An Elegant Wedding in Nottingham — The Time Of My Life…

This wedding’s a feast for the eyes so grab a cuppa and enjoy! Claire xxx

Michelle and David: an ele­gant wed­ding in Nottingham

I mar­ried my amaz­ing hus­band, David, on 23rd June 2012, at the Good Shep­herd Catholic Church in Woodthorpe, Not­ting­ham. We had our recep­tion at The Car­riage Hall in Plumtree, Nottingham.

Plan­ning our big day was a dream come true for me. Yes, I was one of those girls who had dreamed about, wished for and planned her wed­ding from a VERY early age! I immersed myself in it all and loved every sec­ond of it; read­ing wed­ding blogs was invalu­able and I read at least one EVERY day and I ‘mag­pied’ many ideas from dif­fer­ent blogs.

Wed­ding venues

The venues really were no-brainers for us. I am a Catholic pri­mary school teacher and I couldn’t imag­ine get­ting mar­ried any­where else but in a Catholic Church. The Good Shep­herd is such a fan­tas­tic build­ing. From the out­side it looks quite ordi­nary how­ever as you step inside the size, beauty and moder­nity is breath­tak­ing. The Car­riage Hall was also a first choice, as they are famed for deli­cious food and impec­ca­ble ser­vice, and it didn’t disappoint.

Wed­ding dress: Sassi Hol­ford ‘Samantha’

I had a mixed time shop­ping for my wed­ding dress. I was con­stantly asked about the ‘theme’ of my wed­ding so that the assis­tants could pick out a dress to match it, but I didn’t have a theme and I just wanted a really, really beau­ti­ful dress. It took many months, 10 shops and around 100 dresses to finally find the one! In the begin­ning of my search, I was adamant that I wanted a fish­tail dress. How­ever as the search went on I came to realize that this style of dress just wasn’t me! I just didn’t feel like a real bride in them.

Try­ing on Sassi Hol­ford’s ‘Saman­tha’ was a mag­i­cal moment of real­i­sa­tion, as I felt like a true princess bride (and not in a Katie Price kind of way!) It had a long line, ruched bodice with beau­ti­ful but­tons down the back, while the skirt was a glo­ri­ous tulle cre­ation with a very slight train. I also chose to wear the Saman­tha lace jacket and a sweet­heart chapel length veil. I loved the idea of wear­ing a lace jacket for the church ser­vice and then remov­ing it for the recep­tion as it cre­ated two very dif­fer­ent looks!

The bridal shop that I bought my dress from was amaz­ing – Silk Brides just out­side of Lich­field. All the ladies are friendly, knowl­edge­able and tal­ented and the shop is beau­ti­ful. I would rec­om­mend this shop to every­one in a heart­beat. It was a three hour round trip to Silk for every visit and fit­ting, but it was worth it!

Brides­maids — dresses from Asos

My brides­maids wore a navy, one shoul­dered dresses from ASOS. One of my lovely ‘maids was 8 months preg­nant on the day and we end­ing up com­bin­ing two dress into one to cover her bloom­ing bump! She looked fab­u­lous, as they all did. My flower girl wore a dress from John Lewis.

The groom: tra­di­tional tails in dark grey

David wanted com­plete con­trol over his out­fit and, as a self con­fessed con­trol freak, this made me slightly ner­vous! How­ever he pulled it out of the bag by choos­ing dark grey, tra­di­tional tails. He scrubbed up very well!

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers and videographer

After con­firm­ing the venues, secur­ing a pho­tog­ra­pher was the next big deci­sion. After scour­ing the net and being hor­ri­fied at the cheesi­ness or astro­nom­i­cal prices of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers, I came across But­ter­worth Pho­tog­ra­phy. I decided to email Becky and straight away I knew that we were going to book her and her hus­band, Neil, to pho­to­graph our wed­ding day. She was so friendly and their prices and options meet all bud­gets. We also had an engage­ment shoot with them and it was so much fun and a mem­ory to trea­sure for­ever. Our pho­tos turned out just as we had imag­ined them; again we would rec­om­mend them to all brides and grooms to be! www.butterworthphotography.co.uk

One area of the wed­ding plan­ning that David and I dis­agreed on was whether or not to have the day recorded pro­fes­sion­ally. As a lit­tle girl I used to watch my aunts’ and uncles’ wed­ding videos over and over again. I really wanted our day to be on tape as a lit­tle bit of fam­ily his­tory, David how­ever was wor­ried that it would be obtru­sive, embar­rass­ing and out of bud­get. The But­ter­worths put me in touch with Richard at Parkin Arts and I was amazed at his enthu­si­asm and tal­ent. I man­aged to get David to change his mind reluc­tantly. If you ask David now which sup­plier he was most impressed with he will say Parkin Arts as on the day we barely noticed him but the end result was breath­tak­ing! We now have our own love story on film! http://vimeo.com/46726229

Flow­ers, cake, wed­ding sta­tionery and décor

I would describe our wed­ding as mod­ern ele­gance in style. I wanted lots of white, clas­sic details but with a fun mod­ern twist. The flow­ers were a very impor­tant part of this. They looked and smelt great. I loved the dif­fer­ent tex­tures that the florist used to cre­ate inter­est. I used the same arrange­ments both at the church and the recep­tion to save money. Sally at Phoenix Flow­ers did a fan­tas­tic job and was very patient with me when I kept on chang­ing my mind!

My cake was 5 tiers! I wanted it to be classy, sim­ple and tall! To save money the bot­tom tier was fake and no one knew (well they do now!). It looked and tasted per­fect. I also had cake pops as favours – they went down a storm. My cake was made by Karen at ‘Boule­vard City cakes’ and the cake pops by Lau­ren at Lot­tie Cup­cakes. Both were very pro­fes­sional and creative.

I didn’t know that I was such a sta­tionery geek until I began to plan our wed­ding. Natalie at ‘I am Nat’ con­verted me to the pret­ti­ness of paper. She designed my invites, table plan, table names (Tiffany and Co love tips), and order of ser­vice. So many of our guests com­mented on the paper ele­ments and I was very pleased with how these small details tied together the feel of the day.

To dec­o­rate the venues I mostly col­lected bits from TK Maxx, Home­sense and ebay over 18 months. Our din­ing room became the wed­ding room! Cox and Cox was also a fab­u­lous web­site to buy those lit­tle details from.

Mem­o­rable moments

There were so many moments where I just wanted to stop the clock. Walk­ing up the aisle was def­i­nitely one of them: in those few min­utes I think I expe­ri­enced every pos­si­ble emo­tion – what a roller­coaster! Also my won­der­ful cousins and aunt who flew over from the US hand­made 100 rib­bon sticks with bells on in a vari­ety of colours, they gave every­one one, along with a fist­ful of con­fetti, and lined the steps wav­ing them as we left the church. Finally, I will never for­get danc­ing with my new hus­band to ‘I’ve had the time of my life’ (which is my all time favorite song!) and every­one made a cir­cle around us. That mem­ory will always make me grin from ear to ear!

Advice to other brides

You must trust your own tastes and instincts. I fret­ted A LOT over what other peo­ple would think about our wed­ding but in the end I just went with things that I loved and I wouldn’t change a thing!