An Elegant Buckinghamshire Wedding at Notley Abbey

Anoushka and Dan have very kindly shared a won­der­ful wed­ding report with us today — you’ll find it halfway down the page. First let me share my favorite extract from the happy cou­ple with you:

“After all the build up to and the fan­fare of the day it is all really about you com­mit­ting to spend the rest of your lives together and sip­ping our cham­pagne as hus­band and wife know­ing we had the rest of our mar­ried life ahead of us was the most excit­ing part!”

With thanks to wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Tom Red­man for sub­mit­ting the wed­ding and shar­ing his amaz­ing images with us today. Enjoy! Claire xxx

A mod­ern and ele­gant Buck­ing­hamshire wed­ding: Anoushka & Dan

Anoushka and Dan’s wed­ding report:

Wed­ding venue: Holy Trin­ity Church, Bled­low and Not­ley Abbey

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Tom Red­man.

From the moment I saw a photo of Tom’s online I fell in love with his style and it didn’t take much to con­vince Dan of the same. Tom was pro­fes­sional through­out the whole process and we all had lots of fun on the day which really put us at ease. We always knew we had made the right choice but when we saw our pho­tos we were totally thrilled! www.tomredmanphotography.com

How would you describe your wed­ding style? Mod­ern elegance

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony:

The ser­vice was the most spe­cial part of the whole day for us. It was really impor­tant to us both to be sur­rounded by our fam­ily and friends and to have all those peo­ple under one roof to share in it all. I loved the feel­ing after we had just been pro­nounced hus­band and wife and we looked back to rows of smil­ing fam­ily and friends.

Which read­ings did you choose?

Song of Solomon 2:10–13 and 8: 6–7, read by Dan’s sis­ter Amy, and The Bless­ing of the Hands (Anon), read by my mum’s part­ner Steve.

Tell us a lit­tle about your wed­ding venue styling and details:

Sim­ple and elegant.

Not­ley is such a beau­ti­ful venue we didn’t need to do much but we wanted to put our per­sonal stamp on it whilst keep­ing things fresh and unfussy. I love can­dles and think they cre­ate a roman­tic atmos­phere so they played a big part in the venue dec­o­ra­tions which, when com­bined with the flow­ers, cre­ated the exact ele­gant look and roman­tic feel we wanted.

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion sta­tionery: Gee Broth­ers (invites).

Dan designed the orders of ser­vice, table plan and menus oh and I have to men­tion the wed­ding sign which he made for me and I couldn’t have loved it more!

Wed­ding music and enter­tain­ment: The Astor String Quar­tet for the church who played Ave Maria for the pro­ces­sional, Air on G for sign­ing of the reg­is­ter and The But­ter­fly Waltz for the recessional.

Groove Instinct enter­tained our guests in the evening. Dan’s final request in his speech was for every­one to hit the dance floor and turn our beau­ti­ful civilised day into an awe­some party. Groove Instinct ensured the dance floor was packed at all times and our guests didn’t let us down!

What did you wear?

Bride: Shoes: Zeta, Ben­jamin Adams Dress: Cus­tom Made (belt Jesus Peiro)

Groom: Morn­ing suit, ivory waist­coat and ivory tie. But­ton hole of an ivory akito rose with a sprig of white bou­var­dia taken from the bride’s bouquet.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

All of it! I was so ner­vous I would find the day over­whelm­ing and not be able to relax with all eyes on us and fret­ting about things going to plan but on the day I was just so excited the nerves dis­ap­peared and I loved every second.

There are too many moments to choose only one but the top ones have to be see­ing each other for the first time in church, our drive from the church to the venue as hus­band and wife, the speeches and hav­ing a glass of cham­pagne together at 2am when all our guests had gone home and reflect­ing back on the day. After all the build up to and the fan­fare of the day it is all really about you com­mit­ting to spend the rest of your lives together and sip­ping our cham­pagne as hus­band and wife know­ing we had the rest of our mar­ried life ahead of us was the most excit­ing part!

From Dan: Can I say all of it? Wak­ing up to the most incred­i­ble blue skies, feel­ing ner­vous but excited hav­ing drinks in the pub with the ush­ers, see­ing Anoushka in her dress for the first time, get­ting into our car and dri­ving to the venue as hus­band and wife, being intro­duced for the first time as Mr and Mrs Ridler as we entered the recep­tion to a round of applause and hav­ing a lot of fun on the dance­floor with all our friends and fam­ily… we per­suaded the band to let us have one more song and ended the night danc­ing in a cir­cle to Mr Bright­side which was the per­fect end to the per­fect day!

Wed­ding day advice:

You will have heard it before but it really is true. Don’t panic if lit­tle things go wrong, they always will but no one will notice and it makes for a good story afterwards.

Our wed­ding car was acci­den­tally dropped in Man­ches­ter nearly 200 miles away so I had to hitch a lift, my hair was a dis­as­ter and had to be re-done as I was about to be get­ting my dress on and one of my guests trod on and broke my dress within 2 min­utes of get­ting on the dance floor so I was in the toi­lets with my brides­maids try­ing to sew it back up! Not one of these things made a dif­fer­ence to the day and, if any­thing, they added to it.

Mainly just enjoy hav­ing all your clos­est fam­ily and friends together for one day all about you!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Tom Red­man – Pho­tog­ra­pher www.tomredmanphotography.com
• Joanna Carter — Flow­ers www.joannacarterflowers.co.uk