A Handmade, Vintage Inspired Wedding With Colourful Paper Tissue Floral Backdrop: Andrew & Clare

Today’s real wedding was a family affair – Andrew, Claire and their whole families came together to create a colourful, handmade wedding… from the paper tissue floral backdrop to the rustic log centrepieces and a sumptuous looking wedding cake. Those were just a few of the lovely vintage-inspired details that went into this sweet, sweet wedding!

Words by Clare. Images by Rachel Joyce Photography.

We wanted a handmade, vintage inspired, wedding that was colourful and relaxed. We also really wanted to involve our family and our Grandparents, who unfortunately have passed away.

We chose a wedding venue we could decorate ourselves and we wanted a countryside location – so the Hall was a perfect solution – a blank canvas in a gorgeous location.

Our beautiful flowers were sourced from Northwest Flowers in Ashton. The church flowers and bouquets were created by myself, my nieces and my mother. These were bunches of freesias, eucalyptus and limonium maine blue tied up in multicoloured ribbons and also draping at the end of the pews.

Andrew and I met online many moons ago and it blossomed into a relationship. When we met in person I remember waiting in the entrance of the Manchester Palace Hotel and Andrew came swooping past me wondering where I was – when he was walking out to the entrance of the hotel, I sat back and watched in amusement.

I went and met him outside the entrance and remember thinking how tall he was, hence my nickname for him is Tall Guy. We had a long distance relationship for many years and finally moved in together. I remember finding it very strange spending Sunday evenings in each others company, not waving goodbye like we did every weekend previously.

The amazing Rachel Joyce was our wedding photographer. We wanted a documentary style photographer who took beautiful creative photographs. She was amazing and just got us and what we wanted out of our photo’s on the day. She made it a lovely experience and was keen to experiment with ideas and locations on the day.

I bought my dress from The Bridal Suite in Stockport from an amazing woman called Claire! Looking for a dress was my least favourite task but Claire made it a lovely experience and less daunting. It was the second shop I tried and I went for a dress that I didn’t expect I would like. I loved the lace and the subtle sparkle, must always have sparkle! It was strangely the same designer as my sister’s wedding dress Ronald Joyce.

My necklace was a birthday present designed by Andrew. He had it made by Lesley at Mayfly Jewellery and he said it was my something new and blue for the wedding day. He sneakily had it made by the lady who created his wedding ring.

My sister meticulously created the venue flowers for the centrepieces. We wanted the flowers to look like they had been picked from the garden, nothing structured. We had white, peach and pink ranunculus and multicoloured freesias to add a mixture of colour. Eucalyptus was our greenery with limonium maine blue with sprinkles of lavender on top of the moss surrounding the jars.

Our friend Rebecca Wright illustrated and designed the beautiful invitations, order of service, table plan and tables names really made the wedding special. We used our grandparent’s names for the table names and Rebecca suggested adding a little biography about each.

This was a lovely talking point and brought back lovely memories that our relatives talked about on the day. It was our way of having our Grandparent’s with us on the day. Our relatives thought it was beautiful and have asked for copies to keep for themselves.

The cake was made lovingly by Andrew’s mum. She made the cake a week before, froze it and decorated it on the Friday amongst the chaos of her mixer breaking! There were three tiers, Victoria Sponge, yummy chocolate and Lemon drizzle. It was decorated with buttercream which I had to try as she was making it…

We absolutely loved the time we spent with family planning and creating things for the wedding. I have a little obsession with post boxes so my Dad lovingly made us a postbox for cards.

He also helped create the huge flower wall with my mum and Andrew as we just wanted some colour to the venue. My dad built a wooden structure whilst my mum, Andrew and myself created the flowers out of tissue paper.

Andrews dad made the trip to Calais to buy the wine with Andrew. The logs were cut by my brother in law and decorated by Chris with his delicate hands. The place settings were the wedding favours and were made by the ladies in my family. We created little clay hearts imprinted with the guests’ names tied in a different coloured ribbon.  

I made some sparkly garlands using a circle cutter and some metallic cotton and draped them in between crepe paper. Jars were collected by everyone, the award for the most I think goes to Andrew’s mum for eating lots of jam! I stayed up late one night and tied a ribbon around each one in different colours and then placed a candle and diamantés in each. We placed different coloured lace around the flower jars to add some more colours to each table.

Bunting was lovingly created by Andrew and was lit by sparkly lights across the ceiling of the venue. Something we can use for future celebrations.

If we could impart any words of wisdom to future brides and grooms we would say… Do as much as you can in advance. You will feel like there is a lull and you can’t do anything more until nearer the day, but it soon arrives and you feel you have no more time.

If things don’t go as planned, don’t stress, just go with the flow as the most important thing is that you get married, plus nobody else will notice, only you. Get an amazing photographer, like we did! You will want a record of everything on the day and the people who were there – and Rachel and her assistant did an amazing job.

Congratulations Andrew & Claire!!

Love this handmade wedding? You must check out these beauties too…

A Romantic, Handcrafted Calligraphy & Pretty Glass Bottles Real Wedding: Suzie & Scott

An Alternative & Hand-made Glitter, Stars & Skulls Backyard Wedding: Natasha & Luke

wedding credits / photographer: rachel joyce photography / wedding venue: the hall / brides dress: the bridal suite, cheshire / grooms suit: marcy darcy / brides shoes: / grooms shoes: asos / bridesmaid dresses: chichi / hair & makeup: / florist: n w flowers / wedding cake: grooms mum / stationery: family friend, rebecca wright

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