Your East Midlands Wedding - February / March 2021 (Issue 42)

We wanted an outdoor wedding with a countryside setting, big open spaces and lots of natural light. Shottle Hall ticked all those boxes with views for miles, a beautiful outdoor ceremony space and a range of settings including the formal hall and the barn to the marquee. We had charity pin favours for each guest, a moustache from CRUK for the guys and a gold heart to support Macmillan for the girls. We also gave each guest a mini jar of jam made by Carlos’ dad from the fruit of his trees in Brazil, which I thought was a fantastic touch! We didn’t go for a traditional tiered wedding cake, but a big dessert buffet with two giant Colin the Caterpillar cakes dressed as a bride and groom instead – who doesn’t love a Colin cake! We had pearl-draped candelabra surrounded with little vases of flowers and our table numbers for our centrepieces – it was simple but not too plain. We had wooden names of all of our guests made and spray-painted them rose gold for our place names. Our table names were places that we had visited together and were special to us; we had mini-wooden easels with polaroid pictures from our trips. 42