1940s Vintage Feel Romantic Woodsy Winter Wedding - Whimsical...

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There is so much to love about this vintage feel wedding this morning.

Hazel and Sietze were married on Saturday 28th February 2015 at the stunning Salmesbury Hall in Lancashire. They went for 1940s styling with greenery and woodsy touches and it was all so very gorgeous.

One of my favourite moments from this wedding has to be Hazel and Sietze's first look which was just beautiful. Along with the ceremony conducted by Sietze's father and fireworks to end the day, there were so many brilliant personal touches.

Hazel looked amazing in her LouLou Bridal gown and sweet veil while Sietze went for a brown tartan cashmere mix suit with red bow tie. Oh my.

Huge thanks goes to Lawson Photography for sharing these divine images today.

THE PROPOSAL | Unbeknownst to me, Sietze had been trying to organise a romantic proposal for ages, getting thwarted by various things each time, including our plane being delayed due to a hurricane then arriving in Sri Lanka and having no suitcases for 3 days! He finally gave up trying to plan, waited until it felt right, and proposed spur of the moment (without ring) when we were being affectionate in the swimming pool in Sri Lanka. I said yes of course!

THE VISION | Once I found 'my' wedding dress the whole day was themed from it. I was a cuddly bride, and chose a 1940s style dress to make the most of my figure. I am also quite tomboyish and do not like most flowers, so I chose a neutral colour theme and wanted lots of ivy, moss, English greenery, wood and plenty of candles and light; something between woodland fairy and shabby chic.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | I (the bride) am a very thorough organiser.... I had almost everything booked and decided (apart from last minute details) within a week of booking the venue. I found a super website to help track our budget and used it for this and a 'things to do list' http://www.weddingsite.co.uk/; it does offer other things but I only used it as a glorified planner. I enjoyed it so much and have discovered such a wonderful dream team that I am considering starting a wedding-planning business!

BUDGET | £25-30, 000. It ended up somewhere in the middle. We both have very large families and my husband is Dutch, so we wanted to celebrate with family which meant a venue who could hold and cater for so many people.

THE VENUE | We needed a venue that could house our numbers (120 for the Wedding Blessing, 150 for the Wedding Breakfast, 200 for the Evening Reception), so this was quite a limiting factor. Other than this we wanted somewhere beautiful (but were open minded about in what way), and with excellent food. We found Salmesbury Hall (Preston) and never looked back. We simply cannot recommend it enough to future brides, it is such an atmospheric 1325 Tudor building, and the staff were truly wonderful, especially Beth. We tried the food in advance and really enjoyed it. We will be returning for day trips including lunch a lot I suspect. We chose a vegetarian menu as I am a very strict vegetarian and wanted a clean kitchen for our wedding day (Sietze is a sympathetic vegetarian, who in any event, for fitness/ lifestyle, moral and ethical grounds eats meat only rarely and never eats fish unless line-caught by family or friends). We got a lot of compliments about the food, it was really delicious and in NO way tasted like the usual wedding yuck of mass catering. The Evening Buffet was likewise all vegetarian, and although I had over-catered on numbers and it was a MASSIVE spread, vanished rather quickly as people came back for 2nds and 3rds. Thank you so much Salmesbury Hall chef!

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Made by Loulou Bridal my dress was called 'Audrey', a beautiful 1940s fit and flare ivory satin dress with tulle overcoat with lots of tiny covered buttons adding detail at the front, satin belt, and lots of petticoat layers. I found my shoes online at the Shoe Tailor - I have a high arch and wide feet so struggle finding pretty heels that are remotely comfortable. I never wear heels normally (my usual footwear is flip flops or Ugg boots only), so I was realistic and found a pair of white flip flops with some sparkle for once the official photos had been taken (we danced all night, so glad I did this!).

FINDING THE DRESS | I searched online for boutiques which supplied plus-sized wedding dresses and became very distressed at the lack of choice, opportunity and quality available. My bridesmaid had spotted a local wedding fair so my fiancé and I went to see if we could find anything better in person - this was the best move we did! After looking at a few stalls and being ignored by staff I found Isla Jean Bridal of Oldham (where we live), immediately spotted a beautiful dress, started chatting to Vicky, and discovered that we could get it custom made to fit! I fell in love with my dress at first sight. I had an initial measure at the boutique in Oldham, my dress was ordered, and I bought my tiara, veil (scalloped edges with teardrop stones) and garter (recovered Victorian lace with period broach) from Isla Jean Bridal as well. At the same wedding Fair I came across Maria Morris Couture - such wonderful outfits but I had already been smitten - what to do? I engaged Maria to make my Mum's outfit, and also my outfit for our Civil Ceremony earlier in the week. What a gem of a find, we will be using Maria again I am sure for any and all special occasions in our futures!!

