As we saunter into Festive week I am delighted to share this lovely Celtic inspired snowy wedding day captured beautifully by Mark Pugh Photography.

The Wedding was held at Woodborough Hall on the first day of spring just after some unexpected fresh snowfall.

 

 

Mark shares his recollections of the day,

“Susana is from Portugal, and when her parents flew in to the UK to attend their wedding, they had never seen snow before!”

“It’s fair to say that no-one was expecting  snow, and certainly not the amount which fell overnight.”

“Susana arrived at the Venue wearing a Celtic-style wedding dress and white cape.”

“Underneath her dress, she wore… Red snow boots, a practical gift from the owner of the hotel where she had stayed the night.”

“After a beautiful ceremony, friends and family had drinks in the bar area of the hall.”

“Whilst everyone was chatting and staying warm, the newlyweds were only to happy to brave the cold so I could capture a series of snowy wedding photographs in the extensive tree-lined grounds.”

“With the brief formalities out of the way, everyone adjourned to the dining room.”

“During the speeches, we learnt that there has been an Anglo-Portugese treaty in place since 1386, cementing the friendship between our two countries.”

“In fact, it is the oldest treaty of its kind in the world, and Susana and Bonamy’s  snowy wedding serves to further strengthen those bonds.”

 

 Tell us your Wedding Planning Journey

“We got engaged on my 33rd birthday, in April 2012.”

“I always like to go away somewhere on my birthday, and I had organised for a group of 10 of us (friends from the Notts Derby Walking Group) to stay at a lovely apartment in Lisbon, in the same area where I had lived for 5 years whilst at university.”

“It was such a great week; we walked a lot and did lots of sightseeing, it was so nice to go back and walk along the same lovely streets where I’d been before.”

“It felt really special to share it with Bonamy and our group of friends.”

“My birthday was on the penultimate day of the holiday, and in the morning, in our bedroom, Bonamy asked whether I would like my present at that moment, or whether I would like it later.”

“So I said I could open at that moment, not having the slightest idea what it was going to be; when he presented me with the little bag, and I saw the little box, my heart soared! It was so unexpected!”

“He asked me whether I would like a husband, and next thing I knew, we were in the living room breaking the news to everyone. It felt so special to share the news straight away with our friends!”

“Bonamy did tell me, a while later, that he would have preferred to have proposed at my favourite view point in Lisbon (Miradouro de Sao Pedro de Alcantara), but he could not have risked the others wanting to come with us!”

 

“We got married at Woodborough Hall, only 11 months after we got engaged.”

“Our Wedding was the  first weekend of Spring…”

“Like everyone, we had no idea what kind of weather we were going to have, although we kind of expected rain; but much to our surprise, we ended up with a fabulous very snowy Winter Wonderland!”

“We are both quite into celtic things, but when Bonamy told me he wanted to wear a kilt, I was not really taken with the idea.”

“However he explained to me it belonged to his grandfather and it was very important to him.”

“When I saw the picture of him with it on, I thought that it would be really nice to build a whole celtic/medieval theme around it, and so we did!”

“We had two or three venues already in mind; and one day in June, whilst researching, we came across the “Jubilee Deal” at Woodborough Hall, which seemed an opportunity too good to miss.”

“We booked an appointment, and went to visit the venue, coincidentally on the same day that the Queen came to visit Nottingham!”

“So in the morning we went to wave the arrival of the Royal Party, and then in the afternoon we went to Woodborough Hall for a viewing and an appointment.”

“I had never been there before (although I had heard a lot about it), and completely fell in love with it! We booked our wedding on that same day!”

“Picking our colour scheme was pretty easy; we decided to go with blue, as we both really like it and it was fitting with my celtic necklace and the “something blue” from the old tradition.”

“I had done a lot of research on the Internet for wedding dresses, with the celtic/medieval theme in mind; so I had a pretty good idea of what I was after.”

“Only two weeks after booking the wedding, I was looking at the Berketex website and found out about their 3 day sale, which was coming very soon; so I decided to book an appointment to try a few dresses on!”

“I took a friend with me, but I must say I went in with low expectations of finding what I was after. And in fact when we first started looking through dresses, I did not think I was going to find something on that day.”

“Then I started spotting dresses along the style that I had in mind!”

“The wedding dress, my wedding dress, that turned out to be “the one”, was actually the very first dress that I tried on!! In truth, when we picked it up from the rack, we did not actually make much of it, but when I tried it on… although I had not tried any other wedding dress on, I knew straight away that was going to be the one!”

