I’m thrilled to share the details of my own wedding! Last September, I married Alex at The Canary Shed. Having worked there, I knew I loved the space, and it allowed for the perfect amount of adding your own look to the day whilst having heaps of personality already. The reason I justify the venue being in Essex, when I’ve relocated to Bristol, is now I can share our favourite highlights from our wedding day and all my top tips as a wedding supplier who has recently had a wedding!
A little flick through the details of our wedding 💁🏻♀️
1. Our top table featured a beautiful long and low vase to sit in front of us, repurposed aisle meadows along the front of the table. Our other table flowers were footed ceramic bowl designs, ikebana style flowers and bud vases to mix up heights and textures. We had opted for colourful water glasses and napkins to add a little more colour to the settings but chose a simple, cream runner to let the details pop.
2. I really wanted us to have a moment together in the wedding breakfast we had so diligently planned and talked about for so long. It was a wonderful feeling seeing everything I’d thought about, designed, made and chosen, come to life.
3. Our wedding stationery was designed and made by the incredible @inkandpaper_ldn using her traditional letter press techniques. The quality was extraordinary and so many of our guests commented on them being the nicest stationery they’d ever received 🥰
4&5. This wedding sign was a labour of love! Originally a backdrop from a wedding fair for my business, I hand painted our names in our special font (from @inkandpaper_ldn) as well as crafting a box for the flowers to go into. It worked beautifully for the day and I was so pleased to have a handmade feature to welcome our guests.
6. Our table names were thought of by my (then) fiancé, they’re all different types of tables! We had guest sitting on the bird table, kids table and pivot table (accountants joke there…!) the sign was inspired by one I found on Pinterest using dozens of paper cranes carefully threaded onto fishing line, made during the long summer evenings in the lead up to the wedding. It was a fiddly make but looked so effective!
My weird wedding obsession… 👀
My all consuming fear about my wedding was that my guests would be…. Bored.
I’ve never been bored at a wedding but I was so concerned that my guests would be, I created all sorts of entertainment for them, so they wouldn’t be!
1. I spent hours on Canva creating a couple of ‘sip n solve’ puzzles, bespoke to us. We had a wordsearch and crossword which I printed on each side of a board so we could flip it over when one side was complete! This was a great addition for cocktail hour.
2. Instead of party favors (as a wedding supplier I sadly see dozens of these left at weddings when I collect the morning after!) I opted to have a wedding guest illustrator. The incredible @kirstybowks_bespokes came to our venue and setup a little table to draw our guests for us. Her drawings are absolutely adorable and our guests were delighted with them and every single one made their way home! For the few important people who missed out (due to family photos etc), I asked Kirsty to draw them for us as Christmas gifts which were even more well received ❤️
3. During our incredible ceremony with @natraybouldweds, we asked all of our guests to take a shot to toast with us, after we said our vows. We made Bajan Rum Punch a few evenings before the wedding in a big batch to decant into small bottles. We had this drink a lot on a trip to Barbados a few years ago and we wanted to bring some of that warmth and joy into our ceremony for our guests. We did have an alcohol free version which was an apple and ginger shot too. 🥃
One thing we booked very early on (and so glad we did) was the incredible @olddirtybrasstards as our wedding band. We’ve actually seen them several times when we lived in London and my husband had the idea of seeing if they play at weddings and was very excited to learn that they did. A wedding band gets the party started like nothing else and the dance floor was full from the first til last song!
The goodest of boys and professional florist support dog, Jasper was inevitably part our wedding. He’s a huge part of our lives and we couldn’t imagine celebrating without him.
We had a dog chaperone, which I would hugely recommend to anyone having their dog at their wedding. Family and friends will offer but you want them to be part of your wedding and not distracted so it really is good to have someone dedicated to ensure they’re having a good time too. We weren’t sure how he’d react to being around so many people but as you can see, he took it in his stride.
I made him a flower collar which I’d tested on him previously and he’d worn very happily. On the day though he decided to roll around with it on, lose a couple of flowers and then eat them 😂 it wouldn’t have been him without that!
He was of course our ring bearer and was walked down the aisle by one of our friends. I velcroed the ring pouch onto his harness to avoid any issues so he could walk nice and easily. He was very happy, perhaps a little confused to see us all dressed up at the end of the aisle.
He then went for a lovely walk and a sleep with the chaperone who then bought him back for some golden hour photos with us. We wouldn’t usually have photos of us with hin so it’s wonderful to have these memories.
I still find it so funny how he looks directly into camera in each photo 🌟
Florist @femme_petale
Photographer @amirobertsonphotographer
Venue @thecanaryshed
Videographer @littlemoments_films
Wedding Dress @madewithlovebridal
Wedding Dress Alterations @abigailwestrupbridal
Tiara @laceandfavour
Confetti @flutterdarlings
Gift List @prezola
Food @sabelfood
Invitations @inkandpaper_ldn
Band @olddirtybrasstards DJ@elementweddingdjs
Celebrant @natraybouldweds
Bridal Boutique @thewhitecollection
Hair Stylist @hairbyannabel
MUA @alevmiller
Grooms Suit @paulsmithdesign
Donut Wall @crosstown
Illistrator @kirstybowks_bespoke