Simply Bows Real Life Bride: Vicki... and her beautiful wedding at Slaley Hall

Introducing Roy and Vicki....

Where did you get engaged?

Roy surprised me with a holiday to Meeru Island in the Maldives. On our second night there (18th November 2010) he had secretly arranged a candlelit dinner on the beach where we had a gorgeous 5 course meal. After the meal we went for a stroll by the water and he got on one knee and proposed with a giant flower ring with the plan of picking a diamond ring together. I was completely shocked and ecstatic! I couldn’t stop crying with happiness especially after he told me he had been to ask my dad's  permission a while before. We celebrated with champagne until 4am. The holiday was fantastic, the island was like paradise.

When and where did you tie the knot?

We got married on 4th May 2012 or as Roy would say ‘may the fourth be with you’...Star Wars day.

We got married at Holy Trinity and St. Constantine’s Church in Wetheral near Carlisle and had our reception at Slaley Hall near Hexham.

We chose to view Slaley Hall after looking for venues that held over 250 guests. When we visited Slaley we fell in love with the ambience of the hotel. The Edwardian mansion section of the hotel is very elegant and the decor is plush and dramatic. We loved the old world grandeur with a modern twist and it felt like the perfect place for us. The grounds of the hotel are fantastic for photo opportunities and as it turns out for fire work displays too. We had a number of room options for different parts of our day. Our drinks and canapé reception was held in a beautiful bar, the wedding breakfast in a room overlooking the golf course and our evening reception in the grand ballroom that held up to 350 guests. An added bonus for us was that we hadn't known anyone else that had held wedding here so it felt more unique.

What was your wedding theme?

Our theme was vintage Dior glamour. Our original inspiration for the colour scheme was lavender hydrangeas, I fell in love with these flowers and we added a hint of sparkle to match the diamonds in my engagement ring. Brenda Dowding from Gardenalia did a fabulous job of designing our flowers and decorations for the wedding party, the church and the venue. The flowers were a mix of hydrangea, peonies and other blousy flowers in smudgy lavender, pink and cream. The table centre’s comprised of large arrangements in a number of silver containers including trumpet vases, candelabra’s, birdcages, cake stands and a few other amazing designs surrounded by hundreds of candles to give the rooms a midsummer’s nights dream feel about them. It was magical. The bridesmaids wore lavender and the heather coloured bows on the chairs finished the room off gorgeously.

      We saw Simply Bows and Chair Covers at a wedding fare and were so impressed by the mixture of designs, the choice of colours and loved that they looked at the whole picture rather than just the chairs. We chose to hire silver charger plates for our wedding breakfast and we felt that this finished off our tables perfectly. Meeting Kristy at her office, near Slaley Hall at a time that was convenient for us made things so much easier and the meeting was relaxed and fun. We enjoyed having a play around with our options and felt that our room looked more unique after choosing to display our bows hand tied to the side. The chair covers looked fabulous on the day!

Tell us about your dress and your bridesmaid's dresses....

     I chose a glamorous Ian Stuart design and Marrime in Kendal ordered the dress in for me to try. The dress was called Vanderbilt and was a figure hugging fishtail dress made from ivory silk taffeta with heavy diamante detailing along the sweetheart neckline with a huge bow on the back. I fell in love with this dress and after trying a number of other dresses I realised that nothing else compared to it. It was the one and we thought it was made for me. I made a couple for changes to the original design which made it more unique. The girls at Marrime were an amazing help and made every trip to the boutique feel special. I paired the dress with a cathedral length veil that was sprinkled with diamantes. My headdress was a beautiful sparkly design by Ivory and Co. Roy bought me a fabulous pair of sparkly Jimmy Choo’s and matching handbag to wear on our big day. Although I had picked out jewelry for the wedding I was given a beautiful diamond necklace from my parents and a diamond tennis bracelet off Roy on the wedding day that were even more perfect with my dress.

Our 6 adult bridesmaids wore full length one shoulder Dessy dresses in lavender chiffon and the baby bridesmaid wore an ivory dress from Monsoon.

Tell us more...

Paul Mortimer was our photographer. He did a fantastic job with the photographs despite the rain at Slaley hall.  He was a great help with keeping the day running smoothly.

We wanted to make our day as personal and special as possible. We surprised our guests with a gospel choir in the church. The Manchester Sing Out Choir sang a number of songs throughout the service and my favorite was Eva Cassidy song bird as I walked down the aisle. We gave our female guests Cath Kidston Soaps, bath melts and breast cancer badges in a white organza bag and cigars to the men. Brenda Dowding designed us a sweetie buffet on an old fashioned flower cart, it was beyond my expectations and the sweeties went down really well with our guests. Instead of having a guest book we booked an old fashioned photo booth from photorazzi that comes with a fancy dress box. Our guests get pictures taken in the booth and got to take one strip of photos with them as a souvenirs and the other went into a book where they could leave us a messages. The photo booth was so much fun and we get to keep the message book as a memory of our day. 

The band hip operation entertained our guests at the evening do and had everyone on the dance floor all night. 

As well as a hog roast by blue rare we served pastel coloured French macaroons and had a huge 6 tear wedding cake with purple hydrangea in four delicious flavours from Helen Doyle at Café 21 in Newcastle. Everyone commented how scrummy the cake was especially the carrot cake! Yum!

What was your favourite part of the day?

        It is hard to pick a favourite part of the day because it was all so perfect. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the church ceremony; I thought I would be really nervous having such a large audience but I surprised myself that I was so calm all day and enjoyed every second. We even had a little dance to the gospel choir. All the speeches were excellent and we all had a good laugh and a good cry. I also loved the fireworks that Roy surprised me with, everyone was singing along to ‘you’ve got the love’ and it finished the day off perfectly.

The day after the wedding we had a BBQ for our gusts to give us a chance to catch up with everyone. We went on honeymoon the following day for 4 nights in New York followed by 7 nights at the El Dorado Royal Casita Suites in the Riviera Maya, Mexico and finished it off with 4 nights at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. We had a fantastic honeymoon and loved every part of it.

We loved every second of the planning of our wedding. We had a lot of fun with it. Our tip other brides would be to give yourself plenty of time to plan your wedding and enjoy every second. A lot of time goes into the planning. I was really lucky that my Mum helped us with every step, she loved the planning as much as us. We had a year and a half to plan and we did a little bit at a time from the very start and it helped prevent any stress at the last minute. We were never stressed throughout the process because we felt organized and it meant that we enjoyed ourselves and I think that is important as the actual day goes so fast. We would also recommend getting a videographer. I was reluctant to have the wedding filmed as no one likes watching themselves back but it was one of the best things we did. The day went so fast and it was excellent getting to watch it back and see everything that we missed. Jesse Knibbs from Trigger happy entertainment did a wonderful job with our video and although he captured everything I didn’t notice him being around on the day.

What more could we have asked for!