A Late Autumn Wedding at North Cadbury Court in Somerset for Miranda in Suzanne Neville

The Dress

My dress was by Suzanne Neville, from Carina Baverstock Couture bridal boutique in Bradford on Avon, Bath. From growing up in Bath I’d always had a vague awareness of Carina’s boutique, looking at the beautiful dresses in the windows as you drive past it etc. I was due home a week after we had gotten engaged and, in my eagerness, had booked into a fitting at a boutique in Clifton Village, Bristol for that Saturday.

However, my mum suggested I give Carina a call to see if they had any availability, miraculously I called up the morning of and they had one last appointment available at 12pm that day, and I was all booked in.

On arrival, I wasn’t too sure what it was that I wanted, asides from something simple in its detailing and likely in crepe, but I needn’t have worried as Carina quickly took me in hand after a series of questions on my likes and dislikes, what we might be looking for for the wedding (which, being one week engaged was very little at that point!) – and quickly we found the dress that my mum and I loved, and the appointment in Clifton was cancelled.

I ended up with a combination of three Suzanne Neville dresses – Orianna, Venus and Mira – alongside a couple of added extras, such as sleeves following the move into November, and I also had the dress made to measure with a toile fitting. This meant that I had one or two extra fittings on top of the usual amount at Carina’s, which only added to the experience.

Each trip that I made there with my Mum felt so incredibly special and we were so thankful to be matched with Louise Allberry as our fitter. There was nothing that was too much trouble and it really felt like we were visiting a close friend every time we came to see Louise.

In fact, we ended up roping her in to the making of the bridesmaids dresses and also my Mum’s beautiful outfit.

Flowers

We were so lucky to come across Debs of Lunaria early in the planning process after seeing some amazing floral installations at both the Newt in Somerset and the Francis Gallery and Landrace Bakery in Bath, each by Lunaria. A couple of phone calls later to chat though both Debs’ style and also that which we were looking for for the wedding, it was evident that Debs would do a phenomenal job. Similarly, being based in Bruton, ten minutes from North Cadbury, it made the decision to go with Debs even easier.

Debs’ Instagram is a treat in itself – the installations that she carries out are the perfect oxymoron of being incredibly natural in their appearance whilst also hugely sculptural and architectural. I just love everything that she comes up with, and each installation is entirely different to the next – really thoughtful, contextual work, reflective of each individual client.

In coming to Debs I’d roughly identified where I’d want flowers to be on the day, in both the house and the church, but Debs created the most beautiful proposal following these discussions and took everything to so many levels above what I’d anticipated. On the Friday, once Debs had set up the first set of flowers with her brilliant team of freelancers, none of us could believe what had been created, it was beyond anything I’d envisaged and couldn’t have been more perfect.

On the Saturday, the ballroom and Church were flowered and again, none of us could get over it – when walking down the aisle, there was a picture perfect bough of greenery arching over the Reverend. Just all so clever.

For the ballroom tables, I’d collected multiple stoneware and brass bottles and vessels for Debs to flower, so on the Sunday we brought down brown paper bags for the guests to fill with bottles and flowers and take home so that the flowers could be enjoyed for a bit longer.

The Vibe

Our wedding was originally due to be on Saturday 19th September 2020, before a number of Covid related postponements, and I really wanted to capture those autumnal, turn of summer, colours into the palette and reflect this throughout the design of the weekend. I also grew up in Somerset and the colours and patterns used felt really reminiscent of the rural fields and meadows surrounding us.

After moving the wedding into November 2021, with a lot of the table settings etc being purchased and ready to go, the concentration was then on bringing brassware into the tables to highlight the flickering candles in the winter evening.

To try and keep it not too twee, we used mismatched Ester and Erik candles across the tables, and the brass, stoneware and amber glass bottles each filled with flowers from Lunaria finished it all off.

The main ceremony/reception rooms of North Cadbury Court come as a blank space, which includes the North Hall and Ballroom. For the North Hall, this was our lounge and bar area for the Friday night, drinks reception, and throughout the rest of the Saturday evening.

Therefore I wanted to find some furniture that would suit this space, and match the soft colours used elsewhere to try and soften the otherwise quite masculine room.

After a lot of trawling, Hire Love seemed to be the only company that could offer a great range of furniture in the colours and styles required, with both wicker and traditional furniture on offer in multiple candy coloured shades.

Rachael, David and Yasmin of Hire Love were fantastic in their delivery of this, driving most of the way cross country from Kent and styling it all to perfection on the Friday night, before driving all the way back again on Sunday to pick it all up. They were such friendly faces to have around on the Friday as we were madly running around setting everything up and we couldn’t recommend them, or their furniture, more!

The tables were a big part of the day, for me, and getting that design right (or right in our eyes) was key. As such, this became a big part of my Instagram trawling and the tablescapes, and how they might interact with their surroundings or respond to the throwers of the events, that these accounts create really inspired me and my approach to the day. The saved images in my Instagram account knows no bounds however and there was a lot of other influence drawn from florists, hotel design, interior designers etc.

Cake

Leanne of My Baking Chick stepped in just a month before the wedding, when the previous baker, who was due to create our cake, unfortunately couldn’t any longer, and we were so lucky to have her! Leanne totally got the style that we were looking for – emulating the plaster cast flowers used throughout the Ballroom in the buttercream, and was such a joy to deal with throughout, despite the rapid turnaround that was required of her!

Evening & Dancing

Our first dance was to Ed Sheeran’s ‘First Times’ performed by Riot. We don’t have a ‘song’ as such as a couple so really struggled with this. All we did know was that we wanted the band to be able to perform the song, and not rely on a plugged in iPhone or similar – we had a band, so why not use them!

So, this song was ultimately a very last minute choice but it worked really well, and Ed’s album had only come out a couple of weeks beforehand so at that point the song hadn’t become completely overplayed, though we’re sure that that will change and it will become a very cliché choice in hindsight, but it worked at the time, and we loved it!