The highly inspiring wedding that we are sharing with you on the blog today is a glorious riot of colour and exquisite vintage styling.
From the three-tiered turquoise wedding cake, to the rainbow explosion of blooms that adorned the venue, Abbey and Christopher made their day a celebration of their favourite things resulting in both pretty and personal proceedings.
Whilst they swapped their vows in the Medieval-built Priory at Brinkburn, they held their reception in a thoroughly modern and romantic tipi within the grounds. Featuring a breath-taking floral installation suspended from the ceiling and a twinkling array of neon lights, this was a wedding party with wow-factor – and a suitably delicious menu to match!
Read on to find out more about their gorgeous June soiree – and keep your eyes peeled for all those gorgeous vintage-esque details, including one of the prettiest flower-adorned bicycles we did ever see!
With images by Beneath The Pines
Proposal
Abbey says
: Christopher proposed on the steps leading up to York Minster, on 30th December 2016. It was a very cold winter’s night and he asked me to marry him during a walk around the city.Setting
Our wedding date was 23rd June 2018. We picked this date as 20th to 23rd June is when the days are typically longest, and we wanted to make the most of great lighting for photo opportunities.
We got married in Brinkburn Priory and had our drinks reception on the grass area opposite. Our wedding breakfast and evening festivities were both held in the beautiful tipi situated within Brinkburn’s grounds.
Brinkburn is such an idyllic venue with the history and beauty of the Priory as well as the amazing grounds, quirky tipi and even cottages for accommodation, too! It really does offer everything, and the team are wonderful – plus the catering is superb!
Theme
Our theme was colour – and we decided to add lots of it by using bright flowers! We didn’t have a particular colour scheme and even the wedding cake was multi-coloured.
Dress
I wanted to go for a more retro or vintage-style dress and found an amazing boutique called Ghost Orchid Bride in Hull – they have the most amazing dresses. The designer was & For Love and my dress was called ‘The Paris’. As soon as I tried it on, I fell in love. The paisley-type lace and bell sleeves it had were just perfect!
Groomsmen
Christopher wore a burgundy check three-piece suit with Liberty fabric (in ‘Strawberry Thief’), with a brown tie and matching pocket square.
The groomsmen wore a navy check three-piece suit, as well as blue ties and matching pocket squares. The outfits were all from Most Suitable in Newcastle.
Bridesmaids
My bridesmaids wore mint green midi dresses from ASOS.
Beauty
My glam was done by Make-Up Artistry by Natalie Palmer and my hair was styled by Hairby Kayleigh.
Transport
The men travelled to the venue in a gorgeous cream VW camper van with bright ribbons on the front. After the ceremony, my husband and I went out for a 15-minute drive – this was our only 15 minutes alone all day so was very special!
The transport was from Paul Batey of Canny Campers. His wife had kindly made champagne flutes for us with painted camper vans on, as well as our names and wedding date. It was such a lovely extra touch! I drank out of mine all day long.
Photography
Our photographer was Chris Parkinson from Beneath The Pines. He is wonderful and so alternative – we loved his work and when he was available to capture our day, we were delighted.
The images Chris manages to take are timeless and we built up a great relationship, so it all felt very easy and effortless on the day.
Videography
Our videography was by Starkfilm Weddings. James and Richard were fantastic – they blended into the day and were never in the way. They captured the day perfectly and even had a drone for extra footage!
Styling
Sue from The Cosmic Flower Shop provided all flowers for the day. My bouquet featured wild and colourful meadow flowers and I also wore a beautiful wild meadow flower hair band for the later part of the day.
My bridesmaids each had a bespoke flower crown and carried small posy versions of my bouquet, too.
In terms of decoration, we had large milk churns at the entrance to tipi and priory. We hired a vintage bicycle from Ruby Tuesday Events and the florist filled the basket with bright flowers. We also had fruit crates with terrariums and tealights, placed around the venue by Ruby Tuesday Events.
Sue also created a beautiful floral installation which was suspended from the large light feature hanging above the dancefloor in tipi. We also had bright flowers around each of the six support beams in the tipi, too.
We had elegant wooden pedestals with beautiful flowers in them at each end of the altar and aisle-end flowers, as well as copper lanterns on the floor at the end of each row.
We also hired different sizes of glass jars and wood slices for the table décor, which the florist filled with flowers. To complete the look, we tied Liberty-style ribbon around each jar.
Coco Luminaire supplied us with neon lights, including one that read ‘’You And I Are Gonna Live Forever’ and another that said ‘Love Made Me Do it’.
Favours
Our favours were from The Master Cakesmith; we gave guests a mixture of caramel chocolate cups and chocolate truffles.
Cake
Sticky Sponge Cake Studio created our amazing wedding cake. It was three tiers, with bright turquoise icing; the top tier was lemon sponge, the middle tier was chocolate orange and the bottom tier was vanilla with strawberry buttercream. It was decorated with dipped copper strawberries, truffles, beige macarons and small flowers – and had a copper solid chocolate heart in the middle!
Catering
For our starter, we tucked into fishcakes with cherry tomatoes, olive salsa with micro herbs. The main was supreme of chicken stuffed with haggis, peppercorn sauce, glazed carrot, fondant potatoes, and crispy Parma ham. For dessert, we ate sticky toffee pudding, caramel sauce, brandy snap basket and vanilla ice cream.
For the evening reception, we had succulent hog roast with stuffing, apple sauce and bread rolls.
Later on, we had a dessert table by The Master Cakesmith, including chocolate brownies, supersize cupcakes in various flavours and tarts.
Entertainment
We hired string quartet Aurora Strings to play as guests entered the priory. They performed Bittersweet Symphony as I walked down the aisle. They then moved to the drinks reception outside and played throughout this.
The North East Gospel Choir – which has 30 members – sang hymns during the ceremony and then sang us out to Oasis Whatever, which was amazing.
Our evening band was Watson & The Elements, who have a great soul vibe.
Best bit
The ceremony was the highlight – the Priory was full of colourful flowers, our favourite music and all of our nearest and dearest. It was perfect!
Honeymoon
We had ten days relaxing in Crete and then took the ferry over to Santorini for a further week of watching amazing sunsets and wine tasting.
Advice
My top tip for other Brides Up North is – don’t rush into anything. Make sure the venue, suppliers and so on are right for you! You really don’t want to make the wrong decision and end up regretting anything.
