Our Wedding in Photographs 

The beginning of our wedding plans were written from the protective of a photographer so I suppose it's only right that photographs tell the rest of the story. If you want to know about the beginning you can read my husbands blog here. Marrying a photographer always meant that more attention than usual would go into the photographs, they were after all taken by my husbands friends not just someone we had never met before and are now one of my most prized possessions. 

If there is a one piece of advice I would give to any bride to be it would be to make your photographs one of the most important decisions of your day, they will be all you have after the event (along with a husband of course) and you will be glad you spent the time and money ensuring they are done properly. They will bring your memories to life. 

Talk to Each Other

As soon as we walked into the dining room on our first trip to St Audrie's we were making plans for how we were going to decorate it. Ian and I are a great team as I always joke that I have the vision and he has the creativity to make it a reality. However, when it came to the wedding our combined creative skills had never been more tested. Ian and I bought all of the decoration we used for the wedding as I plan to set up a small business hiring it out for other peoples's special days, mainly because I just love everything about planning weddings!


Anyway all of this is very well but I am a bit of a perfectionist and despite the fact that our lovely florist Jane (Eden) and the wonderful staff at St Audries had both said they would be more than happy to arrange the tables I have never been more relieved than when Ian promised that he would be there to oversee the whole operation. I can trust him with anything and I know he is as much of a perfectionist as I am. When I walked into the dining room after our the service I could have cried, it looked so beautiful and the months of planning and collecting had paid off all thanks to the worlds most creative and reliable groom! We both completely understood the vision we had for the wedding and by both being involved in the planning it meant that our vision became a reality.

Rarely does Something Look Beautiful Without A lot of Hard Work

I am pretty sure that in hindsight a lot of people probably regretted offering to help out with our wedding plans. Most of the things we wanted didn't exist in the right colour or style or at all! This meant that a lot of things had to be made by hand and when I say alot I mean ALOT! We are so lucky we had such amazing people like Ian, Ians mum, my mum, both of our sisters, my nan and my aunty Tracie as well as their partners available to help. Also I was blown away with the kindness of friends of friends, people who we didn't even know who kindly picked most of the rose petals in Taunton in the summer of 2013 to make up our confetti! Looking back over our pictures it's amazing just how many of the beautiful things that featured during our day were made by our talented friends and family, including table plans, menus, invites, place names, confetti comes, present box and confetti box, table cloths, sashes, belts, cravats and hankies, even the guest book was made and hand bound by Ian. I might start a little wedding factory... although I'm not sure many of them will be queuing up to work there, the pay is rubbish and the boss is more of a "supervisor" than doer haha!

The World Can Be A Small Place

My Auntie Tracie (one of the best seamstresses I know) emigrated to Australia around 8 years ago.  Unfortunately she couldn't attend the wedding so it was lovely that she had been able to still be part in the preparations for the day. We wanted lace table cloths and matching sashes for the chairs for the wedding so that they fit in with the theme (which was fast becoming anything that we liked) and we were delighted when Tracie said she would make them. Our wedding planner Sam was amazing sending over all the measurements for the tables and advising on numbers etc.  At one point it looked a bit close on whether we would get the table cloths and sashes or not,  HMRC decided that they quite liked them and decided to stop them at customs for a week!

One of the best things on the wedding day though was seeing my shoes for the first time. I had bought blue shoes because I wasn't really sure what to have as my something blue. I had been to my friend Kat & Ciarans wedding the year before and Kat had the most gorgeous teal shoes on with her tea length wedding dress. They looked amazing ..... so I nicked her idea! I knew she wouldn't mind.

Tracie said if I sent the shoes to her she would put some lace on them so they went with my dress, little did I know that she had hatched a plot with my mum that would see more than just my shoes travel around the world. When I received the shoes on my wedding day I just couldn't believe the work that had gone in to them, the lace on my shoes is from my mum's wedding dress which incidentally was made from Tracie's wedding dress. The pearls above the heel are from the earrings my mum wore on her wedding day and sewn into the sole of the left shoes is silver six pence from the year my mum was born and there is a tiny C on one shoe and an I on the other.

Now they are better than any Louboutins I have ever seen!

Sometimes You Just Get Lucky 

We might be having a heatwave now but if you cast your mind back to October 2013 it had been a different story. We had had a pretty miserable summer and as we headed full pelt towards winter the weather wasn't looking good, so it was no surprise that when I woke up at Peregrine house on the morning of our wedding it was raining. 

There was never much doubt that we would be getting married at St Audries, Ian loves photographing there and it's the perfect setting for fairytale wedding. We also were reassured by the fact that if it rained and we couldn't be outside there was still plenty of beautiful places to take photographs and for our guests to enjoy themselves. It wasn't the end of the world.

But it wasn't going to last either! This photograph reminds me how lucky we were with the weather that day by the time we were getting married we had weather that was better than some getting married in July this year. The sun was definitely on our side that day!

All's Well That Ends Well

Every day must have hiccups but ours was pretty funny, while I was getting ready a comedy sketch was unfolding in the Main Hall.

At around 11 o clock on the day of the wedding a beautiful cake was delivered to St Audries, the cake was decorated with flags of the world, depicting the bride and grooms travels and stood in pride of place in the Main Hall. Ian had spent hours sketching out designs for our wedding cake and Katharine who had created it had spent hours perfecting every single details in fondant and sponge. The only problem was the cake sitting in the Main Hall wasn't our cake! But who would know, only Ian and myself along with Katharine knew what this cake looked like?

Katharine had arrived and finding a cake in place had thought she had the wrong date and was now in the car park trying to call her husband, St Audries staff had taken receipt of the cake and as far as they could have possibly been aware all was well. The bridal party milling around were also none the wiser, how could they be? The bride was the other side of the building getting ready and the real cake was about to leave, who could possibly save the day?

You've got it! Ian had spotted the cake and had thought Katharine had delivered the wrong one and was also trying to call her house but it was engaged... I wonder why? Luckily our amazing wedding planner Sam, as cool a cucumber all day, helped track down Katahrine and restore our beautiful cake to it's rightful place. I just wish I had been a fly on the wall watching this all play out!

The Un-Posed Bits Are Often The Best

My favourite pictures are probably not the ones that are carefully posed but the ones that capture a moment in time perfectly. Here are just a few of my favourites!

My sister tells me to just get a move on
(we are already 20 minutes late at this point)

Walking together in the evening

The wedding gets a thumbs up from our Page Boy

My sister gets her hands on some chocolate after dieting for 6 months

My sister in-law hangs up my dress

My mum laughs at me because I said "are you sure this dress is the right one?"

My mum and dad laugh at the Best Mans speech

Ian as I walk down the aisle with my dad

Do What You Want & Enjoy It

In all our day was amazing we did everything we wanted to do and the beautiful venue, weather , st Audries staff and our guests all made it such a special day. We made vows and memories that will last a lifetime.

wedding venue in Somerset run by Country House Weddings