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You know the old saying, right? “One beauty of a Real Wedding deserves another.” 

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Ok, so I made that ol’ saying up, but you’ll be glad I did, as move to East Yorkshire this Thursday afternoon for another dose of Real Wedding super prettiness, sent to me by Brides Up North Featured Supplier Pomp & Ceremony Wedding Planning (who are responsible for this super prettiness) and real bride Hayley (also a culprit).  This time, it’s a stunning late Summer white out. 

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With images by Gareth Humpage Photography. 

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Hayley says:  In June 2011 at the time of our engagement I was still living in the UK and had travelled across to NYC for the weekend. Matt proposed during a surprise weekend stay in The James Hotel in SoHo, Manhattan.

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We were married on 8th September 2012 at St Mary’s Church, Cottingham and the reception at Rowley Manor, Rowley, East Yorkshire.  We now live in New York but I am from Cottingham originally and my family all still live there. St Mary’s is my family’s parish church and I used to ride horses at Rowley Manor as a teenager with my Dad and so both venues had sentimental value.

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When we were first looking at reception venues in the area some of the other venues had very strict policies on what we could and couldn’t do but Rowley Manor were open to whatever we wanted to do and the staff were fantastic. We also felt that Rowley Manor had the English old-world charm we were looking for – the manor itself is set in acres of private land with an old chapel, roaming horses and croquet lawns. We ended up booking the entire estate for the weekend and putting up a big marquee on the grounds.

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My dress was a Monique Lhuillier, Candy dress in ivory. I didn’t want a princess style gown but sleek, silky gowns just didn’t suit me. This dress was the perfect mix of soft elegance and glamour.  I bought the dress from Martin Ingram bridal boutique on Park Avenue, Manhattan.

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Our groomsmen live all across the US so it would have been difficult to arrange for the groomsmen to have matching suits. We just asked them just to wear a black suit and then we handed out matching ties.

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The bridesmaids wore a simple, cocktail length dress from Dessy in a pale rose-bronze colour.

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My bouquet was white hydrangeas, peonies, anemones and cabbage roses. The bouquet was tied with a simple black grosgrain ribbon.  My bridesmaids carried simple bouquets of white cabbage roses and my flower girl carried a mini-pomander of white roses held by a black grosgrain ribbon.  All our flowers were by Serendipity Florist. 

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We had a lot of guests come from the USA so the theme was ‘English garden’. We played croquet on the lawn, ferried the guests in a vintage double-decker bus (from East Yorkshire Coaches) and served Pimms cup cocktails.

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We chose a colour scheme of black, white and green. Our marquee was decorated in white drapery with open sides facing onto the green countryside and the horses in the fields then there were touches of black and green in our decorations, stationery and flowers. Inside the marquee we had a variety of tall and low arrangements to create visual impact and follow the theme through. We had a lot of flowers – that was one of our must-haves. Thankfully we had a sunny 25 degree day which made everything that much more perfect.

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Instead of having place cards set out on the table we had them printed in a leaf shape and hung on branches within the marquee to carry on the garden theme.

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Given that a lot of our guests were travelling a long way we put together a welcome pack for each of our out of town guests. The packs contained local tourist info brochures, crisps & snacks (all with a British theme – roast beef & mustard flavour, Curly Wurly, Brit Kat etc), notepad & pen, paracetamol, water, polo mints and some Pimms cup cans, all put together in a jute bag with a union jack printed on the front for them to keep as a memento. Each of the bags also contained a welcome note, a map of events so they knew where they were going and a wedding day schedule so everyone knew when they were getting picked up and so on. 

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Instead of numbering our tables 1, 2, 3, each one of our tables was given a number that was significant to us and the table number card then had a little explanation. For example, we had a table 15,000 which represented the height in feet of our first skydive together and a table 16 which was the most number of days we’d ever spent apart despite that we started out living on different continents.

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My Dad made us some lovely wooden signs to use in the wedding. One said ‘Hayley and Matt’ and then below there was an arrow pointing to the church saying ‘I Do’ and then another pointing away from the church saying ‘We Did’. It meant a lot to us to have those little personal touches.

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We had an entirely white three tiered traditional cake decorated with white peonies and petals to add texture by Bloomsbury Wedding Cakes. The top layer was the traditional fruit cake and the other two were Cointreau and orange and lemon curd.

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Instead of a guest book we bought a polaroid camera and asked guests to take a funny picture of themselves using the props we had and write a message to us. The photos were hung on string secured into a wooden frame and so it became part of the decoration by the end of the night and was a real talking point for our guests. At each place setting we had a ‘smile’ card which told guests about the camera and made suggestions about what funny poses they should do etc. This was a huge hit!

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The Vernon Sisters performed throughout the day at the Church, the reception and dancing. In the evening they were joined by a live 8 piece band that really helped set the atmosphere. When we first started planning our wedding we said that the band was one of the things we cared about most.  We also had a fantastic DJ (Hi Life DJs) who played a great mix of songs to suit everyone. We couldn’t have been happier with him – best DJ we’ve seen.

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Perhaps our favourite thing about the whole day was to see all of our friends and family from across the USA and Europe come together for what will probably be the only time.

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After the wedding we spent ten days in the Maldives at Huvafen Fushi which was amazing – a complete paradise island – followed by three days in Dubai to break up our long trip back to the US.

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I have three top tips for other Brides Up North:

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Get a wedding planner! Planning a wedding (especially from abroad) is pretty daunting and hiring a wedding planner was the best decision we made throughout the process. From the start our planners (Pomp & Ceremony) took everything off our plate and made us feel completely reassured that everything would be perfect. Their vision and creativity helped us to decide what kind of a wedding we wanted and from there they went above and beyond to make our dream wedding become reality.  They were with us every step of the way – recommending bridesmaid dresses, arranging photographers, managing all of our suppliers, picking up the cake, managing issues with the stationers, decorating the marquee etc. etc. – On the day itself our planners took care of everything so we and our parents were able to completely relax and enjoy ourselves. Our planners even managed to secure discounts with our suppliers to save us money.

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Try not to spend too long posing for your photographs. Time flies and we ended up missing a lot of our drinks reception which is our one regret.

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Get a wedding video. Going up to our wedding everyone told us that the day would pass in the blink of an eye and they were completely right. There’s so much happening that it’s hard to take everything in and a video helps you to relive it and remember the details you missed.  We used The Big Day Film Company who were flawless, professional and make every wedding look like a movie.  

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Congratulations Hayley & Matt!

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Would you like to see your own Real Wedding featured on Brides Up North?  Here’s how.

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Brides Up North UK Wedding Blog – Images © 2013 Gareth Humpage Photography

Pomp & Ceremony is a Brides Up North Featured Supplier

Contact Brides Up North to submit your business as a Featured Supplier

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