Alex & Danny were married in glorious style at the beautiful Birdsall House, North Yorkshire. The UNVEILED team particularly loved Alex’s choice of oversized, multicoloured florals – hot for 2019 and beyond.
With images by Amy B Photography
the proposal
This came as a huge surprise. We had just landed in Rome for the weekend and admittedly I was quite ‘hangry’ after a delayed flight. We were making our way to the restaurant when we stopped in the Piazza Navona to take some photographs and suddenly Danny was down on one knee. My reaction was instantaneous tears of shock and happiness, that didn’t stop for a good few hours.
the venue
Our ceremony was held at St Mary’s, the local parish church within the grounds of North Yorkshire venue Birdsall House, where our reception took place. Following the ceremony, the guests made the short walk up the drive towards the house.
After the meal and speeches in the Ballroom, we had cocktails in the gardens before taking to the dancefloor in a sperry tent marquee in front of the 14th Century church ruin that sits on Birdsall’s front lawn.
Some venues can feel like a ‘wedding conveyor belt’, but that couldn’t be further from the truth at Birdsall. Birdsall’s owners, Cara and James Willoughby, made us feel so at home each time we visited and especially in the weeks leading up to the big day. They are very much involved with the hands-on running of the day and couldn’t have been more helpful and enthusiastic with our preparations.
the photographer
Amy Barton of Amy B Photography captured our day. I first came across Amy’s work while reading wedding blogs and loved her style, which is relaxed, candid and fun. She also has a very keen eye for detail, and we were really drawn to her more experimental shots.
On the day of the wedding, Amy was like a ninja – we hardly noticed she was there, but she managed to capture the celebrations from all angles. The collection of images she produced tells the story of the day perfectly.
We would recommend Amy in a heartbeat and have done already – we will be seeing her at two of our friends’ weddings this year!
the details
The tables were decorated simply with the bridesmaids’ bouquets in clear, glass vases, amongst tall, coloured candles and we named each of our tables after one of our favourite restaurants, including a little paragraph on each, explaining what we loved about that particular place.
I had a clear vision for the flowers – from Lucy MacNicholl Floral Design – from the very start of the planning process: unusual, exotic and colourful. Huge Proteas were the focal point surrounded by Peonies and lots of Eucalyptus.
As big foodies we always knew that the food was going to play a crucial part in our day. We worked closely our caterer to create ‘A Yorkshire Feast’ menu, and also arranged to have a five-tiered cheese wedding cake produced by a supplier in York.
the dress
For me, this was the most stressful part of the whole wedding experience. I found plenty of elements of dresses I liked but couldn’t find ‘the one’. Danny’s auntie, Karen, is a fantastically talented seamstress (in her spare time!) and offered to make me the dress from scratch, as a ‘welcome to the family’ gift. I bought heavily beaded fabric from The Silk Society, and she worked her magic, piecing together all of the things I’d liked in other dresses to create the dress of my dreams.
the special touches
For us, the wedding was about making sure that everyone was comfortable but would still meet new people, and so we spent a lot of time on the seating plan in the build-up to the wedding. Everyone was seated with a mixture of people they knew, and new people we thought they would get along with, which worked really well.
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