Our Wedding Day - May 2015!

Dum dum de dummm, dum dum de dummm.... well actually I walked/cried my way down the aisle to Sigor Ros' Hoppipolla and it still gives me tingles to this day.

I got married to Mr B on May 30th 2015 and I will honestly say (as everyone does) that it was the best day of my life today. Two main reasons for this;

1. I married Mr B (obvs)

2. Most of our loved ones were in the same room at the same time.. something that probably won't ever happen again (booo!)

The Dress

My personal experience as a plus size bride trying to hunt down 'the dress' however, was horrible.... beyond this world horrible. 

I went in to one shop to browse with my mum and sister where we could only browse the sample sizes and the plus size dresses were drab, old and very far between.

I popped into a shop locally to be 'shown' to the plus size section of around 3 dresses.

Thirdly (if that's a word) I went to a lovely shop (on my own due to being so far away from family) who had a reasonable plus size bridal section, not only did none of dresses fit that they had in,  I swear designers (or the shops that order the samples in at least) think you should be covered from head to toe, in millions of layers of fabric and lots of hoops and ties. I cried so much in this shop and the where the staff were kind, promising they would make some calls and come back to me... I'm still waiting for this call nearly 2 years later!! This said I did NOT want to go back to a shop as this experience really threw me off.

As an alternative, I hopped on line (knowing that I wanted a tea length dress) and found HoneypieBoutique. These guys are an online shop only, dresses are made to order by choosing a style and sending your measurements across and they are then ordered from abroad! No alarm bells are needed at all at the thought of this dress coming from abroad (I’ve seen some delightful horror stories of other people’s experiencing) – it was fab!

My dress was the Lauren, you can see the style on the link above, and when it came (despite some small issues with the measurements I provided – my error totally), it was beautiful!

I opted for it in Champagne and went for a lace overlay and it was totally worth this litte extra cost. Along with a long sleeve lace bolero and a red/pink netted underskirt I think it came to around £425 including postage, bargain! It took around 3 months to arrive (standard really) and came recorded delivery!


Hair & Makeup

My sister and I had our hair and makeup done by Grace Kingsley (Bristol based) and my mum and mother-in-law had their hair done too. Grace was so professional on the day and at the hair trial beforehand. I can say, hand on heart, that because of Grace being so down to earth and lovely that this was a great help on the morning of the wedding. She came to the hotel too (as I stayed there the night before) which was really handy. Most importantly, she did such a lovely job with both hair and makeup that I would highly recommend her to anyone (she doesn’t just do weddings!!)

Venue

Venue wise, we chose The Grange Hotel in Winterbourne, Bristol.

It’s run by the Mercure Group and they offered brilliant packages at the time we booked them (around Sep 2013).

This had all we were looking for:

·        We could hold the ceremony, reception and evening do in the same place.

·        We could opt for an all inclusive package – meaning we could use their approved suppliers and the cost was included with the venue package.

·        We could actually offer our guests several options for food choices for the wedding breakfast (normally unheard of!)

·        Accommodation was on site (hotel.. duh Hannah!) and we were given a great deal for rooms – meaning many of our friends and family stayed around for the WHOLE weekend.

The hotel's wedding team were really accommodating with all of our requests, including dropping off treat bags to the overnight guest’s rooms.

Only downside is that we went through a couple of wedding planners which gave a little bit of inconsistency and the need to have to repeat yourself a few times – a massive tip here is always back up arrangements via email (they come in handy!!).

Toastmaster

One of the extra things that came with our package was a Toastmaster. 

At first, we genuinely weren't interested (as we were having 2 best men) and we could not have one and save the money BUT then we met Dave the Toast Master (aka Dave Stallworthy).

He is one of the most charming characters we have ever met and we first spoke to him just after we'd initially booked the venue - still undecided at this stage about a Toastmaster, within 10 minutes of chatting to Dave we were completely sold!

Every time we met him before the weddings (at wedding open days at the hotel) or if we were sorting something out at the hotel and he was working on another wedding, he was nothing but charming, polite and made you smile!

I'm so glad we booked him for our wedding. He organised everyone from bringing my dad up to my room to see me before walking me down to the registrars, to helping the boys (one of which being Mr B) with their cravats, to helping the photographer collect people for our group shots and assisting my mum onto the grass verge to just being amazingly dedicated to us all day - he also gave us a little card with a lucky sixpence of which we'll keep forever!

Food (Daytime)

Our food for the wedding breakfast was supplied by the hotel and some of the dishes are below... these were AMAZING!

As part of our package we had a wedding menu tasting session where we decided what dishes we wanted so Mr B and I knew this part was going to fabulous!!  I heard the canapés were good too... but we never got any as they came out during photo time... I believe my nephew may have snaffled our share (on his tenth mini burger in!).

