Introducing Erin Layla Garton, our brand new bridal blogger!

James and I met working in a club in Manchester, he was at University and I was at Dance College, I was 17 and he was 20 and we fell in love. After 7 and half years together, in which we have both changed careers quite a few times, relocated down to Reading and bought a house, he finally proposed on Christmas Day 2010. It really was the best day ever and to this day people are always commenting on how unique and different the proposal was. You see James didn’t have it easy, everyone kept asking him when he was going to pop the question and I kept wrecking every chance by always putting my big mouth in it. For example, we went to see Michael Buble for our 7 year anniversary and I made the comment to him and to friends,” ooh wouldn’t it be romantic if James proposed , whilst Michael is singing our song!”, well suffice to say it didn’t happen. Instead he waited till Christmas Day and it was perfect.

There was no getting down on one knee, which he knew I did not want, instead he arranged for us to stay in the front room of his dad’s house, in the Cotswold’s. We had already had a perfect Christmas Eve with great food, company and presents and that night we went to sleep on a blow up mattress in front a roaring fire, a gorgeous Christmas tree filled with fairy lights and snow filling up the windows and French doors. I then awoke on Christmas Day at about 5am and noticed something very different; there was something on my finger. You see I am a very heavy sleeper and because of this James was able to slip the ring on my finger without me even stirring, he then spent a very unsettled night keeping the fire going, trying to get little bits of sleep, keeping his nerves in check and also making sure I didn’t hit myself in the face with my hand. The funny thing is that I noticed straight away that I had a ring on my finger but it took about 30 seconds for me to able to focus properly and see that I had the ring of my dreams; A vintage inspired ring with a centre diamond and 28 more diamonds adorning the shoulders and band. It was designed by the exquisite Cry for the Moon jewellers in Guildford, with the all-important diamond being picked by James.

The Wedding.

So we set the date of May 12th 2012 for our wedding, which also happens to be our 9 year anniversary, after 9 years together we really didn’t want to start counting from year 0 again, plus we loved the added romance of getting married on the day we first got together. From there it was onto organising the rest of the day and boy was it stressful at first. We had it in our head that we only wanted to spend a certain amount of money on the venue, but everything we saw that came within our budget was either not what we were looking for or was for venue hire only and with added catering costs it took us well over our budget. So in the end we thought we would go on an inspiration trip to The National Wedding Show in Birmingham, and we are so glad we did. Thanks to The National Wedding Show we found our venue, photographer and tailor for the groom’s suit.

The Venue; is the stunning Wroxall Abbey Estate (http://www.wroxall.com/), where we managed to get a great deal due to our wedding not counting as in their peak season. The venue is just what we wanted, it has beautiful grounds and the inside as an old regal feel to it. What is great is that the whole wedding is taking place there, they have an onsite cathedral which is where our ceremony will be held and then we have hired out the mansion on an all exclusive basis meaning we have all 48 bedroom for our guests plus no-one else apart from the wedding party is allowed in the building, perfect seclusion for everyone to enjoy the day.

The photographers; are the wonderful Anna and Michael from Two of US (http://www.twoofus.eu/). One piece of advice I would give to couples visiting an event with so many stalls, is try and talk to as many people as possible (it may be exhausting but it’s definitely worth it), and if you don’t get to speak to everyone at least pick up leaflets, half of them you may throw in the bin but you will have some gems in there. James and I spoke to at least half a dozen photographers on the day, we asked the same questions to all and got a lot of different answers and a lot of variances in prices, by the end of the day we were exhausted and still didn’t quite feel that we had found our photographer. So at the end of the day there we were sitting in the demonstration area resting our tiring feet, where we saw a photographer stand that we hadn’t visited, we had actually passed it quite a few times in the day but we thought the photos were too good to be real and also looked way out of our price league but decided to get one more leaflet to add to our already huge pile to go through. That last leaflet turned out to be the photographer we went for, they were exactly what we were looking for, quirky, well shot and personal pictures, at a great price and to top it all off Anna, who we arranged to meet 3 days after the show, was so friendly and genuinely did it for the love of photography, we warmed to her instantly. We got an amazing package with more on offer than all the other photographers we saw and at an amazing price, including 2 photographers for the whole day, Anna who will follow me and get the brides perspective and Michael who will follow James to get the grooms and also he will be snapping away getting all the quirky action shots, 2 photo albums, full copyright, full photo editing and an additional shoot for the bride and groom after the wedding. This additional photo shoot is something we had never heard of before but apparently it is very popular in Europe. Instead of the bride and groom going off on the wedding day for an hour or so and missing the chance to mingle with friends and family at the drinks reception to have pictures taken, they only take you away for 20 mins and then the next day you get all dressed up again and go on a photo shoot to different locations to get some amazing pictures together. We already can’t wait to see the pictures and they haven’t even been taken yet.

The suit has been designed and made by specialist tailors Clements and Church (http://www.clementsandchurch.co.uk/). We were served by the owner Aaron, who could not have been more helpful, and boy does he know his stuff, his expertise really put James at ease, even when he was told he wore the wrong sized shirts. After trying on a few suits, we picked a stunning 3 piece with a difference; it really has that vintage look we were going for and just happens to be the first one we saw when we walked in. We were originally going to get one tailor-made for James, but in the end there was no point, the cut was so excellent, that an off the peg suit worked perfectly, with a few minor adjustments it will look like he has had one tailored made without the paying that extra cost. James then picked a stunning tie that incorporates our colour scheme and the same fabric will also be used for the back of the waistcoat, I really cannot wait to see James in it on our wedding day.

So you can see for James and I, a trip to the National Wedding Show was invaluable.

Now a year has passed since we started planning and we still have a lot to do. One thing I have not mentioned so far is that I am a full on DIY bride and I don’t just mean invites and décor, I am intending on going as far as making not only MY wedding dress but also my 6 bridesmaid dresses. On my blog posts you will be able to follow my progress during the next 3 and half months till my big day and I will be including simple instructions for my DIY ideas and progress pictures on my dress.