This week both Catherine and Nick tell their story-
Catherine- “We are Nick and Catherine – slightly geeky history nuts, which was probably what drew us together initially. Nick’s a teacher and I’m a museum curator. We met through friends at a local pub and just found we had loads of common interests – I remember Nick was also impressed that I used to live very near to Stephen Fry. Subsequent meetings seemed to be somewhat engineered by some of our friends – one of whom who ended up as best man, and one did a reading at our wedding.”
Nick- “I’m Nick – assistant headteacher of a secondary school in North Somerset and History teacher; occasional rugby and cricket player. We met in April 2006. I was at the Jersey Lily pub (Justin Lee Collins’ local!) with two friends from Clifton Rugby Club when we were joined by one of the guy’s girlfriends and two of her house mates. We got chatting and Catherine and I found that we had a love of history and Stephen Fry in common. A month or so went by and due to some prodding from friends, Catherine and I ended up sitting next to each other in another bar and the rest is history.”
Catherine and Nick continue after our photographs.
Catherine continues- ”Nick proposed half way through a fantastic road trip in the US last year. We were in Yellowstone National Park, and were incredibly lucky to be some of the first people on the scene when a grizzly bear showed itself. We were both so excited that Nick just seized the moment and proposed there. We celebrated that night with a really lovely meal in Jackson Hole. Later on he bought me some giant ‘practice’ engagement rings in a shop in Washington, and also made me a paper ring in a diner, which I still have.
I didn’t think I’d end up with a traditional wedding dress, but I think a lot of girls say that, then fall in love with something! I did get a bit nervous near the day that the whole white dress and veil thing didn’t really feel like me, so I added the black top hat for the reception. We’d also encouraged our guests to wear big hats and it gave our Easter Saturday wedding a sort of Easter bonnet parade feel. My maid of honour was 8 months pregnant, so we needed something that she would feel both comfortable and gorgeous in, and the simple long black dresses were exactly what I was hoping for. I also loved how the bright flowers really popped against the black on the day. We didn’t have a colour theme as we both just wanted to include lots of bright happy colours.
We planned the table centres as we wanted something quite personal (and hoped to save on the cost of flower arrangements). We named each table after a musical we had seen together, and then tied in the table centre with it, so Chicago had a top hat, Wicked had a pair of Ruby Slippers, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show had a handbag. Each object was then filled with small plants, grown by Nick’s Mum, some of which have survived and are now in our garden so we also have a lovely lasting momento of the day. We made different coloured table cloths, and put some of our favourite old books on the tables for our friends and family to write messages in, in place of a guest book. Plus a picture quiz pitting the tables against each other! Nick’s Mum also kindly made our wedding cake and a friend of hers iced it, and Nick and I made loads of cakes and biscuits two days before for the afternoon tea. I also painted the Gnome of Love – an idea that materialised on my hen weekend and somehow still seemed like a good idea afterwards. A good friend ensured he made it safely to the church, and turned up at the front pew without Nick noticing. I hoped it would reassure him that I would turn up – especially after all of my teasing that he shouldn’t assume anything!
Our vision for the day was something fun and colourful, quite small and intimate, so that we could really personalise things. And as soon as we’d booked the date we realised how much fun we could have with a bit of Easter decorating too – a kitsch plastic white rabbit, Easter bonnets, and lots of chocolate eggs.
We got married in our local church, St Bartholomew’s, next to St Andrew’s Park in Bristol. It’s only five minutes from our house and we both really liked the idea that we could go back there whenever we liked. The park is really lovely too, and there were hundreds of daffodils on our wedding day. Our reception was at Maunsel House in Somerset – as soon as we’d visited we knew we didn’t need to go anywhere else. It’s a beautiful rambling house full of secret corners and back staircases, and just crammed full of wonderful things – crocodiles in tin helmets and a bear wearing sunglasses, open fires, bulging hat stands, and even a country pub room. There were fabulous bedrooms and cottages for our guests, and the bridal suite was just beautiful – we had a bell tower to wake everyone up for breakfast the next morning!
I had a really relaxed girly morning getting ready, with a house full of people and lots more dropping in to get changed. It was really nice to have that precious time being excited with friends and family – and having the odd glass of champagne of course!
I loved walking up the aisle, and it was so nice reaching Nick and standing side by side – it felt like ages since I’d seen him, even though it was only the night before. The vicar who married us was fantastic and just kept everything really relaxed, and it was great hearing our good friend deliver a serious reading of a very twangy country song that we’d played a lot while in America.
One of my favourite times was our journey from the church to the reception – lots of grinning and trying out ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ titles! Les, our driver, was great. There was a Bristol City game on that afternoon and he asked us to text his wife with his score prediction. When we arrived at Maunsel one of the best men met us bearing champagne and dancing around wearing a Viking helmet from the fancy dress box we’d added. I will always keep with me the image of the two best men donning their bright orange fascinators.
