Events

A Little Party Never Killed Nobody! LOVE Bridal Boutique Celebrate A Roaring First Year

Julia Smith

Ayesha Rahman for LOVE Bridal Boutique

If you regularly stop by these swirly silver pages, you’ll know that I spend a lot of time championing the brilliant Northern suppliers that I come across as I scour the regions for the very best wedding industry talent out there.  Two such gems are the lovely Emma of LOVE Bridal Boutique and her husband Jonny of Jonny Draper Photography

A nicer, more talented pair – who really do care about their customers – would be hard to find.  That’s why, when I got the call to head North West and celebrate their first successful year in business with them I was on the phone to a babysitter faster than you can say “Where’s the bubbly?!”. 

A lovely evening, celebrating a fabulous first year.  Cheshire brides, I think we all know where you should be starting your dress hunt…  Happy Birthday LOVE Bridal Boutique!

Jebson - Love Bridal 1st Bday-16

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Jebson - Love Bridal 1st Bday-37

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Emma and Jonny say: What a first year!  We can’t believe how quickly it’s gone and we’re so pleased with the response we’ve had from all the brides who’ve visited LOVE Bridal Boutique, whether they’ve bought a dress or not.  We set out to create an unrivalled wedding dress shopping experience and the feedback that we continue to get is that we’re delivering on all levels which makes us so proud. 

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

We want every bride to feel special, to feel that she’s being given her own personal shopping experience and to feel that should she find the dress of her dreams with us, this experience will continue right up until and after her wedding day.

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

When we realised our first birthday was coming round a little quicker than we expected we only had one thought on our minds – PARTY!  We wanted to spend some time with some of the people who have helped make our first year so successful – family, friends, wedding industry friends – everybody who has been there for us every step of the way.  Which we realised included our brides too!  So our initial idea of having a small gathering at the boutique, quickly developed into something a bit bigger!  The new collections from our designers were starting to arrive into the boutique around the time of our birthday, so how about we include a catwalk show as well as drinks and celebrations?!  We decided that if we were going to have a party, we might as well make it a proper one!

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal BoutiqueDanielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Our wonderful friends, the Higham family (owners of Cheshire’s most amazing bespoke wedding venue, Styal Lodge) threw open the doors of their beautiful venue which gave us a space appropriate to the number of people that were making it onto our ever growing guest list and also the room to have a catwalk show too.  And that’s when the serious planning started.

Ayesha Rahman for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Meetings with our lovely friends from Styal Lodge, Sian from Didsbury Flower Lounge, Emma & Jill from Special Days Events and Tansy, Scott and Victoria from Hipswing Entertainments ensued and we quickly developed an overall design and layout for the event with their help.  Lighting, staging, decoration, flowers – everything we asked about was greeted with the same response – "Yes, of course we can do it"! And for that we are so grateful.

Ayesha Rahman for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Ayesha Rahman for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Ayesha Rahman for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Ayesha Rahman for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Ayesha Rahman for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Award winning wedding entertainer (and very good friend) Howard Wing had said "yes" to compering the evening for us before we’d even finished asking him the question and he ensured the smooth running and wonderfully entertaining flow of the evening – thanks Howie!

Ayesha Rahman for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Every party needs some food and it was an honour to have top London chef, Tomos Parry create some amazing canapés for us – they went down an absolute storm!

Our great friends at And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon produced the most beautiful dessert table that you’ve ever seen – which we didn’t ‘open’ until after the catwalk show.  And as soon as we did, it looked like a plague of locusts had flown through the building!  Not a crumb left!

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

Our catwalk show simply would not have happened without our #dreamteam.  Ailsa Baker Dance – our choreographer extraordinaire opened the show and choreographed our amazing team of models, Sarah T, Sarah H, Izzy, Lizzie & Akvilé who were amazing as always.  Our catwalk show was built on the foundations of an amazing team behind the scenes – Gemma Hallowell MUA and Paisley Gamble from Macleod Bradley hair salon created some amazing looks, perfect for our 20’s inspired show.  And we also have to thank the unsung heroes, our friends and family dragged backstage to assist with the quick changes between scenes – my sister Lisa, Jonny’s sister Clare and our bestest friend, Betty. 

James Jebson for LOVE Bridal Boutique

As we went along with the planning we were starting to get the feeling that this was going to be a pretty special event – which would of course need documenting.  Jonny shoots a lot of our events (he’s a wedding photographer!) but we knew he would be required ‘front of house’ so just wouldn’t have the time to shoot anything, so we asked some of his photographer friends if they would come along and shoot it for us – so a huge thank you to Danielle Boxall, Ayesha Rahman and James Jebson for all their hard work and the amazing images you see in this feature. 

Florence the Vintage Caravan

We also wanted to inject a bit of fun into the evening, so Matt Bowen brought along ‘Florence the Caravan’ – his very cool and very unique photo booth.  It was a LOT of fun looking through the images of all our guests having a riotous time in there!  Thanks Matt!

Florence the Vintage Caravan

Florence the Vintage Caravan

Florence the Vintage Caravan

Overall, it was the most perfect celebration of a wonderful first year, it was lovely to see so many of our brides who are already married and our future brides there on the night and it was so lovely to be able to raise a glass to all the people who mean so much to us and have helped us out from minute one.

We have to say though, it was a real reminder as to just how much planning goes into a wedding (as the scale of this party and the number of suppliers that we were coordinating really felt like we were organising our own wedding all over again!) so it was great to have that reminder as to how much our brides have to do in the build up to their day. 

Danielle Boxall for LOVE Bridal Boutique

We joked on the night with all the suppliers and wedding friends that helped us out that they needn’t worry – we won’t be having a party of this scale every single birthday… but the organising was quite addictive and the celebration itself was as much fun as our wedding day!  So maybe we will do it all again next year..!

For more information about the gorgeous LOVE Bridal Boutique visit their website by clicking here. 

 

Brides Up North UK Wedding Blog – Images © Danielle Boxall, Ayesha Rahman and James Jebson

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