What a gorgeous day it has been today (Wednesday) – sunny, dry and with a chill in the air –Â it was identical weather on this same date November 14th ten years ago in 2008 for my younger daughter’s wedding day.
She married at St Mary’s Church just off the main square in the small market town of Masham, North Yorkshire.
This is me on the left with my mum and sister – all of us lookng a bit younger!
The wedding bouquets were made by a florist in a tiny shop in Bedale and were absolutely beautiful – deep, rich Autumn colours.
To save on costs we added in a few bunches of our own courtesy of the cheap bouquets sold at the local Co-op the day before, together with a bunch of Hypericum and eucalyptus from our local market stall! These were used to fill the jars we hung on the railings and Shepherd’s hooks in the Church grounds.
Luckily my daughter wanted a home-made country look for her wedding so we were able to work to quite a tight budget.
We made the confetti from a mix of honesty seed pods, hydrangea petals and pressed montbretia petals, this gave us the vibrant oranges and the honesty is so light it makes wonderful confetti. The mixture was then put into cellophane bags (collected from those used to package birthday cards) and decorated with a natural raffia bow.
We used a professional photographer that was both fun and willing to take a mix of formal and more informal shots. He certainly kept all our guests entertained with his humour and he took us all for a wander around Masham capturing some very unusual scenes – these are two of my favourite – in the telephone box on the left and outside the Bah Humbugs shop.
The reception was held in the local town hall and once the formal pictures had been taken outside the church we all walked round in procession to the venue led by the bride and groom – no need to hire any cars. Local friends, neighbours and shopkeepers from Masham came out to cheer the happy couple.
As the town hall is not considered a normal wedding venue these days we had to hire in tables and white linen cloths from a local caterers and we added the plain orange napkins. The chairs were supplied with the room but were rather shabby so one of biggest expenses was the hire of the Lycra chair covers and organza bows but this made all the difference to the room and the locals said they had never seen the town hall looking so good!
We had to lay all this out ourselves the evening before the wedding – we had loads of helpers and whilst we were busy moving and laying and tying and draping the local amateur dramatics society were rehearsing their muder mystery play on the stage. It was a bit bizarre!
The centre pieces we made ourselves too – we bought some inexpensive large hurricane vases from Ikea and filled them with tiny dried pumpkins and a pillar candle. Around the base we placed a ring of twigs picked up on a few country walks then soaked and twisted into shape.
The favours were in plain calico bags decorated with pine cones and dried ferns with hand written craft labels.
For the pew ends we bought rustic twig hearts and added a natural raffia bow.
We had a wonderful and fun day finishing with a rousing Ceilidh with music by The Applejacks.
This weekend the whole family will be gathering for a celebration to mark both their tenth wedding anniversary and the birth of their second daughter. We are a family blessed.
where the journey takes me 2 