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Phew, finally got round to blogging about our wedding! Been married for 6 months, but better late than never.

It was an amazing and beautiful day. The wedding party began to arrive the day before, and we put the finishing touches to the decorations and food that could be done in advance. In the evening, we had a small family/wedding party celebration, and then Mike and our best man went to stay the night with friends.

The wedding day began with grey skies and a forecast of rain… but as we started preparing, the clouds began to clear, and the day turned hot and sunny!

Mike, his family and the ushers set about decorating the village hall for the reception with pot plants, a photo montage of silly pictures of us as kids, our lovely red and blue fairtrade balloons and the bunting we borrowed.

Here come the girls

Meanwhile, my bridesmaids and I spent the morning making sure the right decorations went to the right venue, and getting pretty!

They had all bought/ brought their own dresses after I’d given them a colour sample, to make sure they all got a dress they liked and that suited them, so it was quite exciting to see all the dresses together.

They looked fantastic together, each in a slightly different shade of cherry red, it was lovely. To coordinate their outfits we had bought them each a ‘vegetable ivory’ pendant from DeMEC, who sell beautiful fairtrade jewellery, and I made them some little hair fascinators to wear.

I’d had to buy some new makeup from BBoheme since I don’t have very much, but other than that we just used what we already had, plus a bit of swapping and sharing.

And soon it was time to head over to the village hall, once the men were safely out of the way over at the church (we didn’t want to spoil the surprise of seeing one another in wedding clothes before the ceremony).

Green groom in vintage brown

Mike found his suit on Ebay, an awesome brown vintage 1970s suit, complete with flares, which suits him perfectly. Coupled with a really smart shirt and cherry red tie, both found in charity shops, he looked amazing. The ushers had brought their own suits, but we gave them coordinating ties and buttonholes.

Oxfam Bridal to the rescue

I found my dress in Oxfam Bridal in Leicester, the first bridal shop I went in (though I went in another afterwards, just to make sure!). It was beautiful, a vintage style dress with a simple lacy overlay on it, for which I borrowed an underskirt from a recently married friend.

I know I’ve gone on and on about Oxfam Bridal, but I was so impressed I’m going to recommend it again! And I managed to find some shoes in the exact same style as the dress somehow on Oxfam’s online shop. Pretty fortunate!

I wore the dress with an antique lace veil that has been in Mike’s family for generations, which was really special. I also managed to find this pretty necklace in a charity shop too. So we had fun putting the outfits together!

I’ll post again soon on the rest of the day,

Love, Helen