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Way back in April 2011, I ran a month of competitions here on the wedding blog to celebrate the Royal Wedding.  One of the amazing prizes donated by a whole host of our favourite suppliers was the chance to win your wedding photography – completely free – with super snapper and Brides Up North Featured Supplier Assassynation.

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Our chosen winner, Jade, wrote:  

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Dear Brides Up North and Sassy,

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Hello! My fella Alex and I are getting married in Lincolnshire on Sept 8th 2012, and we think we should win because not only will our wedding be a bit different, you will also get to meet some diddy Shetland ponies!

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We got engaged after two years together in January, when Alex proposed by putting the ring around the collar of a lovely old wrinkly pug dog wearing a sparkly bow-tie- for us, it doesn’t get any better than that!

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From the start we knew we didn’t want a ‘conventional’ wedding, with no formalities and within a £4000 budget- we just couldn’t imagine standing in the ‘receiving line’, awkwardly shaking hands and air-kissing the people we really just wanted to be partying with instead! So that kind of set the whole theme of the wedding- just a big old knees up, where everyone mingles and there’s no pressure other than to have a good time!

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So over the months, we have come up with the idea of a big old English garden party (possibly not the most unique idea ever, but one we love!). And this has led us to the fun bit (found with the help of another Sassy bride, Gem of ‘Gem and Dan’s farm-wedding’ fame!)- the whole day is going to take place at a Heavy Horse Centre! They house some of Britain’s biggest horses, and several tiiiiiiiny Shetlands, who are ridiculously cute when they come running up to you like excitable puppies!! They are being kind enough to lend us their fields to hold our wedding day in, and are even letting us use the big horses to do cart rides for the guests and the little horses for some fun photos!

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We’re going to have a low-key legal ceremony the day before, to allow us to have a gorgeous outdoor ceremony the next day that everyone will attend. Think hay bale seating, pastel cushions and throws, pug bridesmaids and a floral ‘altar’… hopefully it’ll look amazing and the good old English weather stays in our favour! The ceremony will be officiated by a friend, and afterwards we’ll all go to the next field where there’ll be a canvas marquee, decorated in bunting and pastel colours, for the afternoon tea-style reception (complete with vintage china, which has been so much fun to collect!).

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Guests will be greeted with jam jars of Pimms or home-made lemonade, and then invited to help themselves to a buffet lunch. Dessert will be in the form of a ‘bake-off’- all guests are being asked to bring a dessert, and we’ll judge which one is best (for a bit of fun!). There will be a bouncy castle and an ice-cream van to keep kids and grown-up kids entertained, and in the evening we’re having a ceilidh band for a bit of a barn dance. Evening guests will be getting a good old hog-roast, and there’ll be a mid-afternoon raffle for a bit of fun, and also to help raise funds for the horses!

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I think Sassy’s style would really bring out the best of our wedding in pictures- your pictures are beautifully soft and light, and create a wonderful feeling of fun and romance- something which we’re hoping to bring out in bucket loads on our day!

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So in short – after the essay above! – please pick us, as we love your photos, and hope to do them justice with our DIY knees-up! Plus, who else will be able to offer you a ride on a shire horse or a cuddle with a Shetland??!

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Thanks!

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Jade x

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Well, Jade’s big day actually turned out a little differently in the end – as all best laid plans do – but Sassy was still there to capture the whole beautiful occasion for her on camera!

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With images by Assassynation, and words by our winner Jade.

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Jade says:  We got engaged on January 19th 2011. Alex proposed at PJ’s Pie Pub in Boston, Lincs. They had a resident pug (those who know me know my obsession with pugs, and at the time we didn’t have our Teddy!) and Alex arranged to have him be ‘ring-bearer’, so as we were waiting for our desserts, out comes a smushy faced dog with a ring on his collar! It was perfect!

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We got married at Bateman’s Brewery in Wainfleet, Lincolnshire on 28th July 2012. We had originally planned to have an outdoor, marquee wedding, but you’d be amazed how hard this is to organise in a county that is essentially all field! We found a perfect place in Northcote Heavy Horse Centre in Lincolnshire, but as they were sadly at risk of closure, we decided we couldn’t take the risk of having it there. So after lots of searching, lots of ‘weddingy’ and overpriced venues, we popped into the Brewery visitor centre for a beer, and our venue was born!

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Our venue was just exactly what we wanted- not too large, relaxed, plenty of things to do and best of all it was seriously reasonably priced! Judy, the manager, is an absolute star- nothing phased her, every request was happily accepted, and we felt so relaxed and confident in the run-up knowing we had someone so fantastic doing the organising!

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We didn’t have a theme as such, other than ‘relaxed, well-fed and fun’. We tried to keep it to a vintage style, with china cups and saucers, bunting and the usual! When we entered Brides Up North’s competition to win Assassynation as our photographer (which we were over the moon to win!), we had wanted an outdoor ceremony, with a marquee reception, hay bales, paper pompoms, the whole shebang – however, venue changes kind of scuppered that, but we managed to keep the essence of the day, which was RELAXED!

