Whimsical Green & White Fairy Lights Winter Wedding - Whimsical...

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WWW readers Cheryl and Carl were married just a few weeks back on Friday 30th January 2015. They had a vision of a whimsical wedding with a green and white colour palette teamed with pretty lighting.

I so love all of the personal touches. The marquee twinkled with delicate fairy lights, there were the loveliest winter blooms and super gorgeous stationery.

Cheryl donned lace and looked enchanting, while Carl looked ever so dapper in dark navy and I just love the dark grey frocks the maids wore. Perfect.

Thanks today goes to the amazing Jess Petrie for sharing her photographs.

THE PROPOSAL | We went on a glamping weekend to Jollydays in York. Whilst we were sat around the campfire with our children toasting marshmallows and my parents with us, carl proposed, and I said yes. I was really shocked and didn't expect it at all. But it was a beautiful surprise, made even more special with my children and parents there.

THE VISION | We both knew we wanted a relaxed and informal day and didn't really set out with a theme or colour scheme in mind. I created a Pinterest page for wedding ideas and flowers and it soon became clear what we definitely liked and didn't like. I would say our vision was whimsical, lots of greens, pale peach, creams and lots of candles and fairy lights. I loved the fact that marquee was stark white and the greens really stood out.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We began looking at venues quite soon after Carl proposed. We didn't want a really long engagement, having already been together for 8 years before Carl proposed. We weren't particularly bothered about which season we married in, having been to weddings in summer and winter and knowing how unpredictable the British summer can be, we decided not to pin too much on the weather. We visited Priory Cottages and fell in love with it, however it was slightly over our allocated venue budget. We looked at other venues and tried to feel as excited, but nothing made us feel the way The Priory did. We decided to take the closest date Serena, at the venue, could do us which ended up being in January 2015. We decided to get married at the venue and have a civil ceremony. With neither of us being particularly religious and knowing we were getting married in middle of winter, we felt it was more convenient for us to get married at the venue.

We planned the rest in about a year, taking inspiration from blogs, Pinterest and magazines.

BUDGET | Budget was £15,000

THE VENUE | The Priory Cottages, Syninghthwaite, Wighill Park, Nr. Wetherby, North Yorkshire.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was by Art Couture and was a lace strapless mermaid style. My veil was cathedral length with lace edging and along with my head piece was by Rainbow. My lace sleeve jacket, which was worn over my dress , was made from chantilly lace and pearls and was handmade by my mum.

Shoes were by Ted Baker and bright blue and were a gift on the morning of the wedding from the groom. I wanted these as my something blue.

My earrings were a gift from my maid of honour and were from Pandora and were a simple white flower. They were a surprise and were perfect.

FINDING THE DRESS | I had dreamed of wearing the Vera Wang Diana ever since I can remember seeing it in a magazine. However knowing I couldn't afford the original at all, I looked for something similar and ended up buying a gown from preloved.

However the more time passed by, I realised that the dress really wasn't me at all and kept thinking of a slimmer dress I had tried on at a boutique in Leeds. Therefore I made an appointment back at a Boutique Bride, which had the dress I had kept envisaging myself in.

I tried it on and immediately knew right away that it was the dress I wanted to wear, it was a lot smaller train and more fitted and beautiful lace by Art Couture. The only problem was I really wanted a lace sleeves and couldn't find anything at all which suited the dress and was the style I liked. However my mum is an amazing seamstress and made me a made to measure lace jacket to wear over the dress and was perfect.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | Carl originally wanted a suit from Reiss, however the fit just wasn't what he was looking for and ended up going for a suit from Next which was dark Navy. Carl, his best men John and Craig, and all the groomsmen wore the same suit from Next, with a deep grey tie. His Shoes were black brogues from Next. The younger page boys were my son and nephew, who wore navy blue suits from H & M and black Next brogues.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We chose Christina Perri, A thousand years, to walk down aisle to. We felt the words were fitting and being avid Twilight fans, loved the song and it felt romantic.

Signing the register we choose Magic, by Coldplay and In My Life, Beatles. We both choose one each.

Walking back down aisle together we choose All you need is love by Lynden David Hall, which is the song on Love Actually.

Our first song was the Lumineers, Ho Hey, which was sung live by our band Colour Blue. It was chosen by Carl and it was perfect and got everybody raring to dance. We followed this with Uptown Funk which really got the party started.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I had four adult bridesmaids, who wore dark grey Eliza and Ethan dresses. I also had 6 small flower girls, including my daughter Isla. They all wore same BHS dress called Isla.

THE FLOWERS | I absolutely love flowers, and it was so important to find the right florist who understood what I was looking for. Having seen a few weddings online, locally, where the flowers really stood out to me, I noticed a few were by the same florist, Emma at Emma's home and Garden in Baildon. I arranged to meet Emma and I knew right away that I wanted Emma to do my flowers.

