Kate & Keith

Wow, what a venue! The Sefton Park Palm House in Liverpool not only looks incredible but provided the inspiration for this truly breathtaking botanical wedding. There's succulents as favours and buttonholes, gorgeous white blooms in metallic spray painted jars and the sweetest laurel stationery. Bride Kate wears an absolutely jaw dropping Giselle Anna Campbell gown which has the most fabulous embellished neckline, making Kate look like a grecian goddess with her flower crown and bridal braid. And as for her maids, what a picture they all look in their tea length gold lace Chi Chi London dresses. Talk about squad goals. We love it when couple find their wedding photographers through us which was the case for Kate & Keith with Cassandra Lane Photography, and there's no doubt in my mind with this gorgeous wedding you'll all be feeling inspired and making more enquiries too.

The Wedding

Kate the Bride: Right in the early stages of wedding planning, I knew I wanted a wedding dress that wasn’t traditional! I found an image on Pinterest of a bride in an Anna Campbell dress and loved the intricate embellishment and style of her designs. As Anna Campbell is an Australian designer, I feared that I would have to travel far and wide to try on her dresses. However, I found an exclusive stockist at Jean Jackson Couture in the Northern Quarter in Manchester; I didn’t have to travel very far at all! When I met Rebecca and Felicity in their stylish studio, I immediately felt at ease. They were both so friendly and pulled out a selection of dresses before I decided on ‘Giselle’ in ivory silk tulle. I was especially drawn to the detail on the back of the dress; the intricate beadwork on the cape was exquisite and the silk tulle meant that it was so light and comfortable to wear. I wore a matching cuff by Anna Campbell and my Aldo shoes complemented the silver beadwork on the dress. Before I even decided on the dress, I knew I didn’t want to wear a veil and I had always loved the idea of wearing flowers in my hair. I wore a beautiful floral crown which was made by our florist and included mainly foliage but with subtle florals and rosemary which gave a lovely fragrance throughout the day.

Grooms Attire

Keith also wanted to wear something different to a traditional wedding suit, so he chose grey chinos and a blue jacket and waistcoat, which were all from Ted Baker. He completed the look with a matching grey tie and pocket square and black brogues.

The Venue

Sefton Park Palm House is a Liverpool landmark and is a beautiful venue filled with tropical flowers and plants. It is set in the middle of Sefton Park, which itself is lovely and allowed us to have photographs in the woods. The venue is magical in the day and night and we were fortunate enough to have good weather on the day so we were able to have drinks and canapés outside. Sefton Park Palm House is open to the public throughout the year and often holds events including gin festivals and craft fairs, so we’ve been able to go back and remember our wedding day since.

Colour Scheme/Decor

Most of the decorations were made or sourced by ourselves! I found myself being drawn to metallic colours such as gold, silver and copper and subtly introduced these in our decorations. I spray painted and glittered wine bottles and jam jars which were filled with gypsophila, single stem flowers and foliage by our florist to complement my bouquet. We hung white honeycomb paper balls from the plants and fitted our own festoon and coloured lighting for the evening. Our family and friends helped us out in so many ways, especially my Mum making the cake and Col who designed all our wedding stationery in a botanical theme. Our favours were mini succulents in plant pots for the ladies and bottles of Burscough Brewery Ale for the men, a nod to our favourite pub in our village.

Florist

As the name suggests, the Palm House has many beautiful plants and flowers, so we didn’t need too many floral decorations. Yvette at The Flower Barn came highly recommended by a few of my friends, and I really enjoyed working with her to enhance the botanical theme for our wedding. I wanted the wedding flowers to look quite relaxed – my bouquet was loose and trailing and was a mixture of foliage, eucalyptus, rosemary, listhianthus and stocks. Our centrepieces complemented the bouquet and floral crown and our bridesmaids had gypsophila bouquets. Keith and the groomsmen wore buttonholes which contained succulents, listhianthus and eucalyptus.

The Wedding Party Fashion

Our bridesmaids had their dresses before I’d even started looking for mine! I got them online from Chi Chi, the gold colour tied in well with our colour scheme and was in a really flattering style. Our Fathers and best man Olie wore navy suits from Next.

Entertainment

We had a pianist called Ed Alexander play our chosen songs during the ceremony and for drinks afterwards. In the evening, we had a live band called Harlequin. We had seen Harlequin perform a few times before our wedding, so we knew how good they were at getting the party started! They played a great selection of songs, and even the guitarist joined in on the dance floor and got all our guests dancing in a routine to the music!

Food

Our fabulous food was provided by The Yacht Club Liverpool. Adam and Abbie had a fresh approach to catering and we really could have chosen anything we wanted! We decided on a selection of canapés after the ceremony, including pork and apricot sausage rolls and goat’s cheese arancini, which went down nicely with the prosecco welcome drinks. Our wedding breakfast was designed around our guests sharing food using a lazy susan, which was perfect in achieving the relaxed atmosphere we wanted our day to be. To start, we ate from an antipasti sharing board, followed by roast chicken with Mediterranean vegetables and a duo of sticky toffee pudding and Eton mess for dessert. In the evening, we had a selection of sausage barms and fish and chips for late night snacks.

Photographer

Thanks to Rock My Wedding, we found our fabulous photographer Cassandra Lane. We wanted a photographer that would capture the day as it happened without too many formal photos and Cass fitted the bill perfectly. Cass was so friendly; our family and friends said how they felt like they’d known her for ages on the day! We went into the woods and used purple smoke grenades to achieve a dramatic background for some of the photos. We’re so pleased with the final photos we have.

Videographer

We weren’t sure whether to have a videographer, and it wasn’t until a couple of months before the wedding we decided to book Cath Prescott-Develing. We’re so glad we did! My fears of a videographer with a huge camcorder and microphone were allayed as Cath was really discrete in capturing our day.

The day

We both had a relaxed time on the morning of our wedding! I got ready with my family and bridesmaids at my parents’ house. We had our makeup done by Sam from Ruby Slippers and hair by my hairdresser for many years, Shelley Wood. Once Keith was ready, he had a couple of drinks in his namesake bar - Keith’s Wine Bar on Lark Lane - right around the corner from our venue! We had two lovely 1970s Rolls Royce Silver Shadows from Silver Lady Wedding Cars to take us to the Palm House. My dad and I walked into the ceremony to Canon in D by Pachabel, which was played by our pianist Ed. James, my sister’s partner, read ‘The One’ during our ceremony and Keith and I walked out to Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles.