Lakeland Vibes and Confetti Chaos
It's time to blog another wedding! I have a wonderful collection of weddings from last summer to share with you over the next couple of months and I'm making a start with Sam and Roxy's colourful and sparkly celebration. It definitely cemented my love of confetti cannons and it was wonderful heading to the Lyceum theatre for their first look - so many gorgeous backdrops for photos and the perfect place for them to have some time together before the rest of the day unfolded. As always I'm going to let them tell you the story of their day, so here goes... first off here's their wedding film.
The wedding film
The soundtrack
Click below to listen to a Spotify playlist while you read more...
the wedding photos
OUR WEDDING PLANNING PROCESS
We got engaged two years before the wedding and planned it pretty much from that point onwards, although in truth we’d been batting the idea around for a while before Sam popped the question. We were also incredibly fortunate to win the wedding planning services of the wonderful Kirstin Halstead through a competition on Rock n Roll Bride, she was incredible at helping us to get organised and at keeping things going when we couldn't get on with planning.
The first thing we booked was Hannah! I’d always loved her work and had always said that if we were ever to marry then she was the first choice for photographer (fortunately, Sam agreed!). I work in academia and so we knew we wanted a July wedding (as that tends to be the quietest month in the work calendar!) and so we picked our wedding date based on what Hannah had available.
From then, it was relatively quick and easy to get the evening reception venue booked, and after getting completely stuck between the Crucible theatre and Sheffield Town Hall (two local landmarks), we finally decided on the former for our ceremony venue.
In terms of challenges, amongst the usual worries about money and drama about guest lists, we also had a terrible bereavement when we lost my incredible Grandma the summer before the wedding. To be honest, that put us off the wedding a little, as it seemed almost pointless to do the day without her, and we talked about eloping instead. In the end, we were so glad that we'd kept our original plan as the day itself was so amazing, but that was a hell of a challenge at the time.
Still, the cake tasting was fun!
THE STORY OF OUR DAY
I got an early start as my bridesmaid Sadie and I were collected first thing to go get our makeup done, with the other bridesmaids joining us at the studio. While we got ready, Sam met up with his brother and best man Joe in town and they grabbed a pint together there. Then, once made up and dressed, I headed to town with the bridesmaids for mine and Sam’s first look. I was so glad that we did a first look as we were both so nervous and so it helped to calm our nerves quite a lot and gave us opportunity to see each other all made up away from all the guests (especially handy as I ended up crying throughout the ceremony!). After the first look there were photos with my bridesmaids, then the last minute legal formalities before the ceremony.
The ceremony itself was my favourite bit of the day – although I cried throughout! We had readings from our close friend and from Sam’s brother, and we wrote our own vows, which we read to one another before exchanging rings. We’re not particularly soppy, so while the vows were at least somewhat romantic, they were also rather daft.
After signing the register and doing our grand exit (I started crying again as soon as ‘Everywhere’ by Fleetwood Mac started up) we had confetti cannons outside the theatre in the square and hugged loads of our guests. After the big everyone shots, we then walked over to our reception venue (though I was walking very slow with heels in hand!).
We were introduced to our reception to a string trio playing a string arrangement of The Trooper by Iron Maiden (and to yet more confetti!). There was then a lovely drinks reception, complete with sweetie buffet, and the trio playing throughout.
Then we went upstairs for the wedding breakfast, which was a delicious afternoon tea. Unfortunately, Sheffield was the very definition of muggy that day, and it was especially bad in that room. This was particularly frustrating as we’d spent almost all day the day before decorating it and making it pretty, only to spend as little time there as possible because of the unbearable mugginess!
After some fun portraits on the roof with the bridesmaids and best man, it was downstairs for the speeches. My Dad, being beyond nervous had had the ingenious idea to ‘outsource’ the responsibility to my bridesmaids, who ended up having 15 minutes to come up with a speech as a result (it was brilliant, by the way). Then it was the first dance – with yet more confetti! And then there was dancing and socialising until the small hours. Though with time for a bacon butty and a slice of cake in between.
ADVICE FOR COUPLES PLANNING THEIR DAY
Eat. The. Food. I really regret not having more of the biscuits and the sweet things from the afternoon tea.
In terms of what we would tell ourselves if we could go back in time: when things are getting on top of you, when you want to cut and run and just bugger off and elope, remember: it will be worth it in the end.
KIND WORDS
We honestly can’t thank Hannah enough for capturing our day as beautifully as she did – the photos and the video are incredible and are the best keepsakes of the day. She is also the nicest person ever and really put us at ease and made us laugh. Words honestly can’t do this woman justice –we booked our wedding date based on her availability for a reason and it was absolutely the right decision to make. Best. Photographer. Ever.
