Soft Vintage Spring Wedding Inspired by Up

WWW was one of the first wedding websites I started to follow when I began planning my wedding, I loved browsing the real life weddings and I was inspired by so many creative brides. What I love about WWW is the diverse style of weddings, it showed me that not every wedding has to be traditional; they can be fun, colourful and reflect the couples personality.

Well isn’t that just the loveliest thing for me to read when compiling today’s real wedding feature, thank you so much James and Lauren!

It’s always special when you have a wedding which really shows off a couple’s personality and WWW readers James and Lauren really blew me away with personal touches galore! Their day was a real DIY affair with a super cool Disney Pixar Up film theme. Having got engaged at Disney, the pair wanted a touch of Disney in their day too, plus they went back for a dream honeymoon with their two boys. Oh my is this a Disney style wedding with a LOT of style. Think soft pretty pastel pink colour scheme, a tea length dress for twirling and a vintage ice cream van to name a few.

James and Lauren chose Sunday 8^th April 2018 to tie the knot, at The Folly at The Farmhouse at Mackworth in Derbyshire. I have to say they decorated it so beautifully, with cool signs, sequins, giant balloons and gorgeous blooms. Just wait until you read the full low-down of their DIY efforts, you will be in awe.

We have Pear & Bear Photography to thank for sharing these divine images today, wow wee.

THE PROPOSAL

James and I had met on our first day at university, we lived 2 doors down in our halls from one another, and he proposed 4 years later during our first family holiday with our son Noah at Disneyland Paris. I have always loved Disney and when he suddenly got down on one knee whilst we were watching the illuminations by the castle with our son and asked me to marry him it was a really special moment and of course I said yes! When planning our wedding, we wanted to incorporate our love of Disney and our special memories we have with the place we got engaged.

THE VISION

I have always loved the romance and charm of the 1950s and I have always dreamt of wearing a tea length gown and having a relaxed wedding with a soft vintage feel and contemporary touches that reflected our personalities. We have two boys, Noah and Joseph, so they were very much a part of our planning; it was always going to be a fun family affair.

THE PLANNING PROCESS

We started planning our wedding in September 2016 after a long search for the perfect venue, we finally decided on The Farmhouse at Mackworth, set our date and the planning commenced! The venue’s beautiful grounds and unique décor, including a library room with books hanging from the ceiling, was the inspiration we needed to start planning our wedding. We started our planning by making a list of what we wanted our day to look like and what we both felt was the most important aspects of a wedding to us, such as having an amazing photographer to capture our day, once we had discussed this it was easier to prioritise and begin planning the finer details and book suppliers. I really enjoyed planning our wedding and being able to create a day that was personal to us and reflected our personalities.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES

My dress designer was Marc Le Carr by Berketex. I had always dreamed of wearing a tea length gown , I could not of imagined myself wearing anything else! My ivory fingertip lace appliqué and beaded veil was also purchased at the same boutique. My shoes were Charlotte Mills ‘Andrea’ the perfect pair of ivory peep toe heels, with amazing gold heart detailing and a gold glitter heel! The length of the dress was perfect for showing them off and adding a little personality.

I found my gown at the Berketex Bridal Boutique in Nottingham, I worked in the city at the time and would walk past to and from work and would admire it in the window, until one day I finally tried it on. I knew straight away it was ‘The One’ and bought it on the spot! The dress was a beautiful vintage style, tea length, lace detailing and lots of tulle layers which were perfect for twirling and dancing!

THE VENUE

Our ceremony and reception were held at The Folly which is a stunning venue with a real vintage feel located at The Farmhouse at Mackworth. We chose this venue because of its unique features and its relaxed and intimate feel. The venue were amazing and the staff and wedding co-ordinator were fantastic throughout our planning. On the morning of our wedding bridal preparations were held at the equally wonderful, The Coach House B&B, both venues are in Derby.

THE FLOWERS

All of my flowers were fresh and a mix of spring flowers in pastel hues. My bouquet included flowers such as memory lane roses, delphinium, gypsophila and lisianthus. All of our flowers were created by a local florist from whom James has always bought me flowers from, so it seemed fitting to use Floral Boutique to create flowers for our special day. The florist created all of the bouquets, button holes, floral combs and crowns, wands and supplied the flowers for our centrepieces; they were so delicate and pretty.

THE READINGS & MUSIC

Our niece Jasmine read a lovely reading during our ceremony called ‘What is love?’ (Author unknown) although was short it was perfect for us and spoke about how love is the most important thing in our lives and is a radiance that never fades. It was chosen because of how it made us feel and reminded us of our love for one another and our children. We chose songs that were special to us, I walked down the aisle to Cat Powers version of ‘Sea of love’, the moment I heard it I knew it would be perfect. For signing the register we had The Maccabees ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ and Arctic Monkeys version of ‘Baby I’m yours’ and for exiting we had Noah and the Whale’s ‘5 years time’ as we love it and its fun and upbeat. For the evening reception we had a DJ.

GROOM’S ATTIRE

James wore a navy three piece suit from Suits Direct with a white shirt from Next, brown ASOS brogues and a soft pink tie and pocket square. The best men wore matching suits, ties and pocket squares and Noah and Joseph had a mini version of James’s suit but with white converse!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS

For my bridesmaids I had my sister Rosie, my sister in law Rebecca, our niece Jasmine and for my flower girl we had our youngest niece Miley. All the bridesmaid dresses were purchased at Coast and we chose soft pink dresses with a beautiful bow back detailing in two different styles, Rosie and Jasmine had a fit and flare and Rebecca had a lovely fitted number all worse fresh flower combs in their hair. Miley had a very pretty pink scallop hemmed dress from Monsoon to match the bridesmaids, accessorised with sparkly ballet pumps, ivory cardigan and fresh floral crown.

