SEASIDE WEDDING - JOY AND TRACY

A seaside wedding from my corner of the world – East Sussex! I absolutely love visiting Rye and Camber beaches so seeing these wonderful women and their gorgeous smiles on dunes made me really happy. Enjoy!

TELL US THE STORY OF HOW YOU MET

We met through a dating website called Gaydar Girls, I don’t think it exists anymore! We’d been chatting for about three months before we decided to meet up. It was an August bank holiday weekend, I’d been working all day and remember rushing home scrubbing up and walk down to the beach, where we’d agreed to meet. And the rest is history.

NOW ABOUT THE BIG DAY – WHAT WAS THE THEME AND INSPIRATION?

The theme was relaxed beach house party and the location was all the inspiration needed. Huge sand dunes, vast expanse of sandy beach, sea in the distance. We wanted the day to have a natural relaxed feel. Floral tones of green grasses & foliage, with hints of dusky pink/cream roses. We styled it ourselves and it was a bug beach house party.

TELL US ABOUT THE CEREMONY AND RECEPTION LOCATIONS. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THE VENUE AND WHAT DID YOU LIKE ABOUT IT?

The location, The Gallivant was our greatest inspiration, it’s a boutique beach hotel, we’d stayed a few times and always thought it would make great seaside wedding venue!

In good weather you can choose to take drinks and canapes over to the sand dunes after the ceremony, but there’s plenty of room to hang around the venue whilst rooms are rearranged after the ceremony, there’s private dining room, snug library, restaurant, marquee and a fabulous bar.

YOUR DRESSES

Ok so nothing OTT about our dresses, off white/cream, simple lines, very similar styles to each other. I was extremely pleased my dress had pockets. You’ll see in the pictures.. again our daughter wore a simple elegant soft plum dress, our Rose’s tied into the colour theme. Tracy and Floss had traditional satin wedding shoes, whilst I found a fabulous pair of Veja satin butterfly trainers.. love them. We didn’t have a traditional wedding as my parents are sadly not with us anymore, so we walked each other down the aisle and had a best couple that helped us decorate the venue and helped usher guests around etc.

FLOWERS & DECORATIONS

Lots of greenery, huge milk churns filled with green & white arrangement, simple hand tied bouquets, hessian bunting, assorted sized paper lanterns in gold cream and white. We had personalised sticks of rock, which acted as place names for the table plan, our invitations were created by Chris & Jo Duke and they were certainly not traditional. With the help of our best couple, we decorated the marquee the night before, along with the florists. We did as much as we could do ourselves ..

CAKE

Keeping with the understated theme, we had a three tier semi naked sponge cake decorated simply with greenery.

ENTERTAINMENT

Music was such an important part of our wedding, as I’m sure it is for most. We opted for DJ only, with a playlist that took us ages to put together, he was excellent and at one point our friend JC had a go on the decks causing great hilarity! The photos of that are very funny.

YOUR WEDDING PLANNER

No wedding planner, we did it with the help of the event manager at the hotel, Diana De Silva, sadly she’s no longer with the Gallivant hotel.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER

Amazing photographer, Mona Ali, so pleased we found her. It was at a wedding fair at the Amex stadium Brighton and Mona had this fabulous picture, were the couple held pineapples in front if their faces. It was fantastic and Monas style suited us perfectly, to be honest she is a beautiful person.

WHAT WAS THE MOST FUN PART FOR YOU?

The most fun part – for the wedding breakfast we put a playlist together of our favourite artists, Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, George Benson. Songs you’d sing along to in the car and mid way through the meal Whitney’s “I want to dance with somebody “ came on and everybody spontaneously start to sing along. A magical moment.

CREDITS

Ceremony Venue: The Gallivant Hotel
Celebrant: East Sussex Senior Registrar
Photography: Mona Ali Photography
Dresses: Both bride dresses and bridesmaid dress came from True Brides Shoes: Veja trainers
Hair: Mary at Divine of East Dean
Make up:did ourselves
Flowers: Cara – Enchanted Flower
Decorations: self sourced from internet
Stationery: Illustrait me, Chris & Jo Duke
Cake: Emily Fitter
Music: Unity Talent
Wedding rings: Ernest Jones
Honeymoon locations: Salt House, Mousehole, Cornwall booked through Unique Homestays and Phos the boutique hotel, Santorini Greece