Real Wedding at The West Mill Venue, Derbyshire
Your Love Story?
We met 6 years ago, very cliche through our friends, it was my best friend’s birthday and we went on a night out with her now husband’s friends to Manchester and the rest is history.
Our engagement still makes my heart flutter… Phil had surprised me with a trip to New York in the summer for my Christmas present which blew me away. Little did I know he had another surprise up his sleeve, two days into the trip we went along to a rooftop restaurant for brunch where Phil got down on one knee and we then celebrated with many an aperol! It was the most perfect day in my dream city so it always holds a special place in our hearts now. What was even lovelier is that Phil had my ring designed by a jeweller I followed on Instagram and absolutely loved (Iz and Co) who is from New York. They secretly met whilst we were there to collect the ring, which to me, gives Phil many brownie points!
What was your inspiration and vision for your day?
We really didn’t have a particular theme to follow as such as our style in our house is very eclectic so we wanted it to fit in with us and we kind of worked it around that. So nothing was planned to match, if we liked something we got it, the venue worked really well for this as all the little details around the building were very fitting with our style and helped add to our decor.
We knew we wanted the dining area to have dark table clothes, so we chose navy which really showed off our glass and brass candle holders. Also, we had vintage brass animals on each table and eucalyptus. All of the cut glass glasses and decanters were collected by us whilst we were leading up to the wedding day, to serve our drinks with and to hold the wines on the tables, these looked so lovely and just made it look a little bit more special than just putting the wine bottles on the tables. Glass and gold charger plates were hired from our florist (Joesph Massie). Our backdrop for when we got married was full of foliage and that theme followed throughout the other floors as well. There was lots of eucalyptus, moss and candles which looked and smelt equally yummy!
Why did you choose The West Mill Venue?
The West Mill was the second venue that we had visited and as soon as we walked through the door we knew it was the place. Everything about the venue just blew us away and it just screamed me and Phil all over! We loved the fact that there were four floors that each have their own character and break the day up for our guests and that really sold it to us. The fact that The West Mill is already very industrial and stripped back meant that you can really have as much or as little decoration on the day and it still looks beautiful.
Did you do any DIY projects?
We didn’t really want a theme as such and we tried to do as much ourselves as possible. Lots of the signs around the venue were made by ourselves, again no consistency with the styles or colours, we just went with what we fancied when making them!
We also collected all of the décor for the venue ourselves. It took months and months of the whole family rallying together to collect any cut glass they could find in charity shops (candle sticks, decanters, glasses) as well as brass candle sticks and brass animals. Although at times I felt I was going crazy over cut glass hunting and the house was slowly filling up with all of our finds, it was all really worth it on the day as it looked so beautiful and sparkly when it was all set up. Also, we made our own menus and table plans, this saved us money and it was also a nice thing to do leading up to the wedding and made us feel we were doing our little bit to help.
We didn’t have a photo booth but created our own backdrop and provided polaroid cameras for people to use and leave a message in a book for us. Again, the back drop was all wall hangings, letters and photo frames that we collected ourselves and fitted the morning of the wedding.
Tell us about the details…
My beautiful dress was made by the super talented Emma Beaumont, I have always dreamed of a dress by her so as soon as we got engaged I booked in an appointment and so the story began! I knew I wanted a long sleeve dress and for the dress to change slightly for the evening and Emma made this all possible. I loved every visit to her, seeing my dress progress as the months went on and I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. In the evening my skirt came off to leave a simple straight dress and I added larger cross earrings to have a less formal vibe for the party. My shoes were Alexander McQueen, they were black which isn’t the obvious choice of colour for a bride but I wanted it to reflect me and absolutely loved them.
My makeup was done by Ora Make Up who were fabulous, they use a lot of Charlotte Tilbury make up which is what myself and my bridesmaids are all familiar with so we knew they would be perfect. They were brilliant at listening to what look everyone wanted and bringing it to life.
Our hair was done by Charlotte Rose Hair Styling, again a superstar in what she does. I wanted the hair of the bridesmaid to reflect themselves so I let them pick what they wanted, some had curls, plaits and up do’s but each of them just looked incredible and their hair stayed perfect the whole day. I had my hair down with loose curls and it was honestly the best I’ve ever felt with my hair, again it stayed perfect all day and night and was even great for the day after the wedding.
The Bridesmaids all wore MaidtoMeasure dresses in dove grey. Again, I wanted them all to pick the dress they wanted as there is nothing worse than wearing something you don’t suit or don’t like and luckily enough they all chose different dresses. They wore this with black shoes.
