We Won Our Wedding — but Not All Went to Plan

The very beau­ti­ful Vicky and Matt won their wed­ding day at a York­shire wed­ding fair. They hadn’t planned to get mar­ried so quickly, but couldn’t turn down such an amaz­ing oppor­tu­nity and changed all their plans to bring the wed­ding for­ward to Novem­ber 2011.

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Richard Wynn-Davies got in touch to tell me their story. He explained, “the organ­is­ers [of a regional UK wed­ding show] pro­moted a com­pe­ti­tion dubbed “The Royal Wed­ding” where they asked for wed­ding sup­pli­ers from each main cat­e­gory to pro­vide their ser­vices to one cou­ple for free in return for tons of great PR. We decided to put our­selves for­ward as the pho­tog­ra­phers. The win­ners were Vicky & Matt, an adorable couple.

“Shortly after­wards the event organ­iser left the com­pany behind the show who then in turn decided to sell the rights to the show onto another party. There was not a fur­ther word about the com­pe­ti­tion, the organ­is­ers stopped return­ing everyone’s calls (the win­ners and the sup­pli­ers) and Vicky and Matt were absolutely dev­as­tated as there was no way they could afford to get mar­ried them­selves so soon. There was how­ever no way we were going to let them down and luck­ily most of the other sup­pli­ers felt the same way includ­ing wed­ding plan­ner Nikki Fos­ter from “I Do Designer Wed­dings” and the venue (Bag­den Hall). We all pulled together and deliv­ered the wed­ding of Vicky and Matt’s dreams.”

I really admire the wed­ding sup­pli­ers who were so gen­er­ous in giv­ing their time for free when the com­pe­ti­tion organ­is­ers let them down. The very least I can do is share their story on my wed­ding blog this morn­ing. As for the bride and groom, they enjoyed their wed­ding day and made it truly spe­cial — I imag­ine it was a roller­coaster ride plan­ning the day, but in the end it all came good.

Vicky tells her own story of the wed­ding. I’ll leave you with Vicky’s words and wed­ding pho­tographs by Richard Wynn-Davies.

Vicky and Matt’s Bag­den Hall wedding

We actu­ally won our wed­ding through a com­pe­ti­tion run by a regional wed­ding show organ­iser. Most of our sup­pli­ers pro­vided their ser­vices for free or at reduced cost as part of the prize. We actu­ally weren’t plan­ning on get­ting mar­ried for 3 or 4 years (to save!) and when we won this prize last Feb­ru­ary it com­pletely blew our minds and sud­denly we were get­ting mar­ried the fol­low­ing November!

Shortly after we had won the wed­ding show was sold on and sud­denly the organ­is­ers stopped return­ing our calls and we were so wor­ried that every­thing was off. How­ever the sup­pli­ers that had agreed to take part in the prize pulled together, coor­di­nated by Nikki Fos­ter from I Do Designer Wed­dings, to make sure we got our dream day. Our wed­ding took place on 11/11/11 at a church in Wetherby and at Bag­den Hall in Wakefield.

We both enjoyed the morn­ing of our wed­ding, Vicky got ready at her parent’s house and had a relax­ing morn­ing of pam­per­ing with her brides­maids. Matthew spent the morn­ing with my best men and grooms­men at our house and was treated to a sur­prise trip in a Bent­ley to the church.

The cer­e­mony was lovely with the priest deliv­er­ing a charm­ing and per­sonal ser­vice. One of our friends also sang Etta James — At Last dur­ing the cer­e­mony which sounded great dur­ing the sign­ing of the register.

The guests were treated to a wed­ding radio show recorded by the groom and his best man to enter­tain them dur­ing their trip to to Bag­den Hall where the recep­tion was being hosted.

Upon arriv­ing at the recep­tion, guests were served canopes whilst Miss Magic, a very tal­ented magi­cian, wowed guests with her insane tricks.

Fur­ther into the evening after the wed­ding break­fast was served, more enter­tain­ment in the form of a photo booth by Booth Rev­o­lu­tion, chara­ca­tur­ist and a mini gig per­formed by friends and fam­ily ensured that every­one had the best time pos­si­ble. All the while, Richard Wynn Davies our pho­tog­ra­pher dis­played a selec­tion of amaz­ing pho­tographs on a pro­jec­tor that he had cap­tured pre­vi­ously in the day.

The dress was a Ritva West­e­nius dress called Rio which was a fish tail, strap­less gown with silk cov­ered but­tons all down the back and lace peek­ing out at the top and bot­tom. It was bought from Sophie Louise in Boston Spa, Wetherby.

The fur stole was a Tem­per­ley Lon­don from Sophie Louise in Boston Spa and the vale was from the same shop. Vicky’s head­band, ear­ring, bracelet and neck­lace were made by Liz War­ren of Sun­dance Jew­ellery using swarovski and pearls. The shoes were from Schuh.

Matthew and his grooms­men were all dressed in char­coal gray morn­ing suits pro­vided by Slaters Menswear. All grooms­men wore cream waist­coats and gold cra­vats.

Our most mem­o­rable moment: Look­ing out at all of our fam­ily and friends dur­ing the wed­ding break­fast and see­ing them enjoy­ing their meals, laugh­ing and meet­ing new people.

Wed­ding day advice:

Relax, don’t get stressed out as every­thing will go smoothly.

Build­ing a great rela­tion­ship with your pho­tog­ra­phers BEFORE the wed­ding is so impor­tant. It felt like Richard and Car­o­line were friends at the wed­ding and we love the pho­tographs because of it.

Don’t worry about try­ing to run around speak­ing to dif­fer­ent peo­ple, they will come to you and you just have to soak up the atmos­phere as it all goes SO fast!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers

Richard Wynn Davies Pho­tog­ra­phy — Richard has pro­vided us with the most amaz­ing pho­tographs of the day, cap­tur­ing very nat­ural and stun­ning pic­tures and just the right moments. He under­stood exactly what we wanted from the pho­tographs and didn’t miss a moment. See the full wed­ding on Richard’s wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy blog

Nikki Fos­ter from I Do Designer Wed­dings — Nikki made the wed­ding. She made the day look and feel exactly how we had imag­ined and made sure every­thing ran smoothly dur­ing the plan­ning of the wed­ding and on the day. Her atten­tion to detail and abil­ity to tai­lor the day exactly to reflect our per­son­al­i­ties was sec­ond to none and we would always rec­om­mend Nikki as a wed­ding planner.

Chris­tine Wright from Hor­ti­cou­ture Events Floristry — Chris­tine pro­vided the most beau­ti­ful flow­ers and made the venues so colour­ful and dra­matic. Plus she man­aged to pick flow­ers that lasted months and months after the wedding!

Bal­loonin Mar­vel­lous — Bal­lonin Mar­vel­lous were so accom­mo­dat­ing and pro­vided a range of dec­o­ra­tions for the church and the venue.

And a lit­tle advice from your friendly wed­ding blog­ger before I end this post… I’d say never enter a com­pe­ti­tion to win your wed­ding. It’s a great idea, but jobs change hands — wed­ding coor­di­na­tors and event organ­is­ers won’t always be there from begin­ning to end and with a com­pe­ti­tion like this, they need to be.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen “win a wed­ding” turn into a poten­tial dis­as­ter. (It is the first time I’ve seen things turned around so suc­cess­fully after­wards though!)

Claire xx