Rosie and Michael met, like most modern couples, online. “We were attracted to each other’s sense of adventure and love of the outdoors,” says Rosie. “Michael almost missed out though, as he cancelled our first date at short notice because he’d found a lost dog while out on the fells and, in the process of reuniting the dog with his owner, managed to get sunstroke. It was only because my mum persuaded me to give him another chance that I agreed to reschedule!” Michael proposed on Hopegill Head. “It’s one of our favourite skylines and the view from the top looks down on the venue where we wanted to get married,” shares the bride. “He’d planned it for a beautiful November day, but the bad weather suddenly set in, and by the time we’d had breakfast, it was a full blizzard. We set off in the snow and had a slow, cold and windy climb to the top, where he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. It was a complete whiteout; we couldn’t see the view and the dog’s whiskers were frozen, but it was magical nonetheless.” SETTING THE SCENE “We loved Low Hall the Lakes from the beginning and knew it was the perfect venue for our day, and although we flirted with the idea of other venues, we knew it was the one for us,” explains Rosie. “Ben and Francesca made us feel completely at ease; we could have our ceremony looking up at where we got engaged and we loved the overall vibe. It felt perfectly us. “I love flowers and grow lots of my own, so they were always going to be really important for setting the vibe of the wedding,” adds Rosie. “For the ceremony, we wanted to create more of a natural, enhanced floral scene, so I designed a floral ground arch where Michael and I would stand to give the effect it was growing out of the ground, with similar arrangements at the end of each row of seating. We were thrilled with how it turned out. We got DIY buckets of gorgeous Cumbrian-grown flowers from Harriet at the Cumberland Flower Farm and mixed them with flowers we grew in our garden too. My mum made the bouquets on the morning of the wedding and Katie, one of my bridesmaids, made the buttonholes. We had a whole crew of amazing friends and family help us decorate the venue on the Friday and we couldn’t have done it without them.” The happy couple designed their table plan and had it printed at Mike Taylor Printing Services. “Mike was amazing and did all our printing for us,” reveals the bride. “We loved how all our stationery matched and felt modern, bold and cool. We stuck the decals to plywood, which gave it a slightly industrial vibe.” Rosie and Michael used terracotta planters as their centrepieces. “We filled them to the brim with flowers and they were perfect because they made a real impact, but they were still low so you could see who was sitting opposite you,” remembers Rosie. “We added loads of candles and colourful napkins and I was so pleased with how the tables looked.” Kelly at Wren Cake Design made the couple’s cake. “We kept the design simple and in keeping with the colours used elsewhere in the wedding,” says the bride. “The cake layers were sticky toffee pudding, limoncello, blueberry and champagne, and rhubarb and elderflower. We also had an amazing vegan cake, which was whisky, pecan, and salted caramel. 31 REAL WEDDINGS
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0NTE=