Hannah & Simon’s Old Down Manor Wedding

Hannah & Simon are too cute… They can’t stop kissing for starters.

Their beautiful summer wedding at The Manor at Old Down Estate unfolds below; think homemade favours, swinging on tyres, emotional speeches, three yummy cakes and a flower girl who steals the show. All perfectly captured by our fave Big Eye Photography.

Over to Hannah for our penultimate post of 2015…

Hannah:

Simon and I live together in London but I’m originally from Gloucestershire and knew I wanted to get married surrounded by countryside. We wanted our wedding day to be relaxed, with great food in a beautiful building. Old Down Manor has incredible views across the River Severn and stunning grounds for photographs. The Manor itself is a very light and bright space that feels clean and modern but still with original features which is a lovely combination. Lucy and the team were very professional and organised from the beginning, so we knew that we would have all the help we needed with the planning and would be able to relax on the day.

I have always loved vintage and period clothing so when I visited Jane Bourvis in Notting Hill Gate where the dresses are crafted from antique lace, I knew I would find my dress here. Jane’s shop is full of beautiful lace creations, antique jewellery and accessories and other unusual treasures! The dresses are very romantic and unstructured with lots of intricate detail in the lace and embellishment. The dress I chose had a soft pink silk bias cut slip with an antique lace wrapped over the top with a flowing train so it felt light and incredible to wear. Jane pinned and altered the dress until it fit perfectly, the whole experience was amazing.

The pearl hair piece was also from Jane Bourvis and was an original 20’s piece. The pearl necklace and earrings were borrowed from Simons’ Step-Mum, she wore them for her wedding so they were very special.

The bridesmaids were in light pink dresses which were soft and romantic to compliment my dress, ordered from For Him and For Her, and my niece who was our flower girl wore a pretty dress from Monsoon. We had our hair & makeup done at my parent’s house the morning of the wedding by Jessica Mills and Tasha Payne. They were both great at creating very natural and pretty looks and keeping everyone calm!

The groom wore a 3 piece suit from Paul Smith. The Groom, Best Man and Usher all wore deep red ties and had soft pink rose button holes.

We didn’t have a set theme as such, but knew that we wanted to keep the overall styling simple and elegant with a vintage feel. We wanted to make sure the wedding had personal touches so we designed and made the wedding stationery ourselves, the favours were homemade jam from my Mum and miniature lavender plants and the card suitcase belonged to my Grandad. We kept to a tight colour palette with soft pink, cream, dark red and black which came together from the colours in our outfits and the flowers.

I knew that I wanted fresh flowers to be a big part of the wedding. The Flowers were created by Mandy and the team at The Flower Shop in Stonehouse. Mandy is very creative so we had great fun selecting the flowers. I chose soft pink roses to compliment the silk slip of my dress and bridesmaid dresses and dark red dahlia to match the ties of the groom, best man and usher. We used a mix of different vases, wine bottles and jam jars for the flowers.

We have a lots of great bakers in our family so we chose to have 3 homemade cakes! A carrot cake made by my Mum, a lemon ring made by our Brother-in-Law and a gluten free Victoria sponge made by our Auntie.

We chose Marcus from Big Eye Photography for the day. I had met Marcus before and loved the style of his photos. Marcus captured the day and us as a couple perfectly. The photos were relaxed, creative and colourful. I would definitely recommend him to other couples.

The whole day was amazing from start to finish, from my Dad walking me down the aisle to the speeches and having everyone on the dancefloor at the end of the night.

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

Don’t worry about small details on the day, after all the hard work planning it’s time to enjoy the day and appreciate how special it is to have all your family and friends together as it goes so fast!

Venue The Manor at Old Down Estate | Photography Big Eye Photography | Bride’s Dress & Hair-piece Jane Bourvis | Bridesmaids For Him and For Her | Groom Paul Smith | Florist The Flower Shop | Hair & Makeup Jessica Mills

Utterly gorgeous don’t you think…? I particularly love the colour scheme of pink and that yummy deep scarlet. Totally divine.

Oh and don’t get me started on Hannah’s mermaid hair… *sigh*

Thank you so much to the gorgeous couple for sharing their day at Old Down Manor and of course Marcus from Big Eye Photography for these beautiful images.

Lots of love…