Lifestyle Magazine

How Abi Won Her Wedding Dress and Other Stories

By Claire

Grab a cuppa - it's the loveliest story and you'll be here for a while!

Abi and Chris - a real wedding in Yorkshire

wedding photo by PH Weddings (35)

A bit about me & him… (by Abi!)

I was killing time before starting my first year of medical school back in 2003 when I met Chris. I was working as a bar maid in the local pub and got to recognize the rowdy rabble that I now consider my best friends! He was one of the gang and as he was 4 years older than me I never thought of him that way. I went to uni and we didn’t see each other, until Boxing Day 2006 when we bumped into each other, in the pub! I recognised him instantly, but couldn’t remember his name. I felt a jolt I hadn’t felt before though. We chatted for hours and swapped numbers. Our first date was 4 days after we bumped into each other again. We went for drinks in a few local pubs and he was walking me home when we heard a car horn. It was my mom who picked us up and took us back to their house where I was staying for Christmas. We sat around drinking tea and eating mince pies til the small hours of the morning! It certainly made the ‘meet the parents’ easier than I expected!

When we had been together about 6 weeks, we were having dinner with his family and the talk turned to proposals as a friend was getting married. His brother explained that when he proposed it would be a Haribo ring and if she said yes then she would get a diamond. Chris turned to me just as I had taken a mouthful of dinner and calmly said "Well when I propose to you it will be with a biscuit party ring, and if you say yes, then you'll get a diamond sparkly ring". I coughed and spluttered. But the seed had been planted...

wedding photo by PH Weddings (33)
Then, in July 2010 we were on holiday in Gran Canaria. I had pondered whether he would choose this holiday to propose, however when we got to the hotel he would happily let me go in our room safe... Would he bring a diamond ring on holiday and NOT put it in the safe?! I thought not. On our fourth day we had a beautiful romantic meal in the restaurant. After he suggested a walk on the beach, under the full moon and cloudless, starry sky. He stopped and wrapped his arms around me, I was looking at the stars. He then said, "I was wondering, will you marry me?". I looked down and expected to see a party biscuit but instead saw a beautiful diamond ring glinting in the moonlight. I said yes, of course. And then made him get down on one knee and asked where my party biscuit was! Apparently they don't sell them in Gran Canaria. And apparently he was brave enough to bring a diamond ring on holiday and not put it in the safe!!

wedding photo by PH Weddings (32)
I was up until 2am the night before the wed­ding with my par­ents, brides­maids, aunt and uncle dec­o­rat­ing the barn and mar­quee that was the recep­tion venue. Our recep­tion venue was actu­ally my aunt and uncle’s house in Stan­ning­ton, Sheffield. It is on top of a hill and feels as if it’s in the mid­dle of nowhere but it’s only 15 min­utes from the city cen­tre. The views are phe­nom­e­nal. We had a mar­quee, which was where we had the wed­ding break­fast, and the food for the evening reception.

When I woke up the morn­ing of our wed­ding day I wasn’t tired though, just excited! It was a gray day when I woke up and I couldn’t see the other side of the val­ley (nor­mally you can see to Lin­coln Cathe­dral – the house is in Sheffield!). I got up after hav­ing break­fast in bed (yum!) and gave my brides­maids the pearl bracelets I had made for them as thank you gifts, I sourced bracelet clasps made from a minia­ture teapot and tea­spoon, and a tea bag charm as the theme for the wed­ding was vin­tage after­noon tea! I had four brides­maids; my sis­ter Liz, my best friend from school Sarah, Char­lie who I lived with at uni­ver­sity and Elise who was one of my best friends at uni­ver­sity. I wanted the four women who have helped and sup­ported me through thick and thin. My other best friend Saman­tha per­formed a read­ing for us and was an hon­orary fifth brides­maid. They chose the dresses them­selves from Debut at Deben­hams and the chose to wear the match­ing shrugs too. I told the girls they could choose what­ever dresses they liked. I was so pleased with their choice though as teal is my favorite color and it made choos­ing the atten­dants’ tie color very easy! The theme was after­noon tea and the flower pat­tern and 1950’s style of the dresses fit­ted in per­fectly with that.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (34)
We got ready quite quickly as the wed­ding was at 11am. I did my own hair and make up base, but my bridem­said Sarah expertly did my eye­shadow for me. I then sim­ply popped on the amaz­ing head piece HF Cou­ture had made me and waited to be dressed!