Phil had a black suit which we purchased from The Kooples. Having the black suit looked very classic and worked really well with the colours of the bridesmaids and ushers. The ushers wore black next trousers and white shirt with ASOS shoes and grey textured blazer.
We saw our florist setting up for a wedding at West Mill when we went to look around and loved what we saw so contacted him. We used Joseph Massie Flowers and they helped to create the ceremony backdrop, dinner table backdrop, table flowers and wedding bouquets. We wanted to keep it simple and just have foliage and it looked beautiful on the day.
Our cake was created by Emma Lou Cakes and was insane! We wanted a grey cake with foliage placed on it and what Emma created was everything and more, we had three tiers which were lemon, marble and chocolate flavoured. Emma also made some mini cupcake and macaroons for the dessert table on the evening as well as our favours. Our favours were chocolate skulls decorated as a bride and groom, these were milk chocolate rocky road and white chocolate caramel and they went down a treat with all guests!
We also had a donut wall with LOTS of donuts on from Doughnotts including flavours such as red velvet, chocolate fudge and cookie monster- again these were a treat for the eyes for everybody and many guests stumbled out of the venue at midnight with a donut in hand for a midnight snack. Dish and Spoon also provided us with cookie dough cake, lemon meringue cake, strawberry milkshake cakes and brownies to help fill our dessert tables and they tasted fabulous.
Our photographer and videographer was Stella Photography, what a choice! They did not disappoint, from first meeting them they made us feel at such ease and were a real laugh to work with. The photos are so perfect and exactly what we wanted and we cannot recommend these guy enough they are super talented.
We used our own car for transport on the day as we have a Land Rover Defender which is Phil’s baby so this is what he arrived to the venue in on the day.
We had Alex (Our Man In The Field) sing during our guests arrival and during the canapes which was a dream. We found him through Instagram and contacted him directly; he was so lovely and willing to travel from London for the day and was a dream for everybody to hear. He sings his own songs but by gosh are they so beautiful and he definitely got more fans that day.
In the evening we had Twisted Tubes who are a brass band with singer and dj that played throughout the whole night. They were fabulous and definitely had everybody up on the dance floor, I must admit seeing my grandma having a dance off with Phil to the Spice Girls is something I will never forget!
Harriett and Joel created our order of the day and table names for the day and were fabulous. They created an amazing design very promptly and the outcome was perfect. We had one of our readings printed on the back of the order of the day so many of our guests took this home and framed them as they were just as good as a print.
What was on the Menu?
Jenkinsons supplied the catering for the day. During our drinks recpetion we had canapes of mini chicken tikka bites, honey and mustard sausages and goats cheese and spinach calzones which all of our guests loved, and for reception drinks prosecco, beers and a gin bar to make sure there was plenty of drink to go around.
For the wedding breakfast we chose mushrooms on toast with bacon sprinkles to start, our main we had chicken stuffed with mushroom (see a theme here) wrapped in proscuitto with a white wine and spinach sauce served with asparagus, summer vegetables and fondant potato. For dessert we had a mint chocolate torte with raspberry coulis and vanilla ice cream. As a vegetarian options we replaced the chicken with a creamy vegetable filo parcel. Also, we had a couple of children at the wedding as well so they had chicken goujons with chips and beans and chocolate brownie with ice cream for dessert. Again on the tables we served red and white wines, prosecco for the toasts and old fashioned lemonades and fizzy drinks. In the evening we served bacon, sausage, mushroom and cheese oatcakes – all of the food was delicious and everybody loved it!
What was your favourite part of the wedding?
The Ceremony by far. The whole day is a build up to that moment as you cannot recreate that feeling you have. The nerves beforehand and then the excitement and buzz as you are with your bridesmaid and dad ready to go down the aisle. The icing on the cake (pardon the pun) seeing Phil at the end of the isle looking the most handsome he has ever looked and knowing you have the rest of the day to go. Looking around the room during the ceremony to see all of your beautiful guests also is a touching moment.
Do you have any advice for future brides & grooms?
Just enjoy yourselves. We read this all the time and how everyone was saying how quick your day goes but we made a continuous effort to make sure we really took it all in, and it really made a difference. It’s the most magical day having everyone you love all together in one (or four shall I say) rooms at once, the feeling is indescribable. Everything comes together on the day no matter how little or big a problem you face, it really doesn’t matter. So just enjoy the day, let your hair down and have a laugh with each other and everyone you love.