A couple of years ago I ran a contest for one very lucky bride to not only win a bespoke wedding dress of her own design from Wendy Benstead, but also free wedding photography with Assassynation! Well the lucky winner of that competition was Gemma, who married Nathan in May! Their wedding was super small, they only had 11 guests.
“We really wanted to have a garden-party style wedding but our house and garden are way too small, even with only 11 guests”, began the bride. “So we rented Hill House in Somerset for the whole week. It was absolutely lush, it has an orchard, a cinema room, a massive hot tub and a pool table. People could come and go as they pleased for the week and we just treated it like being on holiday with the people we love the most and our two dogs, Dynamo and Peanut.”
“In March, we entered a competition we saw on Rock n Roll Bride to win our photography provided by Sassy from Assassynation and my dress made by Wendy from Wendy Benstead, and amazingly, we won! Both the dress and the photos are beyond anything we could have ever dreamed, we had such a tiny budget and it meant so much to us that we could have the two most important things taken care of by people who really know their stuff.”
“Having the dress made by Wendy was just awesome, we made frequent trips to Wendy’s studio in London for fabric buying and fittings, and it made me feel like I was a movie star being fitted for an amazing costume. The end result… omfg wow, we we’re so pleased! And having Sassy do the photos, well that was beyond amazing, she’s so lush, just like having a mate there instead of a photographer, everyone loved Sassy. When she left (at midnight) everyone was sad to see her go.”
The couple did all the décor at the house themselves. “We did loads of DIY for the wedding”, Gemma said. “We made about 500 pompoms which we hung throughout the tree-lined drive so that when our guests arrived they were really wowed. Our mums spent ages painting and decorating jam jars for tea light holders, and my mum collected and hand-dried petals for confetti. My sister, Sarah, made the Dynamo and Peanut cake toppers and I made the table runner and all the glittery signs together. We also made our rings together at our friend’s silversmithing studio, which was a fun day out.”
“The day was perfect, I don’t think there is anything we’d do differently”, she concluded. My advice to other couples would be to enter all the competitions!! Also, don’t be afraid to not invite people and to have a small wedding if that’s what you really want.”