“My friend was stunned when I came out to show her; a beautiful medieval bodice, with lots of sparkly white and pearly beads, and the “skirt” also in a very medieval princess style.”

“After booking the venue and finding the dress, we went into a “lull” where we were not quite sure how to work things or who to choose/go with. After much internet research, we were at a standby especially with photographer and cake maker, and our dedicated wedding planner suggested that we went to their wedding fair in Autumn, which would be a good opportunity to meet with various businesses, and so we did.”

“This made our life so much easier! We had no difficulty at all in choosing our photographer, Mark Pugh; his style of photography was so beautiful, we really enjoyed finding out about his photo-journalistic and emotive style. His personality also shone through, which meant, by the time we had gone round the wedding fair, he clearly stood out from the rest!”

“However, we still left having doubts about appointing a cake maker. It wasn’t until we went past Danielle Gotheridge’s shop in Nottingham that we knew that we’d found the right person!”

“Bonamy and I had first met in Cornwall, and we wanted a sea theme for our cake with St Michael’s Mount featured in it; we did not just want the standard “white icing and flowers”.”

“When we went in to meet Danielle, she immediately took out an A4 piece of paper and sketched 3 different ways in which she could make our dream cake work, and we were completely amazed by it!”

“As for the flowers, I decided I was not really bothered about having real ones, and found a website that specialised in silk ones (Silk Blooms).”

“I had hoped that I would be able to get my bouquet’s ribbon to match Bonamy’s kilt, but for some reason this was not possible.”

“Still, I ended up with a very nice bouquet that I can now keep forever.”

“In terms of transport, for me travelling with my whole party was more important than anything else, so I just booked an 8 seater Mercedes with Nottingham Wedding Cars for me, my parents, brother, bridesmaid, and best man.”

“With the celtic theme in mind, I ordered a beautiful tiara from Gardens of Whimsy, very beautiful, which I will treasure forever; and I also picked a simple, celtic necklace to go with the theme.”

“We had very much of a “DIY” approach, and ordered some beautiful, hand-painted celtic bowls as centrepieces.”

“I created our own wedding invites which featured some of the same celtic borders which I then also used to put together table cards and the table plan.”

“I bought some fleur-de-lis card holders which complemented the centrepieces, and I also created our wedding favours which comprised of a blue organza bag, with a “Wedding Day” Yankee Candle, a Portuguese/UK flag pin, a celtic button, and a personalised “thank you” chocolate.”

“For the children, I also put together some activities packs with a medieval theme.”

“On the week of the wedding, when I realised just how much snow was expected, I decided to invest on a white satin cloak to cover from the cold weather, and a pearl umbrella, which indeed turned out a great complement to the dress and the snow!”

 

Any words of advice for future brides about planning their wedding?

“Only that you go with your instinct and stick to what you really want your wedding to be like, if there is a theme you really want but are not sure for fear of what other people might think, don’t be; it is your special day.”

“Your Wedding should be everything that you dream of, even if it means a more quirky or unusual theme.”

 

 

Thanks so much to Mark for sharing this gorgous snowy wedding. Adverse weather doesn’t have to put a dampner on a Wedding Day, its just a case of being prepared.

And as the lovely images show, fresh snowfall adds an extra air of romance.

 

Supporting Cast

Bride’s Dress: Berketex – Bodice with v-shape in sparkly beads and diamante straps, no layers, parting down the middle of the long skirt and train – Medieval style.

Bride shoes: Ivory flat bow diamante shoes

Tiara: Lothiriel Headdress from ‘Gardens of Whimsy shop’ – Etsy

Other bride jewellery: Silver celtic necklace with blue crystal

Bridesmaids/Maid of Honour dress: Girls of Elegance

Rings: Velvet Crystal (Cornwall) with cornish inscriptions

Groom Attire: Kilt – belonged to his grandfather

Wedding Cake: Danielle Gotheridge

Florist: Silk Blooms (Scotland)

Hair Stylist: Premier Hair Design (Nottingham)

Makeup Artist: Premier Hair Design (Nottingham)

Catering: Provided by Woodborough Hall

Wedding invitations: Made by the bride!

Table accessories: Centrepieces by Celtic Glass Designs (with circle of life design)

Transport: Nottingham Wedding Cars

Gifts for guests: Blue organza favour bags with yankee candle “wedding day” tart, sea shell turtle, celtic button, UK and Portugal friendship pin and personalised chocolate.

Honeymoon destination: Sorrento

 

To Contact Mark Pugh Photography

Website: http://www.markpugh.com/

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