Tom & Polly’s Brandshatch Place Wedding Day
Hey Folks! Super excited to share Tom & Polly’s Brandshatch Place wedding. An absolute pleasure to be with you on your day. Get ready for a wedding jam packed with Back To The Future, Hot Pink, Blue Suits, and one awesome couple. Enjoy!
‘We got married at Brandshatch Place Hotel. The hotel was a strong contender from the off for a number of reasons: It was close to home, large enough for all our guests and you could have the ceremony, meal and evening party all in the one place. We loved the relaxed feel of the place, the pretty architectural features and the abundance of lovely green areas outside. Mostly we loved the fact that we could book the place out for exclusive use, meaning we had the run of the place for us and our guests and no-one had to go to bed until they wanted to. The last to bed were Tom’s uncle and brother, finally crashing out at 7.15 the next morning, and they still made it to breakfast!’
The colour scheme was bright blues, hot pinks, white, and gold as an accent colour. The only real theme was that they wanted to put a smile on people’s faces and encourage everyone to have fun – so they arranged a magician Chris Harding, penny sweets for favours and played the Grandstand theme tune when they walked out of the room after the ceremony.
Their first dance was to Candy Man, sung by Sammy Davies Junior, which was personal to them and is all about putting fun into your life.
‘We needed a lot of advice on flowers as we really had no idea. Thankfully our florist – the lovely Leisha – is a really helpful and creative lady and helped us out loads. We mainly had a mixture of pinks and white made up of hot pink David Austin ‘Kate’ roses (which look a bit like peonies but are cheaper!), pale pink ‘Wizard of Oz’ dahlias, pink larkspur, white veronica, astilbe in various pinks, and gypsophilia. The bridesmaids’ bouquets were made up of all gypsophilia with little sprays of gold to contrast with their hot pink dresses. The boys’ button holes comprised of one Kate rose with some gypsophilia. Polly’s dad, being Scottish, was given a bit of heather for his button hole too.
Polly’s dress was long with a low back and scooped (boat) neckline, with lots of beading around the shoulders, neckline, round the waistband and down the back. Polly chose her dress because it was glamorous whilst being relatively unstructured and quite light and comfortable to wear.
‘I didn’t want a dress I’d be battling with all day! For extra comfort I changed into a short sixties-style A-line dress in the evening so that I could dance more easily – and show off my gold Jimmy Choo shoes!’
‘I wanted my hair away from my face and up off my neck so that I didn’t have to worry about it all day and so it stayed in place for photos outside if it was a bit breezy. I also tend to wear my hair up in day-to-day life so I wanted to stay reasonably true to how Tom is used to seeing me. It was pinned up and to one side to keep it quite natural and I had a beautiful hair comb, which our lovely friend Claire, who also did our reading, made and gave to me. I was really chuffed to be wearing it as I loved it so much. I had much more make up on than I would normally wear but tried to keep it quite natural and avoided false lashes. Ultimately I wanted Tom to see me looking like me, just a bit more glam than usual.’
The groomsmen were in bright navy two-piece suits with white shirts, white pocket squares and hot pink ties with small cherry blossom flowers to match Tom’s bow tie. The bridesmaids were in short, hot pink chiffon dresses with a sweetheart neckline and glittery gold shoes.
‘We wanted everyone to look bright and colourful to reflect the upbeat atmosphere we were going for on the day. They also all loved their outfits so they looked and felt great (although the bridesmaids’ shoes did hurt them – sorry girls).
Tom’s suit was a three-piece bright blue suit which was a one-off made especially for the occasion. He had a white shirt, pink cherry blossom bow tie, white pocket square and cheeky pin-up girl cuff-links. True to form he was sporting a pair of bright pink socks which you could see flashing above his brown monk-strap brogues.
‘We had a fabulous day! Favourite bits include Tom’s nephew George shouting out “Well done Uncle Tom!” at the end of the ceremony, looking around and seeing all our friends and family together, Chris the magician wowing us all at the dinner table, everyone going nuts on the dance floor, and Tom and I chatting during the first dance and making a secret, spontaneous pact that now was the time to get drunk and hit the dance floor – and we did!’