Alex & Cat’s Micro Wedding at The Montagu Arms Hotel

Alex & Cat chose to go ahead with their trimmed back celebrations, after their original June 2020 wedding was cancelled. But for this gorgeous couple, they simply wanted to be married, and surrounded by their closest friends and family, they said ‘I Do’ at The Montagu Arms Hotel in Hampshire.

Cat says…

We had originally planned a DIY wedding in a beautiful village hall for 60 guests – caterers, florist and a band had been booked! Our day was planned for 6th June 2020 and then of course the unthinkable happened to the whole world.

It took us a very long time to get our heads round the possibility of not having our wedding in 2020 and potentially 2021 in light of the restriction of guests. We had got all our money back from our previous date and decided to start afresh when possible. I then started hearing and seeing that more couples were having intimate or micro weddings and thought whether or not this could be an option for us? It was an easy yes, all we wanted was to get married to each other and have our closest family and friends there which we could achieve with 15 guests allowed.

We’ve always lived local to Beaulieu so have always known of the Montagu Arms, so of course it was on the top of my list being in my favourite village with the beautiful surroundings, but it was the wedding show round that blew us away. From the moment we stepped into the venue we were spoilt, Clara spent the time to show us our options and we loved the Oakwood room immediately with the open fireplace as a beautiful backdrop, an offer of Afternoon Tea we couldn’t say no to turned out to be the best afternoon tea I’ve had and the service from the staff was amazing, we knew from that point we were not going to be disappointed with having our wedding here.

My dress was from bridal boutique Sass & Grace in East Stratton, Winchester. I’d been trying dresses all day with my two bridesmaids and mum, by that point we thought we knew what we liked on me, but it was the Ellis dress picked out by the boutique assistant which I fell in love with immediately and nothing compared to that dress after. Alex and his best mans suits were from Moss Bros., they were a herringbone tweed in a dark green, really suited a wedding in the New Forest.

We booked our wedding for November, so I wanted an autumnal feel, lots of burnt oranges and toffee colours, we also wanted to include a lot of natural foliage, however the date was forced to change to December and I was conscious of the fact it was very close to Christmas and would I be able to have the autumnal colours, I love Christmas but didn’t want it to take over the day. The Montagu Arms recommended Jo Hicks and I’m so glad they did, she is such a talent and became much more than our florist in the lead up to our wedding.

For the décor we used Sam at Linen & Lace, I’ve been following her page on Instagram and loved her styling. Jo and Sam had worked together many a times so I knew between them they would create something wonderful, which they did. On the day the flowers and décor took our breath away, the fireplace had an impressive offset floral display, the tablescape for dinner consisted of candlesticks with coloured candles, selection of vintage bottles, gorgeous coloured linen and napkins, with the flowers draped in between and our three bouquets used for the table centrepieces.

We were given the option to choose our own menu, all options sounded delicious and meant our guests could pick what they wanted. The options really suited the time of the year and the chef did an outstanding job on the day. For starter we had the Beef Brisket Croquette, our main was Confit of Duck Leg and dessert was the most yummiest Bitter Chocolate & Praline Delice, I could of eaten that again.

Our photographer was the wonderful Roderick Alan. Rod had shot a couple of my friends wedding previously so I knew of his talent. Alex and Rod had become friends too from working together on events so he was an obvious choice when it came to picking a photographer for our day. His style is very creative and authentic, capturing wonderful natural shots. We are so happy with our end photos, they are so beautiful, his relaxed style really shows through us in the images, we are both just beaming.

Best part of the day

It rained heavily when we were due to have photos but as it was a winter wedding we were conscious of losing the light, so we grabbed our bright yellow umbrella and embraced the weather. I’m so glad we did, it didn’t hinder the beautiful photos that were captured and it was a lovely moment as passers by in cars were honking and cheering for us whilst they stopped their cars to allow us to cross the road without getting us splashed.

Venue The Montagu Arms Hotel

Photography Roderick Alan

Flowers Jo Hicks Flowers

Venue Styling Linen & Lace Events

Dress Sass & Grace

Cake Karen Cake Couture