Hannah & Glenn

How fit is Hannah?! I'm so jealous of her gorgeous brows and voluminous waves. What a stunning Bride she makes. Her choice of Annasul Y gown is perfect too, it looks like it was made for her. The elegant Cain Manor is the scene of today's wedding, a Bijou Wedding Venue, who you will find in our recommended supplier directory, The List because all of venues they operate are simply stunning. The team are pros at helping you have the wedding of your dreams and every celebration we feature from Bijou is gorgeous. Hannah and Glenn's big day is no exception...

The Bride

Hannah the Bride: When I first moved to London about 6 years ago, I lived in Wimbledon and I used to pass the most beautiful bridal shop called Teokath of London every morning on my way to the tube. I couldn’t help looking at the most beautiful bridal gowns every day, and I always knew that was where I was going to buy my dress. When Glenn and I started dating, we moved back to Wimbledon and when we got engaged it was the first place I went to go and try on wedding dresses, I tried on around five dresses with my mum and sister, and immediately I knew that the Annasul Y dress was for me, I knew I wanted something that was lace, and a dress with sleeves was a definite for me because I love how classic and timeless it looks. Another plus was that it was backless as well so it has a little sexiness in there too. Because the dress had the most exquisite detailing, I knew I didn’t need to team it with a lot of accessories so I kept it simple and understated. I chose a Swarovski bracelet with matching earrings, and after much deliberation I didn’t wear a veil because ultimately I felt it detracted too much from the dress. I had my hair and makeup done by the amazing Xana at Gemma Sutton. We spent the best part of a day going through different looks I liked, Xana was absolutely fab and was a compete professional and made me feel so comfortable on the day! Again, because of the detailing of the dress we both agreed that it didn’t need hair accessories so I kept my hair simple, opting to keep it down with loose waves.

The Groom

Glenn opted for an Italian slim-fit cut suit from TM Lewin in a Navy tonic teamed with a white waistcoat from Wilvorst. This worked perfectly with the light peach/blush pink ties and pocket squares, which he purchased from Swagger and Swoon.

The Venue

Both Glenn and I were on exactly the same page when it came to wedding venues and what we both wanted, which made it so much easier when it came to choosing a venue. Neither of us are religious, and so that made things very straightforward, avoiding any debate on whether to have a church wedding or not. We both adored the look and feel of barn weddings, with the large oak beams and high ceilings and somewhere that had that ‘rustic’ feel of a country wedding, and a place that was just ours for the entire day was hugely important to us! We shortlisted a few venues that we had come across through perusing magazines and websites, one of which was Cain Manor House. The venue just stood out from the rest. Not only was it located just a stone’s throw from where I grew up in Hampshire, but it ticked every box. Cain manor is a beautiful oak manor in Surrey. It has amazing landscape gardens and when we first saw it felt like we were in a movie driving up through the windy roads up to the main entrance. After a few minutes Glenn and I looked at each other and knew this was the one, it was the first and only venue we looked at but we immediately fell in love!

The Decor

Glenn and I both worked together to agree a colour scheme that we both loved. I trailed magazines, created mood boards, and we sat down to go through our likes and dislikes. I really adore blush colours and knew I wanted something that was quite delicate, like blush pinks, nudes, ivory and light peach. Given we were getting married in the summer we agreed these worked perfectly. The bridesmaids dresses were blush pink and Glenn ideally found ties and pocket squares to match so it worked so perfectly. Every detail of the wedding was worked up with this in mind, even down to the Flower girl dress which had a blush pink hem with the most adorable white and pink petals in the seam and the giant 3 foot balloons!

The Flowers

The colour scheme was generally quite a romantic and classic theme, and we wanted a lot of open blooms in whites, ivories and blush pinks. Given how grand Cain Manor is, we kept the table decor simple using silver candelabra adorned with blush pink petals around the base with silver mercury tea lights and crisp white linen. We opted for white chair covers with peach sashes to add a little romance. My bridal bouquet comprised of kiera roses, pink spray roses, akiro roses, pink astilbe, achelia, white freesia, white stocks ami and pale pink double lisiathus, with the stems covered with white ribbons. The groom’s button holes were a single akito rose with foliage.

The Wedding Party

I had three Bridesmaids; my best friend and sister Sab and my amazing friends Ellie and Nina who wore gorgeous blush pink/nude dresses from AX Paris which had beautiful lace style detailing at the front with perfectly complimented my dress. My flower girl was my beautiful niece Eveline, who wore the cutest dress from Bloomingdales. The Groomsmen all wore matching Italian slim-fit cut suit from TM Lewin in a Navy tonic with ties and pocket squares to match from Swagger and Swoon, as well as crisp white waistcoats bought from Moss Bros.

The Ceremony

By far our favourite moment was seeing each other at the altar. Glenn and I hadn’t seen each other in 3 days and I just couldn’t wait to see him. As the song ‘A Thousand Years’ started playing, my emotion got the better of me and before I even started walking down the aisle behind my bridesmaids I was crying! Everything changed as soon as I saw Glenn, his back was to me and I had the biggest smile on my face and I just wanted to get there as soon as possible. I looked over at him and could see the emotion in his face and eyes welling up (he warned me that he would cry and I told him if he didn’t cry I was turning around and walking back down the aisle!)

The Entertainment

We were so lucky with the weather on the day and the sun was shining. Before the ceremony, our guests enjoyed a champagne and pimms reception. Our first dance was to ‘Ho Hey’ by the Lumineers, which is a great song to dance to, we danced for about a minute and then all of the groomsmen got everyone up on the dance floor to join us which made the moment so special and fun! As my parents are Moroccan, I really wanted to add an Arabic twist to the wedding, as most of the décor and ceremony was very quintessentially British, and I thought it would be fun to add a little Moroccan madness to it, so outside we decorated the wooden hut outside with lots of Moroccan lanterns, fairy lights and colourful pillows and had a big shisha pipe for people to have a little smoke on! My parents even bought some Fez hats from Morocco to wear whilst smoking it which I think everyone enjoyed!

The Food

Glenn and I are big foodies, and needless to say one of our favourite moments was the food tasting at Cain Manor! The Bijou staff were so professional and attentive, and the food was superb, and a lot of our wedding guests were very complimentary! For our wedding breakfast, we had smoked salmon with pea shoots and edible flowers; with sticky Hampshire braised beef with roasted vegetables for main, and treacle tart for pudding! After the speeches, tea and coffee with truffles were served. We didn’t opt for a traditional wedding cake, instead having an assortment of different Krispy Kreme donut cake, which went down a treat! Later in the evening, we knew everyone would be hungry from all the dancing so we had a stack of burgers for people to munch on!

The Photography

Finding the right photographer was really important to us because this is something that we are always going to be looking back at! Faye came recommended by our wedding venue, and after looking at the photos on her website we were blown away. The pictures were beautiful, effortless and above all they were natural. We immediately knew Faye was the one. On the wedding day Faye was just amazing and friendly, she made us feel so comfortable and at ease and I genuinely felt I had known her for years! A lot of our wedding guests commented on how great she was, and we even managed to get her into the photo booth!

Advice

Our biggest advice would be to try and relax and enjoy the moment as much as possible. This is the day you have both been working hard towards, and even if things don’t go to plan on the day, it’s about you and your husband and that’s the most important thing. Glenn and I made sure that we would spend a few moments together throughout the day as it’s so easy to spend all your time talking to your loved ones without even seeing your husband/wife, so we would make sure we had time to ourselves to take it all in! It really does go by in a flash so most importantly enjoy yourselves and forget everything else!