LOOKING THE PART Rachael went dress shopping with an idea of exactly the style of dress she wanted, but each one she tried on just didn’t seem to suit her. It wasn’t until two friends joined her and her mum that the tide began to turn, as one of them pulled a complete wild card, which looked perfect. Once they had this new style in mind it was plain sailing, and on the day Rachael looked stunning in Fairy Snow by Diane Harbridge. It had a full satin train with a heavily beaded bodice and belt. Her beautiful cathedral-length veil was embroidered with pale pink flowers: “I felt it brought together the colour scheme and gave a nod towards the bridesmaids dresses,” Rachael tells us. Concerned she’d feel uncomfortable in her weighty wedding gown before too long, the bride changed into an evening dress after the wedding breakfast. It was an embellished tulle and cady gown by Badgeley Mischka. The groom and groomsmen all wore pale grey, checked, three-piece suits with ties, pocket squares and face masks made in the same fabric as the bridesmaids’ dresses. The bridesmaids were dressed in pale pink maxi dresses with beaded bodices to complement Rachael’s wedding dress. Meanwhile, the flowergirls wore plain satin dresses with pale pink flower headbands. The bride had customised all of the dresses with pale pink satin sashes with a bow at the back. SETTING THE SCENE Having settled on a pink and rose gold palette, the wedding stationery was all designed to match. The table plan complemented the design of the place names and table names, with a pale pink background and the castle sketched in rose gold foil at the top. Similarly, the place names were pearlescent blush pink with rose gold foiled names, while the table numbers were also adorned in rose gold foil, with the menu options printed on the back. The favours also cleverly tied in with the colour palette. They were personalised pink M&Ms stamped with the date, the couple’s names and photos, packaged in bags tied with matching ribbons. Delicious and beautiful! The bride’s bouquet contained pale pink and white roses with gypsophila, astilbe and eucalyptus. The three bridesmaids carried complementing bouquets and the groomsmen’s buttonholes were also designed to match. Rachael says, “I had my bouquet dried and framed with Dan’s buttonhole as a keepsake of the day. We also had some of the wedding flowers preserved as a paperweight and tea lights. You spend so much time planning the day and it flies by, so it really did mean a lot to us to be able to keep as many of the key elements as we could.” The pair used the trees and candles that lined the aisle as centrepieces, with the canopy they’d been married beneath repositioned over the top table. The big-day bake boasted a showstopping six tiers. “As it was such a big room, we felt the height was needed,” Rachael explains. The layers were decorated in alternating shades to suit the colour scheme, with the newlyweds initials iced onto one of them and a rose gold topper with the wedding date at the top. Flavours were death by chocolate, toffee, vanilla genoise and a small fruit cake. The ceremony decorations weren’t the only features to efficiently serve a dual purpose as the pink neon Mr & Mrs Jones sign, which hung in the wedding breakfast room was later moved to the long gallery to make a photo booth backdrop for the evening. There were also giant Mr & Mrs Jones lights illuminating the dancefloor. Plus, Dan made a flip flop crate, “This went down particularly well as I think we’d all got out of practice wearing high heels during lockdown,” Rachael says. The romantic ambience was assisted by an abundance of candles, which were used to line the aisle, adorn the register table and dotted all around the reception space. Rachel explains, “When we were shown around by the owner his key advice when dressing the venue was that candles make the rooms come alive and he was so right.” FOOD FOR THOUGHT The castle’s team took care of the catering and the day’s dining began with canapés at the drinks reception. These included mini Yorkshire puddings, wild mushroom risotto balls and crispy pork rillettes with barbecue flavours. The wedding breakfast consisted of ham hock, wholegrain mustard and chive terrine with piccalilli beetroot gel, and rosemary croûte. This was followed with a main 38
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