A Vintage wedding with a Green 50's style Vivien of Holloway Dress, Jimmy Choo shoes and homemade touches.

A Vintage wedding with a Green 50’s style Vivien of Holloway Dress, Jimmy Choo shoes and homemade touches.

December 9, 2013 Real Wedding Features

Today I am thrilled to share this stunning Vintage wedding with a Green 50’s style Vivien of Holloway Dress, Jimmy Choo shoes and homemade touches.

Wendy & Ashley married on November 16th, at the White Hart Hotel in the historic Bailgate of Lincoln in a beautiful day shared with close family & friends

Images of the day were capture by Courtney Louise Photography.

Courtney is a wedding photographer based in the Cotswolds, ideally located for commissions throughout the county and the UK.

Her wedding photography approach is unobtrusive; with no interference or dictation on your special day.

Stunning Bride Wendy tells us all about their Love story and their awesome wedding plans…

How did you meet?

“Ashley used to play bass guitar in a local band and I had been on a girl’s night out to watch them.”

“I told a friend (Gemma, one of the bridesmaids) I thought the bass player in another band was quite hot and Gemma got confused and thought I meant Ashley!!”

“She told the lead singer in Ashley’s band that I fancied him.”

“Ashley then tried to get know me, he had already seen me working at The Victoria pub in Lincoln and had quite liked me. A first date was agreed and the rest is history!”

When did you get engaged?

“We got engaged on 21st April 2012, we had been together 4 years on the 20th April and had arranged a day out to Sheffield for some shopping and a meal.”

“We are also CAMRA members and into the real ale scene and were planning to visit a few pubs.”

“The day didn’t start well as it was raining and I nearly changed my mind about going (cue some agony for Ashley!).”

“Ashley proposed near some water fountains in the centre of Sheffield, he pretended his leg was hurting and he needed to sit on a bench.”

“I was cross as I was hungry and wanted food, but Ashley was insistent that we sat down.”

“When we sat down, Ashley went down on one knee and asked me to marry him.”

“We both cried and I said yes, we then had to google to see what finger I wore the ring on. I put the ring on and we went off to The University Arms for a drink to celebrate.”

Tell us about your wedding planning journey

“We knew right away we didn’t want a long engagement and that we didn’t want a big wedding so within a month of being engaged we had set the date, booked our venues and photographer.”

“I always knew I didn’t want then typical big white wedding and that some things would be a little different.”

“We had been to quite a few weddings in the previous years and whilst we enjoyed them and they suited the couples getting married we had talked about what would or wouldn’t work for us.”

“The White Hart, Lincoln was booked because of the proximity to the beautiful and historic Bailgate area of Lincoln and to Lincoln Cathedral.”

“The hotel is both traditional and modern, the staff were friendly and we knew the food was amazing which was also key for us.”

“We loved the room that I got ready in on the morning of the wedding and the one we stayed in on our wedding night.”

“It had a private balcony with a wonderful view of the cathedral and all our families had to come up to the balcony to take it in.”

“Next we chose the Wig and Mitre pub on the Steep Hill in Lincoln, we wanted a central Lincoln reception venue so that our guests would find it easy to attend and get taxis.”

“Being CAMRA members meant we wanted a venue that would serve real ale as this is what we and a lot of guests would drink, again the Wig have a reputation for tasty food and this sold it for us.”

“We chose Courtney our photographer next, meeting up with her and looking at her portfolio of pictures, we loved the closeness in age to us and the fact she was female.”

“We aren’t the most comfortable having our pictures taken, but we both felt that Courtney would make us feel at ease and a year later when we had our engagement shoot with her our feelings were proved right as we felt so at ease and we loved our pictures.”

“As so much was organised within the first month of being engaged there seemed such a long gap before we picked up the planning again.”

“Next was a trip to London to visit Vivien of Holloway to buy my dress and the bridesmaid’s dresses.”

