A Milden Hall Wedding — Traditional with a Twist!

Claire xx

A Milden Hall Wed­ding: Nicky and Natalie

Who pro­posed, and how?

A sur­prise trip to Paris, dis­guised as a 40th birth­day break away. Nicky wanted to pro­pose before turn­ing 40th and organ­ised our arrival in Paris one day before. Over a relaxed lunch in the beau­ti­ful Les’ tui­leries gar­den, Nicky asked for my hand in marriage.

We had a lovely week­end, shop­ping, roman­tic meals, night time stroll down past the Lou­vre and along the river, fin­ish­ing the evening lis­ten­ing to a Jazz band, drink­ing Arma­gnac & port and eat­ing sweets — served by the wait­ers, well into the early hours.

The wed­ding venue

Milden Hall, Sud­bury, Suf­folk CO10 9NY http://www.thehall-milden.co.uk/

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: … Mark Both­well http://www.markbothwell.com/

How would you describe your wed­ding style? … ‘Mod­ern meets Rustic’

The wed­ding ceremony:

Human­ist cer­e­mony con­ducted in the gar­den by cel­e­brant Linda Mor­gan. We were deter­mined to have the cer­e­mony out­side by a stun­ning tulip tree and were for­tu­nate with the weather. Thank­fully the rain held off albeit it was a tad windy so some of the design details planned for the cer­e­mony area had to be ditched. We did still man­age to tie Per­spex balls and buck­ets of flow­ers to the tree although they did bash about a bit!

Both fathers walked us down the aisle and Natalie’s sis­ter was a brides­maid whilst our dog Hatty was the ‘best dog & ring­bearer’. His bed was under the tree so he could nap dur­ing the ceremony!

Which wed­ding read­ings did you choose?

Excerpt from the novel “Cap­tain Corelli’s Man­dolin” Louis de Bernieres

Extract from “The Vel­veteen Rab­bit” — Margery Williams

Nicky was wear­ing an Old Town waist­coat and trousers, and Trick­ers boots — all British made.

Natalie was wear­ing a Paul Smith jacket, 7forallmankind jeans and Gucci brogues. Both wore Vivi­enne West­wood shirts.

Wed­ding venue styling and details:

In one of our ear­lier meet­ings with Bernadette we dis­cussed styles & colours. We told her we wanted ‘tra­di­tion with a twist’& ‘lux­ury but not glitzy’. We were open to colours so when Bernadette sug­gested apple green & plum we were happy to go with it. We were thrilled to get per­mis­sion from Lib­erty to use one of their designs, this was scanned and used on all sta­tionery and sub­se­quently the colours were used for the design palette. Emma (a bespoke designer) was thrilled when we showed her the pat­tern as it gave her a chance to get cre­ative and use some fab­u­lous color mounts.

Milden Hall is an amaz­ing wed­ding venue and we knew when Bernadette rec­om­mended it that it would be per­fect. We wanted to keep the quirk­i­ness of the barn but add some glam­our. Our num­bers were low for the day­time so we were able to have the long ban­quet tables along with a children’s table.

The ban­quet table is Suf­folk made and beau­ti­ful so we decided to have a green run­ner made instead of cov­er­ing it with linen. All down the mid­dle of the table were tealights and small vases with flow­ers, the sweet peas smelt amaz­ing on the day. Char­treuse French chairs were hired from Great Hire.

James did a great job of drap­ing the far end of the barn thus hid­ing the band until the evening, fairy lights were criss-crossed across the ceil­ing and fes­toon light­ing was in the courtyard.

Per­son­alised menus with the lib­erty print were tied to nap­kins using green & plum raf­fia. The children’s table was dec­o­rated with green art paper, pur­ple plants with wind­mills, felt water­ing cans with colour­ing sheets & crayons + craft kits.

Nicky’s father sup­plied the drink includ­ing some per­son­alised labels for the wine.

The cake was a stun­ning 4 tier choco­late wrapped design by Michelle at Vanilla Patis­serie. Bernadette worked with Michelle to come up with the design that best matched the wed­ding. The flavours cho­sen were vanilla and rasp­berry, lemon, car­rot, dark choco­late and black­cur­rant truf­fle.

What were your highlights?

