A Caroline Castigliano dress, soft summery colour scheme, and the most gorgeous sun-soaked day made for a truly memorable marriage for couple Emily and Sam.
If you ask us, bronzed bride Emily looked like a total babe in her Caroline Castigliano dress: purchased off the peg at The Harrogate Wedding Lounge.
“The dress was called ‘Simplicity’,” says Emily, “which is what drew me to it: it allowed me to add a bolero jacket by day, made by my mum, and the flexibility to remove it and add a sparkly belt for the evening.”
It was a timeless look for the rest of the bridal party too, with the the groomsmen sporting three-piece suits by Peter Posh and, for the bridesmaids, elegant, floor-length gowns from Maids to Measure.
The bridal party’s delicate sky-blue hue made up one half of the day’s colour scheme, as Emily explains: “My favourite colour is yellow and Sam’s is blue so they worked perfectly as the colour scheme for our July wedding.”
“After meeting our florist Kate Mell on a wintery February morning we visualised a summer’s day and chose pale yellow roses, blue oxypetalum, blue Nigella and grey-blue foliage,” says Emily.
“Yellow rose petals were collected from my granny and my mum’s gardens,” says Emily, “These were carefully dried for confetti and thrown over us after the ceremony.”
“Although our flowers for the day were stunning - and key to bringing out some colour - the overall look we were going for was ‘rustic but finished’,” says Emily. “We achieved this with Kate Mell by having a large amount of greenery around the venue.”
“Kate Mell also added the same florals on our cake, created by The Flamingo Bakery. “Emily even had our wedding logo made into a template to emboss it on to our cake!” says Sam.
“Every part of our wedding stationery was also in keeping with the blue and yellow colour scheme,” tells Emily. “Think favours, name cards, menus and anniversary box slips, all running down the tables.”
“We also had a large amount of wooden items and signs with burnt lettering in the wood, which kept the rustic theme going,” Emily says. “It also added a personal touch as the wood was cut and crafted by Sam’s dad Mike and was burnt with pyrography by my mum, Cate.”
There were plenty of handmade items, among them Damson Gin favours: “The damsons were picked from Sam’s parent’s garden in 2019 - the year we got engaged - and they’d been distilled in sugar and gin, waiting for our wedding day,” tells Emily.
The couple were blessed with super summery weather, too, meaning that talented musicians Marc and Abi could perform al fresco in The Courtyard! The hot weather also suited the menu choice for the wedding breakfast: “We decided to keep our menu fairly light and Mediterranean,” says Emily. “One comment we had from a lot of guests, was: ‘How the hell did they [Hog & Apple] bring out 100 steaks cooked to perfection?!’”
“When we initially booked The Normans, Oliver and Sharon explained that they pride themselves on the ‘flow’ of the day – and, yes, it flowed,” says Emily. “One of our guests said, ‘when you go to a wedding, there is always a lull period where people don’t know what to do with themselves – this just didn’t happen at your wedding, it was amazing, and the day just went so fast’.”
While the couple had every decorative detail covered, Yorkshire served up the most gorgeous sun-drenched evening, enabling Emily and Sam to head out in The Normans corn-strewn fields and capture these enchanting images with Joel Skingle Photography. (Joel, we salute you!)
“Anyone can see from photos that The Normans is a stunning space to have your wedding - but you are getting so much more than a beautiful venue, you are getting a family-run business with a team of two couples that are totally and utterly devoted to making every wedding perfect and unique to each couple.”
