Jane & Rob

There is only one way to describe this humanist wedding at Old Horton Grange Farmhouse and that's delicious. The marquee reception filled with hanging lanterns, light up letters, mason jars, and gorgeous peachy blooms literally takes your breath away. Also warming the heart are the incredibly adorable portraits captured by Katy Melling of this family unit. Jane & Rob's little boy Freddie nearly steals the show joining in the nuptials with his mum & dad. The mixing of sand ceremony is such a lovely way of including him and such a fabulous momento from the day. Now the fashion. I have been eyeing up the Coast high low skirts for such a long time and it's lovely to see Jane's gorgeous maids sporting them. Teamed with sequin tops, the whole outfit is literally show stopping. Saving the best for last, I can't leave without mentioning Jane's gorgeous Rachele Ronald Joyce gown. The beading and cap sleeves are exquisite, and I'm mesmerised by her and its beauty. Pinning fingers at the ready, you're not going to want to forget this one.

Jane the Bride: I knew exactly the type of dress I wanted, I just couldn’t find it! After a few weeks shopping I ended up at House of Bella’s Brides in Newcastle. It wasn’t the type of shop I thought I’d end up getting my dress from. The dresses were…well.. very big and of the variety I imagined someone from Jersey Shore getting married in. I told my mum to choose three and then we were going for champagne. Little did I know that Joanne was brilliant and with each dress asked me what I liked and then pulled more based on my answer. Towards the end of the appointment she pulled out my dress. I loved it immediately because all the beading sparkled in an understated way and it was so different. My dress was Rachele by Ronald Joyce. My shoes were by Charlotte Mills – they were an absolute steal in the BHLDN sale and I got them for $80 despite retailing for £280 in the UK. They are so cute and have your something new, old, borrowed and blue already incorporated. The sixpence built into the bottom of the shoe is a great idea.

The Grooms Fashion

Rob bought his suit in Reiss as soon as we got engaged. The bright blue colour suited him so well we didn’t hesitate to buy it, even with a year to go. We had it tailored to fit and when I saw him on the day I fell in love with him all over again. He accessorised it with a shirt, pink tie and pocket square from Reiss too. I bought him his shoes as a wedding surprise – they were Barker tan and navy brogues and I love how proud of them he is. In fact, he got more compliments about his shoes than I did!

The Venue

I’ve always wanted to get married at home though we don’t have enough space. So we looked for a venue that would feel like it was ours. We came across Old Horton Grange Farmhouse randomly – it’s not really a wedding venue as such. You have to hire everything yourself and they just provide the house and garden for a marquee. After looking around we were sold. There were 6 bedrooms in the farmhouse and a separate 2 bed cottage for me and my bridesmaids to get ready in. It’s also grade 2 listed but everything inside is modern so it made it the perfect contrast and back drop to our fun weekend wedding. The gardens were in full bloom and we incorporated the herbaceous border into the marquee so people could look onto it. We hired our marquee and furniture from Black Cherry Events – their service was second to none. It looked gorgeous before it had even been decorated and I can’t rate Claire and her team enough for the advice they provided.

Colour Scheme/Décor

Our loose theme was peach, blush, cream and touches of metallic. We were planning to have the ceremony outside but two hours before it looked like rain so we moved it inside. Everyone worked so hard to make the space amazing and they pulled it off… and some. It looked breathtaking when I walked in. Rob built the arbour we got married under himself and with a lace curtain from Ikea (thank you Pinterest) and a few flowers it was complete. We’re planning to put this in our garden now. We used peach, pink and cream lace lanterns from The Hanging Lantern Company to break up the ceiling. I hired giant R&J letters from Coco Luminaire which we decorated with flowers too and they were a great backdrop for pictures. I used things from our home like a chest of drawers which we filled with flowers, decorations, blankets, cushions and light box signs to give some extra sparkle. The most heartfelt thing was the amazing table plan my bridesmaid made. It featured pictures of all the guests strung between two vintage ladders. She had also sneakily gone to my mums when she was looking after Freddie, my three year old, and asked him to pose in the pictures to create the numbers. It was such a lovely and personal way to include him and I will be forever grateful for all the hard work that went into it. We had peach flowery ties on every other chair round the marquee too and really wide rustic hessian table runners made especially for us and glass and gold plate chargers on the tables. On each place setting we provided face mats for guests to wear in their pictures – this got everyone laughing and talking and provided many fab pictures!

Florist

Kathryn from The Whole Sch’Bang is nothing short of amazing. She designed my sons naming ceremony and helped Rob with my proposal so I knew I could trust her. She created a different look for each table using crates, vases, jars and pedestals using peonies, roses and hydrangeas in different shades of blush and peach and it all came together in a way I could only imagine. Little bud vases and metallic candle holders completed the look. Joanne’s Flowers did our bouquets and button holes. I just gave her some pictures and left it up to her and she did us proud.

