Debbie and Matthew’s Surprise Buckinghamshire Wedding

Their wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Natasha Thomp­son sub­mit­ted this wed­ding for the blog many weeks ago, and Matthew and Deb­bie (I think mainly Matthew) sent their wed­ding report back to me this week, along with the sweet­est note: “Sorry this has taken so long, we have just had a baby!” So first of all let me say a huge Con­grat­u­la­tions to you both, and I’ll hand over to you and to Natasha with her beau­ti­ful pho­tographs of your inti­mate wedding.

Who pro­posed, and how?

Matthew did, after a long time, many years, by hid­ing a ring in a new children’s toy for our son, Noah, who was three at the time. It was a ‘Hap­py­land’ Church wed­ding set from the Early learn­ing Centre.

The wed­ding venue

St Peter’s and St Paul’s C.E. Church in New­port Pag­nell. It was the church that many of Debbie’s fam­ily have all been mar­ried, bap­tised and so on in.

Wed­ding photographer

Natasha Thomp­son. http://www.natashathompson.co.uk/ As we live in Brighton, and the wed­ding was in Buck­ing­hamshire, we had to do our research on the inter­net. We came across Natasha’s web­site and really loved the style of her pic­tures. We were look­ing for pic­tures where details were impor­tant, cap­tur­ing the feel of a place and a day, and the spe­cial moments. She had a lovely style that we were look­ing for, noth­ing seemed to be too posed and they seemed time­less. She was so very kind, and she even came down to Brighton to do an engage­ment shoot. It was nerve wrack­ing, but she made us feel at ease, as much as we could, because we both despise hav­ing our pho­tographs taken. We think so highly of her that we have agreed to do this for her! She was cer­tainly our best deci­sion when it came to our wedding.

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

A bit of a mis-match. We wanted a bit of a vin­tage style, but mainly wanted to use bits and pieces that we had picked up from shops that we liked!

The wed­ding dress: …

We had a very small bud­get and arrang­ing was very tricky, espe­cially as Deb­bie had to travel across the coun­try for fit­tings. Deb­bie acces­sorised her dress with flow­ers and fluff. The dress came from Stony Strat­ford, Once in a Life­time. Deb­bie did not go with any pre­con­ceived ideas about a dress, apart from want­ing to hide her hips! She fell in love with Tulle mate­r­ial, which helped her decide.

Acces­sories: …

The neck­lace was bought in a panic a week before, when the hair acces­sories did not turn out as planned! Deb­bie was not sure if it would be too much flow­er­age with the dress acces­sories, but she went for it anyway!

Groom’s out­fit: …

This was hired from a place on the coast, called Dick­ies. I wanted some­thing that was not too smart, but tied in with the creams and duck eggs, so opted for a brown sort of corderory-ish affair. I was not sure whether to go for a tails or straight jacket, so hired both, hop­ing for a cos­tume change, but that never happened!

Brides­maids: …

They wore a duck-eggish color called ‘Celadon’. They also had a big flower in their hair to coor­di­nate with their sashes.

The wed­ding ceremony:

Reli­gious or civil? … Reli­gious. It was an extremely small cer­e­mony with just close fam­ily. We did not tell any­one apart from fam­ily that we were get­ting mar­ried, it was a secret one! We both work at the same school, and lots of other peo­ple were get­ting mar­ried or had been engaged for ages, and we did not want to take the lime­light, so kept it to our­selves and left it as a lit­tle surprise.

What read­ings did you choose? … John 15 9–17, which con­tained the bit about my com­mand­ment is this ‘Love each other as I have loved you’, this linked in with one of our hymns, ‘a New Commandment’.

The wed­ding reception

What were your highlights?

Hand­pick­ing the menu.

See­ing the cake, which we had described over the inter­net and with col­lages of bits and pieces of other cakes!

Matthew actu­ally get­ting the tables dec­o­rated in time! See­ing the bits and pieces we had bought come together, scat­tered across the tables, such as petals, and nicknacks.

Venue styling and details: …

A shabby-chic hotel ‘The Swan’, the colour­ings, and dis­tressed wooden pan­elling and orchids of the room matched our ideas for decoration.

Music and entertainment: …

We were on a very small bud­get, so music played on an iPod cho­sen by us, favorite music from the years we have known each other.

Mem­o­rable moments: …

It poured with rain, but it meant that we got to use the pretty umbrella we had bought just in case. Also, the vicar not say­ing that the groom could kiss the bride, but sweep­ing in him­self! Also, see­ing our son, Noah, help out as page boy, he was very well behaved and looked very sweet to us.

Wed­ding day advice: …

If you want peonies, get mar­ried in the sum­mer! How­ever, we were really pleased with the Amne­sia roses that we chose in the end.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers: …

Once in a life­time were help­ful with the dress and flower advice. Most of the dec­o­ra­tions and bits came from Vel­vet http://www.velvetstore.co.uk/ and the Laven­der Room http://www.lavender-room.co.uk/ in Brighton are lovely places to pick up knick­knacks and things that went with the vin­tage shabby chic style we wanted. We also bought a few bits and pieces from http://www.melodymaison.co.uk/ on the computer.

http://www.cakelife.co.uk/ were very patient with our cake demands. http://www.shropshirepetals.com/ pro­vided us with beau­ti­ful con­fetti, and you get a lovely selec­tion and keep­sake box that it comes in, which we still use to keep wed­ding bits and pieces in.

http://www.simply-elegance.co.uk/ had an unusual selec­tion of bom­bonieres, which fit­ted in with what we wanted.

Of course, also http://www.natashathompson.co.uk/ as we have writ­ten before, our best choice. She was patient, thought­ful and took fan­tas­tic pic­tures. She is lovely and has kept in con­tact and we still browse her web­site to see her pic­tures of other wed­dings. Every­one who has seen the pho­tographs, has com­mented upon the qual­ity of her work. She will no doubt go on to big things!

See more pho­tos from Deb­bie and Matthew’s win­ter wed­ding on Natasha Thompson’s own blog post here: http://www.natashathompson.co.uk/2012/03/06/winter-vintage-wedding-in-buckinghamshire-debbie-matthew/

Natasha Thomp­son is based in Lon­don and Buck­ing­hamshire, and shoots wed­dings across the coun­try. She’s been fea­tured on Eng­lish Wed­ding blog before… did you see her lux­ury Syon Park wed­ding with Kateryna and Prakash?