1930s Inspired Wedding with Gold Accents & a £4000 Budget

Francesca Secolonovo Photography

January 31, 2018

Anneka and Stephen wanted a vintage inspired wedding after the bride picked out her stunning 1930s dress. They used gold accents everywhere, also inspired by what the bride wore. They also spent just £4000, wanting to prove with their wedding that you don’t have to spend a fortune to say “I do!”

“Its really hard to say what our theme was, but I’d picked myself an original vintage 1930s dress which had a gold hue to it so I also started choosing other gold bits”, began the bride. “I already knew I wanted my bridesmaids in black which meant I could put anything with it, so I just kept going with things I was drawn to and some how on the day it all tied in together.”

“The main inspiration for our wedding was Rock n Roll Bride magazine really… It made me realise that you don’t have to conform to the norm and it can be exactly how you want it to be. You don’t need to take advice from anyone just go with the flow.”

They decided to have an evening-only celebration (which is very unusual for a UK wedding) and their ceremony was in the late afternoon. “I guess the main thing that makes our wedding unique is the timings of the day”, she explained. “We decided to get married in the evening and go straight into the food and party. We didn’t want to have that awkward middle bit where everyone’s hanging around for hours making small talk and waiting for food.”

“We wanted it to be as relaxed as we could I didn’t want people to feel stuffy or uptight so we opted out of having a sit down meal and decided on a burger trailer which served, vegan, veggie, chicken and beef burgers which people could just go up and grab as of when. Let’s be honest everyone just wants to get drunk and have fun!!”

Their religious ceremony was one of their favourite parts of the day. “Myself and Stephen are completely atheist, however we chose to get married in church, a lot of people might say its hypocritical but for us it was just right. We live opposite our church and I’m obsessed with how old a beautiful churches are. I love the drama of them and the feels they give you and it seemed right. Our vicar was amazing at portraying this to our guests, and he completely got our reasoning which was amazing. My favourite part of the day was walking down the aisle and seeing Steve for the first time and how emotional he was it made my heart hurt…IN A GOOD WAY!!”

In total they spent just £4000 (having an evening-only event and food truck catering helped that!) and they did lots of DIY projects. “Our wedding was completely DIY. I collected tin cans and sprayed them gold for flowers to go in which I also arranged myself. We sprayed pineapples gold and I made little animal jars for favours. My sister and her graphic designer boyfriend made all our signage which was insanely amazing!!”

“There really was no big expenses, we literally saved money at every opportunity, My dress was vintage and cost £850, Stephen’s suit was in the sale on ASOS, the bridesmaids and groomsmen all brought their own outfits which was amazing of them and I let them pick whatever they wanted. A dear friend of us lent us their Ford Cortina and even drove me to the church as a favour, a client of mine who’s family own a catering company lent me black table cloths, I brought props and decorations from charity shops, I found an amazing drinks trolley for £10 which was turned into a whisky and cigar station. Our neighbours made our wedding cake and friends and family all brought homemade cakes along with them for desert.”

“We also entered a competition to win our wedding photography and won!! We are so grateful for our photographer Francesca as she was the most amazing and we truly believe she was meant to be our photographer. Her pictures are exactly how I envisioned our day. Myself and my bridesmaids even went to the market the morning of the wedding and picked our flowers and hand tied our own bouquets and they looked amazing. I made it my mission to prove you don’t need to spend a fortune to have a beautiful wedding.”

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