You mean the world to me… Harlaxton Manor wedding part two

I love maps. I love pho­tos that stop me in my tracks a bit. I love see­ing some­thing just a tad dif­fer­ent. I love Alex and James’s wed­ding at Har­lax­ton Manor, with its tow­ers and tur­rets and old Eng­lish charm. I just love blog­ging wed­dings!

I shared part one of this beau­ti­ful Har­lax­ton Manor wed­ding yes­ter­day. I have loads more to share today (best bits till last, an’ all that). More of Alex’s beau­ti­ful lace wed­ding dress, some jaw-dropping pics of Har­lax­ton Manor (it’s a whop­per), cro­quet, maps (did I men­tion the maps?), huge smiles, romance and laughter.

Of course, there’s Alex’s wed­ding report to share with you, and once again the beau­ti­ful images are from Beau­ti­ful Life Pho­tog­ra­phy (fun­nily enough).

Enjoy!

Alex and James’s Har­lax­ton Manor wed­ding blog — part two

Our recep­tion was at Har­lax­ton Manor, the UK cam­pus for the Uni­ver­sity of Evans­ville, USA. The staff at Har­lax­ton were fab­u­lous and made sure that our day ran very smoothly!

We were greeted at Har­lax­ton by a four piece band called Happy Jazz. They helped to cre­ate a great atmos­phere and let the cham­pagne flow! Whilst hav­ing pho­tos our guests made the most of the cro­quet on the lawn and the stun­ning grounds.

My mum made the slide that I wore in my hair from old buck­les that she found at home. Our cake and the bridesmaid’s bou­quets also had sim­i­lar buck­les which we threaded onto rib­bon. They tied in very well to the belt which came with my dress.
Hav­ing both lived abroad in dif­fer­ent coun­tries, we chose to name our tables after coun­tries that are sig­nif­i­cant to us. I found an old map in a char­ity shop and wrote the names of our guests on lug­gage tags before pin­ning them to the map.

Rather than fill the tables with favours we donated money to two char­i­ties and left small bunches of dried laven­der at each place set­ting.
We con­tin­ued the “theme” when we printed the names of the tables on air­mail envelopes. A few weeks before the wed­ding we found my par­ents old stamp col­lec­tions! To our sur­prise they had stamps for all of our coun­tries so we had to put them to good use!


James’ mum made the cake and his aunt iced it. The flow­ers on the cake were all edi­ble along with the tea cup which sat on the top tier. It was very cre­ative, espe­cially as we both love a good cup of tea!











In the evening we had a nine piece swing band, the Good Guys Orches­tra. They were fan­tas­tic and man­aged to get all of our guests danc­ing!

Once the music had fin­ished, James and I made our way up the large sweep­ing stair­case at Har­lax­ton. Some of our guests started to sing “So long, farewell,” from the Sound of Music. It was a won­der­ful end to a very spe­cial day!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Beau­ti­ful Life www.beautifullifeuk.com

Dress: Ellie Sander­son bridal bou­tique, Buck­ing­hamshire www.elliesanderson.co.uk

Bou­quets and table flow­ers: The Grantham Florist www.jrtinternet.co.uk/florist

Car: Glad­stone Car­riages (based in Rut­land) www.gladstonecarriages.co.uk

Band on arrival: Happy Jazz — from Melton Mow­bray more infor­ma­tion and reviews here: www.dgmusic.co.uk

Evening band: Guy Gar­rett — The Good Guys Orches­tra www.facebook.com/pages/The-Good-Guys-Orchestra/220692591279186

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