there were two things i was certain of when i got engaged
the guy i was going to marry
and that there would be mason jars at my wedding
lots of them
everything else seemed to fall into place
around all the mason jars of course
...and then came baby...



Wednesday, October 6, 2010

spotlight on nicole + john: real wedding

it's time we take this blog for a trip across the pond to a little-known place called england. nicole & john were generous enough to share these gorgeous photos of their beautiful garden wedding. the ceremony took place in a brilliantly ornate church and the reception followed in john's family's backyard. this is definitely not any old backyard. take a look for yourself, it's absolutely stunning. wait until you see how the bride captured both her english and mexican culture into her day. english roses + mariachi band = priceless. i also happen to love every other detail of their day. enjoy!

shame she's so unattractive, eh?

from the bride:
in england, weddings are much longer than the states. ours started at 2pm, which is actually late. first you start with the service, followed by drinks and nibbles in the garden, then a sit down dinner complete with speeches by the father of the bride, groom & best man, dancing & party, and finish with an evening snack around 10pm (we had fajitas).

absolutely loving her made to measure dress by johanna hehir



how fantastic is the detailing on her strap?!



my favourite part of the day was when my dad played the organ on my way out of the church. it's a very complicated piece of music, which not many people can play. when my mum first heard him play it years ago, she told him he had to play that at his daughter's wedding : )

he also played the grand piano in john's parent's living room after the wedding wound down. there were about 30 people left at 2am and he played classical love story pieces. he's an amazing pianist.

single stem rose just like her mom carried on her wedding day

mr & mrs

the bride & her father share a moment

the groom & the ladies

it was raining for 4 weeks before our wedding, but we had great weather for our wedding. sunshine & warm. we were very lucky.

joining for cocktails in the garden

mariachi band?! yes please

love this shot of the bride & groom with all their guests

our flowers were antique english roses, which were a present from a friend who sells flowers. a friend arranged all of the flowers and spent ages creating the arch, which was a surprise for me & john. all of the remaining flowers were from john's mum's garden.



love this place card

and a groom's to match

our cake was my favorite food item of the day. it was chocolate & delicious. we decided to cut the cake before dinner started & served it as dessert instead of later in the evening. we had been to too many weddings where they served the cake late & no one ate it.

the bride's favorite bite of the day

the father of the bride speech

our friend created a beautiful arch that joined the two sections of tents. we had the dinner reception on one side of the arch that was filled with traditional english flowers and the bar and dance floor were on the other side of the arch which was filled with exotic, crazy red flowers. it was a great way to incorporate my english and mexican heritages.

arch created by friend

introducing the married couple

please note the hats hanging in the background, love

party time usa, or uk, rather

nice moves

i love this shot

the bride & groom look on as the bride's father plays a little ditty

the bride's father plays for remaining guests in the living room

the send off

my advice to future brides would be to not plan too much. have a general idea of what you don't like, and what you like will come easily. surprises are a good thing. for example, my cake was supposed to be white chocolate, but the chef had a motorbike accident and forgot and made dark chocolate covered with white chocolate icing instead. it was better than the white one i'd originally tasted!

thank you so much to nicole & john for sharing these amazing photographs with us. for someone who wasn't the girl who dreamt of her wedding day since she was little, nicole sure did manage to pull off one of the best i've seen. i want to throw my own english garden wedding now! probably not going to happen, but a girl can dream...

No comments: