Amy & Fred Warwick House Warwickshire

How we first met and when:

We actually first met in Nursery at Warwick Prep School. I was 3 and Fred was 4. We don’t remember each other from then, however our nursery teacher, Mrs Petley, lives down the road from my parents and attended our wedding! She remembers us both and we were her first ever nursery wedding! We met (properly) on the 140 school bus, travelling to Alcester Grammar School when Fred was in Year 9 and I was in Year 8. The bus went round all the villages so we were on it for 1 hour each way every day, hence a lot of very good friendships were formed on that bus. We almost, but didn’t quite, get together throughout our school years and were then on and off for a few years before we finally made a go of it down in London almost 6 years ago now.

Proposal:

Fred got down on one knee on The Green in West Drayton. We were in the process of buying a house round the corner and it was the village Green that attracted me to the area. We had actually travelled out to sign some paperwork for the estate agent and Fred had told me he had to work that morning. I was not impressed and so by the time we got the train out to West Drayton, I was very annoyed. I later found out he had not been into work that day, but had instead travelled all the way up to Leamington to pick up the engagement ring that morning. Fred hadn’t intended to propose immediately, however he says that once he saw the ring, he just couldn’t wait to do it. There were a lot of tears and then many celebrations!

Engagement ring:

Fred had a very good idea of what I wanted from an engagement ring after playing the “ring game” – whenever we were on holiday, we would look in jewellers’ windows and each have to select a ring for me. By the time he proposed, Fred was better at selecting the perfect ring than I was! Rather than buying a ready made ring, Fred’s father’s friend was a diamond merchant, so he visited Fred on a couple of occasions, showing him a range of diamonds and talking him through what to look for. He’s now quite a diamond expert! He then met with a jeweller who talked him through the design. Despite many attempts from the jeweller to encourage Fred to select a modern design with 4 claws holding the diamond in place, Fred stuck by his guns and insisted that I wanted a 6 claw ring with a princess cut diamond and a platinum band. The ring was absolutely perfect!

Dress shop:

Similar to the ring, the dress was also custom made. Shortly after proposing, Fred was walking to work and spotted a wedding dress in the window of our local charity shop (Hayes and Harlington Hospice). It was being advertised at £25 so he text me as a joke, saying I should buy it. Unbeknown to Fred, the shape of the dress was exactly what I was looking for. After a short phone call to my mum (sat in the bus stop in the pouring rain), it was agreed that £25 to charity was never a bad thing so I walked in and bought the dress! The shop assistant bundled it up in an Aldi shopping bag and I ran out into the rain with it – not the glamour wedding dress shopping experience I’d always imagined. Once home, I visited Julie Dutton ( http://www.juliedutton.co.uk/), a dress maker in Kenilworth, who did a brilliant job of combining my vision with what could feasibly be obtained. She also altered my mother’s outfit for the wedding and added some sleeves to some of my bridesmaid dresses. She did a great job with all the dresses and I will definitely be using her for any alterations in the future! On the wedding day, I produced a booklet detailing the journey the dress had been on and Fred was really moved by the amount of effort (and the huge web of lies!) I’d put in to making the perfect dress for him.

Bridesmaid dresses:

The bridesmaid dresses cost £45 each and were an online exclusive from Dorothy Perkins. They were only available for a very short period of time and, with 6 bridesmaids, it was a little stressful trying to secure all the right sizes before they sold out. Two of my bridesmaids had requested their arms be covered for the wedding, so I purchased an additional dress with which Julie Dutton made sleeves for the bridesmaids. From the excess material she also made sashes for the flower girls’ dresses, which were £25 each from H&M. In both cases, I signed up to the mailing lists for the shops and got an additional 10% off.

Suits:

We hired the suits from The Wedding Barn ( http://www.theweddingbarn.co.uk/) in Ufton. One of my bridesmaids had used them 10 months previously and we found they had the greatest choice at the best price (£59 per suit). As we hired so many, they threw Fred’s in for free. Along with two best men, three ushers and two fathers, we also hired a suit for our ring bearer (aged 6). They were able to match his suit perfectly to that of the grown ups and he looked absolutely gorgeous on the wedding day, even if he did keep referring to himself as “the butler”.

Hair:

My hair was done by Lucy Davidson ( https://www.facebook.com/BridalHairWarwickshireByLucy/). During my hair trail, I unhelpfully showed her 3 different images, none of which particularly shared any features in common. However, she did a brilliant job of combining the images and ultimately created a hair style that was far better than anything I could have imagined. She also did the hair of 4 of my bridesmaids, convinced my mum to have a bit of pampering and curled my flower girls’ hair without charging. I would highly recommend her services – she did a great job and my hair held all day, even after a half hour car journey in an open top Jaguar XK150!

Make up:

I used the same make up artist as my friend had done – Rowena Wilson ( https://www.rowenawilson.com/). She was so friendly and engaging during my friend’s wedding and I decided I definitely needed someone with that attitude on the morning of my own wedding. Again, she did the make up for myself, 4 bridesmaids and amazingly convinced my mum that she deserved a splash of colour on her face too! Again, she added some glamour to my flower girls for free and was very flexible about who she would do make up for. Fred was very impressed with the finished product!

Flowers:

Flowers came from a range of people. The bouquets, buttonholes and the main centre piece at Warwick House came from Jill at Flower Thyme ( https://www.flowerthyme.co.uk/) in Kineton. Jill’s attention to detail is excellent and the flowers were perfect. I was luckily enough to have a close friend who had recently trained as a florist so she made the flower crowns for my flower girls as a wedding gift. We also had flowers in the church. The pedestals at the front were made by a close family friend (also as a wedding gift), with the flowers being purchased from Morrisons supermarket. The remaining flowers were done by my friend’s mother and mother-in-law, using flowers from their own gardens. They looked incredible and everyone commented on how pretty the church looked (and smelt!)

Church:

We got married in St Laurence Church, Lighthorne. I was born and bred in Lighthorne, with my parents still living in the village. It’s a very friendly village so our wedding became quite the social event of the weekend, with many people coming along to watch us go in and come out. They were, of course, also invited into the church to watch the ceremony. The ceremony was conducted by Revd Rachel Saum, whose service was traditional yet also very personal. We were very happy to the service and felt it was accessible to all our guests, regardless of religion. My next door neighbour also heads the Bell Ringers in the village and so he was keen to make sure everyone knew we were getting married by showing the bells some action! This added to the traditional feel of the day.

Venue:

Following the wedding, we moved on to Warwick House ( https://www.warwickhouse.co.uk/) in Southam. The second I entered Warwick House on one of their open days, I knew this was the venue for us. As a sole wedding venue, each room meets the needs of a wedding perfectly. With a large front bar, light and bright banqueting hall and a middle room for you to do what you want (we built a mini crazy golf course to entertain our guests), the venue is perfect. We were also lucky to have some beautiful weather so our guests made the most of the lovely patio and garden out the back. We couldn’t fault anything with Warwick House – the staff were all friendly and welcoming whilst also being highly professional and efficient. We were treated like royalty from start to finish!

Venue decor:

We personally thought the venue was stunning without much needing to be added so in terms of decoration, we used the bits available within our package we selected from Warwick House. We added a couple of candles (recycled from my friend’s wedding) and through in a few flowers and photos here and there. Beyond that, we didn’t have any specific decorations.

Cake:

we had been in two minds about a cake. At one point, I had said I would make it (I’m so pleased I didn’t – there was enough to do without that too!) However, we saw this as an opportunity to do a bit of cake tasting and we weren’t disappointed. Having visited The Cakery ( https://thecakeryleamington.co.uk/), there was no way we could say no. The cake was so tasty and moist, and Gemma filled us with confidence that she knew exactly what she was doing and had worked with Warwick House so often that there was no question around delivering the cake to the venue. The price was also highly competitive. Having initially chosen a 3 tier cake with a mix of chocolate and vanilla sponge, we later decided that the vanilla sponge was too good and so changed our order to 3 tiers of vanilla. We weren’t disappointed with the finished product!

Band:

Our first dance was actually sung by a close friend of ours, Liz Lawrence. This made the first dance so personal that we were shocked to discovered that the whole thing had been filmed by our videographer however we have no recollection of anyone else being on the dance floor with us – just perfect! We then hired Carl Sinclair ( http://carlsinclair.com/weddings_and_functions) for the evening. He is an incredibly talented jazz singer and pianist who went out of his way to ensure he was playing the type of music we wanted. Along with Carl, we also had a saxophone and drums which added to the sound perfectly. Throughout the evening, Carl personalised each and every song for us which really got our guests involved. The dance floor was full all night and no doubt, made some very funny photos!

Wedding rings:

Our rings were made by the same jeweller who made my engagement ring. For me, I wanted a plain band made from platinum to match my engagement ring. Fred had initially been reluctant to have a wedding ring, however when his father found his late grandfather’s wedding ring, Fred decided that this would make a perfect wedding ring for him. We had the ring resized for Fred and it now holds many important memories for him. We’re both very happy with our rings.

Wedding cars:

Fred’s father owns a Jaguar XK150 and so from the second we got engaged, we knew we would want to use the car. Our wedding colour suddenly became based around the car and it was really important that the car was centre stage during the wedding. Fred was driven to the church by his father in the Jaguar and he then drove me away from the wedding, giving us an opportunity to spend some quality time alone on our wedding day. However, we soon realised we would need more cars than that to transport everyone else. As we met on the school bus, I was convinced that I wanted a bus to feature on our wedding day so we hired a Red Routemaster bus from A Route 2 Hire ( https://www.route2hire.co.uk/). Although we weren’t on the bus ourselves, I’ve seen some photos and video footage and it looks like everyone had a great time, with my next door neighbour (and professional singer) initiating many verses of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ as they drove between the church and Warwick House. We also hired a Daimler Limousine for Avon Classic Wedding Cars ( http://www.avonclassicweddingcars.co.uk/) which transported the groomsmen and bridesmaids to the church, before finally delivering the bride plus parents. Both our fathers love classic cars and I think they really enjoyed this element of the wedding day!

String Quartet:

As a child, I had cello lessons from the age of 7 to 17. I was lucky enough that my old cello teacher now plays in a string quartet, Fidelis ( http://www.fidelis-quartet.co.uk/) and was so happy when he agreed to play me down the aisle. After playing at the church, they then moved to Warwick House and entertained our guests during the drinks reception. A number of engaged friends came over to me after the wedding and said they now definitely want a string quartet at their wedding!

Videographer:

Along with John doing a fabulous job of capturing every minute of our wedding on camera, we also hired Leigh at Inspired Wedding Films ( http://www.inspiredweddingfilms.co.uk/) to record the day. He attended with a colleague and managed to successfully catch all the subtle (and slightly less subtle!) emotions of the day. As Fred works in the film industry, Leigh was happy to film the day and then hand the footage over to us for us to edit it ourselves. This saved us a little bit of money, but more importantly, meant that we had every second of the wedding film and we could decide which bits were most prominent to us. One of our guests also brought along his drone so whilst we were having photos taken in front of the church, he was able to capture the goings on of everyone from above!