Awesome 1950s Diner & Superhero Wedding

Get your dancing shoes and your best superhero pose at the ready… For today’s awesome wedding is sure to get you in the mood for fun and frolics.

WWW readers Lauren and Sam tied the knot in August 2014 at Manor Gatehouse followed by a party at The Hot Rod Diner in Kent. They went all out with a 1950s extravaganza. It all started with a dress and not just any dress. Lauren wore the most gorgeous Candy Anthony frock with a Honey Pie Boutique overlay plus her hair and make up was in vintage style too. The bridesmaids wore floral dresses with petticoats by Vivien of Holloway while the boys went for superhero T’s beneath their suits. Amaze.

There were milkshakes instead of booze, a Choccywoccydoodah cake masterpiece and happy blooms.

Cherry Red Photography, thank you so much for sharing these glorious images with us.

THE PROPOSAL

Breakfast in bed (sausage sandwich and orange juice), on Lauren’s birthday in 2011 and the day before she graduated from University of Surrey, the first and only secret Sam has ever managed to keep from her!

The response: Oh… I wasn’t expecting that! (Sam’s still not sure how he feels about that as an answer…)

THE VISION | “I want to wear a 50’s swing dress” I hadn’t really got an interest in the 50’s before then…

It eventually evolved into a full on 50’s diner, band and outfitted bash! Lauren let Sam have the superhero bits so he could say he helped too (and we’re both pretty big geeks)! And informal, very informal, we don’t do serious (at the alter Sam asked Lauren “do you come here often?”, she looked like she was about to cry but ended up laughing instead). We wanted a small wedding and had around 45 people in total. The wedding we wanted was fun, relaxed and low-key. We decided to not serve alcohol at our wedding, but even so guests are still telling us how much fun our wedding was.

THE PLANNING PROCESS

Most of the planning took place whilst we were travelling around Australia for the two years after Sam proposed, hence the 3 year delay. After seeing how much traditional weddings can cost, we decided to go a different route that was more personal to us. After a few false starts on venues we actually booked our amazing photographer, Laura, first and over a year before we even came back to England. After that it was the diner, which had only just opened on our return (we were their first wedding and they absolutely far more than we could have asked for, needless to say we’re in there for at least a milkshake most weeks).

After that it was the band, our friend (who also taught us to jive especially for the wedding =) ) took us out one night and we were introduced to the Backbeat Jivers and had gone from first hearing them to booking them within a few hours. After that, everything else just seemed to fall into place. Religiously reading WWW, Rock n Roll bride and Pinterest helped immensely in our planning to create our wedding exactly how we wanted it.

BUDGET

As we had both finished university and then gone backpacking, neither of us had huge amounts of savings, so whilst we didn’t set a definite budget, we wanted to keep it below £5000.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES

Candy Anthony ‘Liz Taylor’ dress and petticoat with heels from Dorothy Perkins to wear during the ceremony and Melissa sparkly flats for dancing at the diner and pearl stud earrings. I ordered a custom tulle overlay with turquoise sash from Honey Pie Boutique.

Originally I was going to order my dress from the internet, but went into London to a few dress shops to see what suited me. One of which was Candy Anthony, and I fell in love with their Liz Taylor gown in ivory with matching petticoat. I ended up buying one from their sample sale for £350 including the petticoat.

THE VENUE

The ceremony was in The Lord Irving Suite at The Manor Gatehouse, the registry office in Dartford, really pretty and low key with a lovely little hidden garden to the back of the property.

The reception was at the Hot Rod Diner in Northfleet, a converted car dealership, which opened spring 2013 and is packed full of vintage Americana, friendliness and the most amazing and authentic burgers, hot dogs, milkshakes and desserts.

THE READINGS & MUSIC

Guests listened to string covers of Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Want Miss A Thing’, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ and Foo Fighters’ ‘Everlong’ before the bride made her entrance to Etta James ‘At Last’, it seemed fitting that I’d waited for 3 years to finally get married. We signed the register to Apocalyptica’s version of Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’ and made our exit to Maroon 5’s version of Queen’s ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ which set the upbeat, happy tone for the rest of our reception.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS

In the April I booked a visit to Vivien of Holloway for my bridesmaids to try on the Victory Rose dresses. I couldn’t pick a colour theme, or when I did, couldn’t find any dresses to match. I showed the bridesmaids the dresses and asked them to each pick a colour, I didn’t mind if they had the halterneck or grace wrap style. Luckily, they chose two of each and with not much fighting over dress colours.

