Winter Wonderland Wedding
We asked Boo Bride Zoe, if she wouldn't mind sharing her wedding day with us, and she was over the moon at the suggestion! Here she shares her experiences which we hope will help you with your wedding planning!
Looking back on our wedding day just over a year ago, it really was the most magical day and sharing it with everyone we love, most importantly our daughter who was 14 months at the time, just adds to how special it was.
I met my husband, Gareth, at our work Christmas party in 2019 and after our first few dates, we knew that we had found something special. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, we then spent 3 months apart, until we were both allowed to return to work, and we still say to this day that if we can survive lockdown, we can survive anything – a motto that definitely helped when wedding planning hit some of its trickier moments!
Gareth proposed to me in November 2021 at one of my favourite spots in the whole world, overlooking the sea in Devon, and we have visited the same spot every year since. It completely took me by surprise, something which is not easy because I’m normally involved in everything, but it was perfect for us. We decided that we wanted to get married at Christmas-time, partly because it is my favourite time of year but it was also the time of year when we met so it felt right.
Having thrown ourselves into wedding planning and working to December 2023 for our dream wedding, we then had the best surprise imaginable – I had fallen pregnant with our beautiful daughter. Her arrival in October 2022 did mean that some aspects of planning our wedding went on the back burner for a bit but we knew that having her at our wedding was going to make it incredibly special.
I loved planning our wedding but, even though we were getting married in December, we were very clear that we didn’t want it to be a ‘Christmas-themed’ wedding so our theme was more ‘Winter Wonderland’ with lots of silver, navy blue and white snowflakes. This meant that sometimes approaching suppliers was a bit tricky because they automatically heard December wedding and thought Christmas – lots of red, green, holly, baubles and many of the venues we considered said that they would be fully decorated for Christmas with their own colour schemes.
The first venue we went to see in person was Lillibrooke Manor, a Grade II-listed manor house and barn complex, and we fell in love with it straightaway. It was simply beautiful and we loved every part of it, from the Small Barn where the ceremony would be to the Great Barn decorated with fairy lights for our wedding breakfast and the Manor House where we could stay. What made it even better was that, whilst they would have Christmas trees, the decorations were minimalist and would fit with any colour scheme we picked. We walked away knowing it was where we were meant to get married and, even though we looked at 4 other venues, none of them felt as special as Lillibrooke.
We used a couple of the venue’s recommended suppliers for things but largely, we did a lot of research online and through wedding fairs to find different suppliers who understood what we wanted for our day – we wanted all our guests to feel comfortable, minimal fuss and for our daughter to be included as much as we were. Our photographer, Kathryn Harker, was incredible and, working with her husband, she captured so many memories from our day and made everyone feel at ease. Our videographers, 2408 Films, were recommended by a family friend and they literally saved the day – our original videographer went out of business 3 months before our wedding and having a video to look back on was incredibly important to us. Naomi and James were so easy to work with and just understood what we wanted straightaway; their work was so beautiful and the final video made me cry happy tears within about 10 seconds of it starting.
I think a special shout out needs to go to Dovey Cake Design, who created our ‘Winter Wonderland’ wedding cake with sugar flowers that looked so realistic and she understood our vision immediately. I met Clare as she was the tutor on a cake decorating course I did and her work was simply incredible – each of the three flavoured cakes were delicious and it was amazing to see how she brought our vision to life through her sketches into an actual finished product.
Wedding dress shopping was a very daunting prospect for me – I’ve never been particularly confident and when I visited Boo, I had an 8-week old baby so I didn’t really know what I wanted nor what would suit me anymore. Walking in and meeting Anna lifted such a weight off my shoulders; she had read the form I filled in so completely understood how daunted I was but made me feel at ease straightaway. She had picked some beautiful dresses – ones I had liked and ones she thought I should try – but it became apparent that they weren’t quite hitting the mark. She then asked me what my favourite elements of each dress I’d tried on were and, having listened to them all, came back with the most beautiful dress. However, it was something that I never would have considered but I agreed to try it on. It was perfect and being called ‘Noelle’ had a lovely link to our winter theme. It made me feel like a princess and she also found the longest veil in the shop to go with it – my dream since being a little girl was to have a lovely long veil and that was absolutely what I got. Meeting Emma for my fittings felt exactly the same as meeting Anna – she instantly put me at ease and I knew my dress was in safe hands when it came to the alterations. She took the time to show my Mum how to dress me on the day and I truly can say that I felt beautiful… something I never believed I would actually say so thank you so much!
Whilst the day definitely feels like it flew by, there are three moments that I can always picture vividly and can remember exactly how I felt in them:
My dad seeing me in my wedding dress for the first time. I am incredibly close to my dad and I was so nervous about the day that I knew seeing him would make me feel at ease, which it did because he’s always known how to keep me calm.
Walking down the aisle towards Gareth. It is such a cliché but it genuinely felt like there was no-one else in the room other than us. He also doesn’t often show his emotions but I did get a couple of tears which was lovely.
Watching my daughter on the dancefloor and in the DJ booth with all our friends and family clapping her and smiling at her. We always said that the day was as much about her as it was about us because it made us a family who all had the same surname and seeing her being showered with smiles, love and affection was amazing.
I think my best piece of advice for anyone getting married would be to spend time with each other on the day – everyone wants to speak to you, have photos with you and you tend to get pulled apart a little so try and make time with each other where you can, even though it sounds really obvious!
Married life has been brilliant; we went on our ‘once in a lifetime’ honeymoon to Canada with our little girl and we got to travel across the country, seeing things that we had put on our bucket list to try to see in our lifetime. We celebrated our wedding anniversary with a trip to Devon, including a walk to where we got engaged, and we are expecting our second little girl in February this year.
Thank you to everyone at Boo Bridal for being part of one of the most special days of our lives,
Zoë xxx
