Informal Skull Themed Wedding in Manchester

Ayesha Photography

June 27, 2017

Beth and Martin were together for 11 years before they decided to get married. They wanted their wedding to be a relaxed, informal city wedding with skulls as decorations. They also wanted to focus on everyone having an amazing day. They decided to not have a table plan or a formal sit down meal.

“We took loads of inspiration from Rock n Roll Bride,” explained Beth. “We were on there daily looking at different ideas. All of the weddings featured really inspired us when we started planning, as it was great to see that there were other couples out there doing what they wanted! We also didn’t want the wedding to be too formal as it wasn’t our vibe. We didn’t have too much of a strategy when planning, if we liked it, it was in the wedding!”

Their wedding ceremony was held in a church in the village here Beth grew up. “The ceremony was the most traditional part of our day. It was important to me that we got married in the church in the village where I grew up. We certainly felt more relaxed during the ceremony as it felt like home! It was also really nice that our friends who travelled from around the country got to see our hometowns.”

However the actual day didn’t run as smoothly as they had hoped it might! “The beginning of the day lurched from one disaster to another!” she laughed. “Firstly Martin and I were both late to the church. Martin’s brother picked him up at the wrong hotel and the bridal car got lost on the way to pick me up! Straight after the ceremony one of the straps ripped on my dress (luckily someone had a safety pin to hand!), then on the way to the reception our amazing vintage car broke down in the centre of Manchester! We ended up jumping in my mum’s car for the rest of the way. All of this was certainly a talking point for everyone throughout the day… but luckily we both saw the funny side!”

For DIY projects they enlisted help from Beth’s bridesmaids. “We did most of the decoration ourselves, with help from my bridesmaids. We really wanted to some vintage style wine bottles and jars with candles as the reception room was quite dark. We used a broken mirror frame for the ‘meet the bridal party’ and covered it in 3D sequin letters to spell out our names. We also created photo collages of our relationship over the years to stick on the walls (and give our guests a laugh). We were lucky that the decor in the venue was already amazing so we didn’t have to do a lot. We discovered, DIY takes up so much time! We managed it in the end, however it took up most evenings in the run up to the wedding.”

Their favourite part of the day was having their couple photos taken. “After our photos with the wedding party we went for a wander around outside the venue. We went up to the tram station and had photos against the wall of foliage (very Kim and Kanye!) It was also great to have those moments on our own to escape the madness. A lot of it can be taken up with guests and organising the day, so it was lovely just to have the time away together.”

“Our biggest expense was the food as we had a lot of mouths to feed! However we really saved money on the reception venue, Lock 91. We knew that we wanted somewhere like a bar to keep a relaxed, informal vibe but didn’t know if we would have to pay loads to hire out an entire bar in Manchester. However, Lock 91 were amazing! We got to hire the Attic bar for free provided we achieved the minimum spend on the bar (which, of course, we managed!)”

“We loved planning our wedding. It was great to see our ideas come to life ad dress shopping was also a highlight for me. I got my vintage wedding dress from Elizabeth Avey; her shop is like a dressing up box come to life with all the amazing vintage dresses! The only bad thing about wedding planning was planning it long distance. As our wedding was in Manchester, and we live in London, we had to rely heavily on email communication and our families. I work in fashion retail so weekends off are few and far between, so appointments had to be arranged weeks in advance.”

“Our advice for future brides and grooms it that things will go wrong but embrace them!” she concluded. “There’s nothing much that you can do if anything goes wrong on the day so just go with it. It all adds to the memories and your guests will laugh along with you! And everyone always says it, but splash out on your photographer if nothing else. It really is worth it. Ayesha was brilliant, she really took the time out to get to know us and what we wanted, and it really paid off for our awesome photos.”

Suppliers