Wedding Forum

[WinterBride]

Hi everyone, as some of you know, I have changed my mind on a lot of things since we first starting our plans about 6 months ago, and when my old S&T hit 20 pages, I thought it might be a good idea to start fresh from where we are now! So here goes...

FH & I are getting married on 21st July 2012. Here are our plans:

Ceremony
We are getting married at this beautiful heritage church (built in 1867).



Reception
We have just changed our reception venue, as we weren't happy with our original choice. So we are now booked to have our reception at a winery in the foothills, which has a beautiful vintage hall built in the 1920's with a large open fireplace, and fairylights draped around the ceiling beams and pillars. It suits our winter wedding very nicely.



Dress
I am having my dress made at a local bridal house. They are combining elements from a dress I found in a UK wedding magazine that I adore, and one of their original designs that I tried on instore. It will be similar to the bodice of the first dress, and the skirt of the second dress, and it will have satin and lace covered buttons at the back from the neck to the waist.


MOH Dress
My MOH will also have a dress made at the same place. Hers will be a beautiful deep red chiffon gown, a simple sweetheart neckline, flowing skirt, with a bolero in the same fabric that will match my dress (same length and shape sleeves) and will cross over the bust and tie up in a bow at the back. Here is a picture of basically the same basic dress design (different material and obviously this one has cap sleeves whereas MOH's will be strapless with a separate bolero).


Band
At our reception, we are having a local wedding/function band. They are really lovely guys and they used to be Elvis impersonators, which works well for FH & I, because we love that genre and era of music, and we are *currently* planning to have 'Love Me Tender' as our first dance song- sung as a female & male duet.

Flowers
We want roses. They will be ivory, champagne and red. Here's some inspiration:



Photography
We booked our wonderful photographer a few months ago because his photos are amazing and most of all, we loved his laidback, down to earth, fun personality. We knew he would keep us relaxed and happy on the day. We recently had our engagement session with him and we were really happy with the results. Here are a few of our favourites from the shoot.





We've got a few other things sorted, which I'll update soon, but I think that's enough for now!
Hope you enjoy seeing our plans progress, thanks for having a look

[Kaz85]

Love your new S&T, new venue is stunning and am loving your engagement shoot pics! Fantastic!

[WinterBride]

Some more photos of our reception venue. I also forgot to mention one of my favourite parts about it. You actually drive through the vineyard itself to get to the function centre, which is just magical.

This is the front of the hall:



Infront of the bar, they have a lounge area, which FH loved as it gives the place a more relaxed atmosphere, which is very us (ignore the ladder haha):



Along the walls, they have big wine vats, and some of them have been hollowed out to have tables inside, either for gift tables, photobooths etc, or you can actually sit in there:

[Kaz85]

AMAAAAAAZZZING!

[kylo]

It all looks so great..I'm so pleased for you that you've found somewhere to get excited about & fit your winter theme! And I love your engagement shots..just beautiful!

[^Kath^]

Everything looks great! love your new venue and your engagement photos are gorgeous

[Nathan's Girl]

You have a new S&T!!!

Love the new reception venue and it is fantastic seeing all of your plans coming together! Gorgeous engagement pictures by the way. You guys look so in love!

[mooki]

your reception venue looks amazing!!!

[WinterBride]

Thanks everyone for your comments, they make it so much more fun!

I've got a few little updates:

Invites
If you scroll up a bit you will see the photos from our reception venue, including one that shows their menus. We are considering using a similar type of paper for the inserts in our invitations so that it all flows together. I'm not sure whether it will go with our original invitation ideas (we have ivory pockets). But I'm going to give it a go today and I'll post the result a little later. If it doesn't look right, no harm no foul we will just go with our original paper which is beautiful.

Bomboniere
We have also had a bomboniere idea which we're really excited about because bomboniere was something we were really struggling to decide on. I have contacted a Blacksmith/Farrier who is going to make miniature horse shoes with our guests' names stamped on them! He is making us a sample shoe, so I will post a picture of it when it arrives in the mail. I also bought these little Thank You tags to put on the horse shoes, we think they really suit our theme and venue, and will look great with the shoes! Also because the shoes themselves will have the guests' name, we don't need the tag to say it too, so it's nice to be able to buy them rather than make them ourselves. We are planning to handwrite 'Love from' us and our wedding date on the back of each tag to keep it personal:



We received our sample horseshoe. I arranged it with some ribbon and the tag to see how it would look. What do you think?



Vows
Our vows have been given the all clear by our Priest! We are having a Catholic nuptial mass and we weren't really happy with the vow examples so we asked if we could tweak them. We were essentially given free reign to brainstorm and get the okay from our Priest as to whether they were appropriate. We just needed simple vows that wouldn't be too long but said a lot to us as a couple, and made it clear that we were making a lifelong commitment to each other. We have ended up with a combination of the two examples we were originally given, also mixed with a set we found online and the classic "love, honour, comfort and keep" placing special emphasis on "love." This is what we have ended up with:

I, bride/groom, take you, groom/bride, to be my husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward. In the presence of God, our family and our friends, I promise to stay by your side as your loving wife/husband, to honour, comfort and keep you, and to love you, all the days of my life.

We really love them because they are really simple, not overly wordy and yet they include all the things we want to promise each other by using words that cover everything

ETA: Photo of bomboniere

[.Rissa.]

Your venues are stunning! WOW! Love the engagament photo's, they are gorgeous! our photographer has done an amazing job