Lucy & Jordan’s Christmas Wedding at Elmore Court

But first I must let you know that it’s our last feature of 2022. It’s also winter solstice today which is one of my favourite days of the year (brighter days are officially on their way!), AND it’s Lucy and Jordan’s 1st wedding anniversary. Yes, this beaut of a wedding took place at Elmore Court a whole year ago today… CONGRATULATIONS L+J, we hope you’re celebrating in style!!

So, without further ado, from everyone here at Team Coco we’d like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and we hope you manage to enjoy some downtime with the ones you love most. We’ll be back in the New Year with some fabulous new features and some even more fabulous venues. Until then you can look back at some of the blogs we’ve published this year, packed with helpful tips, planning guidance and oodles of inspo! See you on the flip side!

Lucy says…

We knew we wanted to have our wedding at a stately home and after visiting and meeting Anselm and Leesa at Elmore Court, seeing the history of the building and Anselm’s ancestry (quite literally) woven into the venue, made it feel a little more special than other places we had visited. The absolute selling point for us, as I’m sure is the same with everyone else, was the Gillyflower. The Gilly is a remarkable space, and we could really vision our wedding day once we had seen it.

Our colour scheme for the wedding was dark greens, golds and white, and the inspiration for the wedding was very much based on where we are from, the New Forest, with influences from the 1996 Romeo and Juliet film. Having a winter wedding so close to Christmas made the décor easy as we were able to capture the scenery we live in and around, and we knew that the lighting would set a romantic ambiance. As our wedding was on the shortest day of the year and the sun would be down early we filled the venue with lights and candles everywhere.

Our original wedding date was supposed to be 22nd  December 2020 and we started planning in the build up to Christmas 2019, booking Elmore in January 2020. However, our planning took a backseat due to the COVID pandemic. We postponed our wedding to December 2021 and began planning again in the summer of 2021 with 6 months or so to go. As we had already booked all the ‘big’ things such as photographer, videographer, florist etc it was a lot of little details that needed finalising, such as the table plan and buying all the décor. All in all it took around 12 months of planning.

We used a lot of greenery for table décor, with white roses and blue spruce as our main features. We wanted to keep the flowers quite simple so that our main décor feature were the candles and fairy lights. Bridesmaids and groomsmen had white roses as buttonholes and small bouquets, and my bouquet was a mixture of greenery and white florals.

Our most important aspect of planning was the photography. We spent hours searching for somebody who would capture the day in the style we wanted, and our photographer Tom Durn captured the day perfectly. The food was also as important for us. A wedding with bad food, you remember for that reason, and we did not want our wedding to be remembered for that!

My dress I wore was actually the second dress I had bought! The dress I originally chose pre-pandemic I hated when it came into the shop 16 months later. Luckily, I had a very understanding mum who knew I was unhappy and said not to worry and we would sort it, which of course we did. I finally found my dream dress which was handmade in Turkey. I had spotted it in the window of a wedding dress shop in my local shopping centre. I tried on the sample and instantly fell in love; I knew this was the one! My measurements were taken, and I then had to wait for it to be made and be shipped over which took around 8 weeks. I wanted to feel like a bride but also wanted my guests to be wowed so I went for a beaded and glitter open back dress which was very fitted up top and then was a soft tulle A-line. Under the top piece of tulle was a shimmering net for that added sparkle. I added a double veil to finish off the look.

I had an amazing hair and makeup duo who travelled from Southampton with me. Hair was my usual hairdresser, Joseph Boylan, and makeup was the highly recommended Dayna Mansfield. I wanted my makeup to be ‘natural bridal’ but glam at the same time as we were having a black tie wedding so I wanted it to fit with the theme! We had such fun the morning of the wedding with Joe and Dayna doing the hair and make-up for my mum and all of my bridal party too.

My bridal party consisted of Beau as our flower girl then I had five amazing women also by my side; my sister Elie, Jordan’s two sisters; Esme and Summer, and then my two longest and best friends Jess and Sarah. Beau was a mini me(!) she wore an ivory dress with a deep open pearl back and glittery gold pumps and then everyone else wore the same dark green velvet dress, which was floor length and had very subtle sequins that caught the light when they moved.

Jordan had a tradition black tie ensemble featuring a dark green velvet peak lapel tuxedo/smoking jacket, a black tartan horseshoe waistcoat, black tuxedo trousers, white marcella shirt, black bow tie, and patent shoes, and I changed the buttons on the waistcoat for gold military buttons.

His two best men wore black velvet peak lapel tuxedo/smoking jackets, black tuxedo trousers, white marcella shirt, black bow tie, and patent shoes, and a black and white polka dot cummerbund. My groomsmen wore black peak lapel tuxedos, white marcella shirt, black bow tie, and patent shoes, and a black and white polka dot cummerbund. My groom’s woman wore a black double breasted peak lapel tuxedo, white marcella shirt, black bow tie, and patent shoes, and a black and white polka dot cummerbund.

Jordan chose all of the ensembles himself, including self-tie bow ties, which were nearly a disaster as nobody attempted to tie one until we were getting ready on the morning of the wedding! With help from various YouTube tutorials, we were able to master it – but our advice to you would be to practice this (many, many times) before the day of your wedding if you have never tied a bow tie before.

The ceremony was what I was worried most about. I didn’t want to cry walking down the aisle and wanted to take in that special moment with my dad. I enjoyed the ceremony way more than I thought I would and when we were saying our vows it felt as though we were the only two people in the room. I walked down the aisle to ‘Kissing You’ by Des’ree which was from the Romeo and Juliet film which now is a song I can’t listen to without getting goosebumps all over again!

Family means everything to us and having our two children there with us made it extra special. Our daughter wrote a speech to read which didn’t leave a dry eye in the room and our son had the responsibility of giving us our rings which he did such a good job at. Jordan’s mum also did a short reading during our ceremony which she had written which meant a lot to us both. We wanted the feel of the ceremony to be simple and classic; all about love and family.

After the ceremony, we headed to the drawing rooms where we had a pianist and canapés served. It felt so Christmassy and warm, we had green sugar rimmed prosecco with pomegranate syrup as our welcome drinks along with Bucks Fizz. During our drinks reception we went outside for a short period for some photos with our wedding party and immediate family. We always said we never wanted lots of posing photos, so this was very quick (it was also very crisp and cold!) so after a quick photo session we headed back inside by the fire where Jordan did his first speech.

Our wedding cake was three tiers. The design was simple with white fondant and gold flake and our middle tier a marble design with some handmade flowers added to the side. We opted for Chocolate mud-cake, Red Velvet and Cherry Bakewell as our three flavours and was made by the very talented Rosie Shaw Cake Company.

Best part of the day

All of the speeches were a really special part of the day and meant so much to us. Our daughter Beau’s speech especially during the ceremony was a real highlight of the day. She made both our hearts burst with pride.

From one couple to another…

If you are thinking of a winter/Christmas wedding – do it, don’t hesitate!

I wish I’d known… how fast the day really goes. Take time for yourselves on the day to take it all in and don’t stress too much on the little things, if it doesn’t go perfect on the day you are the only ones that will know, and it really won’t matter to you then anyway!