Inside: An Iconic Wedding In Yorkshire The Wedding Edition

The Story

Our story started with a swipe as so many do these days. Well, two swipes for Sarah, first to change her preference to women and then second to like Katie. Tired of dating the same ‘Clapham guy’ Sarah decided to change her preferences to women to “give it a go”. Katie was looking to not jump into another relationship and just go on some dates and thought straight Sarah would be perfect for this.

However, as a surprise to both, the first date went well and days later the U-Haul van arrived and Sarah unofficially moved into Katie’s flat. After a few months of lockdown as a test, it cemented that this was the one. So, they swiftly fulfilled the lesbian stereotype and bought two cats and a house.

Sarah proposed to Katie at home in December 2022 with the help of a bespoke advent calendar. Sarah was very nervous and even asked Katie to do her a “favour” rather than ask her the question. When she realised what was happening, Katie didn’t even look at the ring that Sarah was offering but grabbed her phone to prove that she was also designing a ring for Sarah, just hadn’t had it made yet.

Both Katie and Sarah’s rings are from Flawless Jewellers in Hatton Garden. They were both designed separately by the other but ended up very similar. Katie’s is an oval teal sapphire with three diamonds on either side and Sarah’s is a pear-shaped dark blue sapphire with a trillion-shaped diamond on either side.

Venue

Sarah and Katie knew they wanted to get married in Yorkshire in early autumn as that is where Sarah is from, and it seemed like a great excuse to get everyone up north into the countryside. They had looked around most of the barn/manor house venues in North Yorkshire and, due to limited availability, they were about to really compromise on the date to secure a different barn venue, when Sarah’s cousin recommended Hornington Manor as he had been to a wedding there previously. Katie and Sarah looked up the venue online and liked what they saw, so they immediately got in touch with them. Finding out they had availability on 7^th October they secured the venue before even seeing it. Luckily when they viewed the venue the following weekend they only loved it more and felt like the stars had aligned.

A huge selling point of the venue was that you get the venue the day before the wedding to the morning after and the opportunity to have up to 60 people stay onsite. This allowed them to host an informal evening on the Friday with food and drinks and then a casual brunch on the Sunday which just extended the celebrations.

The venue was the perfect setting for the wedding and the weather held up for them to allow the dream of an outdoor ceremony in the courtyard and reception drinks on the front lawn. The staff at Hornington Manor are absolutely excellent and alongside the other suppliers, they orchestrated the most perfect day that ran without a hitch (that the brides noticed anyway).

Fashion

Sarah went dress shopping on her own. She is very decisive and not much of a peacock so the idea of going dress shopping with others didn’t massively appeal. True to her nature she found the one in the second shop she went to just over a month after the engagement. Sarah wore a square-neck, A-line dress with a large train and buttons down the back from Blackburn Bridal.

Katie, being the polar opposite, can be extremely indecisive and struggles to reach a verdict on her own, and so off she went to a number of different bridal appointments with the helpful guidance of a few family & friends. The dress she chose was a high-neck, low-back dress with a puddle train and buttons down the back from Made with Love Bridal.

Neither bride was concerned with spending too much money on shoes, Sarah sourced hers from Etsy and Katie from ASOS.

Sarah did an outfit change on the day. This was a fairly last-minute decision following her hen do two weeks before. The Friday night included a disco party for which Sarah bought an amazing sequined corset jumpsuit from Coast. After enjoying wearing the jumpsuit so much she was up for any excuse to wear it again.

Sarah and Katie didn’t really think to plan something old, something new etc… However, one of Katie’s bridesmaids gifted her some blue crystals for the day and Sarah borrowed her Made of Honour’s veil so they made do.

Jewellery

Both brides coincidentally wore Lily & Roo jewellery. This was not planned and they only realised when they both received packages in the post. Great tastes and all that…

Sarah wore their signature pearl hoop bridal earrings and a gold pearl bracelet and Katie wore silver pearl drop earrings and a silver pearl bracelet to match.

Bridal Party

Katie and Sarah decided on quite an autumnal colour scheme for the wedding given the time of year. They both had three people in their bridal party and wanted to show variety in the colours and styles. They chose a mocha, rust and champagne which one on each side would wear. They then got a few different designs of satin dresses to add to the variety. Katie had her brother as one of her ‘bridesmates’ so he represented the champagne colour with a linen suit and rust tie and pocket square to tie it all together.

Sarah got personalised boxes made for her bridal party, each of which contained a number of gifts. The main ones included a cotton classic nightshirt from The White Company, along with white fluffy slippers to wear on the morning of. She gifted them all a personalised piece of pearl jewellery from the Spanish brand French Toasts. To add to this, she wrote them all a personalised poem which she read to them on the morning of the big day.

Katie struggled to choose gifts for her mixed-gender bridesmates but finally settled on some gorgeous pyjamas from Desmond & Dempsey and matching eyemasks. She also gave each of them a card with a personalised poem.

