It can be a bit daunting planning a wedding, but if you always keep in mind that it is a day to express yourself and your love for your partner, why not let your imagination run riot.
When Lucy and Jack started planning their wedding, they knew they were going to go for something a little different….Suki from GFW sat down with Lucy to find out how their big day came together.
“Jack and I wanted our wedding to reflect us, what we’re about and what we love as a couple. Having spent many years going to festivals together, we settled on that as a theme. We even gave it a name “WedRock”, because we wanted it to feel like it was our own festival.
We were very fortunate to have a close friend of ours who is a graphic designer, who as freelance designs wedding stationary, and really it was spending time with her that it all started to come to life. She did our wedding invites in the style of festival tickets, she designed the lanyards, which were people’s name cards, the seating plan, she even designed personalised wristbands.”
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Q: While the pictures look absolutely incredible, this style of wedding doesn’t come easily! Would you say it was more difficult to organise than you would expect an ‘ordinary’ wedding to be?
A: “That’s actually a really good question. In some respects yes, as when you are taking on making a lot of the things yourself, you need a lot of time to do it. We didn’t even have that many guests during the day by modern standards, 60 I think, but making the favours, and the confetti, sourcing and cutting the astroturf for the tables, and sourcing all the wellies seemed to take forever! However, I got to spend a lot of time with friends whilst doing it, and our friends and family were a massive help in bringing the day together, honestly I couldn’t of done it on my own. It was also refreshing doing our own thing, we wrote our own vows too, and I think some brides and grooms worry too much about what other people will think about their day and breaking with tradition instead of just focussing on what is important, which is what they want.”
Q: What about your wedding attire?
A: “Clothes came from all over the place! I got my dress from Cutting Edge Brides, it was designed by House of Mooshki who specialise in tea length wedding dresses. My husband’s suit was hand made by a tailor in Scotland (he wore the tartan in honour of his late grandmother), his hand was handmade by a guy that specialises in steam punk attire, and the ushers mainly came from Zara. Plus eBay became my best friend! My petticoat was handmade by a lady who runs Petticoats-a-Plenty. The bridesmaids dresses came from Chi Chi London. My husband’s suit jack from Moss Bross.
We also didn’t know this when we booked the wedding date, it only came to light a few weeks before-hand, but both our grandparents got married on 20th August too. It was a bit spooky, but it felt only right since only one of them is still with us, that we had pictures of them on their wedding day as our top table centre piece. They would both of collectively been celebrating 167 years of marriage. I hope we live up to their example!”
Q: Do you think you could only achieve the look you were going for by doing it yourself? And giving it that personal touch?
A: “gain, that’s a really good question. The help I had was from people who knew me and my husband really well. We didn’t have to spend a long time conveying to people what we were trying to achieve, and I think I would of worried putting this all in the hands of a wedding planner whom I’d only just met. Sure, having someone handle the millions of phone calls and emails from various suppliers would have been great, but for me, I considered that to be part and parcel of what planning a wedding is all about.
I had a very clear vision in my head of what I wanted our day to be, and I think I achieved that without the need to get someone else involved. Had it been for a much larger number of people or overseas, then I probably would of entrusted it to a planner to do. I really enjoyed planning it and seeing it come together – but then we gave ourselves 2 years 3 months to do it, and I think there’s a tendency for people to get engaged and think they have to plan a wedding the following year. You don’t, you can take your time and enjoy it. Set a date by all means, but don’t make so much work for yourself in so little time that you cannot wait for it to be over, because the day goes in a flash.”
Q: Is there anything you would have done differently? Whether it be in the planning stages or something else you would have liked to have thrown in?
A: “Well the weather wasn’t the best, but then you have no influence over that unfortunately! The only thing I wished we had was a live band in the evening. We had a fantastic DJ, who belted out all our favourite tunes (including Metallica and music he probably never wanted to hear again!), but there is something about having a live band playing. The DJ was included in our package, and budget wouldn’t stretch to having a band as well. We did have a fantastic Jazz Singer called Sandy Ince who played during our welcome drinks. She even did a jazz rendition of sweet child of mine for us, one of our favourite songs.
But overall there isn’t a thing I would change. I think because I gave it enough time I was able to get everything in that I wanted, and the fact that so many friends and family helped make things for it made it even more special. All of the artwork that was done is up in our house, and it’s brilliant looking at it every day as it reminds of what was an amazing day.”
Photos by Wayne Kahn