Favours

We had Lego favours. Surely that's all I need to say?? 

Essentially Mr B and I took a trip to Argos one soggy afternoon when they had a toy sale on and we essentially bought 70 odd minifigure packets. 

When we got in, we ripped all the packets open and transferred them into mini organza bags. 

When our guests sat down they each got a little figure to build and by complete coincidence Mr B and I also got our own little bride and groom Lego figures which she'd had placed on our top table for us :) 

Photographer

We spent a lot of time hunting down a photographer that:

a.      We both liked them (as a person)

b.     We could afford.

c.      We both liked the style of photos.

Here enters Mr Simon Barnes from Simon Barnes Photography! 

We saw a lot of photographers and we came across Simon at a local wedding fayre. Aside from the venue and rings, this was the biggest cost for us as the photos would have would be with us forever.

Please check him out, he is genuinely nice guy, takes gorgeous photos, is so professional and likes a cheeky banana sandwich to keep his energy levels up during the day.He may have also said we were the best smelling couple he’d photographed so I’m a little bit biased... the photo below was taken by Simon as well most of (not all) the photos in this post (Disclaimer - I've had to use lower quality versions of the photos to load into the blog - Simon's photos are provided in extremely high quality!)

In addition, from the prospective of a plus size / chubby / fat human being, Simon made me feel so at ease in front of the camera making my size no issue, I was so happy about this (following the dress saga  my confidence as a bride took a massive hit) as I was really worried some photographers may have had issues with this aspect but for Simon it wasn't something that was on his agenda for the day!

All of our amazing friends and family!

Flowers/Centre Pieces

Kopend Creations supplied our flowers through our package with The Grange Hotel. We met up with them several times, mostly at the hotel itself and Paul and Jan Viner who run Kopend are such a lovely couple. They supplied my bouquet, my sister’s wrist corsage, all button holes, our top table centre piece as well as our table centre pieces. Our flowers were a mixture of carnations (as this was my Nan’s favourite flower), roses and dahlias all in a pink, red and cream theme.... beautiful :)

Cakes

Our main cake (we had 2!) came from Iced Magic Cakes.

This was also included in our package with The Grange (though we did pay a little bit extra on top). We got to sit with Christine to talk through inspiration, ideas and colours and below is the bloody tasty outcome... the piping was inspired by the lace pattern on my dress and the topper (graduating from pink to red) was inspired by my underskirt of my dress which was also bright red fading to pink! We opted for Victoria sponge with a raspberry and vanilla filling.. yummy!

Our second cake was made for us by my Mum and Dad and they did a cracking job – it also fitted in with our Iced Magic cake so well too.

As I wanted a traditional fruit cake for the wedding, and knowing my dad can make a cracking one at Christmas, I asked them if they would help and though team effort (and I imagine a few arguments haha) the below is the outcome. I was blown away by the effort that they put in and it was soo tasty too!

Wedding Reception

In the evening our entertainment/disco was provided by Cadence Entertainment. Again this was included in our Venue package however the guys were really professional.

They came out to meet us a few months before the wedding to plan what music we wanted, first dance, last dance etc and were really good and I’d highly recommend them.

Only downside... I asked for no Take That.. Three of their songs later I don’t think that message was passed on to the actual DJ ha!

Food-wise in the evening we had an insane hog roast supplied by Choc N Hog Catering (again, organised through our wedding package – we got a free upgrade from a normal buffet to hog roast as a special offer!).

We thought this was going to be pretty standard but tasty (we may have visited their sample tables at some wedding fayres at the hotel.. maybe... oh ok we visited about three times though we had to be sure it was nice!) however it was crazy!! The hog-roast sandwiches themselves were huge and delicious.. unexpectedly alongside this there were salads, chips, sauces, coleslaw... making it a pretty damn good feast and I regret not going if a second one!!

We jumped on the sweet wagon cart too I’m afraid but we mixed it up!

The hotel laid out a table for us and on the table we had our own hand-made (yes, handmade!!) bowls made out of old vinyl records full of delicious sweeeeties!!

In Summary...

All in all, as I said at the start of this post, this was the best day ever.

I may have had a crappy time locating my dress but my Mum made my mail order dress the best (even working on it right before the wedding!) – this woman deserves a medal.

A massive thank you to everyone that made our day too - friends, family and all of the above mentions.. it wouldn't have been the same without you all!!

I would do it all again (and I sadly miss all of the planning part too)  but maybe without the nervous wedding ceremony section at the start...... PARTY TIME!!

Pulling some crazy 'normal' dance moves!