Sam and Katherine's Wedding in Weedon Beck, Northamptonshire

Our Real Wedding

Our wedding day was so perfect. It felt like a fairy tale! It was so personalised to us. The weather was perfect. It really could not have been any better. We had an indoor barn ceremony, followed by a big group photo on the steps. I surprised everyone by having my dog appear as a ring bearer. It was very complicated getting him there and keeping it a secret, and I would say if you can afford a pet chaperone, then that is probably much easier than what I did by asking friends to pick him up from my house and then pass him over to a member of staff at the venue, and then having the guests leave again to drive him back! But it was definitely worth it! We then had a drinks reception on the lawn in the sunshine with a musician playing his guitar and a bouncy castle, and lawn games! We had passion fruit martinis (mine and my husband's favourite drink!) before having some group photos. We were introduced as Mr and Mrs Dawson and came out to dance to the Pokémon theme tune. We then cut our incredible cake before finding our seats for the speeches. After our speeches, we had some amazing BBQ sharing boards. My new husband and I then went and had some sunset photos whilst everyone else went out for tea, coffee, and cake! I made my own vegan brownies and gluten-free rocky road to go alongside the wedding cake. We then had a sparkler entrance/exit to welcome the evening guests and say goodbye to the daytime guests before going in for our first dance. Our first dance was to Lover by Taylor Swift, and we had learned a whole sequence on YouTube for it! It was great fun even though I was super nervous. We also had a first dance sweepstake, so all the guests had to guess earlier in the day what our first dance was, and the winner won a £20 tab at the bar! After our first dance, I taught everyone some very simple moves for a ceilidh, which turned out to be probably the most chaotic ceilidh ever! But everyone had a lot of fun. We then went straight into the dancing! I was exhausted by then and ready for bed, so in hindsight I probably should have ended the night earlier than 12! I found my own decorations, some I bought new, and others were second-hand. I used ribbons to tie onto the aisle chairs, a super simple but very beautiful decoration! I had jars with wildflowers in to line the aisle and wine bottles with fairy lights in at the front. I found these all second-hand from other brides who didn’t need them anymore! I would definitely say don’t hold back on the flowers because they really made my day special. They were the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen, and everyone commented on them and how pretty they were! My husband and I wrote our own vows, which I would highly recommend! It was a stressful process to start with, but truly worth it as they were so personalised to us, and everyone else said how lovely they were. We also worked on them together, so we knew they were both the same style rather than one being romantic and the other being silly and funny! My advice is not to let anyone else tell you how to plan your day. Make sure you do everything you want to, and if you don’t want to include something, then don’t! It’s YOUR day! Everyone said to me how romantic our day was and how it was just so US and that’s exactly how it should have been!