The Real Wedding of Emma & Allen

Emma & Allen's Wedding Story

So tell us about how you met and all about the proposal…

We met at work, we were both teachers and worked at the same school. That was four and a half years ago. We were fortunate enough to have a little girl who was born last February. The proposal happened in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2016 when I realized that it would be the best year of my life and that I had found the person I wanted to spend that year and forever with.

What were your hopes for your big day?

We are both very family orientated and have great families and close friends and we wanted a small, intimate ceremony with the most important people to us there. Emma wanted a winter wedding, and on the day of our wedding we had snow which was brilliant. We also both wished that our little girl, who was a flower girl, just before her first birthday to be walking and she managed that. The venue was very important to us because we wanted a venue that could host our ceremony, reception and allow people to stay all in the same vicinity which we got as well- everything we wished for happened it was a perfect day!



Why did you choose The Granary as your venue?

The ceremony room was perfect for us, absolutely beautiful and has an intimate feel and has décor that we both really like with the exposed brick and beams. We both visited on an initial wedding open day and were impressed with the reception room and the lay out of the room. The setting is fantastic. Throughout the process we both felt that we were not just another customer and everyone involved in the wedding from catering, booking rooms, organizing the day and the day itself made it feel very personal to us. We both really liked the fact that the venue has ten rooms which are excellent that were available to family and friends- this included breakfast which topped off the perfect weekend. Finally we really liked that we had been to a few weddings and no-one else we knew had got married at The Granary- it really is a hidden gem that needs to be discovered by more because it is a perfect venue.

The Bride & her Maids

When we booked the wedding we only had 7 months until the wedding, which meant that I could start dress shopping straight away!! I visited a few different bridal shops and found so many beautiful dresses to try on but I wanted to try on a tea length dress as I had seen a lace covered tea length dress on Pintrest. It took myself and my 2 bridesmaids a little while to find any bridal shops who stocked any tea length dresses. But finally we found Fairy Tale Bridal in Towcester and made an appointment, they had a whole range of tea length dresses and a designer that they stocked allowed you to choose the length of the dress along with different subtle colours underneath the lace and sashes!! I tried on one dress which was called Sarah and was from the House of Mooshki, as soon as I put it on I knew I loved it and I had found my dress! When I showed my bridesmaid they cried and that confirmed how much I loved it and then I realised I had actually picked out the exact dress that I had found on Pintrest months earlier.



Obviously my dress being shorter meant that my shoes would be on show all day so we then started the hunt for the perfect pair of shoes and I fell in love the Charlotte Mills Bridal range, lucky for me the pair that I wanted were in the sale. They went perfectly with my vintage inspired dress.



The bridesmaids wore a dusky pink colour and wanted long dresses that weren’t strapless so that they didn’t have to worry about the dresses moving all day especially with them both having young children that they would be picking up etc. I found the dresses on Elsie’s Attic online and ordered them hoping that they would look as good in real life as they did on the internet. When they came the girls both loved them and the colour was perfect for what we had imagined.



We had 3 flower girls, our daughter who would be almost 1, our niece who was 18 months and my goddaughter who was 4. We found there dresses in Monsoon and had a sash that was the same colour as the bridesmaids dresses made to go around the white dresses.



The Groom and his Groomsmen

I always intended on getting my attire from a local company and found Vickers Menswear in Far Cotton who are a family run business and are excellent. Such lovely people and again treated us with the personal touch even delivering my Dad’s suit as he doesn’t drive. The Groomsmen- my best man Stuart, my two ushers Matt and Jason- my brother in law, Mick- my Dad and Colin- Emma’s Dad all wore exactly the same. We had a blue two piece suit, with a Tweed grey and white waistcoat, we all wore a dusky pink tie and pocket square and brown shoes. We all looked absolutely brilliant- even if I do say so myself!



Tell us about the theme for the day…

Our loose theme was vintage/rustic. This was seen in the invites which were made by my sister, the bunting which we had in the ceremony room and reception room. The tweed in the waistcoat and lace on the wedding dress. We made sure that the little touches were vintage including the sweet jars for our sweet buffet. The wedding cake was decorated with that theme in mind with ribbon around the cake that followed the theme also. We wanted a colour that would compliment our theme and went with a dusky pink which was used as the colour of the bows on the chairs, ribbons on favors and incorporated in flower colours, ties and pocket squares for the grooms party and the bridemaid’s dresses and sashes on the flowergirl’s dresses

Flowers

One of the other things we wanted to do was to ensure that if we could give family and friends business we would do that. Our flowers were provided by my Auntie’s florist- Jan’s Florist in Rushden. We met up on a few occasions to ensure that the flowers, including presents for Mother of the Bride and Groom and buttonholes were absolutely perfect and I know my Auntie wanted to make sure that this happened for us. Emma’s bouquet was made up of roses accompanied with wild flowers which followed the vintage theme also because of my Scottish ancestry and family we had thistles in the flower arrangements as well. The buttonholes were dusky pink roses but I had a thistle in my button hole. The flowers for the table were all in jam jars which we had collected and these had a mixture of hessian lace and pink ribbons and pearls to decorate and had mixture of all of the flowers that were in the bouquets in them. We arranged these in the middle of the tables on tree logs/slices hired from Beaulicious who we would recommend for all the small but important touches that make the day perfect.



