Heather & Peter

Heather and Peter are not only the cutest couple, but they have one of my most favourite ideas ever to share with you for treasuring those precious moments and feelings you experience on your big day. So once you've pored over and pinned your way through all of M and J Photography's gorgeous captures make sure you read their adorable account of their day too. Hedsor House made the most stunning location for this elegant wedding, with gorgeous pastel blooms decorating the ceremony and reception. It also included the loviest of backdrops for all those bridal party selfies and special wedding morning moments. You ready to be wowed?

Dress

Heather the Bride: I found my dress in the Pronovias store on New Bond Street in London. I went in thinking I wanted a big princess dress, but when I consistently came out of the dressing room in fits of giggles we all knew I’d have to go in a different direction! I’m quite petite, so something close fitting suited me much better. I knew I wanted lace and nothing low cut, but I did want a low back (to please Peter!). I also knew I wanted something comfortable to wear so that I’d feel like myself on the day. Pronovias had so many beautiful styles that suited my shape. I also loved my veil which I got from Boa Boutique in Richmond. On the morning of the wedding, Peter gave me a pair of earrings that belonged to his grandmother which I loved. My shoes were from Jimmy Choo.

Grooms Attire

Peter loves J. Crew, so he knew he wanted to get his suit from there. He wore a blue fitted suit with a dark navy tie and brown shoes from Russell & Bromley. I bought Peter some cufflinks as a wedding gift which were one of a kind, made from vintage watch parts which I bought on Etsy.

The Venue

Hedsor House is a beautiful Georgian venue in Buckinghamshire which is only 40 minutes from London and really close to Heathrow – which was perfect for us as we had lots of Peter’s friends and family flying in from America. One of the great things about Hedsor is that you get the whole house to yourself and it really does feel like your home for the day. It really is beautiful inside and out. But while it does feel very English and grand, it also feels homely too. It has a beautiful ballroom for dinner and we got married in the centre hall under the domed ceiling. The bridal suite is unbelievable and there are 10 perfect guest bedrooms too.

Colour Scheme/Decor

As we had lots of Peter’s friends and family flying in from all over the world, we really wanted to showcase the beautiful English countryside and history for our overseas guests. We felt like Hedsor House did this perfectly as it used to be a family home and struck a good balance between feeling grand and romantic but relaxed at the same time. We used ‘heathery’ colours in the flowers, stationery and bridesmaid dresses. My mum and auntie also decorated over 200 of my grandparent’s unused honey jars (they used to keep bees when I was little) which we used to decorate the house and filled with candles and flowers. Peter’s family is from a spirits background, so we knew that the drinks menu would be an important part of the day. We picked 5 of our favourite cocktails to serve and our guests kept the talented mixologists busy all night long.

Florist

Hannah at Ruby & Grace was so helpful in helping us choose our flowers - I was unsure of exactly what I wanted but Hannah was brilliant at suggesting things I loved. For my bouquet I knew I wanted it to feel quite relaxed and open, rather than tightly wound roses, and I wanted some heather in there to tie in with my bridesmaid dresses. We also had 2 huge arrangements at the front of the ceremony room and then little posies tied to the chairs. I wanted the table arrangements to use a mixture of my grandma’s honey jars with candles. Hannah did an incredible job – one thing I wish we’d done was to make sure someone from each table took the flowers home as they were so beautiful I couldn’t bear to leave any behind!

The Wedding Party Fashion

All my bridesmaids were different shapes and heights (and one of them was 6 months pregnant!) which made choosing dresses tricky. The ASOS bridesmaid collection has some lovely styles and I love bows, so the dresses we chose had a low back and high neck line to match mine, and a really cute satin bow at the back. Peter’s four brothers were his groomsmen and wore the same J Crew suit as Peter, but with black shoes and belt.

Ceremony

I really loved our ceremony. I was quite nervous about it in the weeks before the wedding as we weren’t having a church ceremony but we really wanted it to feel unique to us. Julie, our registrar, was great at accommodating my ideas and I sent her some stories and words to add to what she had already written. I was really pleased when the whole room laughed at the jokes and anecdotes Peter and I had added in. I walked down the aisle to a piece of music my brother Matthew recorded and composed on the piano. Everyone cheered (so Peter tells me) when it was announced that the music had been written by Matt. Now we have a piece of music, written especially for us, which will forever remind us of that moment. My dad made sure we stood at the top of the aisle for a few seconds longer so that I had chance to take everything in. We knew we wanted to have readings but didn’t want them to be too cheesy. We both love music so decided to go for a musical theme. We used Bob Marley’s, ‘He’s Not Perfect’ and a love letter written by Jonny Cash to June Carter.

Entertainment

We found The Revue Band via the team at Hedsor, as they had played at the venue before. We knew from watching the videos on their website that they were talented musicians, which was important to us as Peter is a brilliant guitarist himself. They encouraged us to let them make song choices based on our music tastes – and this was absolutely the right choice. Our first dance was an acoustic version of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Thank You’ which they played and sang beautifully. They also had a roaming saxophonist which added to the fun. DJ Gareth managed to end our night by playing ‘Sweet Caroline’ – which was completely unplanned, but is the Boston Red Sox’s theme song, so with lots of Bostonians in the audience went down a storm. ‘Garage hour’ was also very well received!

Food

Our caters were Caper & Berry. Peter and I love food, but we’re by no means ‘foodies’, so being able to put our trust into a team who could advise us on what would work best was perfect. I love canapes so they were my favourite bit. We had lots of different ones but my favourite were the aranchini balls. For our starter, we had individual plates of anti-pasti and pork belly for our main – which was a bit off piste but everyone loved it! We had lemon meringue pie for dessert, which was my grandma’s favourite.

Cake

Our cake was made by Rebecca at Dotty Rose. We had 4 different layers with a different flavor for each (banoffee for my dad, lemon for my mum, strawberries and champagne for Peter and chocolate Guinness for me). The chocolate Guinness layer was my absolute favourite. I’m still sad that it all got eaten!

Photographer


I spent quite a while looking through different photographers before I came across Morgane and Jonny on Rock My Wedding. I loved their style immediately as every picture looked stunning but not too posed. We met them for a coffee in London a few months before the wedding which was great chance to get to know them beforehand and for them to understand what we were hoping to get from our photos. They were so friendly! On the day they were professional and lovely to have around, and when we got our photos back it was so exciting! One of the things I love most is how well they captured all our guests – they all look like rock stars and we loved sharing the photos with everyone.

Videographer

We knew we wanted a wedding video but lots of the wedding videos I watched were too gushy for us. So we decided to go with something that was more relaxed and that we could get our friends and family involved in. Shoot It Yourself supplied us with 2 video cameras which we gave to our guests to film throughout the day. The team at Shoot It Yourself then edit it into a professional video. It’s hilarious but also so emotional at the same time. I had quite low expectations of it to be honest but it came out so well – we’ve watched it so many times already!

Final Thoughts

There were so many thoughtful and incredible things that our friends and family did for us, but one of the more unusual ones was from my friend Megan who is an amazing calligraphist. She created two beautiful Mr and Mrs notebooks for us with instructions for us to write down all our memories from the wedding day. The idea is that we swap books on our first wedding anniversary and read each other’s memories. Peter and I made time to do this on our flight to Tahiti for our honeymoon. We were both in tears by the time we finished! It’s such a great idea to record your memories because the day goes by so quickly and it’s the little moments that mean so much and you don’t want to forget.