An absolutely gorgeous wedding today, from Newton Hall in Northumberland. Georgia & Josh’s day is styled beautifully with natural green tones and lots of personal touches. The superb images are by North East wedding photographer Joss Denham, who gets a brilliant review from the happy couple!

Keep scrolling for more supplier reviews and recommendations from this stunning couple, and to see their amazing photos. As always, there’ll be more on our insta so follow @englishweddingblog and don’t miss out!

Wedding photographer

North East wedding photographer Joss Denham

As a couple we feel like we go very stiff when a camera is pointed at us! We were therefore naturally worried that our photos would turn out like this too. As soon as Joss sent us our photos (which was so quick) we were over the moon to say the least. All of our photos look relaxed and natural – no forced smiles or posing, Joss knew exactly how to direct us, where to get the best backgrounds and how to get those beautiful shots. We love the variety of photos that we got, from venue photos, to prep, to details and everything in between. We have beautiful candid photos of us mingling with our guests which takes us right back to that moment when we look back at them. It is so special to be transported back to a moment by looking at a picture. We never imagined we would have so many fantastic photos of us, our venue and our guests it’s impossible to pick a favourite. In typical England fashion it did rain and was a bit miserable at times, but the photos just show pure happiness and joy that the weather didn’t put a dampener on anything.

We give Joss Denham Photography 10000/10, could not recommend enough!

From the moment he got there, Joss felt like part of the party. He mingled so easily with both of us while we got ready and really helped put us at ease. I was amazed when we received the photos back when I saw how many different angles Joss had managed to capture without us even noticing he was moving all around us on the day. As two people who have never had any sort of photoshoot before, it was so reassuring to have Joss giving us little prompts and having a nice chat in general to help us relax in our photos (which really shows). For anyone wanting a stress free day, with beautiful portraits and lots of time to mingle with guests for those candid pics, we couldn’t recommend Joss any more – we will be forever grateful for the experience that we had.

Wedding venue: Newton Hall

Newton Hall was the second venue that we visited and I think we both knew we’d book this venue before we’d even got through the front door! We loved that the venue offered us a ceremony, reception and accommodation all on one site which we knew we wanted to ensure our day ran smoothly without people coming and going. Newton Hall is set in beautiful grounds which always look amazing on photos, but also has beautiful reception rooms and bars available which was equally important because we know the weather in England is so unpredictable! We would definitely recommend the venue, the day ran so smoothly and the staff were amazing – we had no stresses on the day so it was beautiful to sit back, relax and enjoy all of our planning paying off.

Did you have a special theme / style for your wedding?

We are very laid back people and wanted our wedding day to have the same feel. We wanted our guests to feel comfortable in wearing what they preferred so we didn’t have a specific guest dress code which worked well as everyone still looked amazing! We kept the relaxed atmosphere with our food choices too with BBQ/Pizza buffet options so that guests could pick what they wanted. The whole day was more than we could have imagined, each room change looked stunning and really showed off the venue style.

Our venue was beautiful already so needed minimal dressing, we instantly saw a vision of neutral, natural colours of green and cream. We then added in some gold accents to compliment the colours and give a little pop. We did try to keep to these themes throughout once we had decided on them which worked really well. The rooms all looked stunning, it was magical to see all our visions come to life.

Wedding outfits

I picked out an A-line dress with spaghetti straps and a plunge neckline – exactly what she went into the dress shop saying she didn’t want! It is so difficult to imagine what you do or don’t want in a dress until actually trying on, and as someone who isn’t overly emotional I wasn’t sure I’d have that “this is my dress” feeling. My dress was the first one I put on and thought “theres not one thing i would change about this” which is how I knew that was my dress! I then did exactly the opposite of what the dress shop advised, and kept looking at photos of my dress until I had convinced myself it wasn’t right. Luckily, when I went back to collect my dress it was just as perfect as I had remembered when I first tried it on – plus some! On the day of the wedding I had no doubts it was perfect, I felt it fit the hair I wanted, the venue and my personality to a T.

Wedding flowers?

Neither of us are huge flower people, so we had no idea on types of flowers, what was in season, what was doable and what would look good. Luckily our florist, Chris, took our very vague request and brought it to life better than we could have imagined. Chris is a family friend who did a floristry course for fun, and kindly offered to help us with our day. We put our full trust in Chris and she more than delivered. We had natural colours, relaxed bouquets and buttonholes which complimented our colour scheme beautifully. We showed Chris our ideas for centerpieces for both the top table and guest tables and she told us what we’d need for them and executed them exactly as we’d wanted.

