Lizzie & Adam

Hi everyone, I don't get the opportunity to write much on these pages anymore so if you don't know who I am please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Adam Crohill and I am co-owner and Creative Director here at Rock My Wedding. Today's wedding is rather special for me because, well... It's my wedding. Lizzie and I married at Elmore Court in the Cotswolds in September 2016. We had an outdoor ceremony, Lizzie wore an Anna Campbell wedding gown and I wore a suit by Cad & The Dandy But enough about me, I'm going to place you in the capable hands of my wife...

The Dress

Lizzie The Bride: I knew what I wanted, but I wasn’t finding it. I went dress shopping a few times and everything looked nice but nothing was ‘the one’. Either too big, too slinky, too fishtail and then I just so happened to see an instagram post from Coco & Kate revealing a rack of what can only be described as the most glorious dresses. I stalked all of the wedding designers that they stocked and then, I found her. Anna Campbell. It was almost like it was meant to be as I had a trip to Australia planned with my girls and we were starting and finishing in Melbourne - so I booked a fitting at the Anna Campbell Armadale flagship store. Such a beautiful space, light and bright with rails and rails of the most phenomenal dresses I have ever seen. I chose Sierra ‘Slim line’ and I had no doubt it was the one. You don’t have to go to Australia to buy your Anna Campbell dress, there are UK stockists - the very lovely Coco & Kate being one of them. Dress in hand, it was now time to find shoes so I headed to Emmy London. Visit with caution as you’ll never leave empty handed! Now, I originally purchased the same shoes as my bridesmaids, a simple pair of blush pink pointed heels called ‘Speaker’ from ASOS but, but but but... It was my wedding day and with the top of my dress being so heavily embellished and the skirt so beautifully plain, I knew it could handle something more. I knew I wanted something high and i’d already obsessed about the 'Victoria' prior to my visit but seriously, when you try these on in real life they become something else, and so comfortable. I thought i’d have to change them at some point during the evening but they stayed firmly on my feet until gone midnight (when we started dancing on the tables - definitely all the doing of Rock My Style editor Lauren Coleman ). At this point naturally they had to come off for safety reasons!

The Hair

Sev from the Hepburn Collection made my wedding hair dreams come true, it was definately a journey and Sev's hair designs evolved in the months leading up to the wedding until we reached perfection. I’m much more of a ‘hair down’ type of girl and if I do wear my hair up then it’s always more ‘messy’ (Sev would say soft) than neatly placed perfection. When I went for my trial I liked both the hair up and the hair down options so Sev suggested we do both, hair up for the ceremony complete with Anna Campbell Julia Comb and then take it down after for a more relaxed look that way in the evening I could wear the super amazing Isla Headpiece that I wasn't sure I could pull off all day. I know you’re all probably reading this thinking what a waste of such a lovely hairstyle but ladies (and gents) why not have it all?!

The Makeup

Katy Bird was my go to girl for makeup. With all the sparkle on the dress, I asked for her a 1920s/Gatsby type look and then I just let her do her thing. A few things about Katy, she’s incredibly talented, she's absolutely bloody lovely and she’s the sort of person you want doing your make up on your wedding day - she has such a calming influence. I have lots of love for Katy... Oh, she also did my Mum’s makeup and the lovely Anna Clarke (one half of WE ARE THE CLARKES ) you’ll see her beautiful face in some of the pictures).

The Grooms Fashion & accessories

Adam has always wanted to have a bespoke suit made and decided that this was the right time for him to make that investment. He Chose Cad & The Dandy who are on Saville Row, based purely on seeing grooms and groomsmen on Rock My Wedding looking great in their tailored creations. He paired his light grey three piece suit with brown brogues from Oliver Sweeney, rose gold pocket watch and accessories that he found on ebay and a pair of rose gold cufflinks that I had etched with our wedding monogram that he opened on the mornign of the wedding. The groomsmen wore navy blue three peice suits hired from Moss Bross. Everyone wore the same navy blue polka dot tie from French Connection paired with a white pocket square from Moss Bross... Although Adam left four pocket squares at home. Luckily one oversized white napkin stolen from the Elmore Court Kitchens and cut into quarters was almost a perfect replacement!

