Sheffield wedding supplier showcase

With the focus of Eng­lish Wed­ding just now being on find­ing wed­ding sup­pli­ers and adver­tis­ing a wed­ding busi­ness, this lit­tle gem couldn’t have landed in my inbox at a bet­ter time.

PH Wed­dings

With the growth of Twit­ter and the rise of wed­ding blog­ging by sup­pli­ers and ded­i­cated blog­gers, there’s a lot of net­work­ing hap­pen­ing online and that’s going to be the focus of one of my arti­cles next week. In the mean­time, what about net­work­ing with other wed­ding sup­pli­ers offline?

I’m no expert; it’s some­thing I’d dearly love to do. So I have mas­sive admi­ra­tion for this group of wed­ding sup­pli­ers in Sheffield who got together for a Sex and the City themed day out.

The story behind the day:

by Helen Haigh, PH Wed­dings in Sheffield

“The idea for the com­pe­ti­tion came when Emma from Wed­ding Daze wed­ding plan­ners and myself met for a chai in Star­bucks as we tend to do fairly reg­u­larly and talk and share ideas about our busi­nesses. I was keen to branch out into offer­ing rock the dress shoots for brides with a quirky fash­ion­able edge to them and we both agreed that Sheffield was a fan­tas­tic back­drop for such a shoot.

“We got to think­ing about girls dress­ing up and hav­ing fun together and how we could get our sup­plier friends we know in Sheffield to show­case their unique offer­ings for the local wed­ding indus­try. I should note at this point that Emma and I run a local wed­ding sup­plier net­work­ing group where like­minded busi­nesses meet on a reg­u­lar basis to share ideas and to see if we can work together, it has proved very pop­u­lar and is very valu­able to busi­nesses start­ing out in the industry.

“It occurred to us that the tim­ing for such a shoot would be per­fect as the new Sex and the City film was due to be released and so we got to think­ing that we should run a com­pe­ti­tion for a bride and her brides­maids to win who were the most obsessed by the film. As we were ask­ing for a bride and brides­maids to be involved we wanted to recre­ate wed­ding scenes from the first film along with some more glam­orous images and just make sure the ladies had a fan­tas­tic time. We called the com­pe­ti­tion Sex and the City of Steel which is a nod to the Sheffield connection.”

Amanda Wyatt

The Brides­maids’ Dresses

Brides­maids’ dresses were pro­vided by Amanda Wyatt — her Gala Col­lec­tion fea­tures gor­geous gowns in won­der­ful colours for bridesmaids.

Bespoke Big Day

The Wed­ding Shoes

Bridal shoes came from Bespoke Big Day who cre­ate indi­vid­u­ally designed, unique and beau­ti­ful wed­ding shoes for everyone’s taste — inclu­ing the Car­ries of this world! Wow.

Louise from Creator

The Wed­ding Hairstylist

Com­pe­ti­tion win­ner Eleanor had her hair done by Louise at Cre­ator in Sheffield, an inno­v­a­tive salon which prides itself on cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. Which we LOVE here at Eng­lish Wed­ding!

Lau­ren Sally

The Bride’s Make Up

Doesn’t Eleanor look amaz­ing? Her make up was done by Lau­ren Sally, a pro­fes­sional make up artist cov­er­ing York­shire and the sur­round­ing area.

Eleanor won the com­pe­ti­tion for the most SATC obsessed bride to be with a comic strip depict­ing her and her brides­maids telling the story of the film. Eleanor gets mar­ried in June 2011 to her fiance Liam. Her brides­maids Emma, Lyn­d­say, Nicola and Marie-Anne know Eleanor very well hav­ing attended school, uni­ver­sity or worked together and all were keen to prac­tice their best poses before the wed­ding in Cal­i­for­nia next year.

Chauf­feur d’Elegance

The Wed­ding Car

Chauf­feur d’Elegance pro­vided the car — an amaz­ing Bent­ley Arnage which Helen says drew some admir­ing glances from the foot­ball fans in town that day! They also pro­vided Mr Big, aka Simon from Chauf­feur d’Elegance as the lead­ing man in the day’s drama!