THE CAKE

The cake was a wonderful 4 tier semi-naked cake decorated with fresh pastel flowers, created by Red Robin Cakery. The cake looked and tasted delicious, Sophie worked very hard to create our vision of a soft vintage style wedding cake and even added the finishing touches on the day, a little replica house from the Disney movie ‘Up!’ which I had purchased months earlier and a gold glitter cake topper which read ‘You are my greatest adventure’ and the cake stood proudly on a personalised wooden cake stand that was made especially for our special day. It looked and tasted delicious!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR

I had always dreamed of a soft, vintage and personal wedding, I love all things vintage and had always pictured a tea length gown, afternoon tea and the perfect venue decorated with fairy lights and personal touches, celebrating with all of our closest family and friends. We had personalised save the dates and invitations for our wedding, the save the dates were in the style of the grape soda pins from up! and the invitations included hand drawn illustrations of us and our boys.

Our wedding was completely DIY and we had decided to use soft, pastel colours and gold accents as a starting point to help create our dream day. We knew we also wanted to include our love of Disney as a nod to where we got engaged and to include reference our favourite movie UP!. We had:

• Large white balloons with pink, white and gold tassels placed either side of the registry table.
• Personalised signs including an order of the day, an Instagram # and our favourite ‘You are my greatest adventure’.
• A wooden card box personalised with our names and wedding date.
• A guestbook table filled with specially collected pieces such as an ‘Our adventure book’ for guests to sign and stick in photos from the photo booth, an array of fairy lights, candle holders, photo frames with artwork from the film and a beautiful photograph of my grandparents on their wedding day to name a few of the items we had bought and made especially.
• Fairy lights in mason jars and wrapped effortlessly around beams in our venue looked magical.
• I collected vintage books from second hand shops and eBay to create our centrepieces and decorate our room, they were used as a base for our mason jars that I sprayed in metallic hues of gold, copper and rose. The mason jars held our flowers and were joined on the table by gold sequin runners, glitter candle votives and rose gold table numbers that sat within the blooms. All of which I sourced myself.
• I found lots of our trinkets and copper/gold items in TK maxx , high street stores, second hand shops and markets.
• Polaroids of our family were pegged on string with tiny gold pegs to decorate the entrance to the gardens, it was a really lovely way of adding another personal touch.
• We had copper baskets filled with ivory blankets for when it got chilly in the evening and another filled with personalised cones of fresh petal confetti for our guests to throw for our confetti shot, both were accompanied with pretty signs.
• We had a vintage suitcase filled with toys for the little ones and a white teepee decorated with fairy lights for our young guests to play in.
• Our favours were key chains brought from The National Autistic Society, both of our sons have a form of Autism, so it was a way for us to support a charity close to our hearts, these were given in little jute bags and placed on the tables for our guests.
• We had a vintage 1966 restored VW ice-cream van called Florence who served the most delicious ice-cream in the evening, it was amazing!

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER

When initially planning our wedding we knew that finding the perfect photographer was one of the most important parts of our wedding planning. We needed someone who would take natural photos and really capture the love and emotion of our day. After a long search we finally found Anna Dunleavy from Pear & Bear Photography and I’m so glad we did, after looking over her impressive portfolio we arranged to grab a coffee and discuss our plans and from our first meeting we knew Anna was the perfect person to photograph our wedding day. We had an engagement shoot which was a fantastic way to get used to being in front of the camera, get to know one another and have some photos as a reminder of a special time in our lives, planning our wedding! Throughout the planning process Anna was amazing and on our wedding day she made us feel so comfortable and at ease, and was wonderful and captured some truly stunning photos and moments. We adore our wedding photos and choosing Anna was one of the best planning decisions we had made.

THE HONEYMOON

For our honeymoon we decided to take a family-moon! We took our sons Noah and Joseph to Disneyland Paris for 5 days. It was a very special and memorable trip, we all had such a wonderful time and lots of fun with our children watching the parades, going on rides, meeting the characters and eating lots of delicious treats. It meant a lot to us to take our family back to where we got engaged and have the opportunity to make more memories.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS

My memorable moments were:

• Seeing my sons in their suits for the first time.
• When Noah and Miley walked down the aisle together, they looked so adorable.
• Walking down the aisle and seeing James waiting for me.
• Seeing all of our closest friends and family together in one room having a great time.
• When I finally saw all the decorations and my vision for our day come together, I was quite overwhelmed!
• The speeches were beautiful.
• When Florence the restored 1966 VW ice-cream van arrived, we had some lovely photos taken with the van too.
• Seeing our friends and family have fun in the photo booth we had hired, the pictures were amazing, lots of fun was had!

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES

• Try and enjoy the planning process, it’s a special and exciting time.
• Don’t worry too much about what other people think, it’s your wedding, do it your way!
• Make your day personal to you, have the music you both love or your favourite food served for the wedding breakfast, as long as your happy and have the wedding you want it will be memorable and special.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Ahh what a gorgeous couple, I just love all the outfits too.

I cannot thank James and Lauren enough for sharing their beautiful story with us xo Lou