Annette and Darren’s Beautiful Intimate Wedding on the Isle of Wight

I also adore their big day because they included fam­ily in a big way. Annette told me, “our mar­riage means more to us than the com­ing together of our cou­ple, it is also the com­ing together of the two sides of our fam­ily”. I think that’s magical.

Of course there’s also a fab­u­lous cake, Annette’s dress is amaz­ing and she’s such a beau­ti­ful bride. The images by wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Jason Mark Har­ris are ever so lovely — and Annette and Dar­ren have been kind enough to share their wed­ding story with us all today. I know you’ll love it!

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Annette and Dar­ren — you make a gor­geous cou­ple and you have the cutest fam­ily ever! Wish­ing you every hap­pi­ness in your new lives together — thank you for allow­ing us all to enjoy your wed­ding blog today! Claire xxx

An inti­mate wed­ding with fam­ily, on the Isle of Wight — Annette and Darren

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony

The Pri­ory Bay has a very wel­com­ing atmos­phere and the cer­e­mony took place in their Liv­ing Room. That room has a grand country-house feel about it, yet the setup was very infor­mal as instead of the usual rows of chairs, the sofas and arm­chairs were used to face the front of the room.

We wanted a small cer­e­mony and only invited 23 of our clos­est friends and fam­ily. Darren’s twin sons, Harry and George (17) were ush­ers, and my daugh­ters Emily (7) and Olivia (5) were my flower-girls. We made up with other friends and extended fam­ily by hold­ing a big party two weeks later!

Dar­ren spent the pre­vi­ous night at The Boathouse, a local pub & guest house with his best man. They were joined by a few friends for a very civilised ‘stag’ evening and Harry and George arrived in time for a full Eng­lish break­fast before don­ning their finest in the morn­ing. Before hop­ping onto the gor­geous Vin­tage Bus to go to The Pri­ory Bay Hotel, the boys enjoyed a fun photo-session, in true ‘Reser­voir Dogs’ style!

Every­one else met at our house in St Helens, where we had a glass of bub­bly before set­ting off to The Pri­ory Bay Hotel. The Vin­tage Bus took every­one there, but one of my brides­maids, Lou, had arranged for her step-mum to pick me and my flower-girls in her horse & cart. It was a won­der­ful sur­prise as I stepped out of our house, and the girls felt they were in a Dis­ney Fairy­tale! Their dreams had finally come true too!!!

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

We were very par­tic­u­lar about the music we wanted dur­ing the cer­e­mony. We spent hours trawl­ing through the inter­net, and we even­tu­ally found ver­sions of our favorite songs that we really loved.

My brides­maids, flow­er­girls and then my Dad and I entered the room with an acoustic gui­tar ver­sion of “Marry You”; we played Etta James’ “ At Last” and Nat King Cole’s “L.O.V.E” whilst sign­ing the reg­is­ter and Dar­ren and I skipped along to a yukelele ver­sion of Jason Mraz “I’m Yours” on our way out.

The pre-ceremony back­ground music included Jason Mraz ft. James Mor­ri­son ver­sion of “Detail is in the Fab­ric”, James Blunt’s cover of “Fall at your Feet”, Car­ole King’s “You’ve got a Friend”, Charles Aznavour “For me For­mi­da­ble” and finally, the cheesy ‘guilty-pleasure’ that is The Car­pen­ters’ “I can’t smile with­out you”. 8 months on from our Big Day, it’s STILL my favorite playlist…and prob­a­bly will remain so for a very very long time!

What did you wear?

Dar­ren wore a sand-coloured three piece suit with a green tie and hand­some brown brogues; I wore a 50s inspired knee-length tea dress over a fluffy ruf­fles candyfloss-pink petty-coat, a spe­cially com­mis­sioned cro­cheted shawl, ‘pimped up’ plain shoes and a flower hairclip.

I found the per­fect dress in a local wed­ding shop just before Christ­mas; my mom and brides­maids all agreed, it was stun­ning. Then a month or so later… I com­pletely changed my mind! I didn’t want the Gre­cian, long strap­less gown anymore.

It was too late to can­cel the order, but luck­ily the wed­ding shop agreed to sell it for me (still no luck yet though!). I then went online (I’m a bit of an internet-shopping addict!) and saw EXACTLY what I wanted: a knee-length ivory dress, with lovely detail­ing around the bust that reminded me of 1950s glamour…and it was a tenth of the price of the one in the shop!

The only slight hiccup…it was listed on ebay and would come from China! But I took the plunge, and sent them all my mea­sure­ments (less a few inches that I had all inten­tions on los­ing between then and the Big Day…that was a good incen­tive!). Some weeks later, I got an email to say it had been shipped and I could track its progress…across two provinces in China, then through Kaza­khstan, Azer­bai­jan and after sev­eral other coun­tries to my front door!

