Bright & Beautiful! A Real Wedding In Yorkshire – Jo & Luke

Posted on: 02/11/2012

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Nothing like a bright and beautiful Yorkshire Real Wedding to get your Friday off to a flying start.  Today we are at the beautiful Yorkshire Sculpture Park with Brides Up North reader  Jo, her new hubby Luke and Peter Boyd Photography for a wedding filled with colour, humour and personal touches. 

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Save some pic n mix for me please!

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Jo says:  We got engaged on 26^th June 2011. We were having a weekend away for our birthdays in Liverpool. During the day, Luke bought me a pick n mix (I love sweets) but unbeknown to me, he’d squirrelled away numerous Haribo rings to put in various pockets in preparation for popping the question. Later on, around midnight, as we were strolling along the deserted Albert Dock, Luke asked me to be his wife and even though he tried to put the Haribo ring on the wrong finger, I said yes!

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We were married on Friday 24^th August 2012 at the gorgeous Yorkshire Sculpture Park (in West Bretton, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire).  It is a very special place to us. We go there often as we love to walk around the park. It is also where we ended up on our second date although we didn’t plan to – we were supposed to be going for a walk at a nearby lake but I got in the wrong lane on the roundabout and crashed my car. Luke was great though, despite my bad driving skills! That day we ended up at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and it was perfect.

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Additionally, we really loved the modern décor and huge windows looking out on the spectacular parkland. Sally and Charlotte, the wedding coordinators at the YSP, were so friendly and helpful which sealed the deal!

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We didn’t really pick a theme, but instead wanted to incorporate things that were personal to us and our colour scheme of teal and silver. I guess I was aiming for something fresh and modern. I did have a motif of two interlinked hearts running through the stationery which I made myself.

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My very talented Mum made my dress. We chose a Vogue design for the pattern and bought the fabric together as I wanted it to be modern with a bit of a shimmer. Mum also adapted the pattern by embellishing the dress with beads and an appliqued motif. The dress itself was strapless and A-line.  My amazing shoes were by Irregular Choice. 

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My Mum also made the bridesmaids’ dresses! The pattern was by Butterick. I wanted to be able to have the bridesmaids dressed in my favourite colour and found the perfect material at Derby Cloth House.  Luke wore a suit we bought especially for the wedding and his father, my brother and our best man wore suits hired from Greenwoods 1860.

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Together with my mum, I made a beautiful brooch bouquet with brooches from family and friends as well as brooches bought especially for their turquoise colour. It was quite heavy but is a fantastic keepsake.

I also made the bridesmaids’ bouquet from a mixture of foam roses, organza and sparkly bits wrapped with ribbon.

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During the ceremony, Luke’s sister Laura and her boyfriend Chris played three songs; Laura sang and Chris played guitar. It was beautiful and it was the only point in the day when I cried!

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Later on, we hired The Kickstarts, a fantastically fun band who played lots of great hits from various decades and got everyone dancing. Music is important to us (it’s how we met) so in between The Kickstarts’ sets, we played our own playlist of favourite songs.

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Every song played before the ceremony, during, after, during the wedding breakfast was chosen by us and meant a lot to us. I walked down the aisle to Santeria by Sublime (performed by the Piano Tribute Players) and we came back up the aisle to Green Day’s Good Riddance (Time of your life) also performed by Piano Tribute Players. Our first dance was Swing Life Away by Rise Against and our last dance was History by Funeral for a Friend.

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From the moment we came across Peter Boyd Photography, we knew we had to have him shoot our wedding! His work is amazing and we loved the way he could really tell a story through his pictures and could capture the moment so perfectly. We’d already decided the photos were one thing we weren’t going to compromise on, so when we met Peter and Kelly and they were just as nice in real life, we booked them immediately. We were thrilled with their pictures.

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Luke is known for wearing crazily coloured socks and gave each man in the wedding party a pair to wear that day.

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We were aware that we were providing a lot of free wine, as happens at weddings, and wanted to add some beer to the mix! So we purchased a keg of Yorkshire Blonde (could have been named after me!) and asked for donations for each pint which we gave to The British Heart Foundation.

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We decided not to have a traditional blank guest book but chose to use the Landscape for Art book we bought at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which has photos of all the art displayed there over the last 30 years. Handily, there were plenty of spaces around the photos for our guests to share their best wishes and top tips for marriage!

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Luke’s Mum grew all the flowers with the help of the adults with learning disabilities who attend the day centre at which she volunteers. She then arranged them in vases for the ceremony room and each table. I didn’t know what the flowers would be but I trusted her expertise. They were an amazing array of seasonal blooms.

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Each table was named after a song we both love and we quoted one of the lyrics on the signs we made for each table.

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The favours were two Haribo rings (see engagement story!) and a Haribo heart in a turquoise organza bag plus I made each guest a personalised silver and turquoise wine glass charm with their name.  I love sweets but 8 months before the wedding, I gave them up which was a real test. It meant the pick n mix I created for our wedding day was worth the wait though!

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Jo of Jo’s Cakes is not only my best friend and bridesmaid, but she also makes amazing cakes and mine was no exception! My cake was a total surprise and a wonderful gift. Although I had provided Jo with a mood board, I had no idea what she was going to do! I did know it would be fantastic and it was. Not only did it look spectacular, but it tasted great too.

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I can’t choose one special moment from the day! Some of my favourite parts: walking up the aisle with my brother to see my future husband; Laura and Chris’ performance; dancing with all my family and friends; the fantastic food and the amazing photo booth (thanks to Peter Boyd Photography) - everyone had such fun dressing up and leaving messages for us on the chalkboard. 

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For two nights after the wedding,we stayed at 42 The Calls in Leeds as we had a huge BBQ at my mum’s the day after the wedding. On the Sunday morning, we flew off to Jersey. We chose Jersey as it was likely to be warm (it was), it was somewhere neither of us had visited before and it was interesting (not everyone gets to hold a snake and feed monkeys on their honeymoon)!

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My top tip for other Brides Up North would be not to compromise – do it your way! Make it personal to you and not about what everyone else wants or expects.

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Saying that though, do have a budget and work within that budget. Work out what you think it’s important to spend on and what you can save on. Make things yourself and enlist the help of friends and family.

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On the day, use the time between courses at the wedding breakfast to mingle. We were so glad we did as it meant we could personally thank every guest for coming and spend time chatting to them before the dancing began!

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Congratulations Jo & Luke!

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Contact me to see your own Real Wedding featured on the wedding blog. 

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Brides Up North UK Wedding Blog – Images © 2012 Peter Boyd Photography

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