Phil and Allie met met on holiday in Switzerland the summer before they got married. They were married on 25th September 2010 at their local parish church (All Saints Hordle) and the reception venue was at Passford House, Lymington.
“We picked this venue because it felt intimate, it had lovely grounds which felt private. We didn’t want a grand stately home to get lost in or an elaborate affair, we wanted homely and comfortable and for guests to feel at ease. The venue staff were amazing and treated our wedding as if it was the wedding of the year. It also had the added bonus of being close to the church. We wanted tradition in the sense of the church wedding with hints here and there of modern vibrant alternates. For us it was about having fun and everyone being able to have fun with us and this is exactly what we got!” Explained Allie.
Allie walked down the aisle to Gabriel’s Oboe from ‘The Mission’ and they chose ‘Dance With Me’ by Jesus Culture as the song for their first dance – “Our band very kindly learned this and played it live.” Reveals Allie.
“At Passford House, there were drinks on arrival, and for the wedding breakfast a starter of avocado and pancetta salad with balsamic dressing, the main consisted of rack of lamb with red cabbage and assorted vegetable and a pudding of fudge and white chocolate dipping sauces with a selection of fruit and biscuits. For the toast we used Asti Spimanti – champagne is over rated and many people don’t like it, Asti is sweeter and Phil also proposed with this so it meant something to us.”
“I’m not a fan of the traditional wedding cake and wanted something more modern, so we went for cupcakes. We had a variety of flavours including vanilla, chocolate truffle, carrot and banana from Pretty Sweet. As wedding favours for our guests, we bought several packets of Green and Blacks mini chocolate bars in a variety of flavours and tied name tags to each one which my dad painstakingly wrote. For our transport, again, we didn’t want tradition but instead something that everyone would talk about! We went for the ford model hotrod in deep pink and white, it certainly raised eyebrows.”
Allie offers the following advice to couples planning their weddings; “Do the big important things early on, I don’t mean years! We planned our wedding in 8 months and this was more than enough time to organise things properly. Have fun even with your planning, prepare for things to turn out differently or not as you expected but don’t be disappointed by this as on the day no one will notice not even yourselves! Remember it is only one day and yes you want it to be perfect but when is anything in life perfect?”
Huge thanks to Allie and Phil for sharing their wedding with us today and thanks also to photographer Az Rehman from Lemon Tree Photography. I love the evening shots of the bride and groom outside and I can personally vouch that Az is a lovely, lovely person. Definitely a great person to have at your wedding.
Photographer: Az Rehman at Lemon Tree Photography
Bride’s Dress: A small independent boutique in Newcastle upon Tyne - Serenity Bridal
Bride’s Veil/Head Piece: Serenity Bridal for the veil and the small antique looking hair piece is from glitzy secrets.
Bride’s Shoes: Debenhams
Bride’s Other Accessories: My crushed pearl braclet was my wedding present from Phil
Bridesmaid’s Dress(es): Serenity Bridal, each bridesmaid wore a different colour, one lavender and one deep purple, both dresses came with a matching shawl which we quickly dismantled and turned into sashes and swapped the colours over.
Bridesmaid’s Accessories: 1928 jewelry and bits and bobs raided from our own jewelry boxes.
Hair Stylist and Make-Up Artist: Our lovely local hairdresser
Groom’s Suit: Moss Bross – good prices and very helpful in the shop, bit of a disaster the night before the wedding the men tried their shirts on to find none of them fitted, lucky they swapped around and eventually all found a shirt that fitted.
Groom’s Accessories: As above
Groomsmen Outfits/Accessories: As above
Cake: Pretty Sweet.
Catering Company: Catering was included with the venue
Florist: Yasmins Florists in lymington, I had done a lot of research on the flowers and knew what look we wanted – the flowers were perfect and exactly how we imagined.
Rings: Robert Alan Jewellers, a local family run business in New Milton, my engagement ring was designed and put together their so we stuck with what we knew, and you cant beat the service and expertise of independent jewellers.
Entertainment: The ‘winklepickers’ one of the band members is a family friend of the groom and they were amazing, got everyone dancing and had a good repertoire.
Cars/Transport: A pink and white hotrod from Super Wed
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