Zoe and Peter wanted an unconventional wedding… just like them! They had their reception at a tea room, wore what they felt comfortable in, and made everything they could themselves!
“In many ways, we don’t really consider ourselves to be ‘normal’,, so our wedding was never going to be conventional”, said Zoe. “Even P’s proposal wasn’t exactly usual: we were lying in bed and he asked me, ‘so when are we getting married then?’. I said something like ‘well you need to propose first’. So he did. And he called both my parents the following morning, which made it suddenly, very real!”
“Having been together for so many years before deciding to get married, we believed that getting married was more of a formality than a declaration of commitment or anything like that. However we appreciated that there would always be certain expectations that would have to be met. Much though the idea of running off and eloping appealed, my mother would never have forgiven me if she couldn’t be there! As you can imagine, we saw no point in a prolonged engagement either, so we set the date for the soonest we could book with our local Registry Office and took it from there.”
After their intimate ceremony, the reception was hosted in Tasha’s Tearoom in Cheam which only cost them £500 to hire, including all the tea and cake! “Our theme was a geeky rainbow punk-rock tea party”, she continued. “The overriding theme was definitely the rainbow though – given P’s hair (it’s been bright pink for the last seven years, but changed to a rainbow Mohawk this winter), it would have been more odd if it were anything else! We tried to include loads of elements of ‘us’ in our day, so that meant plenty of colour, computer game references, Lego, Hello Kitty, large mugs and copious amounts of tea and cake!”
Zoe’s dress came from BHS and cost her just £95! “I knew the look that I wanted for my outfit”, she explained. “I wanted a leather jacket and boots, so the tricky bit was getting a dress that worked with them. Despite there being a bit of a lack of short, wedding-suitable dresses in February, I ordered what I could find online and had a dress session with my ‘unofficial bridesmaid’ a couple of weeks before the big day. It turned out that the best dress was the cheapest! Because I’m a bit of a shortie, I did have to have it taken up about 6 inches by a local seamstress. My jacket and boots are now officially the most expensive pieces of clothing I possess, but at least I know I’ll wear both again and again!”
“P’s outfit was also unconventional. He had said he’d wear a full suit if I’d wanted him to, but it’s so far removed from who he is, not least because he‘s a dirt magnet! I said that because it was ‘our’ day, I’d rather he wear what he liked, which naturally meant he would be wearing a hoodie. I’d ordered him a load of suits go with it, because we both like the scruffy-smart look, but in true style he hadn’t bothered to try any on before the day and all were way too big. In the end he ended up wearing long shorts with a jacket he already had. It worked out even better than we’d hoped and most importantly, he was comfortable.”
The couple also wanted something unique for their wedding rings, so Peter made one for Zoe and he got a ring finger tattoo. “Originally P and I were both going to get ring tattoos, however P mentioned that he’d have liked to make me a ring if he could. That got me looking for ring-making workshops and I came across the one at Rachel Jeffrey Jewellery that Kat at Rock n Roll Bride had reviewed. When I called to book, they only had the one place available on the only date that was in time for our wedding! Fate was apparently on our side! Fortunately that worked out well because P can’t wear a ring for work and didn’t want one anyway, so I got to watch him whilst he made my ring himself in 18ct white gold, and I watched him when he got his own infinity symbol ‘ring’ inked after the wedding ceremony. I loved how we went to that tattooists straight after the ceremony. It was great fun walking down the street with my bouquet!”
The couple added as many personal (rainbow!) touches as they could at too. “We didn’t have a lot of time but I handmade our invitations with rainbow card and ribbons. I made the cake table runner featuring a rainbow-coloured ‘Legend of Zelda’ Triforce logo by using iron-on transfer paper on a roll of ivory satin from Amazon. I wanted to include some Tetris block designs as well, but they were just too fiddly.”
“I spent the day before baking and decorating our rainbow-layered cake and the cupcakes. Then the evening before, my mum and I sat making tissue paper pompoms for the table centrepieces. Those worked really well – Ikea planters filled with the pompoms and some loose paper flowers matching my bouquet, entwined with a string of micro-LED fairy lights. We did some larger pompoms for chair backs as well.”
The couple’s biggest expense was their photographer, but they are so glad they stretched to afford one. “Originally we weren’t going to have a photographer, however a couple of weeks into the planning, I realised that I’d probably regret not having the pictures of our day and that my parents would definitely want photos. However we really saved money on our venue and the flowers. I don’t really like cut flowers because I think they are such a waste. My paper flower bouquet cost £85 and worked out brilliantly; so much so that the Register Office staff all came out to have a look at it! It was so colourful, much cheaper and now is a wonderful keepsake!”
“Don’t feel you have to follow convention”, Zoe concluded. “Build your wedding from the ground-up and focus on what is important to you. I think you will end up with a day that you are much happier with and that is far less stressful. A friend posted a quote on my Facebook before the wedding, that I think couldn’t be more true: ‘A wedding is a party, not a performance. If at the end of the day you are married to the one you love, everything went perfectly.’”
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Suppliers
- Photography: Hazel du Preez
- Venue: Tasha’s Tearoom
- Bride's Dress: BHS
- Alternations: Tailor Alter
- Bride's Shoes: Mint Velvet
- Flowers: Paper Flower Wedding
- Bride's Ring: Rachel Jeffrey
- Cake & Stationery: DIY