I can quite happily say that country house weddings aren’t for everyone. I’m one of those people: a fancy pants English stately home with landscaped gardens just wouldn’t suit me – and it wasn’t for Hannah & Laith either. This gorgeous, music-loving pair chose iconic Manchester venue Band on the Wall for their wedding party. The vibe is beyond amazing, the ceremony styled with vibrant sunflowers, and I’ve fallen head over heels for their epic modern wedding day! Images are by lovely Priti Shikotra Photography, who’s based in Manchester and gets a fabulous review from the happy couple!

Wedding photographer’s website

Priti Shikotra https://www.pritishikotraweddings.com

Wedding photographer review

Priti was just brilliant! She was organised, reassuring, lovely to chat to, and of course, the pictures were perfect. Priti met with us a few months prior at the venue to pick out some good picture shots for on the day, which was such a good idea because we could go straight to each planned shot on the day and get the formal photos out of the way nice a quickly! We got a selection of photos just a few days after the wedding, then the full lot just a few weeks later. Honestly, she was worth every (extremely competitively priced) penny!

Your best wedding moment or memory

Oh it’s so hard to pick! I did love walking down the aisle, and meeting Laith at the front. The room looked so beautiful, all our friends and family had dressed so colourfully and looked amazing, the sun was shining and the room was full of light… it was perfect! I also loved the cake cutting, it was a lot of fun, we just laughed a lot and made lots of jokes. I’m also in a community choir called SHE choir, and they did a surprise performance just before the evening party started!

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

I suppose we did things slightly differently from the beginning. For a start, Laith helped me pick my wedding dress and came with me when I tried it on and picked it up from the eBay seller! We booked venues that weren’t usually wedding venues, and we had a Jamaican buffet for our wedding breakfast and patties for the evening food! We had no first dance or videographer, we just weren’t that bothered about those things, and we had the frontman of Dutch Uncles DJ the evening do!

Venue name + review

The ceremony was held at the People’s History Museum and the drinks reception, wedding breakfast and evening reception were held at Band On The Wall, both in centre of Manchester. Both of these venues are Manchester institutions with very unique buildings with lots of character. All the staff at both venues went above and beyond, and were instrumental in the day running as smoothly as it did. My biggest shoutout goes to Laura the Operations Manager at Band on the Wall, she was so helpful, reassuring and really was a delight to work with!

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

The dress was a gorgeous second hand Willowby by Watters white lace dress, bought off E-Bay. It was lovely and figure hugging, showed off my tattoos, and had a tiny train so was practical all evening!
I loved my veil! It was beautiful lace white chapel length with embroidered white dots all over it – it was so different and felt very ‘me’ and not at all stuffy and traditional. It was hired off By Rotation, and the brand was AM Faulkner Studio in London!

My heels were Irregular Choice (bought second hand off Depop), and I slipped into some white Jordan 1 Mids for the evening. My necklace and earrings were from a lovely indie jewellery maker called Ray Makes Things.

Laith’s suit was mostly from Moss, with a few bits from other small suit shops. He decided to go full black-tie, with a STUNNING plum/burgundy velvet blazer, tuxedo shirt and trousers, bow tie, the lot! (Except the cummerbund, I put my foot done on that one haha). We helped each other find and put together what we were wearing, and were both very proud of the results. We enjoy trying out different clothes a lot, so this was the fun part for us!

Florist name + review

The bride and bridesmaid bouquets were from the Dried Flower Shop in Bolton. She made me the most beautiful dried sunflower and autumn greens bouquets, they looked and smelled amazing, and best of all, I still have mine! My granny did all the fresh flowers for the ceremony, she did the flowers for her daughter’s wedding, and now mine, and they were just perfect. Finally, I did all the dried flower arrangements on the tables for the wedding breakfast myself! I bought bunches of autumnal dried flowers from a wholesaler and arranged them into about 24 vases. The hardest part was trawling charity shops and Vinted for months picking up vases – I was very picky!

Cake maker name + review

The Teatime Collective. They do the best vegan cakes – no one at my wedding could tell the cake was vegan! Catherine is incredible, get your cakes from her whether you’re vegan or not!

Stationery maker’s name + review

My little sister designed our invitations, she was a fine art student at the time, and has just graduated! She is absolutely looking to pick up more design work – @pinktillypaints on Instagram! All the other stationery, table labels and so on, I made myself from parcel labels, ink and stamps, and a nice pen!

Any crafty projects or homemade styling touches?

Probably most of it! Our invitations were designed by my sister as greeting cards, and then I wrote them all myself, I made all the table labels myself, and found lots of pinecones to put on the tables too! I made dried flower arrangements for the tables, and the seating plan was made up of bookmarks that my sister made and my dad wrote everyone’s names and tables on in his best handwriting!

Wedding readings?

Invitation to Love by Paul Laurence Dunbar, read by my mum

First dance song? Playlist recommendations?

No first dance! But we did have the choir I’m in do a surprise performance instead! They even sang a reworking of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own which went ‘I’m at the altar, saying my vows, ohhh…’, they had re-written it specially for me!

Wedding planner name + review

Haha, I’m an event manager by day, and I’ve run a fair few weddings in my time, so I planned the whole thing myself! If I were to review me I would say I did a pretty good job by and large but probably could have been a little less stressy towards the end! It turns out it’s quite different on the other side, even when you know how everything works, and I have a extra sympathy for all the brides I’ve worked with in the past!

Hair + makeup name + review

Hair and makeup: Jodie A. Smith – @jodiemakeupuk
Jodie was wonderful! She is the loveliest person, and my makeup and her were perfect on the day – I honestly couldn’t have asked for better! We also happened to have very similar music tastes and spent half our time sharing new artists with each other and talking about them. I highly highly recommend her!