Bride's Eye View

We all look at bridal magazines for inspiration and seek advice from our nearest and dearest when it comes to organising a wedding. At The Wedding Room we thought you might like to hear what happened before and after our bride’s found their dream dress.

Meet Sarah and Chris our bride and groom who married on 24th July at Prestwold Hall, Leicestershire.

Image of Sarah and Chris by John Colson Photography at Prestwold Hall

Tell us how you guys met?

Me and Chris met through my friend Kim (who just so happened to be Chris’ Flatmate) whilst studying at Staffordshire University, Chris asked me to the summer ball, and as they say the rest is history.

If a bride-to-be asked for just one piece of advice what would be your gem?

My one piece of advice would be to set a budget, and make sure it’s a realistic budget and not an endless Pinterest budget. I was guilty of initially browsing through magazines and the internet and looking at everything it was turning into Chris’ financial nightmare! The last thing you want is to be starting your wedded life in debt. Before we had even went to properly look at a venue/dress/photographer we sat down and worked out a budget we could achieve in the two years. I created a budget spreadsheet (it was a very pretty spreadsheet and was colour coded and even had pictures!) and I had roughly given every category a budget, even down to confetti, underwear, nails, stationery, candles as well as the big obvious wedding necessities. This allowed us over the planning process to see where our money was going and when. With weddings you’ll find that there are months where no-one needs paying, and months where it seems everyone needs paying. If you are able to it’s best to get the organised early and have a folder, allowing you to collate the venues, menus, cakes, dresses, invitations. There are always things that need adding on that you forget about, for us it was a spare pair of shoes for me and some extra decorations for the day! But without the spreadsheet we would have forgotten a lot more than just that!

Image by John Colson PhotographyMake-up by Rochelle O'Brien — Image by John Colson Photography

Make-up by Rochelle O’Brien

Were you nervous/excited on the morning of your wedding? If so how did you calm your nerves/contain your excitement?

The night before the wedding the bridal party and I went out for a lovely meal, and then back to my Mum and Dad’s for a few drinks, I was all tucked up in bed before 11pm, ready for a good night sleep… however… I think I achieved about two hours altogether! I was so excited I just couldn’t sleep, I was up triple and quadruple checking everything and making sure all the outfits were neat and tidy ready for the morning. My Dad couldn’t sleep either (I think he was just as nervous and excited as I was) surprisingly I didn’t feel tired at all throughout our Wedding day, I think I was running on adrenaline! I would advise sleep, but if you can’t I wouldn’t worry, your just too excited about the day, I know I was. When we arrived at Prestwold Hall we were met by MJ and her lovely team who settled us in to the most stunning bedroom, and here we got ready with a glass of champagne and some of my favourite songs blasting out in the background. It meant so much to have my family and close friends around and they definitely held me together as much as possible before the ceremony.

Advice on viels? Did you or didn’t you? When did you take yours off if you chose to have one? If you did choose to wear a veil did your photographer capture an image you adore?

My advise on veils is you have to have one! It’s the only day in your entire life you can justify wearing one, and it just makes the day feel so so special. I knew when Mary was helping me find my dress what kind of veil I had always dreamed of, a long length cascading veil, and she had the perfect one in the shop! It suited my gorgeous Eliza Jane Howell dress so well, and had subtle gems attached to the veil which picked out elements of my dress so perfectly. I wore my veil all day and only took it off for the first dance, as we had practised a dance routine that would have meant standing all over it! Our photographer John captured several photo’s of me in my veil and this one is my favourite, it’s me having a moment outside just after the wedding breakfast, it was such a lovely day and the breeze caught my veil just right.

Top tips on getting the most from your photographer. Describe how the planning meetings went prior to your wedding and how quickly you received your images afterwards. Were you pleased with them? Have you chosen to have and album printed?

We chose a wedding photographer that had been highly recommended previously, I think that is really important as it is such a major part of your Wedding Day we just didn’t want anything to go wrong. From the moment we booked John he was so on the ball, and we booked him 2 years before we even got married! John arranged to meet up with us about two months before we got married for a face-to-face meeting, I would highly recommend this, as the photographer can get to know you and your partner before the wedding. Your wedding day is such a blur (I know everyone says it but it’s true) and the last thing you want is to be worrying about where your photographer is, a face-to-face meeting ensures you and they know what’s happening on the day. John specialises in more documentary style photography which suited us perfectly as we aren’t great at posing for photo’s. We made sure our staged family photo’s weren’t going to take up the best part of the day, as we know this can bore some guests, and we had it set to military precision with my brother taking control finding everybody. The photo’s were back and with us within a month!! John was so so fast and I can’t thank him enough for that, the photo’s came on a wooden USB stick kept safe in a gorgeous wooden box with our names and the date of our wedding etched on top. We are so so pleased with our wedding photo’s and everyone that has seen them has said how well John captured our day, there are memories on there that will last a life time! I’m a designer by trade and so will be designing our wedding album, so far I’ve whittled it down to 100 pages (maybe a tad too much) but when you have so many gorgeous photo’s it’s so hard to pick!