Linda (from No.9 Cou­ture who made my dress) came to dress me and was a great calm­ing influ­ence. Helen, our pho­tog­ra­pher arrived and took some incred­i­ble pho­tos I was com­pletely unaware of until after! I had a hand-tied bou­quet that had bru­nia, Old Dutch roses, sea this­tles (my some­thing blue!), white freesia, British euca­lyp­tus and rose­mary. The brides­maids had wrist cor­sages (to enable them to have both hands free to help me!) with white fre­sia and rose­mary. The mums and my aunt had white freesia but­ton­holes and the men had sea this­tles with rose­mary for buttonholes.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (30)
Chris’s suit was from House of Fraser and by designer Daniel Hechter.

We went together to look at suits, it was the first one he tried on. I made him try oth­ers on just to be sure but he knew it was the right one! It was a gray 3 piece suit and he wore a beau­ti­ful pale turquoise and teal tie, bought from ebay of all places! It was acces­sorised on the day with a beau­ti­ful pocket watch I bought him as a wed­ding present that had his ini­tials ‘CPW’ on the front and ‘10th Sep­tem­ber 2011, 11am’ on the back. When I saw him wait­ing out­side the Town Hall (I was early instead of late and had to do a lap of the block in the wed­ding car!) he took my breath away, he looked so incred­i­bly hand­some. He had two old Dutch roses and rose­mary for his but­ton hole.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (31)
My dress was a bespoke gown from Linda Davey at No.9 Cou­ture. I came across Linda Davey from No.9 Cou­ture whilst search­ing for dresses online. She was run­ning a com­pe­ti­tion to cel­e­brate No.9 Couture’s first birth­day – the prize was incred­i­ble; a bespoke gown designed to the winner’s spec­i­fi­ca­tion, a bespoke head­piece from H.F. Cou­ture and a pho­to­shoot from Xpo­sure pho­tog­ra­phy! I had to enter with my ‘down on one knee’ story of how we pro­posed. Linda then chose her 5 favourites, which were put on Face­book and the one with the most ‘likes’ as votes won. Win­ning was the best feel­ing in the world! I had a good idea of what I wanted in my dress; lots of lace, tulle and a lace up back. Hav­ing tried lots of dresses on with trains I knew that I wanted a train but hated the idea of a bus­tle so Linda cre­ated a detach­able train! Over the 10 months from con­tact­ing her, Linda she became my ‘fairy god­mother’. She has such a phe­nom­e­nal tal­ent, but at the same time incred­i­bly warm and down to earth. Her stu­dio is just beau­ti­ful, light and airy. My dress when fin­ished was a full-length, lace-up back ivory gown with corded lace bodice, lace scal­loped edge and beau­ti­ful hand bead­ing with pearls and crys­tals on the neck­line. It had a detach­able train with the edge hid­den beneath lace appliqués – per­fect for danc­ing in the evening!

Linda came to dress me on the morn­ing of the wed­ding and as she was lac­ing the gown up I couldn’t see the mir­ror but could tell from how it fit­ted that it would look amaz­ing. When I looked in the mir­ror my eyes welled up, I felt like a princess and just wanted to dance with excitement!

wedding photo by PH Weddings (28)
I wore a very sim­ple finger-tip length veil in silk tulle which was also made by No.9 Cou­ture to match my dress.

I wore a bespoke hand­made head­piece made by Jane Hardman-Ferris from HF Cou­ture. I bought some vin­tage 1950’s mar­quisite swal­low clip ear­ings I found on ebay which hand-wired with crys­tals, but­tons and pearls into a head­piece. My ear­ings were the first pair Chris had ever bought me for our first Christ­mas together and I wore my watch, which was my 21st birth­day present from my par­ents. I didn’t need to wear a bra under my dress as it had an inter­nal corset but my knick­ers were by Boux Avenue.

