fifty shades. a chic urban wedding at the great john street hotel – jess & rob

March 6th, 2017 | Laura McDonagh

Today’s real wedding saw Jess and Rob pull off the mean feat of a Valentine’s Day wedding without the cheese. Instead of succumbing to Love Hearts and an all-out pink colour scheme, the bride opted for a tea-length polka-dot dress and timeless, elegant shades of silvery blue and dove grey.

Ready for a chic urban wedding that shines with love? We are.

With photography by Brides Up North Sponsor Mark Newton Weddings.

jess says: We got engaged on Christmas Day 2015 after around eight years together. I didn’t think it was going to happen as Rob had given me all my gifts in the morning and he waited until midnight to propose. It happened at home, which was lovely as I didn’t really want a big fuss.

Our wedding date was 14^th February 2016 – Valentine’s Day! We didn’t really choose the date as such; it needed to be in half term as I’m a teacher, and we preferred a Sunday. So it just happened to be Valentine’s Day!

We got married at Great John Street Hotel in Manchester city centre. Rob and I knew we wanted something different and quite urban, so I decided to go along to the wedding open evening. I never imagined that we could afford such a beautiful venue but the packages that they offer there are very good value for money.

The venue itself is just stunning! We got married up on the rooftop, which is gorgeous. It’s such a modern and elegant hotel, it really suited us perfectly.

There was no set theme for the wedding but we constantly reminded ourselves that this was our day. It’s very easy to get caught up in what other people want but we tried to make our decisions for us. Also, we wanted a less traditional day so we tried to make our choices as unique and individual as possible.

Although it was Valentine’s Day, we wanted to avoid the obvious reds and pinks so we decided on greys and blues. I didn’t want everything to match perfectly so I just picked any variation of blue or grey that I liked. We also wanted hints of blue to incorporate our love of our football team – Leicester City!

My wedding dress also followed the ‘non-traditional’ direction we were taking; I always knew I didn’t want a full-length dress. A shorter dress always felt more ‘me’ and I wanted to feel like myself. My beautiful dress was made to measure by a wonderful shop in Nottingham called Frock. Esther who runs the shop was amazing throughout the whole process and the dress was nothing less than perfect. For any bride wanting a tea length dress, Frock is a must!

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