“5 Small Beautiful Little Monkeys” — a Real Wedding in Kent

David and Rebecca were mar­ried at Minster-in-Thanet, Kent. They chose a choco­late and ivory theme, and the day was relaxed, infor­mal and fun. High­lights for me are those “5 small beau­ti­ful lit­tle mon­keys” men­tioned in their wed­ding report; Rebecca’s look — from her hair to her gor­geous wed­ding dress; and the hand­made details of the day. That said, I love it all… and I hope you will too.

The pho­tog­ra­phy is by lovely Kent wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Tony Gameiro, and David and Rebecca have writ­ten a fan­tas­tic wed­ding report to share with us. Enjoy!

Who pro­posed, and how?

David pro­posed in front of all of my friends and fam­ily at my 30th birth­day. Com­pletely unex­pected and beautiful

Wed­ding venue: Min­ster House, Minster

Open fields owned by a friend of ours who was kind enough to allow us to put up a mar­quee and use his grounds.

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Tony Gameiro

We met Tony at a wed­ding fair that David wasn’t overly keen on attend­ing, from the moment we saw his work, and his laid back style we knew we’d enjoy work­ing with him, so much so we called and booked him on the drive home!

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Relaxed, infor­mal and fun. Bec’s always fan­cied her­self as a bit of a wed­ding plan­ner, and organ­ises events for fun, so this was a test to prove that she can plan all the details and make it hap­pen in a wed­ding setting.

She’s been doing hand­made invites, favours, and all the lit­tle things you even think of. So I guess bespoke and hand­made would be a good way of describ­ing it.

Our day was all about a relaxed non-stuffy atmos­phere, which was closer to a huge fam­ily party. We were very keen to have a wed­ding with­out pre­ten­tious­ness and just wanted to have fun with all our fam­ily and friends, while play­ing games and enjoy­ing our­selves.

Bec wore an Enzoani Erin wed­ding dress, which is noth­ing like she ever thought she’d pick. It was an ivory Ital­ian lace affair with cus­tom addi­tions, which really made the dress. She also wore her favorite cow­boy boots, as that’s her style.

David wore a choco­late brown Edwar­dian style suit, with match­ing ivory cra­vat.

The wed­ding ceremony:

Reli­gious or civil wedding?

We had a beau­ti­ful cer­e­mony at St Mary’s The Vir­gin church in Minster-in-Thanet. The church was old and dates from 670 AD and was stunning.

We were also lucky enough to have Bec’s uncle Tim Roberts, who is an inter­na­tional con­duc­tor and instru­men­tal­ist play­ing the Oboe dur­ing the cer­e­mony and a beau­ti­ful solo piece dur­ing the sign­ing of the register.

Which wed­ding read­ings did you choose?

We chose the tra­di­tional read­ings of John 15:9–17 which was read by David’s dad Ron, and 1 Corinthi­ans 13 which was read by Bec’s brother Will

The wed­ding reception:

What were your highlights?

The day went so fast, high­lights are dif­fi­cult. One of our high­lights was our walk from the church, all the guests were bussed to the recep­tion, but we chose to walk to allow us some time to relax before the recep­tion and it was lovely tak­ing a stroll in the sun as man and wife.

We both loved the first dance, which was spe­cial to us, and also spe­cial as Luke had learnt it and it was the first time he had ever per­formed it.

After 18 months of plan­ning the high­light was step­ping back and watch­ing peo­ple enjoy them­selves, play­ing rounders, hav­ing fun with our photo board and enjoy­ing local ale. There were so many amaz­ing bits of the day it’s hard to articulate.

Wed­ding venue styling and details:

We had a mar­quee which was a stan­dard affair, how­ever we went on a dec­o­rat­ing offen­sive which was described by our guests as hav­ing a very vin­tage look.

We went with the choco­late and ivory color scheme, which we used for bunting, table run­ners, flow­ers, and almost all decorations.

We spent 18 months col­lect­ing vin­tage teacups and saucers for the hot bev­er­ages to be served from. We had David’s mum’s old vin­tage suit­case which was used to col­lect all the cards in, and details like this added to the whole look.

We made all the favours, which were jars of jam made from berries we per­son­ally col­lected locally. The jars were all wrapped and pack­aged in an orig­i­nal vin­tage style.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

Our amaz­ing flower girls. Hav­ing 5 small beau­ti­ful lit­tle mon­keys run­ning round in adorable dresses all hand crafted by Bec’s mom was amaz­ing. So inno­cent, and always guar­an­teed to do the most inap­pro­pri­ate thing at the most unde­sir­able time!

After an immense 24 hours, see­ing each other at the end of the aisle, and feel­ing a sense of relief of us actu­ally doing it was brilliant!

David and his best man Jon nam­ing them­selves ‘Team Awe­some’ on the day before the wed­ding as they were rush­ing round putting final touches to everything.

Wed­ding day advice:

Enjoy it – the day goes to fast and it’ll be over before you know it.

Stand back – Take a step back and look at what’s going on, those images of every­one enjoy­ing ‘your day’ will make it all worth it. Those are also the things that won’t be cap­tured, as every­one will be tak­ing pic­tures of you!

Don’t worry – For­get about the small things, they won’t mat­ter on the day – we had plans for lit­tle bits that never got put out and didn’t hap­pen, nobody noticed and it really didn’t matter!

Plan – Have a plan for the wed­ding, as in how it works and what you want when. You’ll need your best man / brides­maids to organ­ise things while you’re talk­ing to your guests.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

We were lucky enough to have seen on mul­ti­ple occa­sions the amaz­ing Surf Dude Grandad as well as lead singer Luke Dor­man solo. They agreed to play the wed­ding and absolutely blew the roof off! They can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Surf-Dude-Grandad/113280516843

We had also built a photo wall. We had taken photo frames and cut holes in a wall to allow peo­ple to take their own amus­ing group pho­tos, some of the results were very funny, although by far the best pho­tos are the ones of all the kids pok­ing their heads through. This wouldn’t have been pos­si­ble with­out the help of Paul at Bay 158 http://www.bay158.co.uk

The enter­tain­ment for the chil­dren was also bril­liant, and the kids so well taken care of, it really makes a dif­fer­ence if the kids are hav­ing fun as it means the par­ents have a great time.

We couldn’t have done this with­out the dress­ing up out­fits and children’s games given to us by Mick & Dawn at Expres­sions of Broad­stairs http://www.expressionsgift.co.uk/

We also had the amaz­ing Milo the bal­loon mod­eller who kept the chil­dren quiet with his mind-blowing tal­ents for most of the after­noon. What this man can do with a bal­loon is unreal! http://www.milosentertainment.co.uk/

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy http://gameiro.co.uk/
• Kids’ activ­i­ties and amuse­ments http://www.expressionsgift.co.uk/
• Wed­ding dresses http://www.bridal-gallery.co.uk/
• Pic­tures, frames http://www.bay158.co.uk
• Children’s enter­tainer http://www.milosentertainment.co.uk/
• Wed­ding plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion wilkeswed@gmail.com
• Music https://www.facebook.com/pages/Surf-Dude-Grandad/113280516843