Photography

We met Andrew and Zoe, who run and own Vivid Art Photography at a wedding open day at The Granary and we were very impressed with them and the work they had done at The Granary. Again, we really liked their personal touch and they made us feel like individuals and wanted to work with us to ensure that all of our needs were met on the day. We loved that both Andrew and Zoe took photographs of the day before the event itself which were presented in chronological order allowing us to see what each other were doing at points prior to the ceremony. They both came round to see us on numerous occasions to ensure that we had considered all possible group shots we wanted, timings of the day which they gave an invaluable insight into and they made us feel very comfortable which is important when both Emma and I are not keen on our photographs being taken!



The Ceremony

Our ceremony was at 12.30pm and we chose to use traditional vows for our service. After the legalities of that happen prior to the wedding we were straight into the ceremony, which reduced my nerves! From my perspective I first saw the bridemaids but most importantly to me in that part was me seeing my little girl walk down the aisle which is something I will always remember closely followed by my beautiful bride accompanied by her Dad. The ceremony was a very intimate one with 50 guests all of which we both consider to be the most important people in our lives as this was what we wanted. Emma and I chose the music before and after the ceremony as well as the aisle song which we enjoyed doing and now whenever we hear these songs we have great reminders of our perfect day.





The Food

One of our first dates after having our little girl was our food tasting which was provided by Creative Catering. I say it was a date because we had a three course meal in the Tearoom, on our own! We met Creative at the wedding open day held by the Granary and the menu choices offered made it a very easy decision to choose them. Again, they were brilliant with us throughout and made sure that they met the needs of the guests in attendance which included fussy eaters and young children! We had canapés which were served during the formal photography which included mini-burgers, pork belly bites and fish and chip forks all of which went down very well and all I wanted during the photos was some of the canapés! Our starter was a goat’s cheese and red onion tart. Our main was a traditional beef Sunday lunch and the dessert was a rich but incredible Nutella cheesecake! Our requests of crockery were even met as we had asked for slate crockery for our starter and dessert. The children all had breaded chicken, potatoes and peas.



Entertainment

Our entertainment was provided initially by ourselves as we created a wedding playlist which was played during the food and formalities of photographs. We hired Ace Entertainment, again a company we met at a wedding open day at The Granary, for our evening disco. Again, we were impressed by their meticulous organization and detail that they went into to ensure we had a perfect evening.

What was the highlight of your day?

As cheesy as it sounds the whole day was perfect and all we could have wished for and choosing a highlight is very tricky. One thing that we hadn’t predicted was the amount of time you spend apart from each other because you want to see your own families and friends and spend time with people that had been there for our day. Emma and I did have half an hour just alone getting photographs taken outside after the meal and that was brilliant as it gave us a chance to see each other, talk and catch up on how each other was enjoying our special day.



What’s the best piece of advice you’d give to anyone planning a wedding?

Enjoy the planning side of it- the amount of hours you put in to it makes for the perfect day. We were very organized and ensured we broke it down into manageable checklists as we only had seven months to plan but equally didn’t want to do it all at once and make it stressful. One of the other pieces of advice I would give is have a clear vision of what you want from your day because in the nicest possible way every person you meet has an opinion and if you don’t have a clear mindset your day could be changed so easily.



Supplier Links:

Fairy Tale Weddings – www.fairy-tale-weddings.co.uk

Elsie’s Attic – www.elsiesattic.co.uk

Vickers Menswear – www.vickersmenswear.co.uk

Jan’s Florist – www.jansfloralboutique.co.uk

Vivid Art Photography: www.vividartweddings.co.uk

Creative Event Services: www.creativeeventservices.co.uk

Ace Entertainment – www.aceentertainmentservices.co.uk

Wedding Details

Venue Details
The Granary At Fawsley , Fawsley Northamptonshire
Photographer
Vivid Art Photography
Season
Winter
Colour Scheme
Pinks
Style
Vintage
Uploaded By
The Granary at Fawsley

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