What to say about this wedding? First of all, it was shot by Peonie & The Boy, the photographers behind Lillian & Lenord, and they found through APW, which I love! Last time I posted about Lillian & Leonard I mentioned that I’d had many a virtual drink with Peonie. Well, *now* I’ve had a real-life physical whisky with both Peonie and The Boy, and um…. UK couples? Yeah. They are your photographers. Really, done. I. Adore. Them.
And Danae and Dougie? The first I heard of them is when Peonie told me that she had shot her first practical bride, and it was one of the most joyful, beautiful, and just plain fun weddings that she’d ever gotten to shoot. Then Danae sent me some words about her wedding and (whispers… I think I LOVE her). When I started looking through the pictures and I felt like my heart was going to break from the sheer joy of it. I wanted to share it with you so you know… this is what a wedding feels like. It doesn’t feel pretty, it feels like unadulterated joy.
What made your wedding creative? I’m not an elegant woman and Dougie isn’t impressed by anything too fancy, so from the get-go we decided that we shouldn’t try for a “classy” affair — why pretend to be something you’re not, when you can have a lot of fun instead? We focused on the things that make us happy, and built everything around that.
Dougie loves Lego, so we peppered it throughout the wedding, from putting it out on the tables for guests to play with to putting little Lego men in the buttonholes.
I love 50’s style, so I worked with an amazing dressmaker to create my own personal hot pink retro dress. We both love anything vintage, so we bought up tons of crazy glass dishes at a furniture salvage yard and used them for our food and candy. We got lucky with the trampoline – it was already at the venue! Although I don’t think our venue owner believed me when I told her we’d be jumping on it!
What made your wedding thrifty (whatever that meant for you)? Our wedding wasn’t cheap, but we only spent money on the things that mattered to us.
Instead of doing printed invitations, we used e-mail and set up an RSVP form on our wedding website. We didn’t bother with printed table cards, a sit-down dinner or a band, and our little placecards for the guests were a pack of Moo.com cards for ÂŁ12. Instead, we spent our money on putting up our far-flung families together at the venue, on making sure we had plenty of cheap booze for our guests, and on a ridiculous amount of candy!
We also relied on the talents of our wonderful friends and family – my mother in law made our wedding cake, our friends and family made all of the other desserts, my florist friend George did our incredible flowers, and our friends acted as our DJ for the evening. My favourite thrifty items were our table card holders, which Dougie made out of Lego the night before the wedding, and my 99p shoes that I got on eBay!
What made your wedding sane? I think we stayed sane by not taking it all so seriously. My mantra was, “this isn’t a classy wedding, this is a fun wedding.
At a fun wedding, who cares if _________?” Who cares if a hot pink dress and tangerine roses and bright blue ties don’t match, we like those colours! Who cares if we’re serving crisps with bubbly after the ceremony, everyone likes crisps!
I still got stressed about things, but Dougie was always there to stay practical, keep the (incredibly useful) budget spreadsheet updated, and offer much simpler and creative solutions than I could come up with.
The other thing I kept telling myself was that I didn’t have to be the most beautiful that I would ever be on the day — there is so much pressure on a bride to have the Best Looking Day She’ll Ever Have, and I think it’s nonsense. I did go to a lot of trouble to look good, but my goal was to look happy and pretty and to feel confident, not to look like a magazine model that nobody would recognise. Brides, please don’t succumb to the pressure to re-make yourself for your wedding, it will make you so much happier!
All images are by Lillian & Leonard, of course.
