This weekend’s beautiful wedding is Conor & Bea, at Alnwick Tree House. Their English Wedding interview is one of my all time favourites. This gorgeous couple’s honesty and sense of humour is fantastic: they talk fondly of the moments things went wrong, and how these are some of their best memories of their day (and not something you should worry about when planning yours!) Images are by super lovely Newcastle wedding photographer Erika Tanith. Enjoy!

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“Our love story is something we are so proud of. We were childhood sweethearts that separated to explore this world and everything it has to offer. But in our hearts we knew that we were meant to be together. 14 years after meeting we finally tied the knot on 14.4.24. On the night before the wedding we split off and stayed separately. Bea stayed in one of the tower houses on the walls of Alnwick, called Pottergate Tower. This was a beautiful setting to get ready in the morning and had some fantastic natural lighting to make sure makeup application went smoothly. This property was one we sourced and found ourselves but we highly recommend looking into if you are getting married at The Alnwick Gardens. Whereas Conor stayed in an Airbnb looking out over Alnwick Castle. This property was plenty spacious and was light and airy. A perfect backdrop to get ready to.”

All we can say is honestly don’t sweat the small stuff, because at the end of the day the love you both hold for one another is the most important thing. Those worst case scenarios aren’t half as scary as you think they are going to be and can actually make for funny anecdotes for you to tell in the future.

Wedding photographer’s website

Erika Tanith – www.erikatanithphotography.co.uk

Wedding photographer review

We initially chose Erika because her personality fit so well with ours and her natural style of photography really spoke to us. Bea doesn’t always feel comfortable being photographed, but Erika was able to put Bea at ease during our engagement shoot. Meaning on the day we were both able to relax, knowing that Erika would capture some amazing moments. We really like Erika’s “up for anything”attitude, which meant that she was willing to run between both of us on the morning. She was also willing to capture a beautiful photo of us doing a first “look” with our dog Teddy and run around Alnwick Gardens in 30 minutes to get some shots with us. Erika is a very kind, bubbly lady who managed to easily blend into our wedding party and put many people at ease. We think her total honesty about all things helped us to know we were in good hands.

Your best wedding moment or memory

It seems unconventional but our favourite moments of the day were the things that didn’t go exactly to plan, like during some posed photos Erika was taking. Conor put his arm around his best man Bryn as Bryn’s Fiancée did the same and they both ended up cupping a bum cheek each. We now have a photo of the exact moment this happened and our ensued laughter. It will be a story to tell for years to come. Or when the Shelley our Maid of Honour and Celebrant missed a part of the ceremony and we had to go back. Or when the Grandmother of the Groom forgot the ribbon for the hand fasting ceremony and we had to fashion a ribbon from some ribbon we had tied blankets up with. It said ‘to have and to hold’ on it, we have a photo of those words over our hands.

Tell us anything you did differently – we love hearing about NEW traditions (or none at all!)

Both of us are not conventional at all and if we are doing something we are doing it our way. With this being part of who we are, we decided we didn’t want a traditional wedding. Before we had even started with our wedding day we chose to make our own wedding rings, from scratch with a company called The Jewellery Cottage in Norfolk. We turned 1 bar of Rose Gold into 2 unique rings designed and made by our own hands. We also got the Maid of Honour to do our ceremony and wrote the ceremony ourselves. We also chose to break tradition and have Conor walk down the aisle with his parents on either side of him before Bea walked down with her mum, making Conor feel like our wedding day was also his wedding day too. We also chose not to have our wedding in a white room with a loud DJ no one could understand, not that this isn’t great but it really isn’t us. We chose a treehouse and a Spotify playlist we put together ourselves.

Venue name + review

Alnwick Treehouse – Well what can we say about our venue other than magical. The staff at Alnwick Treehouse did everything in their power to make our visions a reality. They helped make our day truly a day to remember. Every person that came to our wedding has spoken to us after and told us how magical and beautiful the venue was and how very us it felt. What a spectacular place to say ‘I do’.

