Our Small & Simple Wedding
We finally got married
A little more about our small and simple wedding at Wollaton Hall in August, third times a charm…
Just over four months ago, we finally got married after two cancelled dates and a whole host of worry and uncertainty. I would have loved to write this post and say that all those worries and uncertainties for people trying to get married at the moment have faded away but unfortunately, things seem more uncertain than ever with the new covid variant. I truly feel for people trying to plan their special day right now and have been for the past two years, it zapped away all excitement and hope I had around us planning our wedding. Even the day before I couldn’t let myself truly relax just in case new restrictions were introduced at the last minute. All that worry aside, here is a little run down of our simple and so very special wedding day that we finally got to have on August 24th!
beauty
As I wrote about beauty products for a good nine years of my life, it only feels natural that I talk about what I decided to do for my wedding makeup. I decided pretty early on that I wanted to do my makeup myself, whilst having someone do it for me would have been nice I felt a lot more comfortable with the idea of doing it my own as applying my most loved products is such a cathartic process. A few weeks before our wedding date, I went into Nottingham to the Charlotte Tilbury counter with one of my maids of honour to have a wedding trial. I’m so glad that I did this, not only did it give me a chance to pick up some new beauty bits which I’d not done in years. But, the makeup artist talked me through the application process so that I could easily replicate it on the day. My entire goal with my wedding makeup was to still feel like myself but with a little more pizazz and that’s the exact look I got. I was thrilled with how I looked on the day and everything stayed in place for a solid 12 hours with no touch-ups apart from my lipstick. I think I'll do an entire post on some updated beauty favourites as it has been such a long time and talk about certain products a bit more in-depth there.
hair
A few months before we got married, after almost two years of growing my hair and keeping up regular trims to make it as healthy as possible I decided that I wanted to cut it off and go back to a balayage blonde. I’m not exactly sure what made me make what some might say was quite a drastic change right before such a big event but I’m so glad that I did as I’d been pretty unhappy with my hair for a while. My very lovely hairdresser Jess Richardson was a complete angel throughout the entire process, she didn’t tell me I’d lost my mind when I text her and said I wanted to cut my somewhat long hair off and go for something completely different. The blonde balayage gave my tresses the body and texture that I was desperately missing and surprisingly I feel a lot more like myself as a half blonde than I had done for years as a brunette. I decided to go for a purposely dishevelled look that was half up half down with some face-framing pieces and as much volume as my fine hair would give me. I’d always wanted some sort of floral in my hair and I wore gypsophila from my best friend's garden and it was such a special little touch that I loved that I had for the day.
venue
A long time before we were even engaged my best friend sent me a blog post about a wedding at Wollaton Hall, specifically in the Camellia Greenhouse and I was obsessed. Then when we got engaged in 2019 I always knew deep down it’s where I wanted us to get married. We’d had some special days at Wollaton and as it’s in our home city it just felt right. It was the perfect venue for us, it’s small and intimate and we could have our precious hounds Josie and Edie there with us which was something that was really important to us. We chose the option of renting the greenhouse for 3 hours as we had always planned on a short and sweet wedding and it was the perfect amount of time for us and the dogs, I truly don’t know how people stay awake for all day, and night weddings! If you’ve ever thought about getting married at Wollaton I truly cannot recommend it enough. All the staff were really fantastic, especially the wedding coordinator Chelsea. She made our entire day run flawlessly and helped us so much with the entire process of getting married as it can be pretty daunting when you’re first starting the planning process. We went through two dates prior to our final date because of covid and each time we had to reschedule the team was so understanding and supported us every step of the way.
florals
Getting married in a greenhouse, although out of camellia season didn’t leave me wanting for much more greenery because we were surrounded by wonderful trees. Even though if I had an unlimited budget I would have completely covered the place in white florals but money sadly doesn’t grow on the camellia tree. For our small decorative florals in the aisle, alter arch way, my maid of honours bouquets, buttonholes and my bridal bouquet we used Botanics Florist on the recommendation from someone and I was really pleased with what we got. I had no real big must haves so gave Ellena the brief of lots of white and green with a couple of specific flowers I know I wanted and that’s exactly what we got. If I were to go back and do it again I wouldn’t bother with the floral pieces up the aisle which we then moved onto the tables as I don’t think they really added much and they were barely looked at. The tall stands at our ‘alter’ were my favourite, they framed us perfectly for the photographs and were so beautiful. I managed to keep some of the leaves from my bouquet and press them which I plan on putting on some coloured card and putting in a frame. I wasn’t really sure what else to do with my bouquet but knew I wanted to keep some pieces from it.
