Kara & Barry

Ohh you're in for a treat this morning lovelies. Firstly we're featuring the work of RMW fave Samuel Docker so you know he's going to capture all the emotion and fun of this gorgeous wedding at Lemore Manor, and secondly Bride Kara is Head of Design so you know all the details are going to be ridiculously amazing too. Let's start with the homemade fern stationery shall we, all the signs, menu cards, table names etc are so unbelievable fabulous it inspired Kara to start her own styling and design business Studio Khol. Team them with crisp white blooms, metallics and travel themed decor and you have one utterly gorgeously and very elegant looking reception room. My jaw literally fell to the floor when I saw Kara in her lace & tulle Pronovias wedding dress, such a beautiful silhouette. She looks a complete knockout. If you're anything like me I guarenteed you'll be cooing at the mini bridal party in their tutu's and shorts too, as well as beaming when you see the guests cutting some shapes on the dance floor and enjoying a space hopper race on the lawn. Such a fun wedding for a Monday, so wipe away those back to work blues and get stuck in.

The Dress

Kara the Bride: After a day of dress shopping with my mum, auntie and cousin, hitting the wedding club, Pronovias and Harrods for a pit stop! I didn’t find anything I liked, Pronovias was the closest with three dress having bits that I liked, I just wished they were all rolled into one dress. Come end of 2015 and I went back to see the 2016 season and somehow Pronovias had combined all the dresses into my dream dress!  As soon as I tried it on I knew it was the one! I absolutely loved the silhouette of it, and was quite dramatic with its tulle bottom so I opted for minimal accessories, just some earrings that were similar to my engagement ring.

The Grooms Fashion & Accessories

Barry has blue eyes and looks great in a blue suit, so for the wedding we knew we wanted him in electric blue. We went to House of Fraser in the sales and found a perfectly cut slim fit suit from Label Lab. 

We had a metallic palette with some greens and greys mixed in so Barry had a gold tie with silver tip from ASOS, a gold silk pocket square we found in a market and brown leather brogues from Ben Sherman. On the wedding day I bought him some Ray Bans which I had engraved with ‘Here comes the sun’ inside, and on the case the wedding date with ‘The future is bright’, those are a pair of sunnies he can’t loose! 

The Venue

We had searched high and low for the right venue within our budget and that provided a weekend long celebration where all the bedrooms were a good standard to accommodate our large families and friends. We found that in Lemore Manor, set in the Herefordshire Countryside it was private and exclusively for us. We have close relatives and friends all over the country so Herefordshire gave us a central location for all. With an outdoor bandstand and a promise of a brand new Orangery it was everything we hoped for.

Colour Scheme/Décor

I am a Head of Design so this was kind of my ultimate brief, my own wedding! I decided to dive in and plan our wedding on my own, I went with a palette of metallics, both gold and silver, mixed with a leafy greens and muted greys. The flowers I chose were all white along with any décor was metallics. As we love travelling so much and have so much more to do it seemed fitting to have a slight travel influence to the day, so my mum and I spent countless weekends trawling Homesense for globes for the centre pieces, jars were collected by friends and family for tealight holders and my lovely mum spray painted 110 of these metallic gold and silver over a few weekends, it was a labour of love! We had Limoncello and Amaretto miniature favours as we were off to Italy for the honeymoon and wanted to get everyone in the Italian mood! Our tables were named after groups of Islands or provinces we have travelled to or were high on our list! We bought some sunnies for everyone on the day and had a ‘Bindi Bar’, being half Indian so wanted to bring in subtle touches throughout the day. Even my dad had a bindi on his head come 5pm! Our guestbook were two framed world maps which we asked everyone to sign, a lovely memory to hang in our house.

Stationery

I designed our own bespoke stationery with a lush green style, bringing in palm leaves and ferns as the main focus, mixed with gold foiling for contrast. I had designed a website and a logo, printed weekend guides for the guests, put hangover kits in each room for the morning after. Printed order of service’s, menu’s and lots of signage for the day. I enjoyed it so much I plan to do it for lots of Brides and have set up Studio Khol for wedding styling and design.

Catering

Our food was prepared by Lemore Manor’s in house chef Mickey and was delicious, the evening food we again wanted an Italian feel, so we chose a wood fired pizza oven, where the pizza’s were cooked fresh in front of guests, this went down extremely well! All our guests brought cakes and desserts for our homemade dessert table, for which I made little cocktail flags and signs.

Flowers

I had enlisted Jane Edmonds of Long Barn Flowers. The main focus being the full hydrangea and monastera arch over the bandstand, which turned out perfectly. I chose white hydrangeas for the base of everything, along with some peonies for my bouquet. The buttonholes were made up of herbs and greenery along with a single white rose. My dad had clovers in his to represent a bit of his Irish heritage! I really wanted the ferns and palm leaves to feature throughout the day so we had some on the registrars table and along the top table to bring out the print I had used across all the stationery. As soon as we came out of the ceremony we were greeted with champagne and a white carnation garland each as they do in Indian weddings, again a little touch that meant a lot to me. My grandma would be proud!

The Wedding Party

I had three beautiful bridesmaids with very different complexions and haircolours so I was very open to them wearing different styles and colours, but the same material. We visited NABBD in Wimbledon, chatted to Polly the owner who was lovely, and chose the Watters dresses in 2 styles Tamara and 813 from the WTOO range. Two grey colours and a green to match the palm prints and floral details. They looked amazing together and really set the colour scheme off perfectly. We also had three very pretty flowergirls, the eldest Keira wore a grey In One Clothing Junior Bridesmaid Multiway Dress in Slate which she wore as a halter style and the two younger flowergirls Darcie & Lauren wore tutus from etsy and leotards from H&M. All three wore sparkly ballerina pumps from Next. The floral crowns were a great last touch. My handsome ring bearer Dexter wore a 2 piece shorts and waistcoat from John Lewis which was so cute, and he got some personalized Converse from Deadfresh which made his day! He looked extremely dapper! The best man, my brother and usher wore blue suits from French Connection, which looked great, along with silver ties and pocket squares, our dads wore their own blue suits with their own choice of tan brogues.

Ceremony

The morning of was amazing with my best friends and family around. Barry had sent a card for me to open and contained a note about a surprise weekend for October for us and our puppy Frankie, as we had to leave her with the dog sitter for the wedding weekend and were gutted we couldn’t bring her! My mum had had a commemorative lace heart sewn into the skirt of my dress which was very touching and was my something new and blue! My cousin who flew in from Miami did a reading for us, and it got very emotional – she read ‘It was always you’ by Michael Ernst. Barry and I have been together for 12 years but had broken up for 4 in the middle, staying friends throughout so this had extra meaning for us. We had Pianist Loucas from POP LDN playing songs as guest entered for the ceremony then ‘A thousand years’ by Christina Perri and ‘One Day Like This’ by Elbow as we walked out. The speeches were all excellent, my dad was very emotional throughout the day so his was extra special, Barry nailed it and had everyone in the room in laughter and at the end in tears!

Entertainment

My good friend John, lead singer of Staring Out The Sun sung our first dance by Sam Smith ‘Latch’ and it was incredible! Our band POP LDN then took it into the disclosure version to get everyone up on the dancefloor, it was a special moment for sure! We absolutely loved POP LDN, we are so glad we booked them, an excellent band, that sung songs sometimes better than the original! Loved them! Everyone was raving about them for weeks afterwards

Photographer

What can we say about Samuel Docker! Talented, genuine and a complete addition to our wedding day. Sam’s relaxed and easy going approach and personality added not only to our day but to many of our guest’s memories, coupled with his outstanding photography was something we will never forget.