Suzy and Gary held their wedding reception at Duncton Mill Fishery, West Sussex after having their legal ceremony at The Angel Hotel in Midhurst on October 1st last year. It was actually one of the hottest days of 2011 (sometimes this crazy British weather has its perks!)
The gorgeous photos today are by the ever so lovely Sussex based wedding photographer Nicki Feltham.
Here’s our chat with Suzy about her West Sussex wedding:
Love Sussex Weddings: Hi Suzy, thanks for sharing you gorgeous wedding with us, can you start by telling us where you found your inspiration?
Suzy: I have a love of Cath Kidston, and Gary loves tweed. We were thinking about having a big countryside garden tea party, with bunting and cakes. As things progressed, it evolved into a hot meal with tea-time treats for pudding. Delicious!
Love Sussex Weddings: Sounds scrumptious! So, any proposal story to share?
Suzy: The proposal was lovely. Gary got a beautiful ring which he stuck inside my birthday card with heart-shaped stickers. On the morning of my birthday, whilst lying in bed with a cup of tea, I was complaining that I had not seen a big present anywhere around the house whilst I opened the card. I was so surprised! I remember grinning like a chesire cat and jumping up and down on the bed!
Love Sussex Weddings: Ahh, that’s lovely. So your wedding planning, how did you go about it?
Suzy: The venue we found by mistake. We came across the website of Duncton Mill Fishery and with just seven weeks to go we decided to go and see it. When we arrived, it was a sunny day and there had been a wedding there the night before, it looked completely stunning. Breath-taking. The couple who run it were very helpful and gave us the details for the tent company and the generators etc. It is somewhere you have to see to believe.
We also got very lucky with our wedding photographer. Nicki Feltham was at the wedding of a mutual friend and we loved the photos that she took. When we got engaged, our mutual friend put us in touch. We did a pre-wedding shoot, which was a nice way to get to know each other and to help us feel relaxed with the camera and the directions given by her to help create a good picture. We have been thrilled with the pictures and we have already told all our friends who to use for their weddings! What we like best is the relaxed style of the pictures, and her ideas for backgrounds. We were so thankful that Nicki spent the whole day following us, from the makeup salon in the morning through to the late-night dance floor antics!
We found our caterers (Caper and Bury) online after reading a wedding blog. We liked the fact that they were not too far from us so we could meet with them to discuss our menu choices.
Gary liked the idea of having locally sourced ingredients, which they excelled at. We chose to keep it informal by having a spit roast, but we chose to have it served at the tables with all the trimmings including seasonal veggies and lovely gravy.
The pudding was to die for. Things like little single portions of cheesecake served in little shot glasses, and the most divine chocolate tarts with raspberries on top, all individual portions served on beautiful cake stands to the tables. It was visually stunning and tasted superb. I have literally never tasted food like it since.
Love Sussex Weddings: Wow the food sounds amazing. We met Nicki last week and she’s absolutely lovely! Now tell us abut your scrummy looking cake!
Suzy: I am slightly obsessed with cake. Particularly cup cakes. We had a stack of cup cakes which were made by The Swallow Bakery in Chichester. We had a mix of vanilla & chocolate sponge, with cream coloured icing dusted with a bit of glitter (pink, of course!). We had a giant cup cake at the top, which we took home and have been eating ever since. Delicious!
Love Sussex Weddings: Lovely, and what were your wedding colours?
Suzy: We said from the start we would not have a ‘pink’ wedding, but Gary’s suit ended up having some pink in it, so it turned into a pink wedding! The flowers were from The Real Flower Company in Midhurst. The bouquet was beautiful, with lots of bold pink roses surrounded by rosemary sprigs. Gary loves herbs and wanted to incorporate scents as well as colour. The table flowers were a mix of roses, some herbs like rosemary and lavender and then some green foliage and berries. The button holes were very simple, just some lavender sprigs.
Love Sussex Weddings: Beautiful. Any tips for other Sussex brides to-be?
I made a scrap book over the year of planning, which was helpful when talking to people like florists and dress fitters. It gave them a more visual understanding of what I like and don’t like.
Love Sussex Weddings: Good tip! OK, so tell us about the personal touches you added to your day?
Suzy: The favours were doubled up as the place settings. I sewed little heart-shaped cushions from lots of different fabrics which we then tied tags onto with the names printed on.
The guests all took them home and some even asked for another one! I was never any good at sewing, so I learnt a new skill and also gave my guests something unique and special to keep as a memory of our day. To display the seating plan, we got a big, ornate old guilt mirror in a frame from a reclamation yard and we replaced the mirror with our Cath Kidston inspired plan. The mirror has since been put back in the frame, and is now on our bathroom wall as a wonderful reminder of the day.
Our wedding invites were pretty unique too. We had them designed and made by a friend, who knew our love of tweed, cup cakes and all things Cath Kidston and put this all together to make something quite unique, with the RSVP card in the shape of a cup cake! A lot of compliments were received, with some saying they were the most interesting and exciting invite they had ever seen. Kirsty Lopez Aragon takes the credit for this, and is a graphic designer by trade.
Love Sussex Weddings: Wow, all very creative, it all looks amazing in your photos. So finally can you sum up your wedding theme for us?
Suzy: Informal, fun, relaxed country garden party with lots of tweed and Cath Kidston!
Team Wedding
Wedding venue: Duncton Mill Fishery, West Sussex
Wedding Reception venue: The Angel Hotel, Midhurst
Wedding photographer: Nicki Feltham, Sussex
Wedding Caterers: Caper and Bury, Sussex
Wedding Flowers: The Real Flower Company, Midhurst
Wedding Stationery: Kirsty Lopez Aragon
Wedding Cake: The Swallow Bakery in Chichester
(More wedding suppliers will be listed in part two of this wedding later this week).
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Wow! What a beautiful Sussex venue and the tipis look amazing don’t they? Thanks so much to Suzy for giving us the inside scoop on her wedding planning today. We love the whole Cath Kidston thang and all the cute DIY personal touches Suzy added to her day. And how gorgeous are Nicki’s photos?
Hear more from Suzy about her looovely West Sussex tipi wedding on Love Sussex Weddings later this week when we feature part two of Suzy and Gary’s wedding. Look out for Suzy’s gorgeous lighting ideas, including a little surprise for their parents and guests (Suzy previously worked as a lighting designer so it’s all rather fab). Plus Suzy gives us the lowdown on their lovely outfits. Watch out for sneak peek’s coming your way on our facebook page too!
