Simply Bows Real Life Bride: The lovely Karen who married at The Garden at Eden

What are your first names? 

Karen & Anthony

Where and when did you get engaged?  

After taking me for a romantic meal on our one year anniversary, Anthony took me for a walk around Talkin Tarn Lake, a place we had visited on our first date and he proposed by the lake side, April 11^th 2008.

What was your wedding date?  

 4^th August 2012

Where did you get married? 

The Anvil Hall, Gretna Green then we had our reception at The Garden at Eden at Eden Golf Club.

Why did you choose your venue? 

We viewed a lot of venues for our ceremony, and we were both looking for somewhere with a romantic cosy feel, the Anvil hall is incredibly beautiful inside and the candlelit ceremony was exactly what we both wanted.

Did you have a “theme”?   

Our theme was Vintage.

What was your wedding colour scheme? 

Pale pink and chocolate brown with a touch of soft gold

Why did you choose Simply Bows and Chair Covers and what were they like to work with? 

We looked into many companies, and after speaking with Kristy via Facebook I knew she was the one I wanted to work with to create my perfect day.  Kristy was amazing; she was always in contact and very helpful when we met up, suggesting lots of ideas and genuinely interested in us as a couple and our special day.  I could tell Kristy loved doing the job she did, and this made us sure that our room décor would be perfect as she wouldn’t settle for anything less!!!

What sort of dress did you choose and where from? 

 I wore an ivory, sweetheart neckline dress by Sincerity bridal, with added delicate lace capped sleeves, bought from the wedding warehouse, Carlisle.

What did your bridesmaids wear? 

My three bridesmaids, Claire, Lauren and Kerri all wore knee length chocolate brown, halter neck dresses from Monsoon.  Our flower girl wore an ivory lace dress also from monsoon.

Who was your photographer? 

Tommy Beattie- thanks Tom for sharing the photos you can see on this blog today :)

What “special touches” did you add to your day?  

We tried to create a really personal feel to our wedding, choosing to do as much of the décor as we could ourselves.  We created a vintage suitcase table plan and vintage suitcase for our wedding cards to be posted.   

We also set up a vintage seating area in the marquee for our guests to relax, which had tea cups, candles, flowers, and we had a special area dedicated to our family with vintage frames containing photographs from our parents and grandparents wedding days, this was incredibly important and special to tony and myself as we both have such wonderful close family relationships.  

 Our table numbers were photographs we had taken of our dogs Alfie & Max, in various locations with numbers!  These were really good fun and really gave our tables a personal touch, which our guests all loved going around the room to investigate!  We had a cocktail bar for our evening reception which we created our own signature cocktails for and we had a photo booth from klickphotobooth which was fantastic fun and has provided us with 100s of images to giggle at since!   

We also had a sweet station, which we did ourselves, we bought vintage glassware and filled the vases with pink and brown sweeties, which our guests enjoyed throughout the evening, we also hung pink & brown pom poms from the ceiling of the marquee above our sweeties!  This looked fantastic and really added a splash of colour!

What was your favourite part of the day? 

  I honestly couldn’t choose one part of the day, everything was so perfect and really truly was the best day of our lives.  We can’t thank everyone who was part of our day enough, and especially Kristy at Simply Bows and Chair Covers as her chair covers and table runners were just stunning and really added the ‘wow’ to our marquee reception!!

Where did you go on honeymoon?  

 We enjoyed a surprise minimoon to Yorkshire just after our wedding, which was a gift from my parents and we are going on our honeymoon to Mexico in December, thanks to all our incredibly generous wedding guests, THANK YOU ALL!!!

 What would be your top tip for another bride to be?  

Personally, my top tip would be to work alongside and include your husband to be as much as possible!! As stressful as wedding planning can be its really rewarding to create a day personal to you as a couple, and we really enjoyed putting our own individuality into our day.  It was hard work but 100% worth it, and our guests all definitely agreed!! Good luck guys and have the day of your dreams!