mag­a­zine and as soon as I saw her dresses online I knew Terry was going to be per­fect! They were really dif­fer­ent and unusual. The whole process of design­ing my dress was amaz­ing but choos­ing the shade of gold was really hard from the small swatches as they look so dif­fer­ent when there is more of it to see, so I was really ner­vous when I went to see my dress nearly fin­ished in the shade I’d cho­sen but it was the per­fect shade. It was a 2 piece made from silk and tulle.

The corset was made up of sheer pieces of mate­r­ial and lace lay­ered over each other in dif­fer­ent shades with vin­tage brooches cas­cad­ing down on an angle, I really wanted a strap added to it so I opted to have this made out of gold lace which Terry added some sparkly embell­ish­ment to. I also wanted to have some sort of jew­ellery drap­ing onto my arm, Terry sourced an amaz­ing neck­lace to use made with AB crys­tals which sparkled amaz­ingly. The skirt was made up of lay­ers of tulle at the front and silk skirt to the sides and back with ruch­ing all around the edges and a split train with curved edges and a small bow at the top fin­ished off with a brooch. It was per­fect and I felt amaz­ing in it on the day. I would rec­om­mend Terry to any­body look­ing for some­thing a lit­tle bit different.

I didn’t want a veil as I thought it would detract from my dress and maybe look a bit too much. I knew what I wanted and searched the inter­net for months, I came across Mag­pie Vin­tage based in Read­ing who make their own jew­ellery from gen­uine vin­tage brooches. I came across a neck­lace and thought it would be per­fect to wear in my hair so they adapted it for me and it was so beau­ti­ful and matched my dress per­fectly. It was made up of cream and dif­fer­ent shades of small gold pearl, with a large gold flower and a large pearl at the front, they also made me a small neck­lace to hang at the back of my hair made up of AB crys­tals. My ear­rings were a Xmas present from my sis­ter in law. I was so excited when I opened them as they were exactly what I’d been look­ing for myself and couldn’t find, they were from Chic Unique. I also bought a bracelet from Etsy.

I wore shoes from Schuh by Irreg­u­lar Choice. They were metal­lic blue and gold with a gold flower and see through heel with flow­ers imprinted on them and dou­bled up as my some­thing blue. I loved them — they were so quirky and went per­fectly with my dress. My friend and brides­maid Cheryl gave me a beau­ti­ful garter which she’d had made with Mrs Har­ris on the front.

Neil and his grooms­men wore 3 piece navy blue morn­ing suits with pin­stripe trousers. Neil had a cra­vat made from the same mate­r­ial as my dress and a gold pocket watch which was a present from me on the morn­ing of the wed­ding which I’d had engraved. The grooms­men wore cra­vats made from the same mate­r­ial as the brides­maids’ dresses. They all wore stripey socks in the same color as their cra­vats which they loved.

The brides­maids all wore knee length, strap­less chif­fon dresses from Dessy in pur­ple, blue and green to match the pea­cock feather theme, and a pea­cock feather clip in their hair which I got from Pri­mark for £2!! I just added a pur­ple feather to them. I had pearl jew­ellery made in the same colours as the dresses espe­cially for them as a present which I got from Etsy.

About the wed­ding ceremony:

The cer­e­mony was so much more inti­mate than I imag­ined it would be: with our guests sur­round­ing us it was just per­fect. We had one read­ing read by my best friend and brides­maid Jemma. She read ‘on your wed­ding day’.

The wed­ding reception:

After the cer­e­mony we had a drinks recep­tion out­side with canapés. We were very lucky with the weather — it was a glo­ri­ous day so it was lovely to make use of the cas­tle front lawn and gor­geous gar­dens. We then went onto the speeches and a 3 course sit down meal. The food was amaz­ing and the speeches had us both in stitches. My sis­ter (chief brides­maid) and best man (Neil’s brother) both did such a good job as did Neil. He was given a crown to wear by his brother dur­ing the speech which he barely took off after­wards! I also received an adult sized bib from my sis­ter in law with Mrs Har­ris printed on the front, I loved it!

What were your wed­ding highlights?

• Vis­it­ing venues with Neil, it was all so excit­ing. For me anyway!!
• See­ing my dress fin­ished, it was the most amaz­ing dress, I loved it so much — it was every­thing I‘d imagined.
• Plan­ning all the finer details which made our wed­ding per­sonal to us.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

• Trav­el­ling to the cer­e­mony with my mam in the horse and car­riage in the sun­shine. It was just perfect.
• Walk­ing down the aisle towards my very hand­some look­ing hus­band and say­ing our vows.
• Putting on some of the props with all our wed­ding party run­ning down the lawn and act­ing like kids!
• Play­ing in the park in the grounds on the swings and zip­wire with my brides­maids and also the sur­prise dance we did.
• See­ing all our fam­ily and friends hav­ing a great time and enjoy­ing themselves.
• The best man’s speech: he told some very funny sto­ries, some of them very rude!

Wed­ding day advice:

• It isn’t too early to start plan­ning any­thing, the ear­lier the bet­ter espe­cially any DIY projects — they can be very time con­sum­ing as I found out when mak­ing my own invi­ta­tions but it’s very reward­ing when you’ve fin­ished and all your guests do appre­ci­ate the hard work you put in.
• A wed­ding doesn’t have to be seri­ous all day, once the cer­e­mony is over have fun and be your­selves. We’ve had so many peo­ple say what a great time they had because it wasn’t too ‘stuffy’ and for­mal which it could eas­ily have been in a venue like a castle.
• If there are a lot of peo­ple get­ting ready together in the morn­ing and you have some­body com­ing to do hair and make up, make an itin­er­ary so every­one knows what they should be hav­ing done and when and allow plenty of time. Time goes very fast and today is a day you don’t want to be run­ning late!

