Alex & Nick
Alex and Nick’s wedding looked absolutely perfect! With the help of their friends and family they made their dream day come true. The weather was beautiful and their choice to get married in their Derbyshire home made it personal and very touching.
Over to Alex to tell you all about their big day…
“We got married at St Mary’s church in Crich- our local village church and then moved to tipis at Shiningford House near Carsington Water – we knew we wanted tipis and wanted to have a big party with as many of the guests on sight. Shiningford not only provided us with these things but was also a stunning house with beautiful Derbyshire countryside overlooking the lake. A huge plus side was that we knew we were going to dress the tipi ourselves and needed an army of helpers. Having Shiningford as the venue meant that 30 of our friends and family started the party early and were there to help us make the wedding happen and we all helped get the tipi ready the day before – that was priceless and so much fun!
We wanted it to feel very rustic and countrysidy! But also wanted it to be as personal as possible which meant we did a lot ourselves but we loved it- from the tables named after submarines to echo my husbands job, to the home-made confetti my mum made from flowers in her garden.
For my dress, I knew I didn’t want anything too structured. I fell in love with this one almost as soon as I put it on it felt like my dress. I had the feeling people talked about. I didn’t want to take it off. I felt like me in it. The other dresses I tried on were beautiful but I felt like I was dressing up.
We actually used the Save the Date Magazine as a basis of suppliers and came to an open day at Calke Abbey where we met Emily Wisher, our lovely florist and started on a path which led us to Ed Godden our photographer who did a fantastic job, he slotted right into the wedding from the first moment and captured the wedding beautifully.
When we first got engaged we both said we wanted to try to use local suppliers and base the wedding on our love of Derbyshire so we were keen to use people from the area. We loved our Zest caterers who lived in our next village and accommodated our every need. We found them through Peaktipis who were recommended to use from Shiningford House and I would recommend them to anyone- they made our tipi dreams come true and were unbelievably lovely and so passionate!
My advice would be to follow your gut, make it the day you want it to be, listen to your mum and too much is never too much unless it’s a fake peacock… that is too much.”
Images by Ed Godden Photography