We had a mixture of mercury vase arrangements on some tables with vintage smaller cut glass vases and bottles on the others and the top table, with lots of scattered eucalyptus across the tables. My bouquet and button holes were also done by Emma and were perfect mix of flowers and colours, including cream roses, pale peach spray roses, thistles and anemones and eucalyptus.

My bridesmaid Sam made the 10 bouquets for bridesmaids and flower girls, we all sat in my cottage the night before the wedding and helped Sam to do these. It was really nice and added to making the wedding more personal.

THE CAKE | We decided to keep the cake simple and we opted for a two tier white iced fruit cake and subtle lace edging, which was a gift, made by Carl's auntie. Emma placed a few flowers on top to tie it in with décor on the day.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Our photographer was Jess from Jess Petrie Photography. We looked at several blogs and local weddings and kept seeing Jess' pictures pop up. We loved how Jess used natural lights and we loved every picture we saw which Jess had taken. We didn't want lots of formal pictures, we wanted more a story of the day told in pictures, however not too 'staged' magazine style. Just our day exactly as it was and Jess did this perfectly, along with her husband Rodrigo. They were with us from getting ready until after the first dance and were brilliant and made me and Carl feel completely at ease. Neither of us really like our pictures taken but they made us feel so relaxed. We are so happy with our pictures from Jess and couldn't thank her enough. Jess also made us a motion video from our pictures which was perfect. We would definitely recommend Jess to everyone.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | We had lots of crafty homemade décor details which was fun to do. I bought paper mache letters from Hobbycraft and used some Christmas lights which Carl made into our initials C & C. We sprayed them in gold rustic spray and they lit up, which was lovely. These went in front of us at the top table. He also did the same with paper mache LOVE letters and these went on our card table.

My mum made me lots of lace bunting, which we draped across top table and around cake and sweet tables. We did our own sweet table and cake table which was great for all the kids (and grown ups) . We also bought some large gold foil cake letters to go above our cake table. I used a basket I had been given on my hen do from the girls, and placed our confetti in this in musical cones. We hired Vintage tea cups for wedding favours and we placed a miniature jagermeister in them and for the non drinkers my mum made wax melts and the kids had little Disney lollipops. We also gave each guest wedding cake bubbles which was nice to see everyone doing.

Our table numbers, seating plan and place cards were designed by Lucy Ledger and fit our whimsical style perfectly. My dad made my seating plan from tree branches in his garden with twine and little pegs to peg on the table plan with. He used foliage from his garden and wired it all on two days before the wedding. I was so proud of what he did, I discussed my ideas with him and left my dad and his green fingers to get on with it and I was over the moon with it.

We also bought some large gold foil cake letters to go above our cake table.

For our ceremony, in the barn, we had fairy lights up the stairs and all around the beams. We also had tea lights and bits of gypsophila in the little window bays. We choose our wedding arch right at last minute, after my parents attended a wedding fair the week before. I had said I really wanted a wedding arch but I hadn't seen anything I liked. My parents knew I would like it and we booked it all right at the last minute. But it was perfect and Anna from Arcadian did an amazing job decorating it all with flowers and adding the flowers into the arch to match my wedding flowers.

THE HONEYMOON | We haven't had our honeymoon yet. We have spent a few weeks looking over weekend breaks and have decided to spend a few days away in the summer on the Cornwall coast at Moon Shadow.

Having 3 small children, 3 days child free is a luxury.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | I have so many memorable moments. The whole day was perfect. From getting ready in a hectic cottage, with 4 bridesmaids and 6 flowers girls, a baby, 3 hair dressers and make up artist, my mum and her dog Rosie, to my dad walking me down aisle. Seeing Carl for first time and catching his eye was lovely. My son Corey passing us our rings and my other son Jake crying when we said our vows. It was all so special. Being in a room with all the people that are special to you is priceless and is something that may never happen again.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Stay true to what you want as a couple. I spent a few months considering everyone else in the process, but in the end we did what we wanted and everyone came round to it. My dad wanted me to marry in a church but he loved the ceremony in the end he wouldn't of changed it for anything.

Also take time out with each other. The day goes by so quickly and it easy to get caught up with guests, but try to make sure you take some time to maybe go off for 10 minutes and just enjoy yourselves. Having spent months organising it, remember to enjoy it and relax.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photographer | Jess Petrie

Venue | Priory Cottages

Caterer | Taste Cuisine

Dress and Bridesmaids dresses | Boutique Bride

Registrars | Harrogate registry

Lace jacket | [email protected]

Florist | Emmas Home and Garden

Floral wedding arch | Arcadian Weddings

Entertainment and light up letters | Jonny Ross and Colour Blue

Vintage Tea Cups and Card suitcase | Add Vintage

Large foil gold balloons | ideaz