Who doesn’t love cake – tell us everything about your wedding cake.

A lot of the time during our wedding day, we strayed away from tradition and wanted to do things our way. In this case we opted out of a cake cutting, and instead had a dessert table where guests could get up at any time and help themselves to a selection of cupcakes, doughnuts and cookies. This went down a treat! One of our aunties had suggested a cake maker near us for cupcakes which we ordered to match the colour scheme. She had then contact the cake maker herself to get us a mini cake to match our cupcakes (we did display this but kept it for ourselves!). We thought we’d best play it safe with vanilla and buttercream cupcakes, a selection of cookies and Krispy Kreme doughnuts – our guests definitely enjoyed them all!

Food is normally a big part of weddings – tell us about the catering and the food you had through the day??

When selecting our food choices we wanted to keep a relaxed feel – a sit down formal meal wasn’t really on the cards for us. We opted for some canapes, followed by a BBQ then pizza in the evening. These are typical crowd pleasers and our guests certainly made the most of this! We were so pleased with the venue and the catering, they made sure everyone was accounted for and had food to fit their dietary requirements. The dessert table was enjoyed throughout the afternoon and was regularly replenished.

Tell us about your wedding entertainment (day and evening)

We hired a magician for our drinks reception (Paul Lytton) which was an absolute hit with our guests. We met Paul at an open day at Newton Hall and were gobsmacked at the close up magic he was showing us within the first few minutes of meeting him. It was fantastic to hear our guests bursts of laugher and disbelief at some of his tricks and witty banter.

We then hired a DJ and photobooth for our evening reception. For our DJ, we had sent over a few song/genre requests with a specific first and last dance song – they were fantastic at keeping the vibes going! Lots of our guests commented on the music being great. A photobooth is always a hit, both us and our guests got straight in with all of the props taking funny photos it was very rarely empty!

What other “special touches” did you add to your day?

We wanted our day to feel personal so added a few touches throughout. We had made our own order of the day which was a newspaper front page with some details on the wedding party and times of the day. We also had a mini timeline of special dates in our relationship such as when we got together, engaged, and married. Although we did get our engagement date wrong on these – one of our guests pointed this out since neither of us noticed!

Georgia’s Dad is always up for a DIY project so when we saw a “shot wall” table plan online he set away making a wooden board to hold 100 shot bottles. Each guest then had their own bottle which directed them to the table they were seated at.

We wanted to see our wedding day through the eyes of our guests too so had printed some QR codes which allowed guests access to a digital camera on their phones where photos were shared the next day (some better than others we must say)! As a couple we love to travel and have visited over 25 countries together, we wanted to incorporate this into our day so had our tables named after some of the countries we have been over the years.

What would be your top tip for a future couple getting married?

We read before our day that you should try to stay together as much as possible. You don’t want two versions of one day on your wedding – we really tried to implement this during the day and can honestly say it’s the best thing we did. The wedding day is always going to be really busy and you get pulled from pillar to post trying to get around all guests so its inevitable to get separated from your new Husband/Wife, however make a conscious effort to find each other again! We now have so many beautiful memories of the day that we were both present for.

What advice would you give to a future couple to do/not do to make sure their guests have a great time at their wedding?

We both think personal touches are great! Make guests feel like you really want them there – we had personalised seating plans (DIY) and name places for our guests. Our table names were also places we’d visited – if we had been somewhere with guests we tried to put them on that country name.

What areas or vendors would you advise future couples to definitely invest in and/or even increase their budget on?

Finding a photographer which suits your vibe and style of wedding is so important! We couldn’t have been happier in our choice and were beyond happy that we added a video to our booking too. It is so special to have photos and videos that you can have forever and reflect the essence of the day.

We were also so pleased we booked a magician – our guests really enjoyed the entertainment in what could have otherwise been a bit of a lull in the day. He brought great energy and got everyone talking to people they may not have known prior.

If a future couple wanted to make sure their wedding was the best party ever what advice would you give them?

Have a great first song to follow the first dance, and a great last dance of the night song! We got everyone involved at the end of our first dance and went straight into an upbeat crowd pleasing song so no one wanted to leave the dancefloor. Our last dance got everyone up and singing together which topped the whole night off and went out with a bang.