The Runaway Veil and the Wedding Photographer

Our knight in shin­ing armor sub­mit­ted Anna and Fraser’s beau­ti­ful wed­ding to my blog. I don’t think he men­tioned his lit­tle adven­ture in his emails! Won­der­ful what a bit of wedding-blogger-research turns up. Also of note are Anna’s adorable flower gar­land — I want one — her stun­ning smile and the romance that fiz­zles between the happy couple.

You’ll love the warm sun­shine in the wheat fields, you’ll love Anna’s look and Fraser’s lov­ing eyes, you’ll love the pics from Pete Barnes Pho­tog­ra­phy — and you’ll love Anna’s wed­ding story. Dive in. Enjoy.

Claire x

A friend designed our invi­ta­tions and order of ser­vice. He designed a logo using our names which made them really personal.

My engage­ment ring and our wed­ding rings were from The Toll House Jew­ellers in Rip­pon­den, Hal­i­fax. They give a really per­sonal ser­vice. I chose every aspect of my engage­ment ring, they even got a selec­tion of dia­monds in for me to choose from. They were very rea­son­ably priced and we got all our gifts for the bridal party from there too. The only other jew­ellery I wore was a ring my par­ents bought me for my 21st.

The groom’s and ush­ers’ out­fits were from West­gate Bridal in Hal­i­fax. They were good qual­ity suits at the cheap­est price we found in the area. They also included every­thing in the pack­age (shoes, ties etc) whereas some places add those on to the price on top of the suit. Our florist did the cor­sages and the hip flask gifts were from The Toll House.

My aunt, who is a vicar, mar­ried us at St Peters Church, Birstall. My aunt doing the ser­vice added a really per­sonal touch, the ser­vice was fab­u­lous. We used Chauf­feur Tours at Gilder­some, Leeds for the cars. We had an S class Mer­cedes and a Mer­cedes peo­ple car­rier for the brides­maids and my mom. They were very rea­son­ably priced, punc­tual and friendly.

My shoes were by Rain­bow and were the Beu design, proper bridal shoes but plain and sim­ple. My neck­lace was bor­rowed from my mom. Our florist made the head­dress (The Flower Shop – Lind­ley, Hud­der­s­field. They did an excel­lent job)

My dress was designed by White Rose and bought from Con­fetti and Lace in Stan­ningly, Leeds. It was bought ‘off the peg’ as we only had 4 months between get­ting engaged and get­ting mar­ried so didn’t have time to get one made!

We got the brides­maid dresses from West­gate Bridal too as my brides­maids were all dif­fer­ent shapes and sizes, includ­ing one being 32 weeks preg­nant! We planned on get­ting dresses from the high street but couldn’t find any­thing that looked right on them all so got them made at West­gate Bridal. Again they were rea­son­ably priced and the fit was excellent.

We had the recep­tion at Black­er­hall Farm in Wake­field. It is owned by some of mum’s fam­ily, again adding a per­sonal dimen­sion. It’s a beau­ti­ful con­verted barn with a mod­ern twist and they did an excel­lent job. We were the first wed­ding they had done which meant we could mold it as we liked. We wanted a laid back, relaxed feel to the day with a loose ‘Eng­lish Coun­try Gar­den’ theme and that’s what we got.

Mango Acoustic Duo trav­elled up from Leices­ter to play for us whilst peo­ple arrived and were eat­ing their food. They were per­fect for our wed­ding as they played acoustic ver­sions of mod­ern songs in a beau­ti­ful but low key way. We chose the songs they played and they were very accom­mo­dat­ing and professional.

The flow­ers were all in sea­son and we had the ‘picked’ look so they weren’t too uni­form. The florist deliv­ered all the flow­ers to the right places on the day (even on a bank hol­i­day Sun­day) and moved flow­ers from the church to the venue for us. We didn’t tell the florist exactly what we wanted, just ideas that we had and she inter­preted us brilliantly.

Pete Barnes did the pho­tog­ra­phy for us and we were really pleased with the amaz­ing pho­tos and the highly pro­fes­sional yet friendly ser­vice he pro­vided. We chose Pete as some of our friends had used him at their wed­ding and we really like his pho­tos. His style fit­ted in with the theme of the wed­ding perfectly.

Pete and Carol were really dis­crete in the church and took loads of shots of our guests just chat­ting and laugh­ing. Pete really cap­tured the feel of the day. We asked him to make a cou­ple of changes to dvd slideshow he made for us (our bad choice of music!) and he was really prompt at mak­ing the changes and get­ting a new disc to us.

We had a BBQ for the food with cheese and bis­cuits or tart for pud­ding. Every­thing at Black­er­hall is locally sourced and so many of our guests said it was the best food they’d ever had at a wed­ding. Every­one helped them­selves to food and there was no seat­ing plan which meant that peo­ple were mov­ing around the room, talk­ing to dif­fer­ent peo­ple and cre­at­ing a really relaxed atmosphere.

My mom made our cake which was per­fect. She used the cake shop at Lind­ley, Hud­der­s­field for advice and hired cake tins etc from them. Mum made 2 tiers of fruit cake and a tier of Madeira cake. It was iced in white with sim­ple icing daisies to dec­o­rate it. She did an amaz­ing job.

Black­er­hall have an out­side bar that can be used so we had Black Cherry events pro­vide a pagoda for the bar out­side with fairy lights all around the inside. Hav­ing the extra bar enabled peo­ple to spread out a bit. Appar­ently the bar­man out­side had a great time with our guests!

 Wed­ding day advice

Let other peo­ple worry about things rather than you – del­e­gate to brides­maids, best man, ush­ers etc

‘The plan is, there is no plan’ – this really helped keep stress lev­els down as if things aren’t going to time it doesn’t matter!

Every­one says it but take it all in. It goes so fast. I was ask­ing guest why they were leav­ing so early but it was 1am and I didn’t realize all that time had gone by.

Our wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Pete Barnes was great at com­mu­ni­cat­ing with us and made us feel really at ease on the day. He only took us away from our guests for short peri­ods and took some great shots by the dam at the church and a bar­ley field near the venue.

We had a fab­u­lous day. Every per­son, place and busi­ness we used were excel­lent. We have some bril­liant mem­o­ries and fab­u­lous pho­tos that we can look back on in years to come.

 Our most mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments

My aunt ask­ing every­one in the mid­dle of the ser­vice why they were there!

Pete vault­ing a barb wire fence to retrieve my veil after it blew away

Fraser and I enter­ing the room before we were announced properly

 Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers

The Toll House Jew­ellers – Rip­pon­den, Hal­i­fax tollhousejewellery.co.uk

Con­fetti and Lace – Stan­ningly Leeds www.confettiandlaceweddings.co.uk

West­gate Bridal — Hal­i­fax www.westgatebridalstudio.com

The Flower Shop – Lind­ley, Hud­der­s­field www.theflowershoplindley.co.uk

Chauf­feur Tours – Gilder­some, Leeds

Black­er­hall Farm – Wake­field www.blackerhall.com

Mango Acoustic Duo – Leicester

Black Cherry Events – Wakefield

Pete Barnes Pho­tog­ra­phy — Wake­field www.petebarnesphotography.co.uk

See more images from Anna and Fraser’s Black­er­hall Farm wed­ding on Pete Barnes’s pho­tog­ra­phy blog, and have a look at Pete’s best wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy of 2011 on face­book too!