Happy Hump-Day!
We hope you are all well on this grey and overcast Wednesday. As a midweek treat, it is of course, Wedding Wednesday. This one is particularly special since the bride, Katrina, was actually one of my gorgeous customers who we (A Touch of Vintage) designed a bespoke veil to match her dress. Kat sent me over the most beautiful photograph of her wearing it and I knew that you, out lovely readers, would love to see the photographs from their day. I first met Kat at Karen’s Essex Vintage Wedding Fair in June last year. She was so excited about her impending marriage to the man of her dreams that I felt so happy for her. Anyway, without further ado, I introduce you to Kat and Adam.
Tell us about the proposal; was it expected, discussed or entirely spontaneous?
We always spoke about it but it still came as a shock. For my birthday Adam bought me a trip to Venice as I have always wanted to go! I did hope he would propose but he convinced me that the trip was so expensive that he just couldn’t afford it until the following year. So I just forgot all about it. We arrived in a town just outside Venice and we decided to head off into Venice the following day. So up bright and early and we travelled into Venice and it was a lovely sunny day. We walked around for a bit then I insisted that we would get on a gondola, I was singing just one cornetto with my camera out taking pics and Adam kneeled in front of me and I shouted at him to get up because the boat was shaking and he eventually had to tell me to shutup and listen and took out the ring and finally proposed and I said YESS!!! That was the 20th of May 2012.
When did you start to plan your wedding, was your husband involved in the planning or did you both instinctively know what type of wedding you wanted?
I started to plan it straight away and we decided on the 7th of September 2013 for our big Day. To be honest I pretty much planned the whole day, I am a huge vintage lover and I wanted my wedding to be all about that, Adam just said yess that’s lovely, yess ok get that ha ha he got to pick the honeymoon and he was happy with that.
Where did you get married and on what date?
We got married in Dublin as I am from there on the 7th of September. We got married in the church that my parents got married 42 years ago so it was very special to me. We then went onto Co. Wicklow just outside Dublin to the Summerhill House Hotel in a little town called Enniskerry for our reception.
Tell us a bit more about your day; was it a big or intimate wedding?
We had 97 guests on the day, We had all our friends and family and the day just couldn’t of gone any better. We had a big red vintage London bus collect all our guests from the Church. Myself and Adam had a vintage 1930s Beauford who we hired from KP Chauffers in Dublin, I cant speak more highly of this company our driver, Paudraig, was absolutely wonderful and treated us like the most important people in the world and kept filling up our glasses with champagne on the way to the venue.
When people arrived to the church I had fan programmes explaining how we met and how we got to our wedding day. I also had badges one with team kat and the other with team adam on them , our guests had to choose as they arrived.
For the reception arrival we had a popcorn and candyfloss machine which our guests loved, we also had cocktails and tea and scones on vintage cake stands. I had a saxophonist playing some tunes which created a great atmosphere. Another thing our guests loved was the caricature we hired. Niall O Loughlin who is renowned in Ireland for his amazing work.
He drew pictures of all our guests and it went down so well people were just delighted with their drawings it brought many laughs to everyone. That was a real success. I was very strict on the way I wanted my room and the hotel manager was just so lovely in allowing me to do what I wanted. For each of my tables I had collected old vintage tea caddies and I placed these on old vintage books I had collected over the months in charity shops and I used these as my centre pieces with gypsophila flowers in the tea caddies.
For my table numbers I put together pictures of myself and Adam growing up, so for tables 1-10 we had pics of us at these ages stuck to the card, which was a really good way for people to start talking and laughing looking at our photos from over the years. I also typed out all my menus and place cards on an old vintage typerwriter which I picked up at our local boot fair. After awhile I had really regretted it. It had took me 3 weeks to finally type out 100 menus and placemats but it really was worth it in the end.
I also found this lovely seller on ETSY called Georgie Lane from PrettyLaneBoutigue who had made me little love heart tea bags attached to a personalised envelope with a beautiful poem on the back my guessed loved these. I put them into a small burlap bag and attached a wooden heart to the bag with K&A attached to it. It was something really sweet for our guests to take away from our day. I had also collected many vintage tea cups and saucers to put all over my tables and my venue. Amongst them I had love heart sugar, flowers and love heart confetti which I made out of some old books and sprinkled on my tables.
Where did you source your suppliers?
ETSY is the love of my life. I found so many of my supplies from this website. When planning my day I wanted to make it very personal and full of creations. I bought my blank place names and menus from a supplier on ETSY called Tiffany and shops name is Tiffzippy. I wanted my invitations to be really different and I found the perfect supplier on Etsy called ElloThere. This lovely couple make really amazing invites. Ours were a record in a record sleeve and the amount of text messages I got from my guests saying how much they loved them was fantastic. I was over the moon with them.
6. Tell us about your photographer, did you feel comfortable with them, what type of service did you get, would you recommend them?
As soon as I met our photographers I knew I would book them straight away. Ebony & Pearl come as a double act and I cant tell you how amazing they were. I felt like we didn’t seen them on the day but they caught every aspect of our wedding for us. Emma came to my house the morning of the wedding and Stuart went to take photographs of Adam getting ready which I just loved. We had some ideas of what we had in mind and they just did everything we asked of them and you will see from our photos they did a fab job.
How did you know that your wedding dress was ‘the one’?
What about the shoes and accessories? I must of tried on about 20-30 dresses. I had just finished trying on a dress that just wasn’t the one and the shop owner pulled out a dress and said try this one on, I would have never picked it out ….and as soon as I tried it on I had a little dance it was the ONE!!! As a wedding gift Adam bought me a pair of Jimmy Choo Shoes yes Jimmy Choo I still cant believe I own a pair. I got my beautiful birdcage veil from A Touch of Vintage and it was just perfect and matched my dress to a T;-)
Did you help choose your husband’s suit?
Well I told Adam the suit had to be navy. So he went off with the boys and picked his suit out himself. I wanted to wait until the wedding day to see it but he feared I would hate it so He showed me a few weeks beforehand and I loved it!
What did you do to make your wedding personal to you both?
Well I made a lot of things for the wedding. I bought a 1930s suitcase from eBay and I made my table plan from it. Again I typed out all the guests names on my table plan and I contacted a lot of my relatives and friends and asked them to gather old wedding pictures in our families so I photocopied these and stuck them all in the suitcase in the lining and it was a great way for people to show each other their different relatives 50-60years ago on their wedding day.
What favours did you give to your guests?
I gave my guests the caricuture pictures that where drawn for them and also a little love heart tea bag in a burlap bag. I also had hot doughnuts delivered at 10.30pm and with the evening food these went down a treat and some of my guests even kept them and brought them to their room afterwards-midnight treat.
What was your most memorable part of the day?
Well getting ready in my house with all my family and walking up the aisle to meet Adam is was a surreal feeling.
What song did you have as your first dance?
We had ‘nothings gona stop us now’ by Starship – its from the 80s movie Mannequin.
Where did you go on Honeymoon?
We went to Kenya on a Safari -it was amazing!!
Finally, do you have any advice for brides-to-be when planning their wedding?
The only advise I can give is enjoy every bit of your day. I couldn’t believe how fast it went. If I could do it all over again I would. And don’t worry about anything that’s what the best man and maid of honor are for.
A Vintage Wedding Guide 