Lucy Ledger

The Wed­ding Stationer

The girls even had their own menu and place cards pro­vided by the won­der­ful Lucy Ledger Designs. Lucy is another blog­gers’ favourite and I’m a big fan!

Bou­tique Paeony

The Bridal Bouquet

Flow­ers were sup­plied for the shoot by Bou­tique Paeony of Sheffield. (Great web­site — if you’re look­ing for wed­ding flow­ers in Sheffield, there’s a brochure there to down­load. If you’re not, click on the but­tons because they make funny noises. And after a while the site starts play­ing spooky music.)

Char­lotte Balbier

The Wed­ding Dress

Eleanor’s wed­ding dress was sup­plied by none other than bridal designer Char­lotte Bal­bier. Helen told me, “When Char­lotte Bal­bier and Amanda Wyatt agreed to lend us dresses for the shoot we were ecsta­tic, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing that the wed­ding dress she lent us is actu­ally inspired by the first film!

Sheffield City Hall

The Wed­ding Venue

Sheffield City Hall pro­vided the per­fect back­drop for the scenes as it looks very sim­i­lar to the loca­tion in the film.

Coco Cater­ing

The Wed­ding Caterer

The five prizewin­ners (bride-to-be Eleanor and her four brides­maids) were treated to a pic­nic in the park, catered by Coco Cater­ing who pro­vided sal­ads, quiche, straw­ber­ries and pate for the girls.

DC Bou­quets

The Wed­ding Accessories

Beau­ti­ful hair acces­sories were pro­vided by DC Bou­quets who are famous in wed­ding blog­land for gor­geous vin­tage inspired alter­na­tive wed­ding bou­quets too!

Hans­ley Beard

The Vin­tage Crockery

Pretty vin­tage crock­ery was even sup­plied, by Hans­ley Beard Event Plan­ning & Design.

Cel­e­bra­tions

The Wed­ding Balloons

The girls had bal­loons from Cel­e­bra­tions to play with

Men­zels Bar

The Cock­tail Bar

Helen says, “The gang casu­ally strolled along Eccle­shall Road attract­ing some atten­tion from the fans again to Men­zels bar for some well deserved Cosmopolitans!”

Yum­my­li­cious

The Wed­ding Cupcakes

Cup­cakes were espe­cially made for the occa­sion by Yum­my­li­cious — described by Helen as “the icing on the cake (so to speak!)” And who’s hold­ing the cup­cake as the day draws to a close…?

The Wed­ding Daze

The Wed­ding Planner

Aha! It’s the lovely Emma from Wed­ding Daze. Hav­ing exchanged the odd email with Emma and chat­ted on Twit­ter I know she’s a great lady. I was so pleased to see she was a part of this com­pe­ti­tion — another well deserved Cos­mopoli­tan then! (Where’s the cup­cake gone?!)

PH Wed­dings

(l-r) Nicola, Emma, Eleanor, Lyn­d­say and Marie-Anne jump for joy!

The Wed­ding Photographer

And finally — the star of the show as far as I’m con­cerned is Helen from PH Wed­dings. Helen con­tacted me with a press release about the com­pe­ti­tion last week, and I loved it, but I turned the whole focus of the thing round to the organ­is­ers. Helen and Emma have played an absolute blinder organ­is­ing this event, mak­ing the stars of the show Eleanor and her friends very happy, but also bring­ing together a group of local wed­ding sup­pli­ers in a really inno­v­a­tive way.

PH Wed­dings are Sheffield wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers Helen and Paul Haigh, a hus­band and wife team who work together to ensure your big day is every­thing you hoped it would be and to cap­ture this in your photographs.

Helen said of the Sex and the City of Steel com­pe­ti­tion, “We offer quirky fun shoots for our cou­ples as part of our wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy pack­age. We love to reflect our cou­ples’ per­son­al­i­ties and always find new ways to have fun with these shoots. As a result of this shoot we will be offer­ing pre-wedding shoots for a bride and her brides­maids where they can dress up and have fun.”

How’s that for a pre-wedding girly treat, or bet­ter — a sur­prise on your hen weekend?!!

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Helen:

email — helen@phweddings.co.uk
phone – 07515 692163