James and Katherine — an Elegant and Traditional Surrey Wedding

Kather­ine describes their day as “An ele­gant and styl­ish wed­ding with a taste­ful pres­ence of gold, ivory and sparkle detail that pro­vided a back­drop for the rich and colour­ful accents seen in the grand recep­tion flower arrange­ments.” It most cer­tainly is — and I think this wed­ding shows one of our most lux­u­ri­ous stately home wed­ding venues at it’s very best.

The pho­tog­ra­phy is by lovely reportage wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Karen Flower, and Kather­ine and James have shared their wed­ding story with you today as well — it starts about a third of the way down the page. Enjoy — and be inspired! Claire xxx

Kather­ine and James — a time­less, ele­gant Sur­rey wed­ding blog

Wed­ding venue:

St Mary Oat­lands Church and Botley’s Man­sion

Wed­ding photographer:

Karen Flower www.karenflowerphotography.com

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony:

Our cer­e­mony was a tra­di­tional Church ser­vice at the beau­ti­ful St. Mary Oat­lands’ Church Wey­bridge. Attrac­tive flower and pew end arrange­ments were pro­vided for by the Church and we chose a mix­ture of mod­ern and con­ven­tional hymns that were enthu­si­as­ti­cally sung with a lit­tle help from the Church choir. Loud resound­ing bells filled our ears in cel­e­bra­tion and a touch­ing per­sonal address was made by the Asso­ciate Min­is­ter whom we know well as we attend the Church regularly.

Which read­ings did you choose?

We chose to have two Bible read­ings; our first is the well-known and loved read­ing 1 Corinthi­ans 13 – which we adapted to incor­po­rate words from both the Mes­sage Bible and the New Inter­na­tional trans­la­tion.
Our sec­ond was 1 John 4, which describes how God’s love for us pro­vides the root of our deep love for one another.

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

Botley’s Man­sion is a Pal­la­dian man­sion set in rolling Sur­rey park­land. It has a long dri­ve­way and a grand stair­way entrance which was per­fect for a large group photo opportunity.

The park­land also allowed the Bride and Groom to wan­der off unno­ticed and unin­ter­rupted at inter­vals through­out the day.

Upon arrival, as it was a sunny August summer’s day, guests were served canapés and Pimms out­side, whilst inside, in the cool and spa­cious mar­ble inte­ri­ors, they were treated to a live pianist and var­i­ous seat­ing areas. Fol­low­ing a recep­tion line, guests were shown into the atrium and down a dra­matic ‘Hol­ly­wood’ stair­case to their tables.

The speeches were made and then a deli­cious three course meal was served. Later, guests of all ages were enter­tained by ‘Vision’ band, a four piece female lead. Addi­tion­ally, ‘blues­teel­booths’ pro­vided some pho­to­booth fun, cre­at­ing a guest book full happy faces as well as a per­son­alised memento from the day.

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

I am an Artist and Art Teacher and so I cre­ated designs on the com­puter for all the sta­tionery that was then laser cut. The invite was then inlaid with gold paper, and Tra­jan Pro font was used for the information.

I pro­vided a hand drawn map of direc­tions and we had a web­site link for the over­seas and trendier of our guests. The table plan matched the other sta­tionery and the place set­tings were also laser cut and then hand writ­ten using gold pen.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

Pianist – Bride’s Uncle
Vision Live Band (tel: 07778 424708)

What did you wear?

After vis­it­ing only two Bridal shops, and try­ing on 15 dresses, one dress par­tic­u­larly stood out to me – and it was com­pletely dif­fer­ent to what I had expected to like!

It was a sim­ple light ivory strap­less dress which pulled me in all the right places until just below my hips and then started to fill out so there was a sub­stan­tial amount of mate­r­ial to fol­low behind me down the aisle (in fact I did have to have some taken in!) It was made with a stun­ning silk that shone and reflected the light beautifully.

My mid length veil had a dou­ble rib­bon trim and my shoes were not too tall sparkly num­bers from Dune that I knew I could wear again and felt com­fort­able in.

My jew­ellery on the day com­prised of a hand made neck­lace and my mother’s drop down pearls. I car­ried my late Grandmother’s ivory embell­ished clutch which held make up for quick touch ups and a belt in the evening for a lit­tle more glamour.

Sur­rey Brides pro­vided an ele­gant set­ting and a pro­fes­sional service.

Groom:

Impec­ca­bles, Wey­bridge suited the Groom and his Grooms­men in a dash­ing black morn­ing suit (no morn­ing hats were worn). James wore an ivory cra­vat with an ivory waist­coat that was embell­ished with gold.

Father of the bride and the best man wore the same waist­coat, but this time with a gold cra­vat and then all the other men in the Groom’s party wore plain ivory waist­coats and gold cra­vats. This exact gold shade matched the Brides­maid dresses from Dessy.

My Chief Brides­maid was in a full length gown and my three other Brides­maids wore to the knee flow­ing dresses. The whole look was meant to be of a dreamy roman­tic summer’s day, with light peach coloured flow­ers in their bou­quets and the only con­trast in the form of a hand­some dark suit.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

Bride: Get­ting ready and hav­ing inti­mate pho­tographs taken out­side with my imme­di­ate fam­ily and Brides­maids. The nerves start­ing to take form as bit by bit they all left and then I was stand­ing with my Father who whis­pered to me, ‘Just enjoy every sec­ond of it’.

Groom: Firstly, see­ing my beau­ti­ful wife-to-be walk down the aisle and posi­tion next to me at the Church. Sec­ondly in the speeches, the ‘Man Hug’ I offered to my new Father-in-Law — a first that will always be remembered!

Together: Stand­ing at the top of the ‘Hol­ly­wood’ stairs as the peo­ple dear­est to us in the world gath­ered below in cel­e­bra­tion and cheered us on – what a happy and colour­ful sight! Steal­ing away at ‘Magic Hour’ with our pho­tog­ra­pher who cap­tured the beau­ti­ful fad­ing light that sparkled across the water foun­tain and gave us a moment to our­selves as newly weds.

Wed­ding day advice:

• We got mar­ried at 11:30am – what a way to make the most of the best day of your life. Enjoy every minute and make it as long as possible!
• Don’t panic in the run up – there are always last minute things to do but every­thing will get done, and you have the sup­port of all your Bridal and Groom’s par­ties to help with logis­tics on the day.
• Do let loose on the dance­floor, if you can’t cel­e­brate on your wed­ding day when can you?!
• Don’t be the last to leave, have a moment to say good­bye to fam­ily and friends who want a chance to wave you off.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

Impec­ca­ble Menswear- 119 Queens Rd, Wey­bridge, Sur­rey, KT13 9UN (tel: 01932 855557)
Sur­rey Brides- 52 Church St, Wey­bridge, KT13 8DP (tel: 01932 846812)
Blues­teel Booths– www.bluesteelbooths.com (tel: 0203 638 6212; email: saycheese@bluesteelbooths.com)
Karen Flower Pho­tog­ra­phy– www.karenflowerphotography.com (tel: 020 83988454; email: karen@karenflowerphotography.com)
Bot­leys Man­sion- Stone­hill Rd, Otter­shaw, Nr Chert­sey, Sur­rey KT16 0AP (tel: 0845 130 9966; email: yourday@bijouweddings.co.uk)
Vision Live Band (tel: 07778 424708)