Fancy having an eclectic outdoor wedding? Well have I got the inspiration for you today! With a hearty dose of elbow grease and a firm plan of action, Lou & Stu coordinated their Sheffield Botanical Gardens wedding mostly themselves.
“I’m a vintage events organiser so the vintage vibe was a natural way to go”, began the bride. “We’re both big 50s & 60s fans so we tried to combine the two in terms of the fashion but we didn’t want a fancy dress wedding. My dress was late 50s/early 60s in style (vintage, which I had altered to fit) and Stu’s suit was a 60s style tonic suit from Mod shop Jump the Gun in Brighton.”
“We didn’t really have a specific colour scheme but we tried to match his suit to my ginger hair and then the bridesmaid dresses to the hair and the suit so our wedding party complimented each other. That was harder than it sounds but we think we picked some good colours that worked together. My bridesmaid wore 50s style mint green dresses, Mary Jane shoes and seam tights.”
“With my job and love of vintage collectables the wedding décor was pretty easy to sort”, she continued. “I had already collected things for both my shop, office and home so I already had a lot of interesting bits to use but I collected and borrowed a lot of other things from friends too. It was a large wedding and we had a lot of space to fill so a lot of my shop fittings made it down too to provide hanging rails for coats & jackets. Each table had a Sadler tea pot which is an obsession I inherited from my Grandma and rather unusual table centres.”
“Rather than hire furniture I bought vintage Chesterfield sofas from eBay that I knew I could recoup my money back on after and all were sold on to local bars, guests and back on eBay. I kept the red velvet one for my office because I loved it so much. I had a similar idea with a lot of items I bought but in actual fact I’ve kept most things partly through sentimentality and partly because I instantly got hire requests after the wedding. Lots of things I bought for the wedding have ended up further decorating my home and work.”
“We really wanted to create an ‘indoor/outdoor’ feel so we created a fire place that went against a huge hedge adorned with old family wedding photos. We had a dining area with chandeliers and boudoir seats and a lounge set with sofas, lamps and hanging shades under two of the larger trees. I’d always known I wanted these furniture scenes outdoors so it was just seeing how practical my ideas were. We concluded they weren’t at all practical but went with it anyway and I think they were the best parts of our wedding regardless of the rain.”
“If I had any advice for other brides and grooms looking at having an outdoor wedding it would be that I’d definitely say plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised if you do get good weather”, Lou concluded. “Everyone hopes for glorious sunshine on their big day but in the UK you just can’t count on it. The weather forecast changed every day in the run up to our wedding and thankfully my doubt encouraged me to purchase clear brollies. Telling guests to bring spare footwear and warm coats is also a good idea in case the worst happens.”
Fabulous! This wedding looks utterly gorgeous despite the rain! Thank you Lou & Stu for sharing with us today.
