Morning lovelies! How was your weekend? We’re all Christmassed-up at English Wedding HQ and ready to party from right now!!! But first… of course we have some fabulous weddings and ideas to share with you this week. We’re starting with gorgeous bride and groom Rosie and Dom, who were married in September at The Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter.

Photographer Lee Maxwell got in touch – shooting Rosie and Dom’s wedding made him the first ever wedding photographer at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum to capture a wedding ceremony. The wedding reception was at Double Locks – a wonderful venue for a relaxed wedding reception. The spirit of this gorgeous wedding really comes across in the photos, which I hope you’ll love as much as I do!

 

 

We made all our own decorations and it was worth it, but it required lots of planning and preparation and we still ended up spending a bit on things we didn’t need in the end. Although we’re not particularly creative people and we gave ourselves lots to do, it was manageable because we knew our limits and didn’t try anything too ambitious. But until we’d actually finished I was definitely worried it wouldn’t look right!

Our ceremony was in one of the museum’s beautiful art galleries and didn’t need any decoration at all.
The reception marquee needed a lot of decoration to hide the fairly ugly frame, which involved quite a bit of creative thinking and problem solving! ??

 

 

What’s your top tip for saving money?

Don’t just include things because it’s traditional. We saved lots of money by cutting out things we knew we and our friends and family really didn’t care about like wedding favours. We had a homemade cake, which we served for desert – it still looked beautiful but the most important thing to us was that it tasted great!
Be flexible. Rather than set our hearts on buying particular flowers, which can be especially expensive out of season, we used ones from my mum’s garden and had lots of compliments on them. We also had to find decorations that would work in our venue.
Spotify! We saved a lot by hiring a PA system and creating our own Spotify playlist, which worked perfectly and meant we only had music we loved.

… and which elements of your wedding are you glad you spent more on?

Definitely our photographer, Lee Maxwell. The photos were absolutely stunning and captured the day perfectly.
Also the food and drink for our cocktail hour at the museum. The cocktail and canape options at the reception venue were limited, and we had to hire our ceremony venue for the whole afternoon so didn’t want to rush off. We had beautiful bespoke cocktails and canapes from an amazing local caterer, Pickle Shack.

Did you fall in love with your wedding dress?

Yes! Although I still had a hard time choosing between a few different dresses

Words of wisdom: share your best piece of advice for other couples

Really think about what matters to you – don’t end up spending money (and time and energy) on things that you don’t care about or (even worse) don’t actually want! And leave plenty of time for planning, and for making decorations if you’re planning to DIY them.

Favourite Exeter wedding suppliers

Photographer: Lee Maxwell https://www.lee-maxwell.com/
Ceremony Venue: Royal Albert Memorial Museum https://www.rammuseum.org.uk/visiting-us/corporate-and-private-hire/
Reception Venue: Double Locks http://www.doublelocks.com/weddings
Caterer: Pickle Shack https://www.pickleshack.co.uk/
Beer: Cloudwater Brew Co. beer, from Hops & Crafts https://hopsandcrafts.co.uk/
Dress designer & boutique: Maggie Sottero, from Pirouette https://pirouettethecollection.com/ 
Suit designer & boutique: Reiss, with alterations by Zebel https://www.zebel.co.uk/exeter-showroom
Stationery: Little Red Press London https://folksy.com/shops/LittleRedPress?fbclid=IwAR3n1hK3NPLAYhi2cFfQEvMcFX7W-ovlPWHIFBSXNCdQe-Wl6KNpXWS8Kow
Hair: Halo Hair & Beauty https://www.facebook.com/Haloexeter/
PA Hire: Stage Engage http://www.stageengage.com/
Dancefloor Hire: South West Event Hire https://www.southwesteventhire.co.uk/