Probably the most romantic moment was Nick singing ‘The way you look tonight’ in place of a first dance. He might not think so as he was the one who had to get nervous about it, but I thought it was perfect.
Having Simon and Helen as our photographers was just brilliant! Photography was one of the most important things to me and I spent a lot of time looking at different websites. We both loved the images on their website – they stood out a mile from most of the other photographers – but the nicest thing was meeting them, as I left feeling so happy and confident that they would do something equally special for us. It’s great that they were able to capture both of our getting ready times, as it’s lovely to see afterwards what the other one was doing! I also love how ‘quiet’ it all was – all those moments when we’d hardly have known they were there, but somehow were right in the middle capturing everything and everyone. The pictures from the creative shoots were fabulous – they have such a different, quirky feel, and really capture the place too . Best of all is having the mix of both! I have so many favourite images but if I had to pick I really like the ones of our friends and families dressing up, especially the ones that have a sort of old fashioned ‘posed and painted’ look. But I also absolutely love the one of Nick and I kissing in the church with the vicar looking politely away, and the one where I am looking at Nick after we have signed the register – I know that whenever I look at that picture in the future I will remember just how happy I was at that moment. It is truly lovely to have pictures that can do that!”
And Nick says- “We were on a holiday of lifetime driving round America for a month. We were in Yellowstone National Park and had stopped to watch a bear. When we got back into the car I proposed. One knee was down (ish)… and Catherine said yes! We drove a little further until we came to a shore by the lake and then we stopped to celebrate!
The dress selection wasn’t much down to me… I just had to make sure that I did not say the wrong thing when looking at pictures in magazines. For my outfits it was always going to be morning suits, whilst my double breasted buff waistcoat came from Ede and Ravenscroft. For the ties I went for a dark pink tie almost by accident. I had seen a purple tie in the shop but they did not have enough in stock so I ordered on lie and clicked on the wrong colour… but loved them when they arrived!
For the service we chose one reading that was the lyrics to a country and western song that had been a theme tune on our American holiday. Likewise we had a trumpeter play as Catherine walked down the aisle and we walked out of the church.
We made many things for the reception. The cakes, tiffin and biscuits for guests when they arrived at the reception were made by us and the wedding cake was baked by my mother. My mother also potted and grew the floral centrepieces for the tables in an eclectic array of containers; a top hat, ruby slippers and a handbag amongst others. I wrote the quiz for the tables and selected the books that went on the tables. We also cut the ivy that decorated the dining room, along with the peacock feathers that we had chosen. We also made the table plan, place cards and table nameplates, based around our favourite musicals. The final personal touch was the selection of fancy dress items that we left for everyone to play with.
There wasn’t necessarily a vision as such, our aim was primarily just to have a day that we would enjoy from beginning to end. We didn’t want a theme or a colour scheme just to go for whatever we wanted.
The ceremony was held at our parish church, St Bartholomew’s in St. Andrew’s Park, Bristol. The service wasn’t led by the parish vicar but a wonderful priest, Rev Ineson, from a neighbouring parish. Throughout the preparation classes and on the ‘big day’ he made us feel relaxed and helped everything feel such fun.
The reception was held at Maunsel House, in Somerset. The house dates back to Norman England. We were looking for somewhere that could allow guests to stay the night and when we walked in to view Maunsel we knew that it was the right place for us. The combination of both taxidermy and random hat collections, a wonderful coordinator called Pippa and a King’s Bedroom that had a 12 ft wide four poster bed for our first night as a married couple meant that we had to have our reception there.
The day was magnificent from start to finish. One of my best men happens to own a pub as a sideline from his usual line of work so six of us went there for breakfast. When I arrived at the church I found a hand painted garden gnome in my pew, which somehow had materialised there, a pre-wedding present from Catherine. After that the day was very relaxed… apart from when Catherine was a tad late walking down the aisle! As the reception venue was an hour away from the church the drive down the M5 was a wonderful moment to be by ourselves and also to have random people hoot us as they passed the wedding car!
The reception was great fun, with great speeches from my father in law and best men. Instead of a first dance I sang to Catherine which was nerve wracking to say the least!
Helen and Simon made us feel very relaxed. The getting to know you shoot in Sidmouth was great and meant that we knew exactly what the day would be like. Having a photographer with us each during the morning meant that we had every moment captured. As to favourite pictures, there are so many but here goes:
The six lads at the bar
My best men and me on the stairs
Catherine and I kissing with Rev Ineson looking away
Catherine looking at me in the vestry when we were signing the register
The two best men putting on fascinators (for the moment rather than the picture)
My Uncle Graham in a lady’s hat
The bear with the boa.”
Gilbert and Evans Getting To Know You blog posts.