It’s a Wondrous Wedding Day! And what a treat I have for you in the form of Emily and Tom’s Moonrise Kingdom-themed nuptials. Emily has her own little corner of the internet over at Me and My Polar Bear and got in touch straight away when I put out my rallying cry for weddings to feature. I have loved going through her beautiful images as taken by the very talented Debbie Scanlan- this is a truly personal, creative, laughter-filled wedding that is an absolute pleasure to share. I hope you enjoy…
Tom and I met on the very first day at University (although he doesn’t remember!), almost exactly 10 years ago. I practically moved in straight away and we’ve been living out of each other’s pockets ever since! We were married on Friday 17 May 2013 at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire. I grew up around Harrogate and so it was really nice to go back and be surrounded by family and friends in my hometown!
My dress was from Fur Coat No Knickers just off Carnaby Street. The girls in there are absolutely amazing. They totally understood what I was after and I fell in love with my dress on my first day of looking. I wore a necklace belonging to Tom’s Granny, who sadly couldn’t be there, with a sapphire in the middle, and my Grandma made me a lace garter! My mum also found me some pearl earrings on the morning of the wedding, which I have since acquisitioned!
My shoes were from Rachel Simpson (amusingly they were ‘Emily’ shoes), and Tom’s shoes were ‘Tom’ shoes from Grenson! Tom’s suit was from Acne. Literally the first one he tried on! It was beautiful though, dark blue and slim cut.
We had a string quartet during the ceremony and drinks reception (with my old violin teacher playing!) and I came down the aisle to ‘Moon River’. Mainly chosen because I thought it’d make Tom cry the most! We also had ‘Eidleweiss’ during the signing of the register because it’s a family favourite.
Tom is really the creative mastermind behind the whole thing but we had already started discussing a potential scout/bear/fox theme (this may sound weird, but we have fox and polar bear soft toys that have played a rather large part in our lives…!) when we went and saw Moonrise Kingdom at the cinema. We were totally sold, and it became one of our main sources of inspiration.
After the ceremony and the miniature train ride (!!), we had dinner in PapaKata teepees and they looked absolutely incredible. As mentioned before, we had a loose Scout theme, and Tom designed and letterpressed ‘registration cards’ to use as a guest book (guests had to write a message and attach a polaroid picture!), as well as activity packs for each table, the menus and some amazing wooden signs.
As well as helping out with the letterpressing and printing, I was in charge of making the table numbers and bridesmaid dresses. We also had many many metres of nautical bunting and the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen from Twisted Willow. Other than a giant wooden bear we found on eBay(!), we made most things between us, and had SO much fun doing it.
I always knew I wasn’t going to be into chair covers or matching linen, we were mainly after a big party that was loads of fun, reflected all the things we love and didn’t cause too much stress along the way. After dinner, we had a ceilidh which is one of the best decisions we made. Triple Scotch were absolutely amazing. Everyone was up and dancing and it was SO MUCH FUN. I literally didn’t stop grinning.
There are so many favourite moments. The train ride, the decorated teepees, the speeches, the ceilidh… But I think the ceremony actually has to win. I thought it was going to be a blur and fairly unremarkable, but it was amazing. The registrar was incredibly personal (despite having never met us before!), and there really is no feeling quite like standing in front of someone you love that much telling everyone you want to be with them forever.
My advice to others would be just do what you really want to; everyone else will come round. We had the most amazing, special day, but I know that’s because it was completely ‘us’, we had so much fun and managed to include everything we thought was important. I literally wouldn’t have changed a thing.
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I’m sorry, I had to finish with some of those train ride shots again. How much fun did that look? And what smiles, what beautiful faces (Emily, you are simply gorgeous), and what a talented, creative pair. I particularly love Emily’s hair (effortless), the shots of Tom removing his glasses before kissing her (swoon), and that ‘Tom + Emily’ wooden sign… which I’m totally stealing for future weddings.
Thank you Debbie Scanlan for your wonderful photographs and thank you to Emily and Tom for sharing your unique day with The Utter Blog. I’m sure Emily will be checking in on this post, so if anyone has any questions regarding their suppliers/super DIY skills, then do ask. If you have a wondrous wedding you’d like to share with The Utter Blog then step right this way (and don’t be shy!), but otherwise… can we have some love for this beautiful pair?!
Sama xxx