Alex and Rosie's Wedding in Liverpool, Merseyside

Our Real Wedding

We got married in the majestic Sefton Park Palm house in Liverpool - a botanical treasure full of exotic plants enclosed by a glass dome. We are from Staffordshire but fell in love with the Palm house for its unique setting & for the way the lighting & mood changed as we transitioned from day to night - which was truly magical. We stayed in Hope Street Hotel (rooftop suite baby!) with our closest friends & family as we loved its interior (bright, stripped back, wood and exposed brick - no offensive curtains or carpet) We also fell in love with its surroundings of the Georgian Quarter, the cute side streets and Liverpool’s famous graffiti wall honouring one of The Beatles biggest tunes. We were hoping to get some nice city shots on the morning of the wedding to capture more of Liverpool, to have contrasting pictures to those in the Palm house & to capture the journey of our special day and our photographer sure made that happen. I travelled to the venue with my dad in a vintage Jaguar and arranged for our song “Eight letters, three words, one meaning” to be played in the wedding car which was a lovely surprise for my dad... & Alex travelled with his groomsmen; a mixture of our close friends & family on electric scooters! We are big on family so had our daughter, my sister & my nieces as my bride squad which was perfect and made the day so special.Alex kept is classy but stylish in a velvet tuxedo jacket, with his groomsmen in tuxedos and I wore an Eddy K dress with a cathedral veil (total opposite of what I was expecting to wear) - all from small independent shops local to home. Our colour scheme was olive green & peachy autumnal with a mix of contemporary florals making the most stunning arrangements for our tables by an amazing local florist & our stationary was designed by my close friend who worked hard to match everything to our invites (even our welcome sign was a giant version of our invites!) Our tables were also made up of lots of candles for a twinkly & romantic setting for when the night drew in and each guest was gifted with pin badges for charities so very close to our hearts with Alex’s dad currently fighting Prostate Cancer & my mom having fought Breast Cancer. The pin badges were not only a great way of being charitable but to raise awareness, show support and were a true reflection of our parents marriages and the promises they made to each other all those years ago. We celebrated with over 100 of our favourite people, had a reading by one of my best friends, feasted on bacon cheeseburgers (in a pretzel bun which is just a revelation!) had very emotional & heartfelt speeches over candlelight, where the best men also organised a classic game of “real or no real”... & our eldest niece surprised us with a wonderful poem that she had written. along with a fantastic re-write of George Ezras “Shotgun” - very personalised to us. Ready for our evening guests to arrive, we lit up the plants with multicolours for an Ibiza party with a DJ & sax player (everyone fell in love with her) complete with smoke machines & lasers... because what’s a party without lasers! We had stage dives, people on shoulders & a full dance floor all night. The perfect end to a perfect day! Our day was everything we had dreamed it to be and so much with a room full of love, genuine happiness & people that LOVE to party!!!Although we know & fully appreciate that we were very lucky to have kept our original wedding date, it didn’t change just how stressful planning was at times during the pandemic. The fear of wondering whether things would go ahead, whether restrictions would be in place, whether we would lose the suppliers we had searched so hard to find & formed relationships with & whether our guests would be able to attend and feel comfortable in doing so. We stayed focused in the true sentiment of our wedding however after the 18 months we all had, we knew it would be just the celebration that everybody needed!! To finally see friends and family again, to all be together in one room, to hug one another and to share in so much love and happiness is just unforgettable. (We tried to support as many of our friends & families small businesses as we could which consisted of our wedding cake, bridal hair, stationary, photography & video! We are very lucky to know so many talented people)