Debra & Matt

I have a confession to make. I was actually lucky enough to be sitting in the cafe opposite when this wedding was taking place at The Custard Factory last year and I was privy to all the brightly coloured fun and confetti as it happened whilst sipping on my hot chocolate. It looked just as gorgeous in real life as it does in the images below - all of which were magically captured by Lisa Carpenter Photography. I love that Debra and Matt chose to do what their hearts desired on their wedding day be that raising a toast to each other during the ceremony or walking back down the aisle to “Footloose” whilst toasting cocktails with their guests. That's what weddings are all about after all aren't they - a celebration of love and having fun!

The Bride's Fashion

Debra The Bride: I got my dress from Georgina Scott Bridal in Stourbridge. It’s a lovely small shop in a former chapel and they were so sweet following all of my requests to alter the dress as I wanted. My dress was a beautiful lace and satin number by Paloma Blanca. My make-up was done by the very talented Jodie Hazlewood at Make up by Jodie. She also did make-up for my maids of honour (I had two instead of having bridesmaids), my mom and my mother-in-law. I asked Jodie for a hair and make-up package so our hair was done by Nikki Burnham who works with Jodie. My shoes were by Jenny Packham No. 1. The flowers in my hair were prepared by my florist.

Florist

My florist was The Flower Centre in Northfield, an amazing bunch of talented ladies! I sourced and supplied the jars for the tables which were green Kilner storage containers. The florist did the bouquets, table decorations and flowers for our hair. I wanted colourful flowers and wanted to somehow include daisies and gerberas. I also wanted some blue in there to tie in with the bridesmaids dresses. I also like yellow roses and love bright colours such as orange. The team at the Flower Centre took this idea and put it together so well.

The Venue

The Old Library was the first venue we both saw and loved and it actually ended up being the only venue we ended up looking at. Neither of us are from Birmingham; I’m from South Africa and Matt is from Kent but we both came here over 10 years ago and stayed. It was important for us to have our wedding in a central location which was easy for our guests to get to and where there was an option to stay over in case they wanted to let their hair down. We both love the Custard Factory and thought it was brilliant when we found out that you could have your wedding there. We loved the fact that the Old Library is a really old building, yet on the inside, it is white washed and really classic. We had out drinks reception in the Dome which is opposite the Old Library so ended up having our guests spilling out in and around the Custard Factory. We decided that we didn’t want colour scheme in the traditional sense of it so decided to have a multi-coloured wedding bringing colour in through the yellow chair sashes, the flowers and other touches. We sourced classic 80’s and early 90’s 9 inch vinyl from eBay and had these as our table names. Matt made the wooden stands for the albums and I did the artwork for our chalkboard sign showing people where to go. JDB Events provided the lighting.

Food

The cake was made by the very talented Jayne at Cakes by Jayne who is based in Edgbaston. She came to our house when we first met her to talk through our ideas and she bought samples of her cake which was amazing. We decided to go for a naked cake without icing and with fruit and flowers which tied in with the rest of the wedding. We ended up having both vanilla and chocolate layers because they were both so delicious! Fazeley Studios who run The Old Library catered for the day. We had butternut soup to start, lamb for the main and vanilla panacotta with pistachio and strawberries for desert. In the evening we gave our guests fish finger or sausage baps with chips as fuel to keep them going.

Wedding Party Fashion

The bridesmaids wore custom royal blue 50’s style dresses by Honeypie Boutique who specialise in vintage inspired clothing. Their shoes were multi-coloured floral heels which I sourced online and they sourced their own jewellery. The groom got his suit from Topman and the groomsmen suits from Next. They each wore different cufflinks which were gifts given on the morning of the wedding.

Stationery

Matt made the design for the invites which we also used for the table plan. We printed these and put them together ourselves. The name cards were handwritten and attached to the macarons which were beautifully presented in clear boxes tied with green ribbon and provided by Angela at Yipsy Macarons. We asked for a selection of flavours (raspberry, zingy lemon, pistachio, cookies and cream, chocolate mint) to tie in with the colourful theme.

Entertainment

During the ceremony we had Jessica from Jessica May Ceremonies as our celebrant for the ceremony (we legally got married at the Birmingham Registry Office the day before so were at liberty to do what we liked –such as raise a toast to each other during the ceremony!) Matt and I had prepared music for the ceremony. I walked in to ‘Crazy Love’ by Van Morrison (Matt says I’m a bit crazy). We walked out to “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins whilst toasting cocktails with our guests! For the drinks reception we had a string quartet 4tissimo provide the soundtrack who we hired through DG Music. Whilst we were eating, we listened to a funk/soul mix which had been put together by Matt’s brother, Rich. Just before the speeches, Matt prepared a mix of the songs of all of the tables (Footloose, Call me, Can’t touch this, Gold, Faith, Like a Virgin, Billy Jean) which was a lot of fun. We had friends DJ to get the party warmed up and then in the evening, had a band on called The Super Rollers. During the evening, we also had Dean and the great team at Confetti Booth provide a photo booth (which provided much entertainment for our guests and to us as we now have one of their custom designed guest books on our coffee table full of photos and messages from our guests (this is a service they offer as a part of their photo booth package for weddings).

Photographer

The lovely and very talented Lisa Carpenter took our photos We met her for our engagement shoot a few months before, which we had in Sutton Park. This really helped us to feel relaxed with her on the day.