Colourful Modern & DIY Fun Wedding

I really love seeing how those in the wedding industry plan and execute their wedding day. It’s really insightful and their weddings are, lets face it, usually darn right amazing. Today’s bride Suzy is a stationery designer and owns Paper Fudge. You can only imagine how fantastic her crafty touch was, there were awesome invitations, hand lettering and pops of colour galore.

WWW readers Suzy and James were married on the 4th September 2015 at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, due their special connections with the venue and the gorgeous setting. There was a lovely modern feel to their day with clean, simple and bold décor, home-grown blooms and a hefty dose of cake.

Suzy looked incredible in her Maria Senvo dress, which she teamed with plaited hair and sunflower bouquet. James meanwhile opted for a dapper suit by Next. Woah.

Thanks so very much to Emma Boileau Photography for sharing these lovely shots.

THE PROPOSAL | It was on Christmas day, the last present I opened was a suspiciously small box! Then 2 days later, James surprised me with a puppy which was more of a shock and surprise than the proposal!

THE VISION | We wanted a fun, laid back, informal day where everyone would enjoy themselves with good food and good music. Lots of colour, personal touches and not too traditional. We just wanted our day to reflect us basically.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | So we got engaged on Christmas day 2014 and the wedding was in early September 2015. A lot of people thought we were crazy planning a wedding in 8 months but we really wanted to get married in summer(ish) and I couldn’t stand the thought of spending over a year planning and obsessing over what is essentially just one day. We managed it though, having exactly the wedding we wanted and didn’t have to compromise on anything!

THE VENUE | We chose the Yorkshire Sculpture Park for our ceremony and reception, we loved it because it was a bit different from traditional hotels and other wedding venues. The inside space was modern, airy and full of gorgeous light and we really wanted some outdoor space for our guests to ‘mingle’ and there is acres of it at the YSP! Plus we thought the sculptures would make some excellent wedding photos.

It was the ideal location being in the middle of Manchester and Doncaster where most of our family and friends live. It was also quite special to us as we went to the sculpture park on one of our first dates.

And another reason why we wanted to get married here was the fact we could have a BBQ for our reception – a big tick for James! (the food was amazing)

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | I wore a Maria Senvo dress which was from Bride to Be in Manchester. I knew I would feel more like me in flat shoes so I chose some Jenny Packham sandals from Debenhams. As I spent more than I intended to on my dress I didn’t even look at any other accessories!

I decided to do my own make-up so I treated myself to a little shopping spree at the Benefit counter. As we weren’t getting married until 4pm I had loads of time to get ready and I was really happy with how it looked. And I’ve now got loads of nice make-up that will last me ages!

FINDING THE DRESS | Dress shopping wasn’t a huge event for me, my bridesmaid and I just went to two bridal shops and I only tried on a few dresses. I knew I didn’t want a really traditional wedding dress and liked the idea of something quite ‘floaty’ and bo-ho.

After describing roughly what I wanted to the lady in Bride to Be, she picked out the Maria Senvo dress for me and it was perfect. Structured at the top and a long, flowing skirt with thin spaghetti straps which I loved. It was a lot more than what I wanted to spend on on my wedding dress and I spent a week ‘sleeping on it’. I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I went for it. On the day a lot of people said the dress was ‘so me’ and I really did feel right in it!

GROOM’S ATTIRE | James wore a suit from Next, we thought a nice bright blue would go well with the colourful day. The best men and ushers chose their own suits and they all wore bright yellow ties and James wore a bright pink one.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | James’ sister is a registrar so she could legally marry us which made the ceremony very personal. I walked down the aisle to The Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ and we walked out to ‘Waterfall’ by the Stone Roses. We had 2 readings – the lyrics to ‘Something Changed’ by Pulp and ‘On Your Wedding Day’ which our friend chose for us.

Our first dance was ‘Tomorrow’ by James. The music was a huge thing for us, we wanted to have a big indie disco and we literally spent hours putting playlists together. We gave the DJ strict instructions to stick to our songs (which he almost did!) and the dance floor was full practically all night.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | It felt right just to have my best friend Kara as my bridesmaid. She’d very recently had a baby so I let her pick her own dress, one that she would feel comfortable in (as long as it was bright pink!) and she chose one from John Lewis. My two nieces were my flower girls and wore dresses with pink sashes from BHS.

