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.

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.”

The Bridesmaids’ Dresses

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

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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.)

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!

The Wedding Venue

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

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.

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!

The Vintage Crockery

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

The Wedding Balloons

The girls had balloons from Celebrations to play with

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!”

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 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?!)

(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