It’s time to share the last wedding from the WWW real brides of 2013. Where has the time gone?

WWW real bride Emily and her now husband (ekk!) Mark married in September at the Council Chamber at Bournemouth Town Hall. They had a vision of a big fat informal party, and it sure did look like an amazing day. There was so much style, from the Vivienne Westwood Lady Dragon heart shoes, to the sunflower bouquet tied with leopard print ribbon. WOW.

Thanks so much to the wonderful Emma Lucy for sharing her photographs with us today.

 

 

The Proposal… On a blustery January day by the sea – Mark forced me to go for a walk which I thought was a rubbish idea, given the weather! So I threw on my worst clothes, a cagoule (nice!) and a fetching bobble hat over my unbrushed hair and we went over to a place called Dancing Ledge (an old quarry right by the cliff edge) where he got down on one knee – it was perfect!

 

 

 

The Vision for the Day… A very informal, big fat party! Mark had been married before in a pretty formal fashion and wasn’t keen to repeat the idea, and I hated the idea of tail coats and dry fruit cake and a receiving line… It mostly fell into place, a real mixture of stuff we liked!

 

The Planning Process… Was a bit drawn out! We had something like 19 months to plan but being me I wanted to tie down a date and venue straight away – I think we had them booked within two weeks! Everything else flowed from there, and was pretty much sewn up quite early on. It’s nice to be organised, but I maybe would say to leave yourself a little bit to do closer to the wedding, as if not you have a lot of time to worry about pointless tiny things!

 

 

Beautiful Bridesmaids… My three gorgeous girls wore navy dresses from Debenhams and their own choice of nude shoes. I bought them all cream pashminas and a pearl pendant from notonthehighstreet as a little thank you – they were totally brilliant both in the run-up and on the day. Our little niece, Kera, who arrived from Germany only that morning to perform her flower girl duties, wore a pretty dress from Debenhams with a little pink cardigan from George.

 

 

Budget… We were very lucky to be helped out by both my parents with the cost, about half came from them and the rest we saved up. We wanted it to be around £10,000 and ended up going a little over this (including the honeymoon though!)

 

 

The Venue… We decided early on that getting married in church wasn’t for us, but I still wanted to have a sense of ceremony – not just a room in a hotel. The Council Chamber at Bournemouth Town Hall is beautiful; we didn’t need to add a single thing. With the reception we were stuck for a long time – living in a seaside town gives you lots of identikit hotels with inflexible packages and not much else. What we really wanted was a lovely pub – which we found, thanks to one of Mark’s colleagues (thank you Sharon!) who had attended a wedding there previously. The Three Tuns was amazing, a gorgeous blank canvas (I had always secretly wanted a marquee) which the right level of informality and plenty of room for children to run around – we have a lot of nieces and nephews! And the food was amazing – non-stuffy, hearty portions of sausages and mash with Eton Mess for pudding. We also served local ice cream instead of canapés which went down a storm, with loads of lovely flavours and toppings served from a vintage tricycle from local company Brock Ice.

 

 

The Readings + Music… I came into the ceremony to Songbird by Fleetwood Mac – we are both huge fans! We had Mirrorball by Elbow (‘our song’, but a little too slow and long to be the first dance) and Bright Eyes’ First Day Of My Life during the register signing, and then shimmied out to Signed Sealed Delivered by Stevie Wonder. My mum read a poem I found online – Maybe – and Mark’s brother an extract from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. They are both teachers and ex-drama students so are used to an audience and did a brilliant job. We took to the dancefloor later to Higher & Higher by Jackie Wilson (tunes supplied by Tony from the brilliant DiscoWed) – just a great, lively fun song that I could do plenty of twirling to!

 

 

 

Credit Where Credit is Due…

Venues – Bournemouth Town Hall and The Three Tuns

Dress – Oh My Honey and Petticoats A Plenty

Brides Accessories – Accessorize, Lily Bella, notonthehighstreet, Converse and eBay!

Groom’s Attire – Next, TM Lewin, Marks & Spencer

Bridesmaids’ Dresses – Debenhams

Photographer – Emma Lucy

Reception Stuff – Brock Ice and Disco Wed

Cake – Marks & Spencer

Flowers – The Flower Smith

 

Too excited to share part 2 of Emily and  Mark’s wedding with you all later :-)) XOXO Lou