So many high­lights, see­ing the trans­for­ma­tion of the barn after Bernadette, Bev­erly (jades flow­ers) and James (wed­ding cre­ative) had fin­ished with it.

See­ing all our friends and fam­ily let their hair down espe­cially when Blue Harlem started playing.

Watch­ing the hilar­i­ous antics of guests whilst doing the thumb art can­vas which turned into an array of body parts used instead of just thumbs!

“I became very close to Nicky & Natalie as we had the same sense of humor and I hope we will stay in touch. We were totally on the same wave length for their wed­ding, they gave me the design free­dom to get on with the job. I loved that they didn’t see the trans­for­ma­tion until the Sat­ur­day mak­ing it more spe­cial, the sup­pli­ers and I were left to set the barn up on the Fri­day. We were trusted and as a wed­ding plan­ner there is no bet­ter feel­ing” says Bernadette.

The wed­ding reception:

Chim­neys Cater­ing Long Melford were selected as cater­ers for this wed­ding. Bernadette has worked with them many times so knew the food and pre­sen­ta­tion would be spot on. It was impor­tant that the food was organic and as locally pro­duced as possible.

Guests were give a choice of Seafood Stack or Aspara­gus & arti­choke salad to start and Fil­let of Beef / Veg­e­tar­ian or Seabass for the main. Pud­ding was a trio which included Gooey choco­late brownie – mini tarte au cit­ron – sum­mer­fruit pudding

In the evening there was a cheese table, hog roast & straw­ber­ries and cream. The chil­dren weren’t for­got­ten with cook­ies & milk avail­able for them at night!

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

We had Sax & Honey http://www.saxandhoney.com/ (female vocals & sax) for the cer­e­mony & drink recep­tion, then dur­ing din­ner we swapped the sax for a piano. Dur­ing the cer­e­mony they were hid­den behind the trees so guests won­dered where the beau­ti­ful voice & sax were com­ing from.

In the evening we had the fan­tas­tic Blue Harlem http://www.blueharlem.co.uk/ who were FANTASTIC! We had seen them per­form at Ron­nie Scotts so knew they’d be per­fect for our wed­ding. Not only did they sound great, their out­fits were very dap­per! Even if guests were not used to Swing it got every­one up danc­ing.

Wed­ding day advice from Nicky and Natalie

It can be a stress­ful time, as emo­tions are run­ning high. Try to get some time alone, even if it’s a 10 min­utes quiet time before leav­ing, 5 min­utes break away with your wife/husband from the wed­ding party dur­ing the day. Time goes very quickly and step­ping away allows you an oppor­tu­nity to take it all in, observe your guests enjoy­ing them­selves and soak up the atmosphere.

Mem­o­rable moments:

1. Feel­ing over­whelmed as we walked side by side with our fathers and see­ing all our fam­ily and friends seated and wait­ing for our entrance.
2. Exchang­ing of rings and ask­ing our Labrador (Hatty) to step for­ward as the ring bearer.
3. Hav­ing fun dur­ing the photo set
4. See­ing the venue fin­ished with flow­ers, fur­ni­ture and all the lit­tle touches added by our amaz­ing wed­ding planner
5. Emo­tional speeches from both fathers and wife, our guests com­plain­ing that we hadn’t sup­plied tissues!
6. The Evening Swing band — Amaz­ing, Amaz­ing, Amaz­ing. Blue Harlem rock and made our first dance go with a swing!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Wed­ding Plan­ner – Dream Occa­sions http://www.dream-occasions.co.uk/
• Pho­tog­ra­pher – Mark Both­well http://www.markbothwell.com/
• Cater­ers – Chim­neys Long Melford http://www.chimneyslongmelford.co.uk/
• Cake – Vanilla Patis­serie http://www.vanillapatisserie.co.uk/
• Florist – Jades Flow­ers http://www.jadesflowers.co.uk/
• Cel­e­brant – Linda Mor­gan http://humanist.org.uk/lindamorgan/
• Sta­tionery – A Bespoke Design http://www.abespokedesign.co.uk/
• Light­ing & Drap­ing – Wed­ding Cre­ative http://www.wedding-creative.co.uk/
• Chairs – Great Hire http://www.greathire.co.uk/
• Sig­nage – Muddy Creek Signs http://www.muddycreeksigns.co.uk/
• Bar – Ibarco http://www.ibarco.co.uk/