cake
Our cake came from Ruby Lou Cakes Co, a Nottinghamshire cake maker. We made a real effort to only use suppliers that were from our local area as that was something that really mattered to us especially as the wedding industry has suffered so much. We went with the ‘collect a cake’ option as we wanted something so very simple that didn’t make sense to have a custom appointment. The cake was 3 tiers which I know seems a lot for a wedding with less than 20 guests but we wanted to be able to share it out. The day after our wedding before we went to the Lake District we went round to our guests and delivered a slice of each tier and then we froze quite a bit of it too. We went for the flavours, white chocolate and raspberry, red velvet and lemon and elderflower which was by far our favourite tier and the one that we’ve frozen the most of. We displayed the cake with simple florals supplied by the florist and two little whippet models on a wooden stand. Just after we got engaged we found this perfect piece of wood to display our cake on so we lugged it through the woods and dried it out for weeks. Once it was dry with some help we sanded it down a little and then varnished it to try and keep the damp out of it which was quite a task but we got there in the end. Wooden cake stands like this go for quite a lot of money on the likes of Etsy so I’m really glad we managed to do it ourselves and with a piece of wood from a forest that's really special to us.
ceremony
Our ceremony was a civil ceremony and to say it was short and sweet was quite an understatement. Due to Covid marriage ceremonies are now even shorter than before to keep everyone as safe as possible and I think the entire thing lasted less than five minutes. We picked our vows from the list that our council provided, we decided not to have any readings or say any personal vows as the likelihood of us both standing there crying and not managing to get through it was quite high. So we chose to keep it simple with what we said in front of our guests. My dad walked me down the aisle with our eldest dog Josie and despite crying the entire way down the aisle it was one of my favourite moments. I think through a mix of nerves it was mostly relief that we were finally getting married after waiting for so long that hit me hard. We decided not to see each other on the morning of the wedding (our ceremony was at 1 pm) and that is something I wish we’d done differently as emotionally it was a bit too much for me. Now I know I would have felt a lot better if we’d done something like a first look just to take those nerves off and not make that walk down the aisle quite so teary for me.
dress
Before I started the process of properly looking for my dress I had quite a distinct idea of what I thought I wanted, which turns out was absolutely nothing like the dress that I ended up going with. I always thought I’d go for something very simple and more than likely something with sleeves. I had this weird hang-up about having my tattoos on display on our wedding day as I never wanted to be touted with the alternative bride stereotype which seems to follow every single tattooed female. In the village next to ours there was quite a new wedding dress shop so I booked an appointment on a whim just so that I could try on some dresses as even though I thought I was set on something you truly have no idea till you’re trying those dresses on. I spotted what would be my wedding dress as soon as I stepped in the shop and fell in love. It was so far away from what I thought I wanted I didn’t really focus on it but after walking around the shop I just decided to try it on just to see. I tried on quite a lot of dresses, the ones that I thought that I would love I actually ended up disliking on quite a lot and any sleeves seemed to make my tattoos look odd so it leaving them uncovered would be the best option. The spotty tulle skirt was what initially drew me in, it was so different from anything else I’d seen and it added a little bit of interest without being too much and the bodice was covered in peals with very thin straps with a scoop back was just beautiful. As soon as I put it on, I felt exactly what I wanted to feel like and it turns out everyone is right when they say that once you find the right dress you know and it usually is the exact opposite of what you thought you were going to have. I love that the dress I chose is quite far out of my usual remit but I guess if you’re going to have a fancy somewhat puffy dress it should be your wedding dress right?
24/08/21
Our day itself was such a happy one, mostly we were just so relieved to finally be married and I felt so loved by not only my now husband but everyone who was there and that is a feeling I wish I could bottle. We kept our guest list very small not only because of the pandemic but because we only wanted people there who truly cared about us and were a big part of our lives and had been for the past couple of years. There is a lot of pressure around weddings and a serious amount of unfair expectations from other people to be invited. It was something that we were so strict with, we didn’t want people there who we’d never met as we were having such a small day and I'm glad we stuck to that rule. Unfortunately, there were some people that we were unable to invite because of the current circumstances as we were very aware that we needed to keep things as small as possible to protect vulnerable family members. It is something that is sad and I look back and wish a few extra people were there but we did what felt right at the time and as no one got covid afterwards it makes me feel like we did the right thing. A small and simple wedding day was exactly what we wanted and that’s what we got, it felt like our day reflected who we are as husband and wife instead of doing things we felt like we had to do. If we did it all again there are some things that we would probably do differently, I think that’s how everyone feels as you just never know how things are going to work out in the end.
a few things we learnt about getting married
The wedding industry is very expensive, even when you try to do things small it still ends up being pricey as there are some things that seem to cost a lot of money for no apparent reason like the registrar and marriage certificates which you do need multiple of.
You’ve got to put yourselves first, it’s your day and you’re paying for it so make what you actually want the priority.
Give yourself more time than you think you need and then a little bit more.
Pay as little attention to Instagram and Pinterest as you physically can, it’s just a big comparison hole and never shows the full story
Do not get bogged down with the really tiny details, are truthfully no one will notice and even if they do it will soon be forgotten about.
Make sure you actually eat the food you’ve paid for, it’s a long day and you need to make sure you’ve got plenty of fuel.
The entire wedding process is pretty exhausting, especially at the moment and afterwards there is so much emotion and it’s completely normal and ok to be exhausted. I had no idea just how I’d tired I’d be after we got married as was for a good few weeks so take the time to rest.
If things go wrong on the day, which they inevitably will you will forget about them in time but right afterwards they can feel very fresh and you will dwell on them over anything else.
