Rafaela and José’s Beautiful Vineyards Wedding: Getting Married in Portugal
EMILY & MATTHEWS DIY PALM SPRINGS THEMED WEDDING IN WALES
When I started writing this blog over 8 years ago, I often wondered what my own wedding would look like gracing these pages. Well today I wonder no more, as it’s time to share my full wedding with you. Mr T and I were married on the 7th September 2019. After 4 years of being engaged, a lot of planning and a few tears along the way, we finally pulled off the wedding of our dreams. Surrounded by our closest family and friends, the day couldn’t have been more perfect. Yes their were hiccups, I hadn’t put anyone in charge of the ceremony music (thanks Janna, for stepping in at the last minute), I did trip walking down the aisle – not once but three times and we did get timings wrong for one or two things but you know what? Not one of those things ruined the day as I’d worried myself they would in the months leading up to the wedding.
I’ve been writing real weddings for a long time now, so you’d think I’d be pretty expert at this but nothing prepared me for the emotion I’d feel writing about my own big day. I had to stop multiple times to pull myself together after reliving the most special moments and trying to choose photos out of the hundreds we were sent by Photography by Vicki was torture as I wanted to include every single one. Eventually, I managed to narrow it down to 112 photos, so get ready for one pretty epic post, grab a cuppa, a mince pie and settle down somewhere comfy because you’re in this for the long haul.
We were married at Mounton Brook Lodge, a fairly new wedding venue in Pwllmeyric that had everything we’d been looking for. With a licensed ceremony room and large reception hall, not only get married there but have our reception at the venue too. Mounton Brook Lodge was a blank canvas, with high ceilings and large windows filling the space with light allowing the colours I’d chosen for our colour palette to really pop.
After deciding not to get married in Mexico, my second dream destination was Palm Springs but as a wedding abroad was out of the picture we decided to make the theme of our wedding day ‘Palm Springs Comes to Wales’ and inspired by Pantones Colour of the year living coral, the colour palette featured pink, orange, yellow and peach. This was reflected in everything from the bridesmaids dresses (more about them later) to the decorations and bouquets.
When choosing our suppliers I wanted to work with people that would not only appreciate our theme but make us feel comfortable too. We wanted the whole process of planning to be as stress-free as possible and that meant understanding who we were as a couple and our relaxed, chilled vision for the day. I knew immediately that I wanted Photography by Vicki. I’d been following her on Instagram for a long time and always loved her bright and colourful style. I felt like I’d already got to know her well before I met her as I’d religiously followed along with her Instagram stories. Not only is Vicki a super amazing photographer, she’s also a wealth of knowledge when it comes to planning and gave lots of suggestions about other suppliers and advice for the day. The smoke bombs were actually vicki’s idea and at first I was’t going to bother but I’m so glad I changed my mind at the last minute, they ended being some of the best. I’ve honestly never seen grown adults so excited to be running around a field with balloons and pretty coloured smoke. It was sooooo much fun and I would highly recommend it!!
It’s fair to say DIY was always going to be a HUGE part of our wedding. Between myself, Jess and Rebecca from the Wedding Spark, we managed to DIY all the decor. From the colourful balloon arch altar in the ceremony room and the foliage backdrop in the reception hall, to the place settings and Marvel Avengers themed table numbers. We had a friend make us a fun vegan sign for the buffet (a private joke for a few of my meat eating guests who knew it was made for them as soon as they saw it) which was then hand-painted by two of our friends that had traveled all the way from Borneo and Sweden to be with us, whilst Jess did the most amazing job of our marvel Avengers themed table plan. Each table was named after a planet from the series which was by far one of Mr T’s favourite things from the day. Our guest book was a giant plant pot which we had people sign and now lives in our kitchen as a reminder of the day. For the reception I could’t resist setting up a sparkle station, which everyone loved. It was on faces, in beards – we were finding glitter for days.
I’d known Rebecca from Wedding Spark for a few years after meeting at an event and I knew that her DIY style would be the perfect fit for the plans I had for decor. I honestly couldn’t have pulled the whole thing together without her! She one hundred percent understood the ‘look’ I was going for and did a fantastic job of bringing my palm springs vision to life along with the help of Carolyn Louise Weddings.
Surprisingly it wasn’t until planning our wedding that I realised I didn’t know that many videographers but I was so glad when the search turned up Loved Up Films. From the moment we met Robin on our engagement shoot, I knew we were going to get on like a house on fire, he had my sense of humor and put Mr T and I at ease from the beginning. His fun and quirky style matched us perfectly and he also has extrememly good taste in shirts!
