North West Wedding

real wedding recap 2017: rosa clara for a pretty blush pink wedding at didsbury house hotel – aimee & oli

Rachel Hirst

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (46)

It’s holiday season here on the blog, and as the editorial team take a short break, we’ll be leaving you with a reduced blogging schedule so that you still get your daily dose of wedding lovely. Usual service will recommence on Monday 3rd July 2017 but in the meantime watch out for recaps of some of our favourite Real Weddings from the first half of the year so far. 

Drop in every day for the very prettiest, most unique wedding inspiration and – if you are a Brides Up North bride – to see if your real wedding was one of our top picks.

Today’s couple are one after my own heart making the main focus of the day all about food!

Treating their guests to a six-course tasting menu at their favourite French restaurant, plus maroons as favours and an incredible multi-flavoured wedding cake, there’s no way that anyone went home hungry from this big day.

In addition to the banqueting, there are plenty of other fine elements to feast the eyes on, including Aimee’s elegant Rosa Clara gown, the maids pretty blush multi-ways and is that a sweet table that we spy? Time to indulge…

With images by Mike Plunkett Photography

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (49)

oli says:

I proposed to Aimee at The Savoy Hotel in London. I had gone down the day before to drop the ring off with the hotel and asked them to place it in our suite under a silver cloche with flowers and champagne in the room. Aimee thought they had given us someone else’s room by mistake and was reluctant to lift the cloche and find the ring – after some encouragement she did so and was very surprised!

We chose 29th June as the date for the wedding due to a couple of reasons. The first being that the restaurant we wanted for the wedding meant we could only have exclusive use on selected days. The second reason was that one of the groomsmen was playing for Wales in the European Football Championships so the date was supposed to be well planned for when we thought they may get eliminated – unfortunately they got to the semi-finals and he missed the wedding!

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (23)

We held or ceremony at Manchester Town Hall as we met at the Christmas Markets in front of the Town Hall, and in fact, in front of the Lords Mayors Parlour where we got married. Once we had a closer look at the venue we fell in love with it even more. We then went onto The French restaurant at The Midland Hotel, for the wedding breakfast as we love fine dining and this is our favourite restaurant in the city. We chose Didsbury House Hotel for the reception.

We also used Eleven Didsbury Hotel for the night before the wedding and Aimee stayed at King Street Townhouse in the city centre the night before. We love the hotels, the interiors and touches in the rooms are fantastic. The fact we could also take some of them over exclusively for us was great.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (39)

We didn’t have a theme for the wedding – we just wanted great food and fantastic venues.

The colour scheme was blush pink. We based this decision on what flowers would be in season that we liked at the time of the wedding.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (43)

Aimee wore a Rosa Clara wedding gown, which she purchased from Knutsford Wedding Gallery.

The bridesmaids’ dresses were multiway designs from In One Clothing.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (50)

Myself and the groomsmen wore Sandringham morning suits from Debenhams hire department with white shirts from Charles Tyrwhitt. I had a patterned pink Hermes tie, while the groomsmen wore plain pink ties. On the day of the wedding we also had our hair styled by MR.SE who is the owner of a leading men’s hair styling range in the UK.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (4)

Mike Plunkett Photography captured our day. The story of how we met Mike was a good one. On a train home from a meeting in London I glanced over and saw a man looking through wedding photographs. I asked who took them as they looked stunning, little did I know Mike who was sitting next to him had taken them all and was actually finishing the editing for another client. Fate came into play as Mike had only sat in the seat next to me as he gave up his previous seat so an elderly couple could sit next to one another. The following week Aimee met Mike and he was hired! His photographs really made the wedding, we always knew the venues would be impressive but capturing them and the memories is very hard. Mike did a perfect job, we would recommend him to anyone.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (8)

As Aimee stayed close to the Town Hall at King Street Townhouse the original plan was for her to walk across to the Town Hall, however, due to the shocking weather an emergency Uber was needed! Our guests were brought up from Didsbury House Hotel to Manchester Town Hall via Bullocks Coaches. They also took all the guests back to Didsbury from The French. Aimee and I travelled back in a chauffeur driven car from Swans Travel.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (20)

For the wedding flowers, Aimee had a handtied bouquet of roses in varying shapes and sizes, including pale pink bombastic spray roses, white hydrangea clusters, ivory peonies, sweet avalanche roses and Keira David Austin roses in shades of pale pink, blush and ivory. Finished with ivory lace. The bridesmaids had gypsophila bouquets finished with ivory lace and I had a pale pink rose buttonhole with a touch of white hydrangea detail. All the flowers were provided by The Flower Lounge in Didsbury.

As decoration, we had a dome of flowers, including roses and hydrangea, on ornate gold candle sticks. These were moved from the wedding venue to the wedding reception and used the following day at our barbecue too.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (22)

As favours we gave our guests Macaroons provided by The French.

Cakes by Karen created our incredible wedding cake. We spotted the design on Pinterest and asked if she could recreate it – she did it perfectly and it tasted amazing! It was multiple layers of different flavours: salted caramel, raspberry and rose, white chocolate, Oreo brownie, earl grey and lavender. We topped the cake off with a pale pink peony from the florist.

As our wedding breakfast, we had a signature six-course tasting menu at The French. There is one dish we’ve always loved since it first opened, the Smoked Ox so we made sure we had this along with five other courses created by Adam Reid the head chef. The wines were paired from champagne with the canapes to a Pinot Gris for the scallop and cod dish. The red was a pinot noir for the chicken with confit egg and a Frizante for the two desserts.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (41)

In contrast to the elegant day and dramatic venues we decided to have a ‘Race Night’ in the evening. Both our families and friends are partial to a flutter so to see them all betting and cheering on their horses for a chance to win some money was a lot of fun. With us taking over the whole hotel after the racing the inevitable music loaded, stupid dancing disco entailed.

Earlier in the day we also had a fantastic pianist to perform during our wedding breakfast. We surprised Aimee’s brother by playing one of his songs while we signed the wedding register. The race night was also a surprise!

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (31)

All of the venues we used for the wedding were stunning and we’d highly recommend them. We wanted Didsbury House to feel like an extension of our own house so our guests could feel relaxed, have fun and go up to bed when they wanted. The French is a stunning restaurant both for the food and its interior, and the Town Hall is special to both of us, plus the photographs you can get there are stunning.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (29)

Looking back, our favourite part of the day has to be the food! To see all of guests eating at our favourite restaurant was amazing. We will never forget the amazing atmosphere that made everyone forget about the awful weather outside.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (47)

Straight after the wedding we went to Dubai for ten days to relax on the beach. For our full honeymoon we’re off to South Africa for the vineyards and safari.

A Pretty Wedding in Manchester (c) Mike Plunkett Photography (42)

Our top tip to other wedding couples would be – don’t think about what your guests want or how your guests are getting on, it’s your day so focus on what you want, and enjoy your day, as it’s over before you know it. Also, consider hiring a videographer. I’d love to watch the day back again.

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