My shoes were incred­i­ble. They were the gor­geous ‘Cour­te­san’ by Irreg­u­lar Choice from Schuh. They were incred­i­bly com­fort­able! I also had some pink wellies to wear for pho­tos in the field.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (29)
My best friend’s dad was our chauf­feur for the day as he has a beau­ti­ful Jaguar, which he dec­o­rated with rib­bons and flow­ers for us. It made it all the more per­sonal hav­ing him drive me and my dad to the Town Hall as he’s known me since I was 11. As we pulled up in front of the Town Hall the clouds cleared and the sun came out. I went in with my dad and we walked down the aisle to ‘Flower Duet’ by Lakme. As soon as we heard the first notes we both welled up, it was an incred­i­bly emo­tional moment and he squeezed my hand tight for sup­port. My heart began to race when I saw Chris at the bot­tom of the aisle but not once on that day did I feel ner­vous, just incred­i­bly, inde­scrib­ably excited!

wedding photo by PH Weddings (27)
The read­ing “Union” that my friend Saman­tha read fit­ted per­fectly and I remem­ber look­ing at Chris and lis­ten­ing to the words whilst welling up. It was made even more spe­cial by hav­ing Saman­tha read it. I spent most of the cer­e­mony with tears in my eyes and had to take a deep breath mid vows to keep a hold on it! Our good friend James then read “Bring Me Sun­shine” which he did bril­liantly – dif­fi­cult to pull off as a read­ing! We then had ‘Can­cel Today’ by Ezio play­ing whilst sign­ing the reg­is­ter and ‘Into Your Arms’ by The Lemon­heads as we walked out as hus­band and wife.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (26)

wedding photo by PH Weddings (22)
After a few shots infront of the Town Hall steps we let our guests have a few hours to them selves whilst we went to Weston Park to have pho­tos of just the two of us; stand­ing beneath a wil­low tree with a warm breeze and the sun on my bare shoul­ders, hold­ing his hand, think­ing “I’m his wife!” was awe­some. He kept grin­ning at me and say­ing “we did it!”.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (23)
Then it was back up to the cot­tage for a few more pho­tos in the field and then our guests arrived. We had group pho­tos and then Pimms and olives! At 3pm after­noon tea was served in the mar­quee. With the help of a small army of fam­ily and friends I had made 80 metres of bunting; the fab­ric was a mix­ture of mate­r­ial that was my great grandmother’s, scraps from my old school dress and old cur­tains from when I was a child, so truly vin­tage! It was hung all around the edge of the mar­quee and looked fan­tas­tic. We had 7 round tables includ­ing our top table as we wanted every­one to be able to see each other on the top table and chat, it also felt less like we were being stared at! The tables were named after dif­fer­ent types of tea. I typed up our menu and mounted them on vin­tage style wall­pa­per sam­ples and then dis­played them in frames from char­ity shops, which I painted teal and put one on each table. My Nan has a beau­ti­ful deep blue hydrangea bush in her gar­den, which she let us take flow­ers from. These made the centre-pieces in jam jars on each table, and dec­o­ra­tions round the barn too. Each table also had a tiered cake stand and mis­matched vin­tage tea crock­ery. This was all from our fam­ily col­lec­tion – my aunt already had 84 cups and saucers when we counted before the wed­ding! (She hosts char­ity cof­fee morn­ings from time to time and most of them belonged to the fam­ily over the years!). Some of it was my great great grandmother’s which made it all the more special.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (20)
After the wed­ding break­fast peo­ple min­gled, talk­ing and play­ing with the silly props and black­board we had set up. Part of our pho­tog­ra­phy pack­age was a large print from our engage­ment shoot, put in a mount for all our guests to sign. I think this is one of our most trea­sured items from the wedding.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (17)

wedding photo by PH Weddings (19)
The wed­ding break­fast was after­noon tea – 5 dif­fer­ent sand­wich fill­ings on dif­fer­ent types of home made bread, home made ‘mini’ quiches (which were huge!), feta cheese and onion tartlets and freshly made scones, clot­ted cream and home­made jam. My amaz­ing friends and fam­ily made other cakes too for the wed­ding break­fast and my best friend Sarah’s mom made us the most stun­ning cup­cakes in all dif­fer­ent flavours! We had a choice of Eng­lish break­fast, Earl Grey or Pep­per­mint tea or cof­fee to drink with the wed­ding break­fast and then cham­pagne to toast with the speeches.

