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 10th June 2019 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 exquisite wedding was less than four months in the making and well and truly shows us gals just what it takes to plan your dream wedding during the shortest and sweetest of engagements.
Rebecca and Joe chose the ever so enchanting Healey Barn in Northumberland for their wedding celebrations, complementing this rustic backdrop with plenty of autumnal touches including pumpkins and legumes aplenty, as well as olive wreaths and eucalyptus for an au naturale finish.
But if there’s one thing this wedding has by the bucket load – it’s enviable bridal day style. Not only did the bride carry off two fabulous ensembles – both of which were separates and looked unbelievably beautiful, but there’s also a personalised leather jacket and some rather cosy feather shrugs to look out for too. Want to see it for yourself? Scroll down for all the deets!
With images by Helen Russell Photography.
Proposal
Rebecca says
: We got engaged on a beautiful summer’s evening last year. Joe originally tried to propose under the tree at the Sycamore Gap in Northumberland. We hiked up there with a picnic only to find there were about 30 other couples all doing the same thing! So, he had a change of plan and we drove to Low Newton by the Sea. By the time we got there it was around 8pm meaning we had the beach to ourselves, and he got down on one knee on the picnic blanket.Setting
We tied the knot on 9th November 2018. We planned the whole thing in less than four months! We wanted a short engagement as we have been together for a long time and unfortunately my father is unwell, and it was incredibly important to us both to have him there.
We got married at St Andrew’s Church in Corbridge, which is our village church. It is such a beautiful building and the vicar is now a good family friend.
We held the reception at Healey Barn in Riding Mill. We chose Healey Barn because it is a stunning venue and has a really relaxed vibe. And the food was unreal!!
I think I would sum up the theme as boho luxe. We wanted a relaxed boho atmosphere but with an added bit of style!
As it was an autumn wedding we also went big on pumpkins and legumes, we had them dotted along the table and around the room in all different shapes and sizes, along with lots of rustic olive branches and eucalyptus.
I bought a pair of hot pink suede Louboutins as my wedding shoes and used this as the accent colour for the flowers and table decorations. We wanted to inject a bit of colour into the November day.
Dress
My dress was actually separates by Catherine Deane at Marrime in Jesmond.
I wore two skirts, the first was an ivory silk skirt that draped beautifully and had a lot of movement throughout. Then I wore a tulle overskirt, which created an iridescent look and added volume.
For the church ceremony I wore a lace bodice with long sleeves (it had love hearts embroidered around the neckline!). Then for the evening, I changed into a backless corset top with very fine spaghetti straps.
I chose separates because I couldn’t find one dress that ticked all of the boxes.
Groomsmen
Joe and the groomsmen wore navy tuxedos and bow ties from Leaf in Newcastle. The suits were made to measure by Brian at Leaf. The two dads (and even the granddads) also wore the same suits but with waistcoats and cravats.
Bridesmaids
The bridesmaids wore dresses from ASOS with soft pink feather shrugs from Jenny Packham at Debenhams.
Beauty
Louise Maddison did my makeup and hair. Louise is based in Manchester and mainly does fashion shoots, but she travelled up north especially for our wedding.
Transport
We were very fortunate in that Joe was able to drive us off from the church in my uncle’s vintage XK140 Jaguar! We also hired coaches for the guests from Stanley Travel in Consett. They were really helpful and made the day go incredibly smoothly.
Photography
We booked photographer Helen Russell. I could not recommend Helen enough! She absolutely made our day; she contributed a lot of ideas and was so creative. We have ended up with the most amazing photographs which we will treasure for ever.
Styling
I carried a rustic bouquet supplied by Helen Mawson at Bels Flowers, made up of olive branches, eucalyptus and peony roses, ranunculus, snapdragons and foxgloves in beautiful pink and orange tones, to match my wedding shoes!
Helen also provided the arrangements for the venue. We had an enormous garland down the centre of the table made of olive branches and pumpkins. We also had olive wreaths on the bride and groom chairs and flowers above the fireplace in the main hall.
Helen also made me an amazing flower crown to match my wedding bouquet.
We used SK Design Studio for all of our stationery (including our wedding invitations, order of service, table plans and welcome board). I cannot recommend them highly enough. Sam captured our wedding vibe perfectly, and even hand designed the stationery to include the olive branch and eucalyptus from our table centre piece to tie everything together.
As favours, we gave out marshmallows and sparklers “to toast the Bride and Groom”.
Cake
Gemma Ganley at Love Lily Cakes supplied our wedding cake. We had heard amazing things about Gemma’s creations, and we loved the cake samples. We had three tiers of red velvet, Victoria sponge, and passion fruit and white chocolate. The cake was decorated with figs, blackberries and flowers. We actually didn’t get to each much of it on the day because it was so popular!
Dining
We wanted a very informal meal, so the food was served feast style with everyone tucking into sharing platters. Continuing the autumn theme, we started with curried cream of pumpkin soup and sourdough bread.
The main course consisted of roasted sirloin brick of beef cooked on the outdoor barbeque with dauphinoise potatoes, followed by melting chocolate puddings.
Entertainment
We were lucky enough to have Glen Roughead sing during the drinks reception and he also sang a personalised version of our first dance song. Glen is an amazing artist and his voice is unreal – he created a fantastic ambience and we couldn’t have been more grateful.
The evening entertainment was provided by House of Sax, with a live saxophonist and bongo player. We wanted dance music but still wanted to appeal to the oldies, so we had a mixture of 70s soul music progressing towards the end of the evening into 90s house. They captured this amazingly! We had so many comments afterwards about the music from friends and family.
Special touches
I had a personalised leather jacket from illustrator Bee Davies. I knew we were going to go into the woods for some photographs. Being conscious of the November weather I wanted to cover up and could think of nothing better than one of Bee’s beautiful creations!
Bee hand painted the flowers from my bouquet and even my engagement ring onto the back of the jacket, along with “Mrs Cornforth”. I absolutely love it. I took it on honeymoon and have worn it on a few nights out already.
Thanks to
We would absolutely recommend our venue. Healey Barn is just beautiful. The food was out of this world and the staff were incredibly helpful and made us feel incredibly relaxed and in safe hands.
Best bit
All of it – we could not choose just one bit!
Honeymoon
We went to New York for Thanksgiving (it was freezing – the coldest on record!) followed by ten nights chilling out on the beach in Barbados. We were lucky enough to swim with turtles.
Advice
My top tip for other Brides Up North would be: go with your gut feeling and don’t sweat over the small details – we organised our wedding in under four months so didn’t have time to agonise over minor things and I think this made it all the more enjoyable.
On the day you will be so happy to be surrounded by friends and family, you won’t notice if something doesn’t go as planned (and your guests won’t notice either!).
Also, relax and enjoy the day – it’s a cliché but it goes so quickly – you should stop to take a breath and just take in the moment.
We used the real weddings and online directory on Brides Up North during the planning process.