The Wedding Party Fashion

My two bridesmaids looked stunningly gorgeous in their outfits. They chose what to wear and decided on blush high/low skirts and silver and blush ombre sequin tops from Coast. My little boy, Freddie, wore a three piece pale blue and white striped suit and matching moccasins all from M&S. He was the star of the show and walked down the aisle like a celebrity. Rob’s two best men’s suits came from M&S and we teamed these with grey checked waistcoats from River Island and pink ties and pocket squares from Topman. I also bought Rob and his two best men matching pairs of Paul Smith socks to wear on the morning, which looked fab!

Ceremony

The ceremony was without a doubt the best bit of the day. I could literally feel the love as I walked into the marquee. My Dad walked me down the aisle which had been touch and go after having a hip replacement operation only 10 days before. He is so proud of our family he was determined to do it and it was amazing to see everyone willing him on. You can’t get married at the Farmhouse so we had a small legal ceremony in front of 20 family and friends in June. On our wedding day we had a blessing carried out by Brad from Civil Ceremonies. Brad had led my son’s naming ceremony a couple of years ago so was our natural choice and it’s lovely he has been on our family’s journey with us. We wrote the whole ceremony with the help of Brad and chose to write our own vows to each other (included at the end). I love that everything we said was unique to each other. When I turned round after saying them most people were in tears – I have never felt more blessed to have such an amazing group of family and friends than in that moment. The air was so charged with emotion and feeling and it was all for us. I had asked my aunty to choose a reading that she thought represented Rob and I and to surprise us on the day. She chose the Velveteen Rabbit and it was beautiful. After she finished, my uncle stood up and gave Freddie a soft toy Velveteen Rabbit – there definitely wasn’t a dry eye in the house after that. To include Freddie we also did a sand ceremony – we had vases engraved with our initials and we all chose a coloured sand which together we poured into a jar whilst Brad said a few words. I love this and the jar of sand is such a lovely reminder of our day.

Entertainment

We had the amazing Val Hill sing during the ceremony and drinks reception. I chose to walk in to an acoustic version of Clean Bandit and Jess Glynne’s ‘Rather Be’ and we danced out to American Author’s ‘Best Day of my Life’. In the evening we had the very cool Redwings band who played a mix of all our favourite songs. We didn’t have a first dance and instead asked everyone to boogy on down with us to Walk the Moon’s Shut up and Dance. Later they did a sing off between the girls and the boys and everyone got very competitive! Needless to say the girls won!

Food

The cake was a four tier cheese cake from the Northumberland Cheese Company who were the farm’s next door neighbours. They gave us a taster kit and we had a cheese and wine evening with friends to select what we wanted – we overdosed and couldn’t eat cheese for a long time after that! The Hog and Apple Food Company provided the most delicious food of canape starter, chicken and Yorkshire puddings and a delectable lemon posset and eton mess served in jars. In the evening we served the cheese cake with port and chillidogs in paper boxes. Everyone said it was the best food they’d had at a wedding. Everything from the flavouring to the service was exact and we were over the moon. A friend at work has a sweet shop and she provided old fashioned sweets in paper bags too.

Photographer

Katy Melling was without doubt the best wedding photographer we could have wished for. I adore her work and she is so natural and lovely, she became more like a friend. She had photographed us as a family before so we knew her already but her vision and eye for how to create an amazing photograph really came into its own on our day when we were constantly looking out for rain. I actually forgot she was there at one point and Rob and I were in this little world of our own swishing around and having fun. I cried the first time I saw the pictures, she has made sure the love, laughter, emotion, tears and amazing memories that we shared on our wedding day have been captured forever.

Videographer

We are very lucky that Rob’s second cousin is the uber talented Jeff from Jeff Wood Visuals who filmed our day as a wedding present. He travels the world shooting wedding videos for famous people so we were honoured when he could take the time to do ours. His work is nothing less than breath taking!

Beauty

Lisa Jones, make up lady extrordinaire, did all our make-up and hair in the morning and came back again in the evening not only to touch the bridal party but also set up a make-up stand for 2 hours for guests who wanted their make up taking from day to night. She made us all look and feel fabulous all day and I couldn’t have imagined our wedding without her. I would definitely recommend doing this to all other brides!

Wedding Co-ordinator

And lastly as our venue wasn’t a wedding venue I hired an on-the-day coordinator, Donna Hartley-Redfearn, which was the best thing I did. She took over from me 2 weeks before the day and it meant I could relax and enjoy the build up. She took care of all the essentials on the day and ran everything to time like a friendly sergeant major. She gave us the day we hoped for and we are eternally grateful to her for that.

Advice

If I could give other brides one piece of advice it would be to make sure you eat the food, drink the champagne, dance to the music, laugh with your friends and kiss the boy (or girl) because at the end of the day the wonderful memories are all you’re left with and nothing else really matters.