Abi & Ben

You are going to feel nothing but pure joy viewing this colourful industrial wedding by the sea. Bride and Groom Abi and Ben are a creative duo by trade and the masterminds behind Dearly Beloved stationers, with their style shining through every inch of their fabulous wedding. Bride Abi for one wears a bespoke jumpsuit and cape designed by dressmaker Ailsa Munro and looks absolutely incredible. She completes her look with a golden yellow, burnt orange and sumptuous red bouquet of proteas, roses and craspedia billy buttons, which are also found in bottles and jars dotted around the Ocean Studios venue. Now sit back, relax and let all the beautifully captured moments of family, love and laughter by Freckle Photography fill your soul.

The Dress

Abi the Bride: I knew two things before I even tried anything on ...that a traditional white dress just wouldn't feel right and that I wanted a cape! I wanted to be comfortable but still like the sassiest version of myself! Dressmaker Ailsa Munro created a wide legged jumpsuit for me with a floor length cape and rose gold leather flower detail on the shoulders. In the evening I slipped into a backless rose gold full sequin dress for dancing. The rest of my jewellery was borrowed from family members. Our sisters Becky and Lucy also got married this year and it was really special to wear items they wore when they tied the knot. White gold and diamond necklace from Becky, and the pearl bracelet Rebecca had also given to Lucy to wear on her wedding day.

The Grooms Fashion

Ben wore his trusty navy wool 3 piece suit (he already owned it and always feels good when he wears it) with a mustard gold knitted skinny tie and white shirt; he also wore cufflinks stamped with with coordinates to Porthminster Beach, St Ives (where we filmed our announcement video) and a custom tie clip both from Etsy.

The Venue

Our wedding ceremony and wedding breakfast were held at Ocean Studios, at Royal William Yard in Plymouth and afterwards we partied at The Loft on Sutton Harbour. It was really important to us to get married at somewhere that meant something to us, since Plymouth has been such a huge part of our story we really wanted to get married in our hometown and it definitely had to be by the sea. Primarily an art gallery and artist studio space weddings are new to Ocean Studios and we were overjoyed to be the first couple to tie the knot in such a beautiful spot. We both really love the aesthetic of honest spaces that still have the charm of their original purpose, the whole of RWY is made up of old Navy buildings and Ocean Studios just had the right feel, both historical and industrial, so many of our guests commented on how it space "was SO us". We hired holiday apartments at Royal William Yard and spent the whole weekend there with our close family and friends.

Colour Scheme/Decor

Stationery & styling by Dearly Beloved The colour scheme was autumnal, we had lots of different golds, yellows, coppers and oranges with touches of pink and red and blue as an accent colour... So pretty loose really, we weren't worried about things "matching" but wanted to blend colours and styles that were right for the spaces we were in. The wedding stationery we designed featured mid century inspired illustrations of birds and florals and hand drawn modern calligraphy; it was important to us to design the stationery together and so Ben drew the illustrations and Abi created the lettering. We naturally chose golds and mustards yellows as a starting point and then it all grew from there.

Flowers/Florist

Clare Kilgour Floristry did an amazing job with our flowers; we just told her the colours we wanted and then because we love the wild natural shapes she creates with her arrangements we were happy for her to do whatever she wanted. We collected over 70 glass bottles and jars of all different shapes and sizes, including Plymouth Gin bottles which she filled with flowers for us too.

The Wedding Party Fashion

We didn't have a formal wedding party with bridesmaids and groomsmen but instead had our immediate family walk down the aisle with us and stand by our side while we said our vows. Our sisters wore a white dress of their choice with a flower corsage and our brothers and nephew wore blue suits and light gold knitted skinny ties.

Ceremony

There were so many! The whole ceremony! Walking down the aisle with our families; Ben chose to be given away by his Mum and Abi was given away by her Dad. We also decided to give our wedding speech together ...AND we also had glitter confetti cannons which was pretty incredible. We really wanted our wedding ceremony to be a celebration of us and our families coming together; we wrote the ceremony ourselves with the guidance of Abi's parents church Pastor who conducted the ceremony. Instead of hymns we sang motown songs such as Let's Stay Together by Al Green and Higher and higher by Jackie Wilson; we had a sand ceremony in which we mixed together sand from Jamaica and Cyprus (places important to our families' history) to symbolise our union; we also had had a ring warming where before we exchanged rings they were passed around all of our guests so that they could place well wishes upon them. Readings were by Abi's oldest friends Sian & Stacey and our nephew James.

Entertainment

Ben's twin sister Lucy and her husband are musicians in Royal Marines Band and they played us into our reception at the Loft with a surprise rendition of some of our favourite songs on clarinet and ukulele, they included a few that had featured in our ceremony and Ben's late Grannie's favourite song. It was so special to us and a definite highlight of the day. We also had Freshly Squeezed an 8 piece funk and soul band for us to dance the night away to.

Food

Food is a huge deal to our families; we had homemade cocktails and canapés after our ceremony... Dark n Stormy - Spiced rum and Jamaican ginger beer English Gin and Tonic Brandy Sours - A traditional Cypriot cocktail The canapés included lots of olives, sun dried tomatoes and humous, and Abi's Mom's infamous spicy fried chicken. For our wedding breakfast we chose a Caribbean feast catered by the Plymouth based restaurant Mama Rita's Afro Caribbean Pot which included curried goat, brown stew chicken, fried plantain and of course rice and peas. Our wedding cakes were lovingly made by our very talented older sister Rebecca and one of our closest friends Abbi. Rebecca's creations were extra glam naked Victoria sponge cakes (Ben's favourite); to decorate she dusted fruit in edible glitter also added it to the jam. And Abbi's cake was a semi naked centrepiece cake with 2 flavours white chocolate & lemon and red velvet.

Photographer

We always knew we wanted Emma from Freckle Photography to capture our big day. She is a wonderful friend to us and we knew she would photograph our celebration beautifully; her energy is infectious she is such an amazing presence to be around.