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Bateman’s have a super cute little cottage on their premises, so I was lucky enough to stay there the night before, with my mum and sister. We had a hilarious night trying to get pizza delivered, as we discovered we were locked into the grounds once Judy had left!

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I was really nervous on the morning of the wedding- I’d not slept, the combination of tiredness and nervous nausea was getting me down as I’m normally very calm and un-phased by things. I loved spending the morning with my best girlies, and they did a fab job of keeping me excited rather than nervous. But when I was putting my make-up on, I was on my own in the bedroom, and I realised I could see the guests arriving from the window- I just watched everyone milling around, chatting, and looking really happy- it was then I realised there was nothing to be nervous about, I was about to spend the day with everyone who means the most to us, and who we wanted to be part of our day. Well, until they caught me watching, and I had to move rooms to avoid being spotted!

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I’d always known I’d feel happiest in a 50’s style dress, as that’s my usual style. As soon as we got engaged, I clocked the Justin Alexander 8465 and fell in love with it. Luckily, I managed to find one that had been worn once before, at half the original price, which fit perfectly! During the planning, I had several dress wobbles, and even up to 8 weeks before the day I was google-ing alternative dresses – but other brides have reassured me this is normal! My only wedding regret is that we didn’t have a budget that would stretch to a Candy Anthony dress, but on the day I felt comfortable and got lots of compliments, so I’m glad I stuck with my original dress. My shoes were a pre-worn pair of Rachel Simpson shoes which were quite scuffed on the sole so I got them for a bargain!

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My bridesmaids wore dresses from the high street, I couldn’t tell you where from though! I had the very challenging issue of having two very new mums and one still expecting, so we couldn’t go dress shopping till very near to the actual date – one of the girls only got their dress the Tuesday before the wedding! Their shoes were also high street and I bought them a Jenny Packham necklace to wear. Alex’s suit was a perfect fit from Marks and Spencer, and his groomsmen were all high-street. We intentionally didn’t want anyone matching, as we think it looks too formal, so the boys had free choice over what they wore!

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We were extremely lucky to win our wedding photography through Brides Up North with Sassy from Assassynation. Seriously, this was the highlight of wedding planning – Sassy is such a fantastic person, always so upbeat and positive, I really enjoyed our email conversations and feel quite sad the process is over now! Every time Sassy posted a new wedding, or had a blog feature, I would get so excited imagining how our pictures would look as her work is just incredible. She is a gem of the photography world, and we absolutely love our pictures! So thanks, both Brides Up North and Sassy!

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We also hired Frank, of Sassy’n’Frank, as our videographer – very much recommended, he’s such a great bloke, he’s full of humour and always fun to chat with via email and Twitter! Our video is so lovely, and it really compliments the style of Sassy’s pictures, we love watching it – if anyone is considering getting a videographer, I’d say go for it! You’ll never regret seeing your wedding in motion!

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For my bouquet I carried a bunch that was meant to look handpicked from the garden- I know it had roses, cornflowers, rosemary and gyps in it, but I couldn’t tell you much else! The lady was a local florist recommended by Bateman’s, and she did a great job making the table flowers look just the right level of messy-flowers-from-the-garden. There was a bit of a miscommunication with the bridesmaid’s flowers, they were going to have a small corsage (for convenience in view of the babies!) and they received a wristband that resembled something a Power-Ranger might wear. Luckily, my hairdresser’s boyfriend is a florist/dressmaker/mechanic(!) so he saved the day and turned them into pins to wear on their dresses, which looked much better!

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I handmade a heart-shaped felt brooch for every guest, which our brothers gave out as people were walking in. We didn’t bother with an order of service, but I did hand-stamp the table plan and all name cards- not recommended, my arms ached for days afterwards!

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We hired a bouncy castle and light up letters from Vowed and Amazed. We were lucky they agreed to deliver to us, as we’re so far away from their base. The bouncy castle went down a storm, and looks amazing in the pictures. Sadly the letter A fell over earlier in the evening and the bulbs broke, so we didn’t get any pictures with Sassy of them- which is a shame as they looked great!

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Our cake was a red velvet sponge, with chocolate cupcakes. We also had plain Viccy sponges, donuts, and a gorgeous home-made Pavlova for variety!

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We did our own iTunes playlist, luckily for us Bateman’s has an in-built PA system. The playlist was perhaps one of the more stressful parts of the planning, but we got there in the end with a pretty cracking set!

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After the wedding we spent two amazing weeks in the Riviera Maya, Mexico – thoroughly recommended!

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My top tip for other Brides Up North would be don’t stress over all the little details- chances are, none of your guests will know how long it took to glue all the bloomin’ brooches together (just me then?!) – they want to be there to celebrate your marriage with you! And definitely get a bouncy castle- amazing for all ages, though over 25 and you’re risking a pulled groin and concussion!

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Congratulations Alex & Jade!

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Fancy seeing your Real Wedding here on Brides Up North?  Just get in touch.

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Brides Up North UK Wedding Blog – Images © 2012 Assassynation

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