Kate & Harry: A ‘Royal’ Wedding at Thicket Priory

I had loved Thicket Priory long before Harry asked me to marry him. I had stumbled across it online, and I knew within a heartbeat it was a special place. We had an extensive guest list, so size was important for us. The idea of being able to whisk ourselves and some of our guests away for a whole weekend to a place that felt exclusively ours was special. We loved the mix of traditional style with a modern twist, which is similar to the home interiors I love. Thicket had it all!

I wore the ‘Josephine’ dress by British Designer, Sassi Holford. I knew instantly, as did my mum, that it was the dress I had always pictured for my special day – the only thing it was missing was a big bow on the back, so guess what, I asked for a big bow on the back and oh boy, did Sassi deliver. Within three weeks of seeing the dress online, my mum and I headed to Glasgow, where the exclusive dress was stocked in Anne Priscilla Bridal. Greeted by Sassi herself, who happened to be at the store for a ‘designer day’ that day, was a real bonus. I did not mess around, tried on ‘Josephine’ immediately, and didn’t take her off for 45 minutes. Knowing in an instant she was mine, I didn’t try on any other wedding dresses. Everyone asked what the dress would be like and whether it would have sleeves, given the time of year. All I would respond with was ‘all royals wear sleeves – take from that what you will’.

I have been influenced by Lydia Millen for around five years. She had started to wear a brand of shoes named Emmy London. I researched the brand and knew as soon as I saw the ladies of the Royal family wearing them that they were the shoe style for me. To match my bridesmaids, I chose the Florence Greenery shoe and tied in the bow feature of my dress with the satin feature on the toe of the shoe. Emmy’s online store is amazing. I had a style consultation via Zoom and even got to try on three different sizes and heel heights that were sent to my home!

Hats and fascinators were encouraged on our day, so it wouldn’t have felt right if I didn’t join in and wear a headpiece too. Doleka’s Gerdin Crown was made for me; it was a bit of a fuss for what was, from the front, a very plain dress. The height of the crown made the blusher veil fall perfectly in front of my face for my grand entrance.

As evening approached, I switched out my bridal bouquet for an embellished bow clutch bag from Dune, which was just the sparkle I needed.

Dark green, dusty rose, and copper were the perfect palette for our midwinter wedding. Rachel at Beaties brought the styling together, using simple tables to enable the outfits and personalities around the table to do the talking.

Our florist was Flora & Flair, the beautiful Sue, a friend of my mum’s and a retired midwife. She has a real passion for creating beautifully sustainable flower arrangements, and boy, was our wedding a project for her, and she pulled it off. I wanted the flowers to dance and burst in their bunches. Traditional in some ways, much like the rest of our wedding, but with a modern feel, as some arrangements, like the one above the morning room fireplace, were asymmetric. All flowers were seasonal; the rose featured heavily as I wanted Harry to wear a single vintage rose as his corsage.

Nicola at The Pretty Sugar Cake Company stole our tastebuds when we joined her and her husband at a cake tasting afternoon in their wine shop! We tried two other cake makers’ cakes previously to this, one too light and lacking flavour, and the other too dense. Nicola got it right in the middle, and we loved her beautiful work with the neat icing. We chose to have three cakes rather than one big cake, I mean, why not?! We had one for the Friday Night Feast, a cherry bakewell flavour decorated with small piped dots, icing swirls and real cherries. On the wedding day, a two-tiered hazelnut praline and Victoria sponge tower. The piped dots this time in a copper colour with our wedding logo embossed on the front, finished with a ribbon tied in a bow to bring in many aspects of our day. To finish the wedding weekend at the Wardman Winter Wonderland Brunch, we enjoyed a small but sparkly carrot cake with orange buttercream. Nicola makes amazing sugared flowers, which were the feature of this cake.

And if three cakes weren’t enough, we had several amazing spreads throughout the weekend courtesy of Purple Chilli Events Catering. Mark and the team understood our brief to a tee! Right down to discussing the colour of the crockery, the napkin swans for the ‘medieval style’ Friday Night Feast, and the grazing-style continental spread for the morning after. It was just wonderful. We couldn’t have asked for more, and the beef Wellington was cooked to perfection—it went down a treat with all of our guests.

Well, Carla Whittingham, where to start?! What a bundle of pure joy and talent. We got in touch with Carla as she is a friend of Thicket Priory, she knows the place like the back of her hand, and this meant we could let her do her thing without us having to worry about where to stand and when, etc. We knew we had hit the jackpot with Carla when we explored the streets of York for our engagement shoot; she captured the vibes. Amy, our second shooter, swiftly moved around our guests, giving us a close-up of the joy surrounding us on our day. We loved having Carla around on the day; she is like a Duracell bunny, and the photos are stellar. We will treasure the memories she has so beautifully snapped forever.

We were married at the Oratory Church of St Wilfred in the centre of York by the Minster. Whilst all the planning and preparations made the day perfect in so many ways, the feeling of arriving at the church in our Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud to be greeted by so many passers-by who had stopped to await my arrival was just electric. This was something I just couldn’t have planned. However, I had always dreamed of that royal wedding moment, and this was it. The cheering, clapping and smiling people simply lapping up the excitement that I knew I would feel to step inside the church doors to seal the deal was so heartwarming. And, they waited for my return, this time with my new husband on my right arm. It felt like we were announcing to the world that we were married. I wish I could bottle the feeling up.

We followed the advice you see so often, to be with each other as much as possible and make the memories of the day together. This was easy and we are happy we did this, holding hands at every opportunity, not saying much to each other as it is all a bit overwhelming even for someone whose favourite topic is themselves, like me! But in all seriousness I was cross with myself that I had let tiny unimportant aspects of the day/designs bother me, I knew deep down they didn’t matter but after the wedding it was hard to let go of things that I felt weren’t right after almost three years of planning, when in fact, everything was right about our day and looking back now, on reflection, I simply wouldn’t change a thing.