We Met at Primary School… a Welsh Wedding

Enjoy!

Bryn­g­wyn Hall wed­ding: Alice and Jamie

“Even though Jamie and I live in Lon­don, we are both from the same area in Mid Wales (we met at pri­mary school!) and knew we wanted to get mar­ried back there.
The weather on the day was per­fect! We were so lucky, par­tic­u­larly at that time of the year. The morn­ing was spent with respec­tive fam­i­lies, get­ting ready. We had my two nephews (age 4) as page boys and my two nieces (age 2) as flower girls with my other older niece as bridesmaid.
The church ser­vice was beau­ti­ful. The vicar was very per­son­able and patient — par­tic­u­larly when, halfway through my vows, I was feel­ing very emo­tional and found it dif­fi­cult to get my words out. We had the hymns ‘Make me a chan­nel of your peace’, ‘All things bright and beau­ti­ful’ and ‘Cym Rhondda  –Bread of Heaven’. A friend played ‘Black­bird’ on his gui­tar dur­ing the sign­ing of the register.
Jamie’s suit, includ­ing tie, hand­ker­chief and waist­coat were from Favour­brooks, Jermyn st, Lon­don. His shoes were from Loakes, and his shirt from Emma Willis.

My shoes were my very first wed­ding pur­chase! I saw them in a mag­a­zine and knew they were the ones-whatever my style of dress was going to be! The brand is ‘Irreg­u­lar Choice’ from Schu online.

My ear­rings were pearl and dia­mond from John Lewis, my hair acces­sory was bor­rowed from my lovely friend Laura, who had pur­chased and worn it for her own wed­ding (it’s a hair­band but my hair­dresser, Bon­nie, man­aged to clev­erly place it in my hair like a clip). Jamie bought me the pearl neck­lace as a wed­ding present. The pearl bracelet (my Mum’s) was a last-minute addi­tion about half an hour before going to church! My ‘some­thing blue’ was a sap­phire ring that belonged to my Nanna.

My wed­ding dress: Jim Hjelm 507 from Black­burn Bridals in Black­heath, Lon­don. Found after much search­ing! Cape over dress was from Phase Eight, Deben­hams. Because of the unusual dress mate­r­ial, I found it really hard to find some­thing to com­ple­ment it. The cape was a lucky find and only tried it on on my final dress fit­ting– a week before the wed­ding. I was pleased that it worked!
My local church-2 min­utes from my par­ents’ house– was our first choice for the ser­vice but it was more dif­fi­cult to find a recep­tion venue. We just wanted a mar­quee in a field some­where to throw a good party! We realised quite soon that this wasn’t that prac­ti­cal and so when Bryn­g­wyn Hall was men­tioned to us, we knew we had found the per­fect place! Beau­ti­ful grounds in which to put up a mar­que but knew we wanted some­thing a bit dif­fer­ent… Then we found our beau­ti­ful teepees with Papakata.
As we drove up to the venue, we knew it was going to be a very spe­cial day. The tepees looked amaz­ing against the back­drop of the hall and the coun­try­side, the sun was shin­ing, jazz music was play­ing and the cham­pagne was already flow­ing. It was great to see the guests’ faces as they arrived at the teepees, as we had kept the choice of venue secret.

We were lucky with the weather to be able to have our pho­tos taken out­side. Fol­low­ing on from that, we joined our guests at the teepees and sat down about an hour later to a gor­geous meal.

The florists, Jenni and Val, had done such an amaz­ing job; with all the flow­ers, but par­tic­u­larly the table cen­tre­pieces with the lanterns were beautiful.

We wanted to have a welsh touch some­where and the heart welsh cake favours, made by my mom and sis­ter, were perfect!

Wed­ding day advice:

A clichéd one but enjoy every moment. For us, that included the plan­ning itself. I loved research­ing, find­ing and mak­ing (with help from friends and fam­ily). The day itself goes by so quickly and we tried to savour every moment.

Also, try not to get stressed about it all. We both agreed, that if any­thing on the day wasn’t run­ning exactly as we had planned, then it shouldn’t affect the enjoy­ment of the day. And it didn’t!

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

Hav­ing my nieces and nephews walk­ing down the aisle with me, all dressed up and look­ing gor­geous. A very spe­cial moment.

Say­ing our vows – a very over-whelming and emo­tional moment.

Our first dance and being joined by fam­ily and friends on the dance­floor at the end of the song.

One of the ush­ers dress­ing up and danc­ing as Bey­once later on in the evening! On my hen night, my friends had dressed me up as Bey­once (though not in the glam­orous sense!) and my sis­ter thought it would be great for Bey­once to make an appear­ance at the wed­ding party!

Our first dance was ‘One day like this’ by Elbow. We had taken a cou­ple of dance classes in the weeks before­hand, but ended up for­get­ting most of it on the evening and just doing it freestyle – it actu­ally worked out bet­ter and didn’t involve too much shuf­fling! Every­one came onto the dance floor for the end of the song. A really lovely, emo­tional moment.
The band and DJ were fan­tas­tic and got every­one onto the dance floor. I couldn’t believe it when the music ended at the end of the night – the evening had just flown by!

A very spe­cial mem­o­rable day shared with very spe­cial people.

Alice and Jamie’s rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

Jean Luc Pho­tog­ra­phy www.jeanlucbenazet.com After see­ing the pho­tos taken at a relative’s wed­ding, by Jean Luc, we booked him for his amaz­ing shots and his calm manner.

‘PapaKåta’ www.papakata.co.uk Amaz­ing tents from a friendly, pro­fes­sional team.

The Soul Jets band www.thesouljets.co.uk Fan­tas­tic music from a band that gets every­one up on their feet.

Roslin Caterering www.roslincatering.co.uk Gor­geous food and great service

Tim’s Tip­ples www.tipplesbar.co.uk very good slick ser­vice. The bar staff and cater­ing team worked with each other to ensure every­thing ran smoothly.

Black­burn Bridal blackburnbridal.co.uk A place where I was made to feel very spe­cial. And where I found my beau­ti­ful dress!

Bryn­g­wyn Hall (our won­der­ful venue) www.bryngwyn.com

Wed­ding car www.classicjags.fsnet.co.uk Our dri­ver, Frank, was a lovely guy.

Jenni and Val Florists (details on request) – Two very lovely ladies who spent a lot of time and effort, to ensure that every­thing was just right.

On Eng­lish Wed­ding blog tomorrow

I promised to tell you some­thing spe­cial about Alice and Jamie’s wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Jean-Luc Benazet — and I’m very excited to be shar­ing his own wed­ding on the blog tomor­row! It’s always great to see who a wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher chooses for his or her own wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy… but you’ll have to wait for the morn­ing to find out.