After dis­cus­sion with fam­ily and friends we opted not to have favours – we couldn’t think of any­thing the men would appre­ci­ate and the women said even they prob­a­bly wouldn’t notice them! Instead we had a party bis­cuit ring attached to each name tag on the wed­ding break­fast tables, as Chris had always said he would pro­pose with a party bis­cuit ring. They went down a storm, we didn’t find any left at the end of the day!

wedding photo by PH Weddings (16)
The speeches went down a treat. My dad is an awe­some pub­lic speaker (though he doesn’t realize it!) and had every­one in stitches with a story about my con­cern for a dead jel­ly­fish on the beach at the ten­der age of ten (I wanted to enquire at the life guard sta­tion about pre­vent­ing peo­ple form step­ping on it and then put a ring of peb­bles around it just incase!) amongst other embar­rass­ing sto­ries, and wel­com­ing Chris into our fam­ily. Chris’ speech was equally funny but the moment that sticks in my mind was when he told the room “she is the sun­shine in my life”. The best man’s speech was fan­tas­tic, close to the bone but he just about got away with it! The details have to remain between us and those who were there though!

wedding photo by PH Weddings (14)

Wed­ding day advice

  • For brides – Find out what hid­den tal­ents you friends have – and use them!
  • Lists and spread­sheets – I had a note­book, which I wrote every­thing down in. It’s become a great keep­sake too!
  • For grooms – Just say yes! Only kid­ding –it’s a great oppor­tu­nity to work as a team as a cou­ple, enjoy it and use each other’s dif­fer­ent strengths.
  • For keep­ing to a bud­get: Com­pro­mise has to be the best advice I could give. Sit down early on and decide what you will and won’t com­pro­mise on. I had very lit­tle inter­est in wed­ding cars so it was an easy place to save. The pho­tog­ra­pher how­ever had to be per­fect. Work out how much you can save per month, then how long until your wed­ding and that should be the basis, then add in savings/contributions etc.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (12)

wedding photo by PH Weddings (7)
After that we cut the cake. Our cake was made by Sami-Jo’s Cakes. I went to school with Sam and found her busi­ness on Face­book. We met up and chat­ted about what we wanted and what she made for us blew us away. It was a beau­ti­ful three tiered cake with hand­made pas­tel coloured icing but­tons in dif­fer­ent sizes around the bot­tom and top tiers, with teal rib­bon and lace from my dress held together with an antique brooch round the cen­tre tier. The bot­tom tier was choco­late, the mid­dle was lemon sponge and the top was gluten free vanilla with real straw­berry but­ter cream. It tasted amaz­ing and lasted well too! On top of the cake we had a beau­ti­ful antique minia­ture cup and saucer, with laven­der and flow­ers in.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (8)
There are so many mem­o­rable moments… See­ing my brides­maids, aunt and mom all dressed and ready to go, so happy and excited. See­ing my dad well up as he began to walk me down the aisle. Chris turn­ing to look at me, and the grin on his face as he slid the wed­ding ring on my fin­ger. Stand­ing beneath that wil­low tree in the dap­pled sun­light together. Look­ing round at the mar­quee full of the peo­ple we love the most in the world, all there for us, look­ing so happy and laugh­ing. Stand­ing in the mid­dle of the dance floor, lis­ten­ing to our friends play­ing the most amaz­ing live music, look­ing round at every­one danc­ing, arms in the air to “Use Some­body” by Kings of Leon, see­ing so many smil­ing faces and feel­ing that every­one was there sim­ply to cel­e­brate with us; it was incred­i­bly mov­ing. I looked at Chris and welled up, he grinned and kissed me. That moment, there, was perfection.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (5)
The evening recep­tion was held in the con­verted barn that is part of my aunt’s house. The acoustics are incred­i­ble for live music and the space was per­fect for danc­ing. I saved jam jars for months and made wire han­dles for them to cre­ate lanterns, which were filled with sand and can­dles. These were lit as the sun went down; some had lace round them, which cre­ated a lovely roman­tic glow. They hung from the trees and round the pond in the evening. My mom and aunt tied rib­bons all through one of the trees too, which looked amaz­ing in the breeze.

