Nicole and Jonathan wanted their wedding to represent them. They didn’t care if things didn’t necessary go together, they just wanted the day to feel like them. They included their favourite colours, their love of Lego, Jonathan’s Chinese heritage and their mutual appreciation for all things Japanese!
The wedding was held at Lower Grange Farm, an 18th Century barn owned by the Scouts that is hired out for weddings. “We wanted things to be personal to us”, began the bride. “Jonathan wanted red to be part of the colour scheme so we went for bright red, orange and yellow. The bright shades really suited the date of the wedding – mid-July – as the colours were summery.”
“The colour scheme also worked with our desire to include some Chinese touches to reflect Jonathan’s heritage, we also got engaged in Hong Kong so it was very appropriate! We incorporated Chinese lanterns, a wish tree decorated with Chinese wedding envelopes, and our invitations were genuine Chinese wedding invites that a friend of ours had bought back from a visit there!”
“We got so many of our ideas from Rock n Roll Bride“, Nicole explained. “I remember seeing a wedding featured which had lots of unicorns. That was a turning point in how I viewed our theme and decorations because it didn’t matter if they didn’t ‘go’ together as long as Jonathan and I liked them! We are also both quite geeky so we wanted this to show in our wedding. The jars I decorated for the tables were inspired by different things that we love such as Transformers and Harry Potter!”
“We are going to Japan on our honeymoon so we wanted to bring that into the day too. I designed the table names and place cards, and one of my bridesmaids is an incredible artist and she painted them with cherry blossom and bamboo to tie into the honeymoon destination. I made the table plan by adding the details to a map of Japan.”
One of the show-stopper items at the wedding was their incredible cake. “Jonathan’s best friend made our cake. As soon as Jonathan and I started dating, she said she would be making our wedding cake!! She spent months refining flavours and we ended up with three different tiers. We had lemon cake made from lemon curd and limoncello, a Jaffa cake tier made of chocolate orange and a caramel layer. She had a lot of fun designing the cake using Lego character pieces to create a bride and groom that looked as close to us as possible. She also included a Lego Bullseye from Toy Story and a Lego Harry Potter and Dumbledore. Instead of a ribbon we had Lego blocks in our colour scheme made of sugar. I loved our cake, not only did it taste incredible, it was also a fantastic centrepiece.”
“When it came to our budget, we took advice from Rock n Roll Bride that said to focus your budget on the three things that are most important to you”, she explained. “We chatted this through and decided the things that meant the most to us were our rings, the venue and the photographer.”
“My advice to other brides and grooms would be to stick with your guns on how you want your wedding to be”, she concluded. “Include your parents in the planning too. It was important to us for them to be involved but the final decisions rested with us and our parents were fantastic about that. Also, if you desperately want something specific for your wedding but are unsure whether you can afford it or if you should, think about how you will feel about it in years to come. Will it make a difference on the day? Will it be something you regret if you don’t have it? Ours was the photo booth. It was an extra expense but I knew that after wishing we could have one for 18 months, if we didn’t get one I’d regret it.”