The Venue

Elmore Court, located in Gloucestershire ticked all the boxes on our venue checklist. We both wanted a single venue for the whole event, we are also keen on getting married outside and Elmore offer a variety of locations for the ceremony including inside and outside spaces. The real ace up Elmore Courts sleeve is their purpose built reception venue called The Gillyflower The Gillyflower is a building made from the land, literally. The walls are made from mud taken from the hillside in which it nestles and it has a lawn roof. Because the building was designed with wedding receptions in mind it is the perfect space. When we met the team at Elmore Court we were blown away by how friendly and helpful they were, there was no pressure to work with any of their regular suppliers although they were on hand with suggestions and advice when we asked them about catering, accommodation and things like the running order of the day.

The Theme

We didn't set out with a specific theme in mind, it just evolved over lots of prosecco fuelled discussions. We wanted beautiful, relaxed, informal, a little bit industrial, fresh, botanical and boheme but stylised and full of texture with neutral tones, rose gold, blush and dark green. Not much to ask right? Once we met up with Jemma Gade from The Country Flower Company it all started to come together. We talked about what we were ‘going for’ and then we looked at lots of images and she helped us to be really critical about what made us like a picture. Shape, texture, colour etc. Our floral theme was a combination of King Protea, David Austin ‘Juliet’ roses, Campanella roses and Jana spray roses. We used textural foliages such as eucalyptus, Baby Blue and silver dollar with soft ruscus and asparagus fern. We knew we wanted to use Elmore’s Trestle tables so we just needed to measure them up so that we knew how many vases, tea lights, candle holders and meters of foliage garland we'd need. We bought most of our vases from Nukuku and we scented the room with Jo Malone Wood Sage and Sea Salt paired with English Pear and Freshia. I’d definitely recommend the Jo Malone complimentary ‘scent your wedding’ experience (or failing that just popping into the store on your lunch break for a hand and arm massage but you’ll never leave empty handed). On another note but still related to Jo Malone, I am a huge fan and I thought I knew all of their perfumes... But I didn’t. Turns out there are some that are only stocked at the Regent Street Flagship store - for the wedding day I wore one of the Regent Street exclusives ‘Peony & Moss’. Try it, it’s flipping lovely. We draped foliage around the table plan with some battery operated festoon style lighting I picked up from Tiger for £10. The table plan was a huge retro 'barber board' that we found at Rose & Grey - Adam sprayed some of the letters with rose gold spray paint and then went on to spray pretty much everything! Creating ombre effects on Candles, Glasswear, Tea light holders, the WINE BOTTLES… yes, he masked and sprayed every single wine bottle top - all 120 of them. This may seem like madness but looked fantastic, especially combined with the bespoke wine bottle labels that Adam designed and had printed.

The Tables

Thanks to Pinterest and of course Rock My Wedding, we had some big dreams for how we wanted to present our tables. Thankfully the lovely Maria-Antonia from Duchess & Butler was on hand to make them all come true. On her expert advice we went for vintage lace charger plates, paired with blush pink glass wear and rose gold cutlery.

The Bridemaids

Anyone else having fun with their bridesmaids dresses? A one size fits all approach wasn't going to work and actually, it’s not what I wanted. I wanted simple, mismatched, perfectly blended dresses but most of all I wanted my maids to feel comfortable and happy with what they were wearing. My biggest bit of advice here would be to stick to you guns, try not to get to stressed and it will all work out. After 5 months, quite a few shopping trips and more online orders and returns than I care to remember, we hit perfection for under £350. That's pretty good for 7 dresses. The first time I saw them all together in their dresses was in the morning as Sev was finishing my hair - such a memory. On their trotters they wore ASOS Speaker in Blush Pink a bargain at £28 a pair. My incredibly talented friend Amy Norvill did all of the girls makeup and Sev did their hair.