We had a very well stocked pay bar that had been set up in a room adja­cent to the mar­quee and barn. We had 2 real ales — my dad made signs to go on the real ale pump han­dles with pic­tures of us on them, so guests asked for either a pint of Abi or a pint of Chris! The prices were cheap pub prices, which went down a treat. The atmos­phere in the evening was just incred­i­ble. Every­one was up and danc­ing, so much so that when the hog roast was served peo­ple prac­ti­cally had to tell the band to stop play­ing and peo­ple to go and get some food! The hog roast was incred­i­bly pop­u­lar, my only regret was that I didn’t actu­ally go and see it for myself, I was too busy thank­ing peo­ple for com­ing and dancing!

wedding photo by PH Weddings (4)
It rained very heav­ily at about 5pm, only for 15 min­utes and then there was the most incred­i­ble dou­ble rain­bow across the val­ley, and dra­matic sky – we really had all types of weather on the day, it was incred­i­bly windy dur­ing the pho­tos too!

wedding photo by PH Weddings (3)

wedding photo by PH Weddings (2)
We had a live band made up of friends who are musi­cians from the local open-mic night and one of my old school friends, Amy Scott also sang. She silenced the room as she has a phe­nom­e­nal voice! All the musi­cians are friends of my dad’s, which made it incred­i­bly per­sonal. We didn’t have a ‘first dance’ as such, but the band played “Happy Together” by The Tur­tles – not tra­di­tional but it was great fun bounc­ing round the dance floor together and the lyrics fit so per­fectly – I really can’t see me lov­ing any­one but him for all my life! My favorite song is “Chas­ing Cars” by Snow Patrol and Amy Scott sang this for us too – hav­ing known her since I was 4 years old, and it being my mum’s favorite song too it as incred­i­bly spe­cial. Towards the end of the evening Mick Birks sang “Gal­way Bay” by John Reilly, which tells of a father watch­ing his lit­tle girl get mar­ried – it had me in tears as it was so per­sonal and the song means a lot to both my dad and I.

Our guest book was made from a photo album I bought from Paper­chase, which I then hand stamped instruc­tions on to, and made the front cover, as I didn’t like any of the twee guest books that I had seen in the shops. We also had a sweetie table in the evening I col­lected jars for months, and made a cake stand to go on this with vin­tage plates and sherry glasses. I painted the sign which I got from ebay, for this too.

wedding photo by PH Weddings (1)
Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers

Linda Davey, of No.9 Cou­ture is one of the most amaz­ing women I have ever met. She has a phe­nom­e­nal tal­ent for tak­ing what a bride describes and cre­at­ing their dream dress. She is now known as my fairy god­mother! www.no9bridalcouture.com

Jane Hardman-Ferris (HF Cou­ture) is so friendly and incred­i­bly tal­ented at what she does. Her cre­ations are just beau­ti­ful and beau­ti­fully mix old vin­tage bits of jew­ellery with new beads and crys­tals. My head­piece will be trea­sured and passed down through my fam­ily for gen­er­a­tions to come. www.hfcouture.co.uk

Our pho­tog­ra­phers were PH Wed­dings — We would rec­om­mend Helen and Paul to any­one, they are such a gen­uine, warm and friendly cou­ple who have a quiet but phe­nom­e­nal pas­sion and tal­ent for pho­tog­ra­phy. Their pic­tures speak for them­selves; they have man­aged to con­sis­tently demon­strate their own beau­ti­ful style which stands out from all the other cur­rent wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers. Our pho­tos cap­ture the story and more impor­tantly all the emo­tions from the day, and all the details that made it unique to us. We barely noticed they were there through the wed­ding recep­tion and the speeches but they cap­tured it per­fectly. www.phweddings.co.uk

Home­made, our cater­ers were fan­tas­tic and have an awe­some bistro/deli in Netheredge, Sheffield that is well worth a visit! www.homemade-sheffield.co.uk

The cou­ple who pro­vided our bar were fan­tas­tic. They came out to meet us at the site, dis­cuss what we want and couldn’t do enough to help us and fit around us. www.yorkshirerealale2u.co.uk

The mar­quee was from Buster Mar­quees who were fan­tas­tic – very friendly, pro­fes­sional and hard work­ing as the mar­quee went up in tor­ren­tial rain! The also sup­plied all the tables, chairs and table clothes. www.bustermarquees.co.uk


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