A Unique Food and Wine-focused Manchester Wedding

Jes­sica wears the most exquis­ite beaded wed­ding dress and looks absolutely stun­ning. The back of the dress is gor­geous — so unusual, del­i­cate and flat­ter­ing. Louis is her per­fect match, look­ing very hand­some indeed in a navy suit with crisp white shirt. All of the beau­ti­ful images are by the rather won­der­ful James Melia Pho­tog­ra­phy.

“In a place where sound and light con­stantly inhabit each cor­ner and a con­stant move of motion is set, there is a small space where the city’s life can­not intim­i­date the energy.
Intri­cately laid mosaic floors of beauty lead us into a stately space torn between two eras of grand design while soft danc­ing light falls through frag­ile win­dows grad­u­ally set­tling below on the metic­u­lous inte­rior.
Rest­ful and calm, the air is folded in mul­ti­ple lay­ers of emo­tion while gems sit grace­fully on bare del­i­cate shoul­ders.
Time sus­pends us on her cords of real­ity while we cre­ate a pace of our own to move through an exis­tence we have yet to fully explore and appre­ci­ate, while enjoy­ing every moment of it.“
~ James Melia

The bride and groom:

Jes­sica & Louis

Who pro­posed, and how?

We got engaged in South Africa last year whilst we were vis­it­ing Louis’ Dad’s vine­yard — Waterk­loof. http://www.waterkloofwines.co.za/ Louis took me for a roman­tic pic­nic and popped the question.

We have been together for ten years, we met at school and I was begin­ning to think Louis would never ask!

Wed­ding venue

Man­ches­ter Town Hall

Wed­ding photographer

James Melia

What did you wear?

My dress caught my eye with its del­i­cate jewel detail and pretty flow­ing lay­ers of silk tulle. I fell in love with the beadwork.

The designer is from Pun­jab and I think her bead­work is intri­cate, yet so del­i­cate at the same time.

I kept my acces­sories sim­ple as I wanted the dress to do the talk­ing, wear­ing only my Grandmother’s ring and dia­mond stud ear­rings with a head­band from Alan Hannah.

Louis wore a navy suit accom­pa­nied by a white shirt and gold tie, with a white rose lapel pin.

Jessica’s wed­ding day advice

Don’t over­com­pli­cate things — keep the details sim­ple and let the focus be about get­ting mar­ried to the man of your dreams.

The wed­ding recep­tion: Stock Restaurant

We are both French and love our food! We knew we would have an amaz­ing day if the focus was on good food, good wine, good music — all enjoyed with our favorite people.

When it came to decid­ing what to eat and drink on the day, we actu­ally started with our favorite wines and decided what food would go well with them! We ate four deli­cious courses, which were matched to some of our favorite wines — espe­cially the fit­tingly named Cir­cle of Life White and Red.

Wed­ding venue styling and details:

I guess Spring­time was a theme — the tables were named after spring­time flow­ers and we had blos­soms on the cake. With it being Easter Sun­day, we had Lindt Choco­late bun­nies on the tables too.

Music and entertainment:

The Jay Bees — live band

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

These were all the sup­pli­ers we used for our wedding:

• Cater­ing com­pany — Stock Restau­rant
• Wed­ding cake — Elaine’s Cre­ative Cakes
• Florist — Katy Booth
• Hair & Make-up — Richard Har­vey
• Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher — James Melia
• Brides­maids dresses — Coast
• Brides­maids shoes — Zara
• Head­band — Alan Han­nah
• Brides shoes — Rain­bow Club
• Brides Veil — Lace Bridal Hale
• Bridal Dress — Vin­tage Rose Bridal