The Ceremony

We opted for an outdoor ceremony and although we did have a plan B, we didn’t need it - thankfully the sunshine was glorious and everyone had their sunnies on. For readings, we had Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen’ and ‘Absolute Beginners’ by David Bowie - These two readings struck a nice balance of informality and meaning. For those of you who know my husband, music is his passion so this really was an integral part of our day. I walked down the Aisle to ‘Two Wooden Spoons’ by This Is The Kit (the live version where Kate Stables does her amazing whistle). We used Alive Network to source our entertainment and it didn’t take us long to spot Megan & The Bourbon Boys who played jazz influenced versions of ‘Crazy in Love’, ‘L-O-V-E’ and ‘It’s not unusual’ during the ceremony and then after the wedding breakfast and speeches, they played again for our guests into the early evening.

The First Dance (& The Cake)

Before we talk about the first dance, we should probably discuss the EPIC cake made for us by Charlotte from Buttercream & Dreams (and also editor of Rock My Family). We asked for a semi-naked, multi tiered, carrot cake. We were totally blown away, that right there is some serious cake. ALL of our wedding guests mention the cake when indulging in post wedding chat. Best cake they’ve ever tasted, to which I completely concur. And yes, that’s a Spitfire on top (a nod to my career in the Royal Air Force) and yes, Adam spray painted it Rose Gold. After we cut the cake (in the most un-elegant and untidy way ever known to man) we danced for the first time as husband and wife to ‘At last’ played by our band The After 8s. Adam really wanted a funk and soul band for the evening reception (And they had to have a live brass section, that was a deal breaker apparently). Alive Network recommended The After 8s and they were the perfect party band playing a mix of songs from the 60s right up to modern day which kept all of our guests on the dance floor well into the wee hours.

The Photographer

Adam met Ann-Kathrin Koch a little over 5 years ago now in the early days of Rock My Wedding and she has subsequently become a dear friend of us both so it was an absolute pleasure to have her shoot our wedding (Although maybe we should have given her the night off and asked her along as a guest) By now you'll have seen her pictures in this post if not before and I am sure you'll agree that her work is stunning. We are so happy with our wedding pictures and also our engagment shoot which you can see here if you wish. Not only is Ann extremely talented in the picture box department, she’s also friendly, funny and warm - you couldn't ask for a better combination in a photographer... Or friend!

The Wedding Film

Adam has known Simon Clarke from WE ARE // THE CLARKES for even longer than Ann... By two weeks to be precise. Simons Films are simply breathtaking, they bring memories to life. The first time we watched our wedding film we were both genuinely speechless (and pretty emotional), the second, third and fourth time... Exactly the same. I can bet we'll stil have that same reaction in 30 years time too. You can feel the love and energy in Simons work and I am so pleased that we have these beautiful moving pictures to treasure forever. Please do take a look at our 5 minute preview film below... And then email WE ARE // THE CLARKES to find out if they are available on your date!!

Final Thoughts

Everything takes longer than you think. Adam is the co-owner of Rock My Wedding so he should know better... But it is different when it is your big day. We didn't hire a wedding planner but I can now fully appreciated the value in one. We were lucky becuase The staff at Elmore court were so good on the day that it felt like we had a wedding planner keeping everything on schedule. We were also lucky enough to have the venue for the full day before the wedding, a rare luxury that meant that we could take our time setting up all the spaces. We invited our nearest and dearest to come and help set up in exchange for a few beers on "wedding eve" and a spag bol courtesy of Adam's Mum. Despite all this we still ran out of time, things got forgotten and things went wrong... But... None of that matters in the grand scheme of things. We were surrounded by all of our favourite people (massive shout out to all of our amazing guests and thank you for all of your love and support). We really had the perfect day and we enjoyed every second of it... Lizzie & Adam x