Tell us a little about your outfits – both of you!

A running theme throughout our wedding was velvet, both our favourite colours Blue and Green, moustaches, bees and hexagons.

So Conor chose a forest green velvet dinner jacket, white textured shirt, blue check waistcoat, black slim fit trousers and brown suede shoes.

Bea chose a wedding dress with a leaf design and a glitter layer that sparkled as the sun or the lights hit it that just skimmed the floor. With a cape veil. She chose blue velvet shoes as her something blue, Bea had also spent 2 years designing and embroidering a denim jacket with her new name surrounded by a floral wreath.

We had both made each other gift boxes full of goodies to wear or use on the day. Conor received a hexagonal pocket watch, a bracelet with the coordinates of where we realised we were in love, a felted Bee brooch, a green velvet bow tie, some moustache socks and braces and a pair of customised boxer shorts. All of which he wore on the day. Bea received an opal bracelet, anklet and earrings, a blue velvet cape that she wore as the night got colder. She has also received a sea glass necklace from her step dad Craig which had the wedding date engraved on it.

Wedding rings

We chose to make our rings at The Jewellery Cottage in Norfolk. The couple who run the business are a lovely couple who really helped us bring our ideas to life. It was a truly unique experience and something we will never forget. If you have the time and really want something totally unique to you we highly recommend doing this for a date. We loved every second and wish we could do it all again.

Florist name + review

Blossom Bee – We had been looking for a florist for a while when we had stumbled on the blossom bee website. We contacted Rachel and arranged a zoom call to discuss all the things we wanted. We had asked her to make some pocket boutonnières, a large rustic looking bouquet, some posy jars full of cottage style flowers. We had also asked her to develop a way for the bridesmaids to have a bouquet that they could hold within a book. Well it is fair to say that she definitely delivered on the brief. When she delivered the flowers on the morning of the wedding we spent a good 30 minutes in absolute awe at their beauty. She did a fantastic job at making our ramblings come to life. She was kind and patient when we had to change a few bits we hadn’t quite finalised yet. She did everything she could to make our floral dreams come true.

Cake maker name + review

Marks and Spencer’s – Now, we know this one is a little out of the ordinary but we simply couldn’t find a cake design we liked but we had seen a beautiful floral cake on the marks and Spencer’s website. So we ordered just that with some giant Colin and Connie the Caterpillars to go with it. When we say giant we mean giant. All I can say is we were still eating the cakes a month later and they tasted and looked just as good as the day we bought them.

Any crafty projects or homemade styling touches?

We decided at the beginning of wedding planning that we would try to DIY most things we wanted. So that’s what we did. We made favours, ceramic place cards, lawn games, table centres, memory ladders, signage, table plan, aisle decorations, we even made our own cake toppers and wedding rings. You name it, we made it. We made sure that we had sparkly lights and rose gold and a bit of velvet on every thing we made or DIYed for our day.

Wedding readings?

We chose 3 readings in the end as we couldn’t decided between them all. The Giraffe and the Monkey, ‘Twas the Night Before the Wedding and Love me when I’m old.

First dance song? Playlist recommendations?

The Heart Never Lies – Mcfly As we aren’t tradition we went for untraditional. If you are a little like us and don’t want the same songs everyone has, I highly recommend finding a playlist on Spotify that has songs in the same vibe of stuff you listen to already. We found a lot of our songs from a playlist called next gen singer songwriters. It’s all new up coming tracks that hits a little different.

Hair + makeup name + review

Bea’s hair was done by a family friend Tracey. Makeup – Divadust Ashleigh was a lovely lady who made Bea and the bridesmaids feel special on the day. Bea had wanted to look ethereal with some Rose gold accents and Ashleigh was able to create this on the day. Bea had a trial about 4 months before but Ashleigh was able to ensure everything was done to make Bea feel at ease and had made sure she had written everything down.