You can hire a country manor, fill it with flowers and spend countless weeks cutting and pasting designs for your invites and table plan… but wedding blogs are here to show you you don’t have to do any of that. You can create a brilliantly amazing and memorable wedding your guests will love without all the bits people expect – just like gorgeous bride and groom Diane and Michael did. I love how they describe their day – the focus was on brilliant food and drink, making sure their guests were looked after, and choosing 3 fabulous venues for their ceremony, reception and evening party. I love it: the whole day looks and sounds just perfect – a wedding blogger’s dream!

Wedding photographer’s website:

https://www.annawoodphotography.com/

We contacted Anna after seeing her ad on Facebook and we were not disappointed. Our first meeting was more like having a friend round for a brew than a meeting where We chatted about the day itself but really got to know more about each other. Advice we’d been given was to choose someone you get along with as your photographer as you spend a lot of time with them and Anna was so warm and genuinely excited by our wedding, she was the clear choice for us to share our day with.

We were absolutely thrilled with our wedding photographer. Having Anna at the wedding was like having another friend with us. We were very relaxed having her around. Everyone at the wedding has said how lovely Anna was and how impressed they were that she just fit in – it was like she was one of the guests. I think this is one of the reasons she managed to get so many beautiful photographs. Everyone looks relaxed and so very happy. Definitely not something that could have been achieved by someone who wasn’t part of the celebrations. We love our photos they all have a very relaxed, natural feel and the colours are amazing. Anna managed to capture moments that we would have missed and we’re so grateful to her for that.

Anna’s timing getting the wedding photos to us was perfect. The links to the online portal were the first thing we saw at the airport after our honeymoon. Suddenly we were so excited to get home and have a good nosey. Looking through photos was an emotional experience – the whole day just came flooding back, along with all the feelings. Anna captured everyone’s happiness beautifully and we couldn’t help but love them.

Find Anna Wood Photography on Instagram // Facebook

Wedding venue:

Ceremony at Leeds Town Hall
Wedding Breakfast at Stockdales of Yorkshire
Evening Reception at The Good Luck Club

Wedding month:

March

Can you describe your wedding in fewer than 10 words?

A relaxed Saturday on the town, featuring a wedding

Your wedding style or theme:

No specific theme, just relaxed, good food, drink and excellent company

Where did you find your suppliers? (Blogs, magazines, recommendations?)

We were quite lucky and received a variety of recommendations which enabled us to choose from a variety of styles, knowing that whoever we chose would do a great job.

What’s your top tip for saving money?

It’s very easy to get carried away. Think about whether what you’re doing/buying will actually add anything to the day and if it’s something you actually want.

… and which elements of your wedding are you glad you spent more on?

We largely managed to stick to our budget – the one area that we decided we would be happy to overspend was on the food and drink. We were very focused on everyone being able to enjoy themselves without being out of pocket, so we provided all drinks for our day guests and some arrival drinks for our evening guests. In the end we came in under budget for food and drink, but I think that was because we built in significantly more than we needed in the first place.

Did you fall in love with your wedding dress?

I did love my wedding dress (and still do). It wasn’t at all what I had in mind… in my head I had ideas of something mid-length as I thought that would be the only type of dress that was ‘relaxed and easy to move around in’ – something important for walking between our wedding venues and dancing the night away. However, after trying a few dresses on that fit that bill all of which looked lovely, nothing felt quite right. I knew as soon as I tried my dress on that it was ‘the one’, although I did try on about another 20 dresses just to be sure! I got exactly what I wanted from my dress…the delicate lace flowed beautifully and was so comfortable to wear. It definitely didn’t hold back my dancing either.

Wedding dress designer and bridal boutique:

Rembo Styling from Lace & Co, Horbury

Tell us about your accessories: jewellery, shoes and anything else!

My jewellery was a simple affair mainly borrowed from family and friends, with the exception of a new bracelet bought for me by my parents.
I had two pairs of shoes for the day. First, a pair of beautiful embellished peep toe heels, and second a pair of glitter trainers with ribbon laces by Kate Spade to give my feet a rest and enable me to dance the night away.

And what did the groom wear?

Suit by Ted Baker, shoes by Loake

Beautiful bridesmaids: what did your best girls wear?

My one bridesmaid (and lovely sister) wore a full length dress from Reiss, with some details which mirrored those on my dress.

Hair and make-up – did you DIY or hire a professional?

The lovely Rachel O’Dell was responsible for my hair and makeup, and my sister’s. https://rachelodell.com/

Describe your wedding flowers. Who arranged them for you? (florist details would be lovely please)

Jayne at Blackburn Florists, Horbury arranged the flowers. The bridal bouquet was handtied mix of cream and soft pink roses, cream tulips with thistles and plenty of foliage, all pulled together in a relaxed style. The bridesmaid bouquet was a slightly smaller version of this, and the button holes echoes the cream rose, thistle and foliage.

General styling – did your venues need much decoration?

We didn’t decorate any of our wedding venues. The restaurant has quite imposing wood panelled and exposed brick walls and tealights on the tables and we’d decided we didn’t want to take the attention away from that. Our evening venue also looks good all the time, with atmospheric lighting and decorations ranging from fairy lights to candles and ceiling roses to decorate the walls. We felt anything else would have been lost in the environment so we let let the venue speak for itself.

Crafts and makes – tell us about any homemade elements of your wedding… did you enjoy them?

Michael has always enjoyed making his own sloe gin so we decided it would be nice to use that as favours. We made a special batch of sloe gin and bottled it into individual 100ml bottles, detailed with stickers showing our initials and wedding date. As we were limited for space on the tables we decided the favours would also double up as place settings by tying luggage tags with guest names around the neck of the bottles with twine. We were really pleased with the finished article – it was really satisfying seeing the completed bottles lining the tables.

The wedding cake: what kind of cake did you choose and why?

We chose to have a more traditional 3 tiered style of wedding cake. This was quite a difficult choice for us – we were torn between an alternative such as brownies, which we both love, and a cake. The cake won out purely because we love the ceremony and tradition that comes with the cutting of the cake, however, there was still a nod to the chocolate element of a brownie – the cake was chocolate sponge with white chocolate icing,

Entertainment: any musical recommendations, surprises or treats?

We had a DJ who provided an online forum for song requests which was made available to guests before the wedding. Once the list had been started the requests came rolling in, and sure enough, it got people on the dance floor.

Words of wisdom: share your best piece of advice for other couples:

Do things because you want to do them, rather than because you think your guests will expect it. It’s a day that should be personal to you.

What’s the best thing about being married?

The best thing about being married is that nothing has changed (apart from a name!). Oh, and we got to go on an amazing honeymoon!