The thing I love most about a good highlight film is the crescendo of emotions that always leaves me in the happiest tears, usually about 4 minutes into the film. It’s magical, I tell you. This film from Ever After has that special moment, but on top of that, it has the most amazing wedding at the center… in a castle… with rhyming toasts. I’m naming this one best ever.
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From the stunning bride… Believe it or not, we had viewed 15 venues (yes, 15!) before booking Harlaxton Manor, and we really couldn’t have asked for more. It was really important to us that, even though we were having a civil service, the room we were getting married in had a special feel to it. When we saw their beautiful great hall, that was it for us. We mainly wanted a really classic winter wedding, but it was also important to bring out our personalities too and a little bit about how we met (which was through amateur dramatics!), so we planned for a few different fun things to happen throughout the day.
We both very much wanted a song to be part of our civil service, as music is very important to us, so we were delighted to start the service with Bring Me Sunshine! The lyrics were just perfect (“Make me happy through the years, Never bring me any tears, May your arms be as warm as the sun from up above, Bring me joy, Bring me Sunshine, Bring me love!” and everyone knew it and joined in. At the end, the order of service said, “Don’t forget the jazz hands”. Jonny and I turned round to find the whole congregation doing jazz hands back at us – it was such a joyful moment and set the tone for the ceremony we wanted. It was a pretty emotional service, with lots of tears and laughter; we were glad we had provided guests with handkerchiefs on the way in to the ceremony!
We also wanted to do something a bit different for our first dance, so worked on a full routine – with 2 choreographers even! We started off with a romantic dance to Adele – To Make You Feel My Love and then this cut off, as if the music was broken. To some gasps from the crowd, I pretended to get cross with Jonny before Let’s Face the Music and Dance kicked in and a routine involving jazz hands and a cane was begun! This was the biggest secret of the day that we kept from everyone else and we had an hilarious time with it.
We are very lucky to have some very talented friends and family, and really felt our wedding was a team effort, from poems written for us by my mum, to some amazing music, our wedding cake, the jam favours and the car Jonny arrived in; we were so touched by the support we received.
The professional team around us were also excellent. In particular, our videographers were fabulous – we had a same day edit which meant a short film of highlights of the day was ready to be played for our evening guests. We couldn’t believe how well this captured the day for us – it was just perfect! Our photographer Hannah was also just brilliant, we felt totally relaxed with her (she has some great practical tips such as how to get a cathedral length veil on!) and she captured our day better than we could have expected. The venue is so fabulous it didn’t need much doing to it, but we hired some gorgeous decorations from Perfect Details and again, felt this really made the day “ours”.
The run up to our wedding had been incredibly stressful, with changing job, moving house and then 4 family bereavements all within 2 months, but if anything, this made us appreciate the people we love more and made spending our wedding day surrounded by these people into a day better than we could have dreamed of. Photography: Camera Hannah | Cinematography: Ever After | Wedding Dress: Sassi Holford | Ceremony Venue: Harlaxton Manor | Reception Venue: Harlaxton Manor | Bridesmaids Dresses: Sophia Tolli | Headpiece: Rainbow Club