Their petticoats were from Hell Bunny to match the colour of their dresses. As a thank you present I made each of them a necklace to match with the colour of their dress. I asked my bridesmaids if they could wear nude heels for during the day and flats in the evening so that they were comfortable.

THE FLOWERS

Flowers were from St. Albans Flowers in Dartford. I wanted the flowers to be simple, especially with the bridesmaid’s dresses being floral print. The bridesmaids had gypsophila bouquets and I had sunflowers with gypsophila. The groomsmen wore buttonholes made from gypsophila and carnations.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER

Laura at Cherry Red Photography and we cannot recommend her highly enough. When I initially emailed Laura about our wedding theme her response was fantastic. She was just as excited about our wedding as we were. Booking her two years before the wedding meant that by the time that we met her for the engagement shoot in May we already felt she was more like our friend sharing our day with us that has taken our incredible wedding photos that we are absolutely plastering the walls with!

 

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR

For our amazing ride, we booked ‘Daisy’ a 1951 Buick from Dream American Cars. Our driver even commented when he arrived to pick Lauren up that it was by far the best 50s wedding he’d seen and he’d done a few!

At the reception we had a pimp your drink which we got the idea from a wedding on Pinterest. Guests could pimp their drink with sparkly straws, stirrers, umbrellas and glow sticks. Each guest was given a bag of sweets containing retro style sweeties – these went down a treat. Upon entering the diner, guests had a seating chart, photos of our Nan and Granddad’s on their wedding day and a photo of us from our engagement shoot which we asked guests to sign instead of a traditional guestbook. Other than that, we didn’t decorate too much as the diner was exactly how we wanted it to be.

As it was a ‘dry’ wedding, we decided to stick with champagne glasses, but have milkshakes instead; guests even had the choice of strawberry, vanilla and bubblegum flavour!

 

THE CAKE

My mum and sister ordered our wedding cake from Choccywoccydoodah and we also had superhero and rose swirl cupcakes in each of the four bridesmaid colours by Kelly’s Cupcakes.

GROOM’S ATTIRE

Sam wore a Moss Brothers bespoke suit, shirt from Debenhams and burgundy Converse. Sam and his groomsmen also wore S.H.I.E.L.D cufflinks and tie clip (Marvel Avengers) and superhero t-shirts for the big reveal! All found from various eBay stores.

THE HONEYMOON

We had a mini moon at Millbrook Cottages in Devon and are going to Sorrento (Italy) to celebrate our 1 year anniversary.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS

Sam deciding to turn up with our car outside where Lauren was getting ready, I had to hide in the back room until he went off again!

Listening to the bridesmaids giggling hysterically while waiting outside the registry office whilst Lauren was signing papers before the ceremony. Lauren’s Nan often comments about how ditsy my bridesmaids were.

Fastest selfie from Sam’s sister which happened about 2 seconds after us signing the register and guests were invited to take photos.

Sam finally finding his rhythm just in time for the first dance! We even managed a dip!

Trying to fit the band and all the guests dancing into the floor-space of half a 60 cover restaurant!

 

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES

Use Pinterest to keep track of your ideas! Remember that it is your wedding, listen to others’ opinions, but ultimately decide what you want, it’s your wedding day. We found it particularly difficult with friends/ family wanting people that we had not met before, partially as a result of us being in Australia for so long, we made a decision that if either of us hadn’t met that person then they weren’t coming (or they had to organise a get together beforehand so we could meet them!).

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Ceremony | Manor Gatehouse

Venue | The Hot Rod Diner

Bride’s Dress | Candy Anthony

Overlay | Honey Pie Boutique

Heels | Dorothy Perkins

Flats | Melissa Silver Ultragirl Glitter Pumps

Groom’s suit | Moss

Photographer | Laura at Cherry Red Photography

Bridesmaid’s Dresses | ‘Victory Rose’ Vivien of Holloway

Petticoats | Hell Bunny

Hair and Make up | Lucy’s Vintage Hair and Make-up

Florist | St Albans Flowers

Rings | Kaizen Antiques

Cake | Choccy Woccy Doo Dah

Cupcakes | Kelly’s Cupcakes

Car | Dream American Cars 1951 Buick ‘Daisy’

Band | The Backbeat Jivers

 

Wow, I only wish I were a guest. How fabulous.

Thank you so much Lauren and Sam, many congratulations to you both xo Lou