A Colourful & Fun Music Inspired Wedding: Ruth & Paul

Everything about this wedding screams fun, fun, fun and colourful – from the rainbow wedding cake to the splashes of colour in the bridesmaids’ dresses and also the ridiculously pretty flowers – up to and including the music inspired decor and the brides gorgeous tea-length wedding gown.

Ruth and Paul said their ‘I do’s’ at Lillibrooke Manor and wonderful wedding photographer, Nikki van der Molen was there to capture the whole gorgeous day – and even them being their very own music entertainment and performing in the family band. Yes!

Words by Ruth. Images by Nikki van der Molen Photography.

We grew up very locally to our wedding venue Lillibrooke and wanted to have an easy place for the majority of our guests to get home from. It helps that it is very beautiful too!

I was pretty sure when I started looking for a wedding dress that I’d like a shorter tea-length style. I tried the full-length ones, but I couldn’t do my signature (Mel C) high kick dance move so I decided to go back to the drawing board!

I found Cutting Edge Brides online as a short dress specialist and when I arrived at the little shop I was so excited to see such a lovely range. Despite trying on loads, I couldn’t find the right style for me, but the amazing staff said their seamstress could adapt one to the style I had in mind.

I can’t believe that the result was so perfect! They did an amazing job.

Paul wears a suit every day for work so when he went to try some on for the wedding he went for tails to make it a bit more special! He’s so tall and so were a lot of the groomsmen, so I think this style and the fitting was really good for them.

Paul also wore his grandad’s cufflinks and my wedding present to him which was an engraved pocket watch.

I wanted to use Green and Glorious Flowers for my wedding flowers after my friend used them for her own wedding. You can visit the farm and select your favourite (seasonal) flowers so it has a really personal touch.

We also arranged the table flowers ourselves the day before. It was the last job before I signed off and it was quite therapeutic!

My dad Duncan gave me away. He’s normally really emotional and I thought we’d both be crying all over the shop. However I was so calm and happy going in and Dad loves Paul so much, I think it just felt like a completely normal thing to be doing.

I walked down to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash’s duet ‘Girl from the North Country’. When I first heard it, I had a weird feeling that it would be the song that would be the aisle song… When we got engaged I said about it to Paul and he felt the same!

We met at school and started dating on my 18th birthday. Almost 10 years (and two cat babies) later, Paul popped the question on Christmas Day 2015.

We were already so close to each other’s families that our wedding was just the most fun and happy day we could imagine. ‘All we need is love’ was our motto for the day!

Nikki van der Molen was our wedding photographer! I was surprised and so delighted to find Nikki. She has for the first time, made us feel photogenic!

A wizard with a camera and lovely to boot, I think she captured the humour and joy of the day. She even hung around late enough to see our family band play and allow us to keep those memories too!

Along with the music inspired colourful theme, my mum also made some multi-coloured bunting. Our tables had our favourite albums in vinyl on display and also little record place-cards made by LoveMeDoDesign.

For wedding favours, we gave everyone a little bag of mini eggs!

Harpreet from Ice Up Your Life has made cakes for me before, and they’ve always looked and tasted like heaven!

I asked her for a rainbow sponge to go with the multi-coloured theme and she did a fab job. There were also lots of different coloured and flavoured cupcakes which also went down a treat!

I’d realised for a while that I couldn’t bear to hand the music responsibility to anyone as it meant so much! Paul and I were our own Djs – we put together the playlists for the day and our friend helped us get the sound set up right.

We also rolled out the family band (of which I’m a member) so I got to sing and play in front of the most adoring audience you could ever hope for!

I think my most memorable moment of the day was Paul trying to get the ring over my weird boney finger and me having to push it on myself to the hysteria of our guests!

In the evening, it has to be the band set and getting up in front of everyone. In particular, Paul and I duetted on Johnny and June Cash’s ‘Jackson’ and everyone was cheering and singing along which was amazing.