October 2015 | Dani Dunne - UK lifestyle blog

Happy Friday everyone! It's taken a little while to put together part two of our wedding report (find part one here) and although it's been a lot of fun to write, I think this little blog is all wedding-ed out now. I've been looking back through my archives and there is so much wedding. SO much. My gosh. I suppose it's only natural as it has been a large part of my daily life for the past year, and I do like to keep this blog fairly lifelike! You'll be pleased to know I intend on going back to my usual blend of rambles, beauty and clothes very soon - it's going to be an adjustment going back to "normal" life, but there's only so long I can eke out this wedding business! Fare thee well, wedding chat... it's been a blast!

Venue

The venue was the biggest struggle for us and took the longest time to get right. We looked at so many different places without finding The One, we got so sick of hearing about weddings and almost gave up! Then one day I received an email from one of the numerous sites I had signed up to, advertising a brand new wedding venue in our county – I can’t lie, I was only interested in the special opening discount at first! I even went to visit without Jon as we were so disheartened at this stage, but High House Weddings felt right to me as soon as I stepped out the car. It was practically a building site at the time but it was so private and quiet, the whole space felt delightfully welcoming and I could really picture our party taking place there. The adorable Monet-style bridge and outdoor gazebo helped! Everyone at High House was so welcoming and accommodating throughout the whole planning process, and thankfully they had plenty of back-up spaces for inclement weather… Our ceremony was initially to take place under their gazebo overlooking the heart-shaped lake, but when we awoke to torrential rain in the morning it was quickly moved to their beautifully restored barn. It was a shame we couldn’t make full use of all the outdoor space, including the lawn games they’d prepared, but the marquee was large enough to accommodate everyone and posing for photos outside the revamped stables put a smile on everyone’s face, even with the drizzle!

Colour scheme and décor

I have a bit of an affinity for gold and rose gold, possibly from working with jewellery for four years, so wanted to include both colours in the day from the start. High House is such a beautiful verdant venue so I didn’t feel we needed too much decoration – a few hints of pink, gold and coral went a long way to brighten up the marquee and barn! We hired the most beautiful sequin table runner from Pudding Bridge for our top table, and I spent nearly a year collecting glass bottles and jars which we sprayed with gold and copper paint. The rest was all down to our wonderful families – Jon’s mum and sister made hundreds of pom-poms and streamers, my sister Minnie made crochet hearts to hang on the sweet card and my mum made white crepe flowers to dot around the centrepieces. Finishing touches such as confetti and banners came from Ginger Ray, while we adopted a vague film/book theme, using quotes from our favourites such as Harry Potter or The Princess Bride as table names.

Stationery
Our invitations were ordered off Etsy and were absolutely perfect – a simple card with a dash of gold glitter and a beautiful ombré watercolour background. We didn’t have much wedding stationery otherwise, but my sister Minnie and I painted a couple of mini canvases from Wilkinsons in the same fashion to dot around our venue. My bridesmaid Stephie then decided to design our programmes and menus and did such a terrific job, I think she should go into the stationery business!

Cake

When it came to selecting the cake it was a no-brainer – two of my friends run a baking business named Flour Pots; having been lucky enough to sample their concoctions in the office there simply was no other choice! It was Jon’s job to select the cake design and flavourings – he picked a stack of books in homage to our love of literature, naming each one after one of our favourite tomes, then we left it to Jo and Laura to put their creativity to good use. The end result was absolutely perfect – three beautiful books, topped with adorably teeny Han Solo and Princess Leia figurines in homage to Jon’s love of Star Wars. The flavours were chocolate ganache, Victoria sponge and pina colada cake, and we hardly took any of it home as everyone demolished it on the day!

Entertainment
Most of the music throughout the day was put together by my brother Joe – together with my sister Nat he put together a solid background soundtrack to play during the reception. We had a DJ for the party – we sent a long list of our must-have songs and asked our guests to send suggestions as well. We also put together a makeshift photobooth with lots of props – this was excellent fun and so cheap to sort out, and the results were absolutely hilarious! We didn’t have traditional favours, instead piling heaps of sweets from Costco onto High House’s resident sweet cart and inviting guests to help themselves.

Food
High House use an award-winning caterer, Valentines Cuisine, who I genuinely feel are capable of putting together anything. We have slightly odd tastes and didn’t want a formal three course meal, so they put together a delightful lamb roast for our main, alongside a chicken and seafood paella (told you it was weird!). Instead of a starter we had the most delicious canapés during our drinks reception, and for the party later they served amazing bacon, sausage and halloumi butties with excellent chunky chips – perfect comfort food! So many people complimented us on the food and the stellar service offered by Valentines, it couldn’t have been better – it all passed in a bit of a happy blur for me, but I do recall at one stage the dessert was delayed due to Jon sneaking off for a fourth helping of lamb…

Ceremony

My maids and I walked down the aisle to the orchestral version of La Valse d’Amélie by Yann Tiersen – it’s from one of my favourite films and is such a beautifully uplifting piece of music. We wrote our vows ourselves – I didn’t want to get too emotional during mine – and smiled the whole way through. It was a very quick ceremony but full of love and humour – the registrar called me Daniel(!) and Jon’s mum made everyone giggle by reading out “Us Two” by A.A. Milne and saying the word “pooh” a lot! My mum also read out an extract from The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman, and both our dads were our witnesses. We then danced out as husband and wife to Redbone’s Come and Get Your Love – trying to emulate Chris Pratt’s dancing in Guardians of the Galaxy! Instead of confetti, we handed out mini tubes of bubbles to all our guests, which worked surprisingly well in the rain!

Photographer
I picked our photographer months before we had even booked our wedding… I came across Sara Dalrymple on Rock My Wedding and Love My Dress a couple of times, opened her website and left it in my phone for about six months. Mere seconds after choosing our wedding date I found myself writing her an email to see if she was available – luckily she was! We met for a preliminary chat one evening and spent two hours solid just talking about weddings; I then found out by chance that she had photographed the wedding of a footballer for Jon’s favourite team - serendipity or what? We were lucky to benefit not only from Sara’s talents on the day but also from her second photographer Mike, who made everyone giggle with his antics and also meant both Jon and I got photos of us getting ready. Sadly due to the rain we didn’t get the golden hour shots both of us had hoped for, but to our delight all our photos came out so bright in spite of the gloomy weather. I don’t think we could have picked a better photographer if we tried – Sara is a natural at capturing all the little moments that made up our perfect day and every time I look through our photographs I spot something new!

Thank you so much if you've made it to the end, I hope you enjoyed our little wedding!
Love Dani
xoxo

Full Supplier List

Photographer - Sara Dalrymple Photography (& Michael O'Sullivan Photography)
Venue (ceremony and reception) - High House Weddings

Dress - Alfred Angelo via Adore Brides of Chelmsford

Make up - Louise Goodson

Hair - Louise Seymour

Ring (bride) - bespoke design

Ring (groom) - simple band using his grandparents' wedding rings

Bridesmaid dresses - high street (ASOS, S.Oliver, Monsoon, Debenhams Jolie Moi)

Groom & groomsmen outfits - assorted high street stores, mainly Next, ASOS and M&S
Stationery - Etsy / bridesmaid Stephie!

Bridal bouquet (33% off any orders with code BGIFTS33!) - Blossoming Gifts

Sequin table cloth - Pudding Bridge