Lucy & Jonny

You clever lot always manage to find the most amazing venues to hold your wedding ceremonies and celebrations at. Lucy and Jonny discovered The Little Theatre Cinema and Silk Mill Studios in the West Country, both of which are utterly charming and amazing spaces to hold your nuptials at. Given they were marrying in a cinema, the super cute pair played the Disney Pixar short 'Lava' to guests, which went down a treat. Isn't that such a lovely idea? Lucy dazzles in a sequinned high street gown - yes I said high street - you'll have to read on to find out where she found it! Images come from the lovely Anna at Pear & Bear Photography.

Our Wedding

Lucy The Bride: As soon as we got engaged we knew that our wedding was going to be 100% 'us'. We both have incredibly small families and so the vast majority of our guests were friends - we knew right away that we wanted to ensure it was an amazing, unique day that no one would ever forget. We also knew that we wanted to do as much as humanly possible ourselves – not only to keep costs down but also so we could stand there on the day and say 'we did this'.

The Venue

With a bride from the south coast and a groom from up north, we decided we wanted a completely neutral location for the wedding, and also somewhere really special so all our guests could have a lovely weekend away. We had spent a lot of time in Bath and Bristol as a couple and absolutely love it, so it seemed like a natural choice. When we found The Little Theatre Cinema, we knew it was the one. We didn’t even look at any other ceremony venues as we fell in love with it immediately. We thought it was such a good find, that we kept it a secret until the day – only a handful of guests knew the location, and we put on the invitations for everyone else to congregate around the corner. Standing on the stage in front of the big screen looking out and seeing everyone sat in their velvet seats with tears in their eyes is something neither of us will ever forget.

The Ceremony

We wrote our bespoke ceremony with our independent celebrant Samantha Brown. She was so helpful and full of wonderful ideas. As we wrote on our invitations 'the important bits we are doing 'by the book' but after that, the book is going out the window!'. During our ceremony, instead of readings we chose to show the Pixar short 'Lava'. We are both huge Disney fans, and this beautiful film really encapsulated how we feel about each other – needless to say, there was not a dry eye in the house! We also wrote letters to each other and put them into a box with vintage champagne which we hammered down, with a plan to open it on or 5th anniversary and continue this tradition for many years to come. As well as this, we lit candles in remembrance of our late parents, and made a slide show of photos and funny videos of us, our family and friends which was shown when Sam was telling 'our story'. I walked down the aisle to the 'Flying Song' from E.T, which is a stunning piece of music anyway, but coupled with the location it was just perfect.

The Wedding Party

Once we had chosen our venue, we decided to carry the cinematic 'Hollywood Glamour' theme throughout the wedding party. The bridal party were in all dusky pinks and peaches, all completely different to suit their shapes, sizes and styles. Despite all being different, they looked beautiful together and next to the floor length sequins of my wedding dress. I am a self-confessed magpie, and as soon as I saw the Phase Eight dress, I bought it immediately - I didn’t try anything else on, I knew it was 'the one'. The boys were all in black, the groom wore a black tuxedo from John Lewis, and the best man, bridesman and ushers wore black suits in their own preferred styles all with matching black bow ties.

The Reception

Our reception was held at the Silk Mill Studios in Frome. We chose it because we wanted a completely blank canvas to do whatever we wanted with, and the mill – an old textile factory provided exactly this. We spent 3 solid days leading up to the wedding decorating it both inside and out. Every chair, table knife and fork we put out ourselves, just the two of us. I have always been creative and I always said if I ever got married that I wanted to do everything myself. At times I think we took this slightly too literally but standing there on the day looking around at everything the two of us had made, I could not have been more proud.

The Food

We made a DIY doughnut wall which sat on our pick and mix and cake table. Our cakes were 'Colin and Connie' the caterpillar cakes from Marks and Spencer. Colin had been a staple for any birthdays in both our households growing up, so it seemed only natural that they came to our wedding! We had a buffet on arrival which my Dad Mark and his partner Liz lovingly created for us, and it was amazing! Later in the evening, we had antipasti, stone baked pizzas, desserts and hot drinks provided by 'Flame Baked Pizza Co'. Throughout the planning we were keen to use suppliers which were small family run businesses and this company encompassed everything we were looking for. All our guests commented on what a great idea it was, and how delicious the food was.

The Decor

We decorated the venue with about 400 meters of artificial ivy which we wrapped around and hung from beams. We added paper lanterns and draping to create the dancefloor. Our tables were scattered with succulents and glitter, and were named after queens from our favourite tv show 'RuPauls Drag Race'. All the place names were hand drawn as was the table plan and all the signage around the venue. We also made a huge 'flower wall' which was made out of hundreds of tissue paper flowers and provided a really lovely backdrop for photos. We set up a 'glitter bar' in the toilets which we did not realise would be such a huge hit. By late afternoon we had glittery beards, entirely glittery faces, and glittery bald heads! Outside we made our own prosecco bar and main open bar – which we stocked with several booze cruise's to France! We did not want anyone to have to spend money on the day as they had all made such an effort to travel to Bath to be with us. This obviously went down really well with our guests (a little too well in some cases!) We decorated all of the old walls and gates with bunting and fairy lights. We had games including beer pong and huge connect four – complete with ugly photos of the bride and groom on the counters!

The Entertainment

Once the coach had dropped all the guests off to the Mill we had a live acoustic duo to greet everyone – Station 2 Station, who were fantastic and really set the tone for the rest of the day. We rented deckchairs from Party Bales for guests to relax outside in the sunshine with a drink. When the sun went down the party really started - Silent Noize were incredible and provided the most amazing normal and Silent disco. The silent disco was the highlight of the reception for everyone, especially as so many of our guests had never experienced one before. Our first dance was to 'Won't last a day without you' by the Carpenters and the last song of the night was Hey Jude during which everyone was in a huge circle singing their hearts out.

The Photography

All of this was captured by our wonderful photographer Anna of Pear & Bear Photography. She really understood our albeit sometimes 'out there' ideas, was so supportive and even on the day was running around helping us set things up. Our photos truly capture the fun, love and magic of our special day and we are so lucky to have been able to work with such a talented photographer.