So today, I'm going to break my golden rule. I've never blogged a personal post. Ever.
But, it's my third (leather) anniversary so I thought I'd go out on a limb and bring you my wedding! Gulp! Here goes ...
I had always intended on
getting married to my long-term partner, but somehow the years passed by in a
whirl so, two children and a career
change later I found myself pulling a cracker on Christmas Day which my lovely
man had somewhat puzzlingly insisted was mine.
Blissfully unaware, I found the usual rubbish gift had been replaced with a small purple drawstring bag. On further examination, the drawstring bag
contained a platinum band with four gypsy set diamonds, the joke slip (perfectly reproduced in the correct type as only a graphic designer can) read
‘Will you Marry Me?’ and the hat said ‘You’re my wife now!’ I burst into tears, much to the confusion of
the children!
Once I calmed down, and
accepted, of course, Mike explained that a couple of months before, he had
contacted jewellery designer Jayne Jordan and together they had designed my
engagement ring - each of the four diamonds represented a member of our family … Mike, me
and our two girls.
Fast forward more years again, a move
to Sheffield later, a change in career, and we still weren’t married. So,
one night whilst sat chatting I suggested that rather than go off to on a fab
trip somewhere for my 50th birthday, why didn’t we get married? On nonchalantly looking up from his Bike
magazine, Mike said – good idea. And so it was on!
There were a few provisos
though – it had to be informal, we wanted people we really loved to help out, it had to be relatively inexpensive and must feature a cracking party that everyone
talked about afterwards! Music has always been incredibly important to everyone
in our house and Mike and I had, for years, played a song which was special to
us by Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs called ‘These are Days’, so we decided
to build our wedding theme around our song. We also thought that the beauty of being a bit older would be that we would be left to
make our own decisions – and we were right!
We live very close to the
Botanical Gardens, one of my most favourite places in Sheffield, which we visit often. One
Sunday, by chance we stood and watched a wedding taking place – and the perfect
venue for the ceremony presented itself.
As a florist, I couldn’t image a better place to get married!
Our closest friends Pete
and Louise were drafted in as Best Man and Best Woman, together with our two
(now) teenage girls and their two girls as Bridesmaids. Teenage girls have very strong ideas about
what they like and what suits them and I knew that one style would not suit
four girls, so I asked them to choose something from a theme of white, black
and white or black. Ironically, they all
came back to me with simple black dresses, which they could wear again. My eldest daughter Alice, was given a Vera
Wang dress by my Step-Mother which made her look like a screen siren and was
incredible! My youngest daughter, Izzy, chose a lovely simple silk dress from
Coast which has buttons on the hem to create a soft scalloped edge.
As a more mature bride,
I’d ruled out the idea of a wedding dress as such and I’d always planned to
wear something (possibly long) in a really bright colour such as magenta or
bright red. But on a chance shopping trip I spied a wedding collection in
Monsoon, so dragging my sister-in-law, Cas with me, I thought I'd check them out. She actually cried when I put the first dress on as the empire
line style suited me perfectly and, to be honest, I struggled to choose one dress. I settled on a satin and silk georgette dress
with little silk cover-up for the princely sum of £200!! I’m tall and so decided on flat sandals from
Russell & Bromley which were nearly the same cost as my dress, but they
completed the romantic look perfectly. I hid my dress at my sister-in-laws
house and kept it a complete secret from everyone except the two Mums, right up
until the actual day. Just about
everyone spent a ridiculous amount of energy trying to guess what I was going
to wear – and no-one got it right! In fact I made my lovely friend Lou cry when I came
downstairs all dressed, on the day, as she had no idea what I was going to be
wearing!
Mike and his Best Man,
Pete, had their suits tailor-made from Barney Goodman on Ecclesall Road, a process they absolutely
loved. Mike choose the sharpest of 60’s
Mod-inspired suits in a broad grey pinstripe with a stunning bright red lining
and Pete chose a three-piece in a soft green Prince of Wales with a gorgeous
gold lining. We asked Rees Adams and
Caroline Green of AAG Photographic to photograph our day as naturally and
unobtrusively as possible.
Flowers were always going
to be a huge part of our day and three lovely friends Jill, Tina and Mel each
of which are very talented and highly
experienced florists helped me make
everything I wanted. The budget was
scary. I bought everything wholesale and my lovely friends gave generously and
willingly of their time. Had this not been the case, I calculated I
would have spent over £1,750 on flowers alone!
I adore pearls and decided
on whites, creams and greens with fine ivory satin ribbon and gold bullion to
reflect the gold embroidery detail in my dress, for all the floral
designs. My bouquet was constructed into
a cornucopia with a collar of pearls intertwined with organza ribbon and very
fine satin ribbons threaded with pearls. I wanted my bouquet to be totally unique and not anything I'd ever made anyone else before and loved the idea of combining the Austenesque style of my dress with a very similar neo-classical styling. I used tiny gold beads as well as very fine gold bullion wire too to
create the effect I wanted. The collar alone took me about 8 hours to make!
Peonies are very popular now but they have always been
one of my favourites (I have a tattoo from years back!) so they had to be
part of my flowers. I also chose white sweet pea, green carnations, green hydrangea, cream
freesia, avalanche roses, white trachelium, cream spray roses - it smelt heavenly!
For the four teenage Bridesmaids we made hand tied bouquets of the same flowers
- again featuring pearls, ribbon and gold bullion collars. Lou loves foliage so my best mate had, along with the flowers
from the teen bouquets, lots of variegated pittosporum, green
carnations, green shamrock chrysanthemum and we finished her bouquet with an ivy collar for a more
‘grown-up’ interpretation. We made Pete
wear a white rose of Yorkshire buttonhole for
being a Southerner! Mike wanted a more structural buttonhole so his design featured a mini anthurium for a more architectural look.
The time getting ready was
so wonderful, completely relaxed and chilled just me, Lou the girls and hair
and make-up done by the lovely Amanda and Becca.