One of the most important things to Mr T and I whilst wedding planning was making sure the choices we made were mindful of the environment around us. We decided to have an entirely vegan wedding. Although Mr T isn’t completely vegan, he wanted to be considerate of my choices and agreed that it wouldn’t feel right as such a strict vegan, to serve animal products to our guests, for which I am utterly grateful to him. Having never catered a totally vegan wedding before I was a little anxious about meeting with Glyn from Joshuas Catering but I needn’t have been. Glyn was super enthusiastic about trying something new and I loved him for it. I wanted all the food to be amazing, not only because it was our wedding but because I wanted our guests to know that vegan food can actually taste really good. We chose all of our favourite dishes – vegan cheese pizza, ‘Tofish’ and chips with vegan tartare sauce, pulled Jackfruit bao buns and a variety of Greek salads, olives and hummus. In the evening we treated our guests to bean chilli and lentil dhal, which went down a treat. Three months later and our guests are still commenting on how good the Dhal was!
I found my makeup artist whilst researching vegan eco friendly makeup artists in the area. Not only is Jessica a very talented MUA she is also beautiful soul and was my calm before the storm so to speak – making me sit and take a breath as my nerves started to get the better of me on the morning of the wedding. It was the best thing anyone could have done in that moment and it certainly got me in the right frame of mind as I left the house.
Mae Floral Design did an amazing job of our bouquets and the crowns looked especially beautiful paired with the bridesmaids dresses. Sourcing as much for the bouquets locally was really important to me and Abi did a great job. The bridesmaids dresses were certainly a highlight and I’ve had so many comments on instagram since posting our sneak peeks asking where I got them? I first spotted the dress on one of my favourite photographers Mary Costa’s Instagram account, after she posted a picture of herself in one for her own engagement shoot. I fell in love as soon as I saw it and thought it would look amazing on my bridesmaids. I headed straight to ASOS and was devastated to find they’d all sold out. I searched for months for those dresses on Ebay and thankfully was able to get two in the right sizes for my besties.
My dress was from Waxflower Bridal in Chepstow. The owner of the boutique, Kathy, is one of the sweetest people I know and I am so extremely thankful to her for making me feel so at ease when it come to trying on dresses. From start to finish Kathy really took the time to listen to what I wanted, she was always so upbeat and it was my regular meetings with her that really made me start to feel excited about the day, as I’d made no secret that the whole thing made me feel anxious. I was so pleased with the final result of my two piece which was a custom House of Ollichon. I’d long been in love with their jumpsuits and bridal separates so should have known it would be the designer I’d fall for.
Mr T’s suit was also from ASOS. He really fell in love with the suit that he wore for our engagement shoot and in all honesty, I thought he was going to wear it again for our wedding day but he surprised me and bought another one, although similar matched the aesthetic of our wedding even more perfectly. It also made him happy as it was West Ham colours (his favourite football team) and he coordinated his groomsmen to match. He also wore vegan shoes which were the coolest and his wedding was made by Eco Wood rings.
Looking back now I see how perfect it all was. Of course I had fears for the day, I was worried I wouldn’t get there in time, I was worried I was going to fall walking down the aisle, I was worried we were going to mess up our vows, I was worried suppliers might let us down, I was worried the food wouldn’t be good, I was worried people wouldn’t have a good time and so on. But worrying certainly wouldn’t have stopped it happening and didn’t in some cases. You just have to accept there’s going to be a couple of things that probably wont go as planned but you’ll find you just forget about it, almost immediately because there’s so much ‘amazingness’ going on.
All along I kept trying to remind myself that the reason we’d decided against getting married abroad was because we wanted to make things simple and get wed with our closest family and friends around us. Walking down the aisle surrounded by all our guests made me realise how thankful I was for each and every one of them for being their, the room was filled with so much love! I speak for both my husband and I when I say it was the best day of our lives and we wouldn’t change a single thing.
Photography: Photography by Vicki I Venue: Mounton Brook Lodge I Videography: Loved Up Films I MUA: Jessica Rose Makeup Artist I Dress Designer: House of Ollichon I Dress Boutique: Waxflower Bridal I Bridesmaids Dresses: Asos I Grooms Suit: Asos I Florist: Mae Floral Design I Styling: The Wedding Spark & Carolyn Louise Weddings I Band: The Colts I Neon Sign: Love Inc Ltd I Catering: Joshuas Catering I Grooms Wedding Ring: Eco Wood Rings I Brides Wedding Ring: Artemer I
Wow, gorgeous wedding, the photos are so wonderful, this is the most amazing I have ever seen.