My brides­maids made me promise I wouldn’t open the par­cel until they were with me. It was tor­ture but I man­aged and, truth­fully, it was JUST as I had expected it!

As for the shoes…oh my what a night­mare! Of course I had my mind set on a pair of Dolce and Gabana cost­ing £250. Which I would never ever spend on shoes; well, not just one pair any­way! So after months of search­ing I finally decided to go for plain ivory mid-heel weed­ing shoes, and made two flower clips to attach to the front of them. Et voila!

The shawl was made by a local lady who even cro­cheted dif­fer­ent types of flow­ers along the bor­ders of our shawls (my two girls and the brides­maids all had shawls too; theirs were pink with green/dark pink flow­ers and mine was green with pink roses and peonies). As the morn­ing was still a lit­tle cool, it was great hav­ing those beau­ti­ful shawls to cosy into. And they’re a great reminder.

Dar­ren also found his suit online. It was a sand-coloured, three piece Jeff Banks suit that looked really smart with­out look­ing too for­mal. We were incred­i­bly lucky with his tie, which we found on etsy.com and turned out to be the EXACT right hue of green…phew! He also wore some lovely brown brogues and a beau­ti­ful pink & green rose in his boutonniere.

Wed­ding venue

The Pri­ory Bay Hotel, Seav­iew, Isle of Wight for the cer­e­mony, aper­i­tif and lunch. Our home for cake, tea and danc­ing (splash­ing for the kids) in the lat­ter part of the after­noon. Two weeks later (once we’d returned from Hon­ey­moon), some Yurts in a local field for a BIG party with live music, free bar, food and a fab photobooth.

Wed­ding photographer:

Jason Mark Harris

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Low-key, Happy and Relaxed

Which read­ings did you choose?

I asked my brides­maids, Liz and Lou to read Pam Ayres’ “Yes I’ll Marry You”. But first both Dar­ren and I read out ‘Fam­ily Vows’ that we had writ­ten for the girls and boys, respec­tively. It was very emo­tional and I’m glad we did that, as our mar­riage means more to us than the com­ing together of our cou­ple, it is also the com­ing together of the two sides of our family.

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

The Pri­ory Bay Hotel is a wel­com­ing, cosy Coun­try House and there was really noth­ing we could have added to make it more spe­cial. We had lunch after the cer­e­mony in their Island Room, which has a won­der­ful fresco of island land­scapes on all walls.

The only thing we added were a few low flower arrange­ments, and the favours: a bot­tle of home-made Lemon­cello for the grown-ups, and a hand-made book­let of puz­zles, colour­ing etc for the chil­dren. Our main colours were apple/sage green and can­dyfloss pink…that was found in the flow­ers and the bridal party’s ties, bou­quets, shawls and (oh so fluffy!) pettycoats!

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

We designed and ordered our invi­ta­tions online, through zazzle.com and didn’t even think of hav­ing an Order of Ser­vice or Menu etc. We just felt it wasn’t really needed. As for the kids’ favours, I got my inspi­ra­tion from the inter­net and drew pic­tures, made up puz­zles and cross­words and printed and bound the book­lets myself. I’m glad I made those as not only did it keep the chil­dren busy for a short while, but they enjoyed hav­ing their own per­son­alised memento of the day.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

• Grin­ning so much all day that my jaw hurt
• My two girls look­ing soooo beautiful
• My brides­maids bring­ing in their home-made wed­ding cake – OMG it was PERFECT — and Delicious!
• Our vows to the chil­dren and to each other
• Get­ting back to our home and my father-in-law and brother-in-law play­ing gui­tars whilst the kids splashed in the pool and grown-ups sipped tea or cham­pagne and ate cake…
• The WHOLE day was my most mem­o­rable and cher­ished moment.

Wed­ding day advice:

Don’t over-complicate things. It’s sup­posed to be a FUN day for all, but espe­cially for the Bride and Groom, so don’t get bogged down in stress­ful details and don’t feel there is a for­mat you ‘have to’ fol­low. It’s YOUR Big Day…make it what YOU want.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

Pho­tog­ra­pher: Jason Mark Har­ris – his pic­tures really cap­ture the essence of our day. He was so dis­creet we hardly knew he was there, which made for more nat­ural photos.

Venue: The Pri­ory Bay Hotel, Seav­iew, Isle of Wight is so beau­ti­ful in its own right, you really don’t need any props (bows on chairs, bird cages, elab­o­rate flower dis­plays…) to make it look amaz­ing. The staff, and Ralph in par­tic­u­lar was so atten­tive, they made us feel like our day was spe­cial for them too.