Your Cheshire and Merseyside Wedding - January/February 2021 (Issue 55)

23  REAL WEDDINGS H annah met Mike on a night out with friends and thought he was good looking as soon as she clapped eyes on him. “We got chatting after too many double vodka and Diet Cokes and ended up exchanging numbers. The rest is history,” she tells us. “Mike and I are polar opposites in personality, but we just seem to work well together,” she continues. The pair began to discuss the topic of marriage in earnest around six years later and within a couple of months were looking for engagement rings. “I chose the ring so that Mike could go back later to buy it once he’d decided how and when to propose,” she explains. He opted for Ladies Day at Aintree races, already one of Hannah’s favourite annual events. The first race came and went and Hannah was determined to quickly get some food before the next. “Kudos to Mike for instead persuading me to have our photo taken on the balcony of our stand overlooking the winning post,” she says. It was here that he popped the question. “It was the best win I had that day,” Hannah laughs. The couple are from Crosby and were keen to have a Catholic church ceremony in their own parish. The beautiful St Joseph’s was the gorgeous setting of choice, surrounded by greenery and just a stone’s throw from Crosby beach. Hannah had dreamt of getting married there since childhood. For the reception they’d provisionally booked another venue before visiting Titanic Hotel, “But that was forgotten as soon as we saw the West Bay function room,” Hannah remembers. She continues: “It captured the history of our amazing city with a sophisticated and modern feel. We were so grateful for the way our wedding coordinator at the hotel handled our changes due to the pandemic restrictions. Every effort was made to ensure our day was perfect, which was very much appreciated.” Join us as the beautiful bride shares more details of their special day… SETTING THE SCENE With a plum colour palette in mind Hannah and Mike set about enlisting help to style their big day and Red Events Creative was chosen to provide the venue décor. The expert supplier adorned the space in fairylights, centrepieces of silver candelabras, lanterns decorated with beautiful plum and lilac blooms, white chair covers with plum sashes, and a pretty moongate with green foliage and hanging tea lights, which served as the backdrop to the cheese cake. The lovely flowers were provided by a local Crosby supplier, Flowerbox. Hannah’s bouquet featured roses, freesia, lisianthus and gypsophila in lilac, cream and white. “After the wedding we gave my bouquet to my 98-year-old nan who lives in a local care home and was therefore unable to attend. It was nice to be able to include her somehow,” Hannah tells us. The tables were named after locations in Liverpool: Anthony Gormley’s Another Place, Liver Building, Anfield and Goodison. The couple took photos of themselves at each place and used these as table numbers for a personal touch. The menus and seating plan were appropriately selected from Tatty Lashes’ ‘In Our Liverpool Home’ range, and place names were purchased from Etsy to be stuck in wine corks. The family made a valiant effort in drinking enough bottles of wine to supply enough corks for the original guest list, even though they weren’t all needed in the end! “Mike and I aren’t huge cake people, so we decided on a cheese cake quite early on – there’s nothing better than cheese and crackers after a few drinks,” Hannah says. They visited Birkdale Cheese Company for a tasting and the team there helped them make their selections for a showstopping wedding (cheese) cake. For the favours the pair bought miniature bottles to fill with pink