Tablescape

They went for three long rustic trestle tables and through the help and advice from their incredible florist, they decorated them with an array of bud vases with gorgeous wildflowers and foliage, along with plenty of tapered candles in a mix of antique brass and glass candle holders.

The table place cards were hastily made two days before by Sarah’s dad and sister when the printing company failed to deliver the order. In hindsight, the handwritten name places looked fantastic and fitted in perfectly with the rustic style they were looking to achieve.

Each name place was put into a champagne cork which came all the way from Buckingham Palace as one of the bridesmaids works at the royal household and, as you can imagine, they go through a lot of champagne bottles every year.

Food & Drink

Katie and Sarah love food and hosting so the caterers were a hugely important part of the wedding. They asked the venue for recommendations and it seems if you are getting married in North Yorkshire, Hog and Apple are the best of the best.

For canapes, they opted for some of their signature classics which included mini beef and Yorkshire puds, fish and chips, and salt baked beetroot tartlets, all washed down with a good glass of champagne, beer or elderflower fizz.

For the wedding breakfast, they went for a choice menu, asking guests to choose their starter and main when they RSVP’d. The starter choices were spiced tomato arancini or smoked haddock bonbon followed by a main of trio of pork, duo of lamb or trio of celeriac. They then opted for a dessert table with five different mini desserts to encourage guests to get up and mingle. Guests were also treated to champagne for the speeches and each table had both red and white Franschhoek South African wine on the table.

The evening food was chicken katsu bao buns and a veggie alternative. As they were both too busy galavanting all night, unfortunately, neither bride actually managed to eat these but were told by the guests that they were delicious.

Katie’s sister is an excellent cook and budding baker and agreed to make the wedding cake. Katie and Sarah didn’t make it easy by requesting three tiers with three different flavours and three different fillings. But Bryony absolutely smashed it and created a gorgeous and delicious cake which she decorated with some flowers from the florist and polaroids of the brides, bridal parties and families.

Entertainment

The bridal parties walked down the aisle first to Jacob and the Stone by Emile Mosseri and then Katie, followed by Sarah, walked down the aisle to Agape by Nicholas Britell. Both gorgeous pieces of music sourced by Sarah.

Katie and Sarah initially booked a string quartet for the ceremony and drinks reception. However, after some consideration, they decided that wasn’t quite them and they wanted something a bit more upbeat. So they booked the New York Brass Band and planned for them to burst out in a flash mob style just before they walked down the aisle at the end of the ceremony, to which they would then lead the guests to the drinks reception on the front lawn of the manor house.

NYBD really got the party going during the reception getting everyone dancing and singing along to B*Witched and Spice Girls and started a conga line to take everyone through to the Wedding Breakfast.

Katie and Sarah’s first dance was XO by Beyonce as they wanted to try and pick something slightly out of the ordinary.

The evening entertainment was another amazing band called Charming Louise which they found through the Alive Network. Katie was keen to have a female singer and Sarah wanted a saxophonist and trumpeter and luckily this 7-piece band could accommodate exactly that. They did two-hour sets and were absolutely amazing. The dancefloor was not empty at all while they were on.

For all of the other parts of the day, Sarah had made multiple Spotify playlists for pre-ceremony, wedding breakfast, dancefloor and late-night dancefloor which ensured the day had the perfect music all day.

Beauty Regime & Wellness

Katie and Sarah hired Make-up Artists Yorkshire and Laura and Marzena from NU-Studios Harrogate who were all absolutely amazing! They were all so friendly and put the brides and bridal parties at ease and made them all look gorgeous.

Favourite Wedding Gifts

Katie and Sarah set up a wedding gift list on The Wedding Shop and have received so many generous gifts on there alongside some amazing personalised gifts which are so special. They love them all and are just so appreciative of everyone’s generosity and the personal touches.

Honeymoon

Not wanting to crash back into reality straight away, Katie and Sarah planned a trip to Corfu for a week after the wedding to relax and unwind. Many thanks to their friend Dean who hooked them up with a gorgeous luxury villa through his company CV Villas.

They plan to go to Mexico in January for the honeymoon but are currently building up the courage (and bank balance) to plan after the wedding.

Advice

Trust your suppliers. They do this as a job and therefore have done many more weddings than you!
POV – disposable camera app. This app allows guest at the wedding to get a “disposable camera” on their phone with 25 photos to take through the day. All the photos are then “released” when at a chosen time after the wedding. This was a really great way to get some photos immediately and all through different angles & perspectives of your different guests
Try and pay off any outstanding invoices to your suppliers as soon as you are able and avoid leaving it to the last week or, worse, after the wedding! No one wants financial burden lingering over them in the week before/after. Sarah & Katie were pretty ruthless in getting everything paid for as soon as they could, meaning they didn’t have a humongous lump sum of money to pay out right before the wedding which definitely helped keep the stressful levels down.