Well then, isn't this a sophisticated and modern wedding and a half. Amy and Andy make the perfect city chic couple, all sleek silhouettes and colour pop brights. The concert room at St Georges Hall which held the ceremony is absolutely breathtaking, so grand and opulent.

The flowers! must mention - absolutely AMAZE, I want them in my house. Now please if at all possible. You've also got to love a bride who takes inspiration from our very own DIY projects, this big day is elegant in its simplicity but that's not to say you can't involve a little craft to make things personal and unique.

Did I mention the bouquet?

Amy The Bride: When we first got engaged we knew that we wanted our day to be as relaxed, enjoyable and as stress free as we could make it. We also knew we wanted something slightly different and found the Rock My Wedding blog and Pinterest filled with ideas which matched our ideals. We also had two fantastic wedding planning buddies in Andy's sister Nic, and brother-in-law Benji.

I always loved Jenny Packham's dresses but wasn't sure we could afford it. I tried lots of different dresses on so had a good idea about what suited me (and what really didn't) and when I saw Crystal by Jenny Packham on the Preloved website I fell in love instantly and bought it without ever having tried it on - a bit risky but luckily it paid off. It needed a few alterations to fit me properly and the crystals and pearls were coming loose but luckily the lovely ladies at Opulence were able to sort all of these. A couple of weeks later I spotted some Jenny Packham No.1 unworn shoes in my size on the Preloved website so snapped them up too and then Nic was kind enough to lend me her Acacia I headpiece from her wedding.

Andy found his three piece suit in Hugo Boss. His shoes were from Ted Baker, his tie was Calvin Klein from John Lewis and his shirt from Reiss. As a little wedding gift I got him a Daniel Wellington watch and got it engraved with the date of the wedding and the A+A logo from our wedding stationery.

My bridesmaids were Nic and my dear friend Sam. They have different styles but liked the idea of wearing the same colour so chose navy. Nic had a baby a few months before the big day but wanted to get something fitted whereas Sam wanted to wear something a bit more floaty. Sam found her dress in Coast a few months before and Nic found hers in Reiss the month before.

As most of our family and friends don't see much of Liverpool we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to show it off and we found some great venues to do this. Our wedding ceremony was in the gorgeous Concert Room at St George's Hall followed by drinks, food and dancing at Oh Me Oh My right opposite the famous Liver Building. We booked Scott Russell fairly early on in the planning for both the ceremony and reception after hearing his beautiful classical guitar playing at a wedding fair and it complemented both venues perfectly.

In between having a baby, helping us plan a wedding and running his design agency SB Studio, Benji also found time to produce all of our fantastic wedding stationery from the 'Save the Date' luggage tag to the tea towel wedding invite and the newspaper styled wedding programmes.

We wanted colourful flowers, candles and fairy lights to decorate the venues and spent months collecting and decorating jars and milk bottles. I'd always liked the idea of having various photographs around the place of our friends and family and was inspired by the DIY gold frame on this blog post.

We were helped by our parents to put the frames and sets of photos together. We also decided to go for a DIY Polaroid guestbook which turned out to be a masterstroke, we've spent a few evenings since laughing at the photos and comments that our guests left.

Oh Me Oh My's sharing menu was beautiful and helped with the relaxed feel for the day we were aiming for. For starters each table had sharing platters, for the main course big bowls of lamb tagine, cous cous, vegetarian Goan curry, jasmine rice and roast butternut squash & sunblush tomato salad were served; for dessert a selection of cakes.

I first saw Claire's photographs on previous RMW real bride Karen's engagement shoot post and after looking at more of her portfolio knew that her reportage style was exactly what we wanted. A couple of months before the wedding Claire asked if Jay, a friend of hers, could come along as a second photographer as she wanted to shoot some more film so we got two fantastic photographers for the price of one. It was like having two of our friends photograph us at our wedding. Both of us are terrible at posing for photographs but Claire was so good at making us feel relaxed and was so lovely and patient with us. The photos are just gorgeous!

Photography
Claire Penn Photography
Second Shooter Jay Emme Photography | Reception Venue Oh Me Oh My | Gown Jenny Packham| Earrings Liberty In Love | Florist Passion For Flowers | Stationery SB Studio | Classical Guitarist Scott Russell