This time last week I was getting ready for my wedding! My Other Half proposed to me last May on a holiday to Rome, and my desire to get married on his next birthday (our anniversary sadly fell on a week day) meant that we had just under a year to plan and arrange everything (and save up for it).
We decided to get married at the Great Dunmow Maltings as it was a nice small venue (we only had 40 people we wanted to invite), very affordable, and they were very flexible about what we could do for catering. Plus we could have the ceremony and the reception in the same venue, which was an added bonus since we had guests with small children who wouldn't want to shuffle them in to car seats for a short drive somewhere else.
My Mum suggested that we have an afternoon tea for the reception. Me and Jon aren't big party/dance people (and I don't drink) so having a long evening dinner and dancing thing really wasn't something we wanted to go with. Plus we have quite a few family members and friends with dietary requirements (gluten free and dairy free being the two main ones), so being able to let them pick and choose what they wanted to eat was the easiest way to ensure that they felt welcome, and wouldn't feel that they had to say "no thank you" to our invitation. My Mum did an amazing job sorting out all the food, including spending weeks testing different gluten-free scone recipes (my Dad is now a bit sick of the sight of scones), and baking them and cakes in the run-up to the event. My in-laws sourced all the drinks, and did a great job as everyone managed to find something they wanted, from a nice glass of bubbly through to a selection of soft drinks for the non-drinkers.
The afternoon tea thing also gave us the opportunity to spend a lot of time sourcing vintage china. Between both families we've been through charity shops, junk shops and eBay collecting all manner of pieces. My mother-in-law even found a lovely teapot (not vintage but still gorgeous) with a lavender pattern while she and my father-in-law were on holiday in Canada! She managed to get it home in her suitcase without damaging it, and it's now sitting happily on my kitchen shelf.
We also wanted to source some handmade items where our budget allowed. In the end the four things we managed to get were our wedding rings (mine from Nikki Stark Jewellery and Jon's from Grow With The Grain), the boutonnieres from Alana Phoenix & Co, and our dried confetti flowers from Shelsley Herbs & Flowers, who was brilliant and posted them by special delivery when we bought them a bit too close to our wedding date! Being a former Etsy seller myself, it was great to be able to get a few things from small creative businesses, and every shop was lovely to deal with.
Our lovely photographer was Maria Carrington, who was great to work with as she's seen lots of weddings and was a very calming presence. I don't have the photos from her yet, so she'll get her own little post in a few weeks once we've seen the shots and picked a few to show on here!
We generally had an absolutely fantastic day. It was lovely to have so many people we loved be able to share it with us, despite some of the distances there were to travel! We'd recommend every single business that I've linked to on here, as they all helped make our special day one to remember!
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