Laura & Tom

Laura & Tom

Tom proposed completely out of the blue in August 2013 during out West Coast USA road trip. He proposed at the Grand Canyon at sunset when the colours of the canyon are simply stunning. The ring was beautiful; a brilliant cut diamond in an unusual white gold bezel setting, simple yet unique.We chose JDH as it has been a favourite place to go for a fancy meal for some years now. We loved the cosiness and intimacy of the venue and the fact it served excellent food and wine!When we got engaged we both said it was where we would love to get married as we didn’t want a big wedding but we wanted somewhere full of character. When visiting JDH as a wedding venue we were stunned with the Great Hall and knew there was no where else for us, Abi the wedding co-ordinator was absolutely amazing and we felt looked after on every stage of our wedding journey.

I was probably the most low-key bride ever! My dress was from a tiny designer in San Francisco called ‘Daughters of Simone’, I knew I didn’t want the ‘average’ wedding dress as it’s just not me so this designer was perfect with their vintage-inspired boho creations.

I chose the ‘Ada’ dress which was a 60s style babydoll dress with ivory lace overlay and lace sleeves, it was just perfect for me. I made my outfit even more unique by wearing blush tights and the most amazing Chie Mihara ‘Bandera’ shoes which were a real talking point!

Tom was incredibly laid back too, he wore a blue 3 piece suit with a blue printed shirt and knitted tie. Nothing ‘traditional’ about us at all really!

I did my own make-up as I honestly didn’t trust anyone else but my hair was done by Jane at the ‘Sandyford Salon’ through a friend’s recommendation. She took my idea of a vintage-inspired chignon type style and made it perfect for the day, it didn’t budge at all! I chose a handmade slide from Etsy that complimented the flowers and my dress to finish it off.

Sean Elliot was our number 1 choice to be our wedding photographer as he’d photographed several of our friends weddings. He takes the most fabulous photos that really capture the feeling of the day but is totally unobtrusive at the same time. He made us feel totally comfortable and the shots he got really encapsulated the us, the day, the venue and the style.

I didn’t really have a colour in mind at first, I was happy to see what colour dress my bridesmaid chose and go from there really. She chose a beautiful coral dress so we decided to go with pastel colours for the flowers. I chose whites, creams, peach, blush, yellow and lots of foliage as I wanted a ‘palete’ of colours rather than 2-3 solid colours.

As for the wedding style I knew I wanted to have ‘eclectic vintage’ which is pretty much what our house is like. For the arrangements Charlotte ( The Finishing Touch Company) helped me realize my dream of having an eclectic mix of bottles and tins without it looking too ‘higgeldy-piggeldy’ and the addition of books to add height to the centerpieces just blended in perfectly.

As soon as we saw the postboxes we knew we had to have one to post the guestbook postcards in!

The rest of the styling was done by myself; I made cream tissue paper pom-poms with luggage tags as the place settings, used Ladybird book postcards as the guestbook in an antique tea caddy and used baroque style photo frames for the table plan.

Charlotte ( The Finishing Touch Company) was fab in helping me choose the flowers for my bouquet, I took loads of photos in of bouquets I liked so we could chose the flowers that would work best.

I wanted something that was unstructured and ‘blousey’ with lots of different textures and a palette of colours.

We chose peonies (my favourite flower) along with dahlias, ranunculus and David Austin roses with lots of seed heads, crespedia, lamb’s ear, cow parsely and poppy heads for texture. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it!

The flowers for the centerpieces were a deconstructed version of the bouquet and Charlotte made the room look magical!

Being vintage in our approach to everything the only choice for a wedding car was a VW camper! As soon as I looked online I feel in love with ‘Little Joe’ from Canny Campers; a beige and cream 1960s camper. He fitted our day perfectly, was incredibly popular for photos and was great fun to ride in the venue to, I’ve never had so many people waving and beeping their horn at me! And then they realized it was a wedding car there was even more smiles! 

We chose to have a ceilidh as our evening entertainment. We loved the fact that it gets everyone involved and mixing together. Northern Lights ceilidh band were excellent and we didn’t stop dancing the whole night. There was so much fun, laughter and silly faces which is what the whole day was about!