Kate and Mike’s Beautiful Vintage Wedding Blog from Plas Rhianfa in Wales

This gor­geous cou­ple didn’t entirely fol­low tra­di­tion: they had no wed­ding read­ings and chose not to spend a night apart before the wed­ding — which seems an out­dated tra­di­tion to me any­way! Kate wore a stun­ning lace wed­ding dress and the venue dec­o­ra­tion was kept sim­ple and ele­gant with pas­tel pinks and lace.

Thank you to my friend and north Wales wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Mar­tin Lyons for the lovely images, and huge con­grat­u­la­tions to Kate and Mike! They’ve shared their wed­ding report and advice for you all at the end of today’s wed­ding blog. Enjoy! Claire x

Kate and Mike — a beau­ti­ful vin­tage wed­ding blog from Wales

The bride and groom: Mike and Kate Hayes

Wed­ding venue: Plas Rhi­anfa

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Mar­tin Lyons Photography

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Tra­di­tional, vintage

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony:

A civil cer­e­mony in the ban­quet­ing hall at Plas Rhi­anfa, attended by 80 guests — our fam­ily and clos­est friends.

We decided not to have any read­ings, there was noth­ing that we felt strongly enough to have and they always make me cry at other people’s weddings.

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

Plas Rhi­anfa didn’t need much dress­ing up. Our only addi­tion was beau­ti­ful flow­ers by Sioned Row­lands of Tulipa.

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

Invi­ta­tions were designed online and were sim­ple and tra­di­tional, the recep­tion sta­tionery was hand made by us using gold pen, stick on let­ter­ing and nice cream card from Hobbycraft.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

Mar­tin from Gav’s Disco came and set up in the ban­quet­ing hall after the wed­ding break­fast. Plenty of cheesy tunes!

What did you wear?

I wore a beau­ti­ful lace dress by Ken­neth Win­ston, bought from J’adore Bridal Bou­tique in Altrin­cham, a veil with pearl detail­ing and shoes from Deben­hams tied on with ivory ribbon.

Mike wore a hired morn­ing suit from Deben­hams, yel­low pais­ley tie and yel­low rose but­ton hole.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

From the beau­ti­ful sun­rise that morn­ing to the end of the day, every­thing was per­fect. I loved walk­ing into the cer­e­mony hall to see all our fam­ily and friends smil­ing and, at the front, Mike look­ing so happy and relaxed. I couldn’t wait to marry him!

Wed­ding day advice:

Mike and I didn’t fol­low the tra­di­tion of stay­ing in sep­a­rate rooms the night before the wed­ding. I am sure we were less ner­vous and had a bet­ter night’s sleep because of that.
We met up with all of our fam­ily and lots of friends the day before the wed­ding, this meant that we weren’t stress­ing too much that we hadn’t spo­ken to every­one on the wed­ding day.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

Mar­tin Lyons Pho­tog­ra­phy – Absolutely bril­liant pic­tures and he makes you laugh and relax, which was very help­ful when I was get­ting ready!

Tes­ti­mo­nial: (added on here by me, Mar­tin: We would just like to say a mas­sive thank you to you and Ian for our won­der­ful wed­ding pho­tographs!! They are even bet­ter than we had hoped and have cap­tured our spe­cial day per­fectly! Hav­ing you there while we got ready was fun and stopped me get­ting as ner­vous as I oth­er­wise would have been. Through­out the day you made us feel at ease and you man­aged to catch us look­ing our best. Plas Rhi­anfa is a beau­ti­ful loca­tion and we couldn’t have asked for bet­ter weather, so we feel really lucky. We love the group shots and the roman­tic ones of the two of us and also the small details which no one else there would have taken a pic­ture of. These are pho­tographs that we will trea­sure for­ever, thank you for doing them so well!

Julia Nicholls Hair – Lovely lady, amaz­ing hair styling skills and knew exactly what I wanted. She was also very help­ful through­out the months lead­ing up to the wed­ding, very good at keep­ing in touch and gave me some very use­ful rec­om­men­da­tions, eg Teatime cakes.

Teatime Cakes – Jane Rut­ter has been bril­liant and the cake she made for us was deli­cious and beautiful.

Tulipa Flow­ers – Sioned Row­lands made us the most beau­ti­ful flower arrange­ments and bou­quets. It was a plea­sure to meet up with her and dis­cuss our flow­ers and she deliv­ered perfection.