THE FLOWERS | My parent’s very kindly gave up a large section of their allotment to grow a range of flowers for us to use as decorations and table centrepieces. They spent all summer looking after the flowers and constantly dead-heading them and they looked beautiful on the day.

We put these flowers in jam jars and baked bean tins that I’d collected. Some of the jars I covered in gold glitter, some I tied rustic twine and lace around them. I wanted it to all look different and not too ‘matchy’.

For the bouquets and buttonholes I struggled to find a florist that I thought would be able to create what I wanted. But after some searching I found Ivy Florist in Leeds and they were brilliant. They totally got that I wanted something rustic looking and not too ‘done’. I asked for bright colours, daisies, sunflowers and lots of foliage – it all looked perfect together and went with the whole vibe of the day.

THE CAKE | Anyone that knows me knows that I’m slightly obsessed with cake – both baking and eating them and a lot of my friends are fellow cake obsessives so a ‘Cake Table’ was obviously going to happen!

My mum made an amazing 3-tier naked cake with berries (from their allotment of course!) and we were up at 6am on the morning of the wedding assembling it. I painted wooden peg people for the top of the cake of me, James and our King Charles Cavalier – Ziggy.

I think I was panicking that there wouldn’t be enough cake so I asked quite a few friends and family if they’d mind baking something. We were overwhelmed with all the effort everyone had made, there was so much cake! I made sure there were plenty of paper bags for people to take cake home with them.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | The photos were one of our main priorities. I’d been following Emma’s work for a while on Twitter and I loved her natural, relaxed style. She was brilliant, on the day it was just like she was an extra guest and so many people commented on how lovely she was. She captured the day perfectly and we couldn’t be happier with the photos.

I managed to persuade James to have a pre-shoot (he really wasn’t keen on the idea) but it did really help us get used to the camera and get to know Emma better. She didn’t even mind when I suggested our puppy be included in the shoot either!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | This was my strong point and what I got most excited about! I have my own wedding stationery business – Paper Fudge, so I couldn’t wait to start working on our own invites! I am also incredibly crafty so I loved every minute of the whole wedding DIY process and spent many an evening and weekend making stuff. Although the inside space at the venue was very modern, I wanted a bit of a rustic feel to the decorations, with bright pink, yellow and orange colours, chalkboards and a little bit of gold glitter.

Obviously I designed our invitations and other stationery. I painted 2 big welcome chalkboards, I hand lettered everyone’s place names onto small slices of bark that went well with the tree stump slices we had as centrepieces. I hand painted our table names and other signage onto planks of wood, the tables were named after streets we’d lived on, our favourite pubs and parks.

I made confetti cones out of kraft paper, our table plan was a big hessian board with mini chalkboards hung on tiny pegs, I glittered up big letters to spell CAKE and S&J for table decorations.

I bought some cheap paper lanterns from eBay in bright colours that were hung in the ceremony room and the reception room and we had fairy lights out on the balcony which looked lovely.

For the favours, my mum and I spent a whole weekend making several batches of fudge that I packaged up in little jars and made them look pretty with fabric tops, twine and hand drawn labels.

THE HONEYMOON | We had 2 nights in the Cotswolds straight after the wedding then in November we went to Borneo and Bali for 2 weeks.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Just seeing all our family and friends in the same room was totally amazing and overwhelming. One of the Ushers managed to get a personal recorded message from Clint Boon (from the Inspiral Carpets) who was DJing in the club on the night we met, and played it with the speeches which was pretty special to us!

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Don’t automatically go to wedding suppliers for everything – for example we got 12 tree slice centrepieces from a tree surgeon for £20 where as a wedding stylist quoted me about £10 each for them. Try and add as many personal touches as you can to reflect you, it just makes it all the more special. And finally, don’t scrimp on your wedding photography! Your photos will help you remember the day in years to come so you want them to be good ones.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photographer | Emma Boileau

Dress | Bride to Be

Flowers | Ivy Florist

Stationery | Paper Fudge

So many amazing ideas and a super happy day too.

Thanks so much to Suzy and James for sharing their wedding story with us xo Lou