“I knew from the moment Ashley proposed that I wanted a green dress to match the emerald in my engagement ring, and I wanted a full skirt with a petticoat so I could twirl.”

“A dress on the website caught my eye and I never looked at anything else, I just knew it was the one!”

“So on a snowy day in January we caught the train to London and such a lovely day visiting the Vivien of Holloway shop, Covent Garden to buy macarons at Laduree, Selfridges to try on the Jimmy Choo shoes I eventually bought to wear during the ceremony, and we finished up with chocolate afternoon tea on Park Lane.”

“A perfect girl’s day out!”

“I spent months making wedding invitations for both our day and evening guests, and crafted the favour bags and some of the decorations for the evening reception.”

“I purchased materials from The Range and local craft shops and tried to keep to a cream, white and green theme.”

“We used a local florist called Flowers by Design in Nettleham and I knew I wanted mainly white or cream flowers in different textures, with pops of colour.”

“They were so helpful and made lots of suggestions to a complete flower novice and I was completely happy with the end result.”

“Ashley went with his best man James to buy his suit from Flannels in Nottingham; it was tailored to fit him.”

“His tie and matching handkerchief were purchased a few weeks before the wedding. He had as much fun as I did buying my dress, by spending as much time looking at suits as he did checking out Nottingham’s pubs.”

“We purchased our rings from the Lincoln Cathedral gift shop, they are welsh gold and a nice lady called Samantha had them resized and kept them safe for us and we picked them up a week or two before the wedding day.”

“We found this supplier at the Bailgate wedding fair that is held twice yearly in Lincoln.”

“I used Etsy, Pearl and Earl, eBay and Amazon to source items for the wedding and hoped to use as much of them again after around our home.”

“Planning the wedding was a lot of fun, but also stressful at times, but it was so worth it on the day, particularly as a lot of guests took the time to tell us how much they appreciated all the little touches we put in to make it different. They could see the effort and work we had put in.”

When did you get married?

“We got married on Saturday 16th November 2013.”

What was the best bit of your day?

“The best bit was our ceremony.”

“We knew we wanted this to mean something and to be personal to us.”

“The most important part for both of us was saying our vows and exchanging rings in front of our close family and friends.”

“Hearing Ashley speak so clearly the words that we chose to say to each other was the best experience in my life.”

“Our Dad’s read our readings for us, my Dad chose ‘Desiderata’ and Ashley’s Dad read ‘Marriage Joins Two People in the Circle of Its Love’.”

“The second best bit was the big balloon and the look of joy and fun on the children’s (and adults) faces when they saw it!”

What advice would you give to other couples getting married?

“Stay true to you, think outside the box.”

“Don’t forget that there are two of you getting married, we have been to so many weddings where it feels like the bride has organised everything without the groom and it feels one-sided. Get the groom involved.”

“Think about what you like as a couple, for us it was good food, good drink and good company and then organise your day around that.”

“Finally enjoy it, it goes so quick and it is such a cliché but the planning and waiting for the day seems to take so long but the day itself whizzes by.”

Thank you to Courtney for sharing her images of this incredible Vintage Wedding.

I love the beautiful colour palette, green was a part of my wedding too and its such a rich vibrant colour, and so much effort has been put in by Wendy to create amazing crafted decor to accentuate her and Ashleys Big Day….Just beautiful!

Supporting Cast

Wedding Venue – The White Hart, Lincoln

Photographer – Courtney Louise Photography

Brides Dress – Vivien of Holloway

Brides Shoes – Jimmy Choo and Freed of London

Bridesmaids dresses – Vivien of Holloway

Bridesmaids shoes – Vivienne Westwood

Grooms Suit – Flannels, Nottingham

Flowers – Flowers by Design, Nettleham, Lincoln

Balloon – Pearl and Earl and Party Planet

Poms – Ebay

Tealights – Ikea and Dunhelm Mill (I purchased longer burning tea lights from Amazon)