Wed­ding venue styling and details:

I spent a lot of time on the details of the wed­ding. I had a def­i­nite idea in my head of what I wanted it to look like, it all came together per­fectly in the end. I loved the idea of hav­ing a really vibrant colour­ful wed­ding and using pea­cock feath­ers tied the look together.

I loved look­ing at beau­ti­fully dressed tables online dur­ing the plan­ning so I really wanted our tables to have the wow fac­tor liked the ones I’d seen. I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted it to look like.

I came across some gold charger plates in the range, they were per­fect. I then added pur­ple nap­kins with a pea­cock feather laid on top it looked really pretty and effec­tive. Each guest had a minia­ture gold frame with a photo of them instead a place card, which dou­bled up as their favour too which saved us some money it was very time con­sum­ing but worth every sec­ond. Every­body loved them and it’s lovely to see them on dis­play after­wards in their homes as a reminder of our day.

I didn’t want to see white any­where in our wed­ding other than the table cloths so I hunted down gold chair cov­ers which wasn’t easy. I had them made bespoke in the end, they were tied with a light gold organza bow and embell­ished with a pea­cock feather, and looked stun­ning in the room and really fin­ished off the whole look. For the cen­tre­pieces we opted for tall vases filled with bright pink, pur­ple, blue and green flow­ers and pea­cock feath­ers to match the theme with pearls on a wire wrapped around the vase — they looked beau­ti­ful. We re-used every­thing to dec­o­rate the func­tion room for the evening do with help from the wed­ding party.

For our cake we opted for a cup­cake tower with a round on top for us to cut. The cup­cakes were iced in green, pur­ple and blue but­ter cream and topped with pearls, glit­ter and feath­ers in gold fil­i­gree cake wrap­pers and dis­played on a clear stand. The cake round was metal­lic gold and topped with 2 beau­ti­ful pea­cocks perched on a gold bird­cage with a tea light inside with the pea­cock tail from Etsy cas­cad­ing down the side of the cakes. It tasted just as good as it looked. We opted for car­rot, choco­late, and lemon flavours. I arranged for Neil to have a groom’s cake made too as sur­prise. He loved it!

The flow­ers were really impor­tant to me and I did a lot of research on them so I knew what I was talk­ing about when I went to see our florist. They were fan­tas­tic and really under­stood the vision I had for the day. My bou­quet was made up of bright pink ger­beras, pur­ple lisianthus, green chrysan­the­mums, blue den­dro­bium orchids and pea­cock feath­ers and gold pearls on a wire. They also added some gold brooches. The brides­maids had smaller ver­sions of mine tied with a rib­bon to match their dress. The flow­ers really stand out in the pho­tographs and the pink really con­trasts beau­ti­fully with their dresses.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

We chose to have a harpist play through­out the whole day. I walked down the aisle to the bridal march, I wouldn’t have cho­sen any­thing else and it sounded beau­ti­ful played on the harp. My mother and father in law and brides­maids walked in first to canon in D, and we walked out to the wed­ding march. Dur­ing the sign­ing of the reg­is­ter Neil’s cousin Bro­gan sang ‘A Won­der­ful World’ along with the harpist. She sounded beau­ti­ful and brought a tear to my eye and many of our guests. We also had Ever­long by the Foo Fight­ers played on the harp, which we also had as our first dance but chose the acoustic ver­sion, they are our favorite band. I think it’s impor­tant to include things you both like as a cou­ple even if it isn’t a tra­di­tional thing to have at a wedding.

I really wanted the day to be fun so instead of a tra­di­tional guest book I hired dig­i­tal Polaroid cam­eras and filled a vin­tage suit­case with fun props for guests to wear. I had a large sign made, which was a pic­ture of me and Neil dressed up in the props hold­ing a sign with small bul­let points of what to do. The cam­eras printed out sticky backed pho­tos which they stuck in the guest book then left us a mes­sage next to it, it went down really well with every­body and it was fun to look through after­wards, espe­cially the ones towards the end when peo­ple have a had a few to drink!

We had 2 owls make an appear­ance dur­ing the drinks and canapés which the guests could hold and have pic­tures with.

A car­i­ca­tur­ist enter­tained the guests from dessert and through the evening party so every­one had a fun sou­venir to take away with them. We had a DJ play through­out the night — it was great to see the dance floor full all night. The guests also enjoyed a pea­cock coloured themed candy buf­fet and a barbeque.

I also chore­o­graphed a dance rou­tine with my brides­maids to a mix of ran­dom songs like Can’t Touch This, Bay­watch, Baby Got Back etc. They even wore shorts under their dresses which spelled out Mr and Mrs Har­ris which they revealed at the end to a big cheer!! We had barely had any prac­tice together but it came off and we had such a laugh doing it and all the guests loved it, it’s been hilar­i­ous to watch it back on our wed­ding video!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Steve Hill­man — wed­ding photographer
• Terry Fox
• Mag­pie Vintage
• Ambi­ence Venue Styling
• Efflo­res­cence
• Corrs Cakes
• Mr Mis­ter
• North East Car­riage Company
• Branka Crow­der (harpist)