Lucy & Liam

You really get a feel for a couple from looking at their wedding photographs, and when we received the images from lovely Lucy and Liam's big day - it was clear to me that they were a gorgeous couple inside and out. Then I read Lucy's words and I now love them a little bit more. Their proposal story is the absolute best and it definitely deserves you sitting down comfortably with a nice cuppa before you read. Plus any couple who make the most of rain on their wedding day in plastic ponchos definitely understand what it's all about... The gorgeous images come from Camilla Andrea who has captured every detail and emotion perfectly. This is such a heart warming wedding, I just know it's going to put a smile on your face!

Our Story

Lucy the Bride: Liam and I first met at school when we were 14, but we weren't great friends or anything! We 'went out' with each other once which lasted about two weeks and I'm not even sure we really spoke the whole time he was my boyfriend! Jump forward to 2005, Liam was in Australia and randomly met an old school friend of mine. All the way in Australia! Weird hey! So he emailed me to let me know of this chance meeting and then we just emailed occasionally for a while. Some time early 2007 we met in Southwold, a beautiful little seaside town near where Liam lived. Since then we have just never really been apart. We've had two beautiful boys, Jude who's nearly 6 and Beau who's 3. I was starting to think he'd never actually ask the question! Nearly 10 years in with 2 children! To me it seemed like a good time! So imagine my surprise when on the 17th December 2016 we went to Southwold for a walk as we often do, Liam's mum and dad had our boys so we were going to have a nice lunch just the two of us, we were walking down the pier looking at some of the plaques and then I spotted it... 17/12/16 Lucy Morris Will you marry me? I couldn't believe he'd actually done it!! I was overwhelmed and blubbed loads. We went to have lunch, where all of our families were waiting, again I was so surprised and blubbed loads again! We booked our wedding for the following September, 9months seemed like plenty of time to plan a simple small wedding.

The Venue

I went to look at The Georgian Townhouse in Norwich after spotting it online. It looked lovely in the pictures with lots of character, and not too large. I loved it and booked it, hoping Liam would too! (He did, phew!) What was also great about it was there was no venue hire fee just a minimum spend which was great as it had to be spent on food and drink. So we were able to have a free bar until about 9pm :)

The Ceremony

We were unable to get a registrar to officially marry us on the 9th. So we got married on the 6th with two witnesses, Liam's best man Alex and his wife Beth. I then looked into getting a celebrant to perform our ceremony on the 9th. I found the Ceremony People run by Caroline Richards and Lisa Harper. Both previously worked as registrars and now run their own business being able to perform more personal weddings without the restrictions a legal ceremony requires. We had Caroline do ours and we loved her! She made sure our ceremony was really personal to us. Lots of people commented on how lovely it was.

The Decor

We bought loads of fairy lights to go with the ones already in the room, we loved how beautiful they looked against the dark walls. For the ceremony chairs Liam's mum found inspiration from an image on Pinterest, spending a pretty penny on gypsophila! It was really simple but looked really effective. We also used flickering real wax fake candles for our ceremony table along with our flowers which then were moved to be centrepieces for the meal. A family friend, Sarah made us a gorgeous customised wooden letter box using pyrography techniques for all our guests cards which we were so happy with. Liam and I also recycled a pallet to display the running of the day which we did with paint, stencils and quite a few sharpies! My mum also collected a tonne of jam jars and decorated them, we had candles in them too. Overall the feel was quite eclectic, which inadvertently we were probably going for!

The Flowers

Our flowers!!! I was absolutely over the moon with our beautiful flowers by the lovely Katy who owns and runs Bracken & Twine. We met with her once to discuss the sort of thing we wanted, quite wild seasonal flowers. The colours to be quite dark but with some bright flowers too. She absolutely nailed it! I could not have been happier, nor have I ever seen such beautiful arrangements with so many different flowers incorporated. Katy supplied our favours for the women, little succulents wrapped in hessian, my flowers for my hair, button holes, table centre pieces and my bouquet. I cannot recommend her enough if you're from Norwich looking for a florist, Katy's the one you need to go with!

The Cake

Our cake was made by Lisa Whitham who owns and runs Spooncake in Loddon, Norfolk. We both went to School with Lisa and knew how talented she was. I literally had a few messages back and forth describing the naked cake we'd like and it just turned up on the day looking and tasting perfect! Thanks Lisa!

The Dress

I got my dress from WED2BE. I was determined not to leave that shop until I found a dress! Their prices range from £99-£599. Which I thought was great as I just really didn't want to spend a fortune on a dress I was wearing just once. I ended up finding the 'Harper' dress for around £370. I didn't have any bridesmaids, this allowed us to get away with not really having a colour scheme, Jude and Beau were pageboys and wore shorts from Next and a shirt and waistcoat combo from John Lewis, Liam's mum Jenny found them about a week before and they went perfectly! They also has matching Converse trainers.

The Beauty

By profession I am a hair and make up artist. My inspiration comes from some of the industries leading professionals like Mario Dedivanovic (Kim Kardashian's makeup artist), Joyce Bonelli (Kardashian's too) and Michael Ashton (Adele's makeup artist), who I follow on Instagram and am often inspired by. It's these looks that they're creating that my clients are most interested in. Although day to day I experiment with different makeup looks, I knew that for my wedding I wanted something classic that I wouldn't regret in the years to come. In the weeks leading up to the wedding I was experimenting with different colours and styles, however, couldn't really decide on an exact look that I wanted. I knew that on the day I'd create a look that I was happy with. For my hair all I really knew was that I didn't want it to look too neat, I wanted it to look very relaxed, wavy and it to be half up so I didn't have to worry about it falling out of place as I was going for that natural look.

The Groom

Liam had looked on Pinterest for inspiration to create a mix and match outfit, he knew he didn't want a matching suit. He found their black chinos from Next, waist coats also from Next, jackets from ASOS, the brand is Gianni Feraud and bow ties were by French Connection.

The Photography

Camilla Andrea was our wedding photographer. She was recommended, and after looking at her work I knew straight away that we had to have her, and luckily she was available! We both loved her style and we knew she would capture not only the formal photos but also those candid moments throughout the day. She did not disappoint and we couldn't be happier with our photos. We had most of our group and couple pictures taken not far from our venue in the Plantation Gardens in Norwich. It's so beautiful there and provided many perfect backdrops for photos. We had had taken most of the pictures we wanted just before the heavy rain started, and thankfully most of our guests made it back relatively dry! Although I was obviously hoping it didn't rain, we actually ended up with some pretty cool pictures, in trendy yellow rain macs! (Thanks to Camilla for having them in her bag!) And Camilla, like a true professional, ended up soaked in the name of her art. Camilla is obviously hugely passionate about her work, throughout the day she was positive and convivial and all of the guests thought she was lovely! Camilla's personality on top of her technical ability plays a huge part in her brilliance. We will be using her again soon to take some family pictures for us, and couldn't recommend her enough for anyone looking for a photographer.