Winter brides are going to love this beautiful English countryside wedding. Despite getting married super-close to Christmas, Zoe and Pete resisted the temptation to choose red and green as their wedding theme colours. Instead Zoe chose a vintage-pink theme, in keeping with the details on her gorgeous
Ian Stewart wedding dress.
The Four Seasons in Hook made for a beautiful setting for their wedding ceremony and reception, and I'm loving their portrait pictures in the stunning grounds. Stealworthy wedding ideas include Zoe's wonderful sparkly
Benjamin Roberts shoes, the vintage-pink roses, Zoe's elegant chignon and the bridesmaids' pretty wrist corsages. Plus a great idea for a Chrismas wedding - all the tables were named after the 12 Days of Christmas, and once the groom finished his speech he instructed all the guests to sing the song, from start to finish. By the end all the guests were up on their chairs singing and waving their arms. Amazing! Huge thanks to
Binky Nixon for her beautiful pictures, this is an exquisitely captured wedding.
My shoes were from Benjamin Roberts, which I bought from a shop owned by one of my bridesmaids - A Bride To Bee in Hampshire. I stuck the I Do sequin stickers on myself.
I kept seeing this particular dress in all the wedding magazines and the first shop I went into the same dress was there hanging up and I fell in love with it straight away! It was made by Ian Stuart. My veil and accessories were from the same shop as my dress, Bridal Couture.
For our venue, we chose The Four Seasons Hotel in Hook, Hampshire. The venue is in-between Portsmouth and London, and we have friends in both cities, so the location was perfect. My husband had stayed at Four Seasons hotels before and was very impressed their service and accommodation. We wanted quite a vintage theme wedding, and we chose neutral, almost autumnal colours.
I loved planning our wedding! I kind of knew what I wanted and we had just over a year to organise it all, so it wasn't too rushed. My advice to brides planning their wedding is not to stress and just enjoy it. Write a list of everything you need to do and what you want. Plan in advance and try to book things quite early. Do the big things first, e.g. venue, dress, photographer, entertainment, and then move on to the fun decisions.
My bridesmaids' dresses were from Dessy. I knew I wanted them in long maxi dresses, and a neutral colour, to match the flowers on my dress. I was thrilled that Dessy had a colour that matched exactly!
Our florist was recommended to us by one of my best friends who found them for their wedding. They're called Exclusively Weddings & Events, and they're run by a lovely lady called Linda. She was brilliant and we loved her work. I love roses, so we went for them, and they looked beautiful.
My husband's outfit was from Paul Smith, but he had a good idea of what style suit and shoes he wanted before he went shopping.
Our photographer was Binky Nixon. She was recommended to us by a few good friends who'd booked her for their weddings. She was brilliant - we loved her!
We chose a traditional three-tiered square cake, plain and elegant, decorated with vintage-pink roses.
Debenhams designed our stationery. The invitations were simple cream and chocolate brown, with a ribbon-wrapper fastened with diamanté heart. Plain and elegant. For favours we chose Godiva milk and white chocolate hearts in a box. We wanted something that wasn't going to go to waste and they looked lovely with the table decorations.
Before the Big Day - the Best UK Wedding Blog.