GROOM'S ATTIRE | We wanted something a bit unusual for Sietze as he is a bit of a clothes-horse at 6 foot 7" with a slim build. I found the bespoke Savile Row concession at House of Fraser Manchester (Chester Barrie) and we started looking for something in browns. We eventually found a beautiful brown tartan cashmere mix fabric with a shot of dark red and fell in love with it. The splash of colour would perfectly enhance my neutral theme and pick up on the dark red accents in the venue from the coats of arms around the Great Hall. We spent quite some time choosing the detailing for the 3-piece suit, making sure it had 1940s styling cut, turn ups, pocket slants, choosing the lining, waistcoat cut and so on. We found a heavy waffle bow tie in a dark red to match the flash of red in the fabric of Sietze's suit, also from House of Fraser. We chose brown and white spats as Sietze's shoes to go with our 1940s theme.

THE READINGS | We are so lucky that Sietze's father is a minister in the Netherlands. We asked if he would marry us and he agreed - it made a full house for Pa, as he had performed the ceremony to marry his other three children already! It made it such a special day and really meant a lot to us to have Pa Bless us. Due to licensing issues in non-consecrated venues, we had to have a civil ceremony earlier in the week, so that we could have what we considered to be our proper wedding (white dress, friends and family), as a Wedding Blessing, on the Saturday. We had a lovely ceremony combining old-fashioned worded Church of England (thees and thous) and wedding traditions from Pa's ministry in the Netherlands, and the ceremony was conducted in both English and Dutch (as were our orders of service and all signage).

THE MUSIC | I am a freelance 'cellist so was very keen on having excellent musicians. For the Wedding Blessing and Drinks Reception I chose a professional harpist friend of mine, Maxine Molin-Rose. We chose Bach Arioso for the processional and Disney's A Whole New World for the recessional. For the Wedding Breakfast, I chose a professional violinist friend of mine's string quartet, The Rossi Quartet. I chose the music from a comprehensive repertoire list which included classical music, jazz, musicals, tango and pop songs. We were lucky enough to have an amazing gift which the string quartet also played; my bridesmaid's husband (an old university friend of mine and composer) had written a string quartet to celebrate our marriage as a wedding gift for us! For the Evening Reception I wanted a large band playing soul, motown, disco etc. so we could all have a good dance. After much searching I found Groovething and engaged the 8-piece option (drums, keyboard, guitar, bass, 2 female vocalists, trumpet and saxophone). They did three sets during the evening and were fabulous - the dance floor was never empty, everyone had such fun and everyone loved them! For our first dance we chose Come What May from Moulin Rouge, and then the band began with (what else?) Son of a Preacher Man!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I am an only child and Sietze's sisters live in the Netherlands, so I decided to just have one friend to help me on the day to keep things simple. I met Tim at The University of Manchester some 15 years ago and have since become firm friends with his wife Dawn (and their three beautiful boys) - my lovely bridesmaid. We wanted a dress for her that not only fitted my 1940s and neutral-coloured theme, but also that she would want to wear after our wedding. Having just had a baby we did a lot of online shopping for Dawn's outfit and found the perfect dress for her. We added a warm ivory jacket since we were having a February wedding. We escaped for a girly day shopping together in the Trafford Centre to find her shoes and sparkly bits for her hair (and my handbag for the wedding). She looked beautiful and was such a reassurance for me on the day.

THE FLOWERS | I found Mat Hepplestone from searching the Wedding Industry Awards website. Redfloral Architecture's website immediately showed me that Mat was my man. We had an initial chat and then we went over to discuss the details of what we wanted. Mat suggested the addition of sand roses, which are neutral-coloured, and I chose three different table decoration styles for variety over our twelve tables. Then I shooed Sietze outside whilst we discussed my bouquet and my bridesmaid's posy. Mat put together a detailed quote and we went ahead, and how glad we are that we did!

Two days before the big day I noticed that behind where we would be Blessed there was nothing pretty - aaaaaaaaarrrrrgh! I phoned Mat and asked if he could look at some pictures online and put together something last minute tall, thin and pretty, to suit my theme for either side of Queen Anne's portrait. When we arrived at Salmesbury Hall we were amazed - Mat has such a wonderful eye for detail, the Great Hall was simply beautiful - he had placed matching white blossom trees either side, and with such short notice! When the venue and Redfloral staff dressed the tables for the Wedding Breakfast and we walked in, it took our breaths away - there were candles, lights, glass, reflections, greenery, everywhere, with a roaring open fire, it was perfect, even more than we had dared hope for! We got so many compliments about our beautiful flowers (and musicians, food, fireworks).

THE CAKE | We decided against having a wedding cake. "But you have to have a cake, it's tradition!" shouted out from some family members - we ignored them, this was OUR wedding after all. I don't like sponge cake or fruit cake, in fact the only cake I do like is cheesecake, which does not tier well for 150 people! We did think about having a cake make out of cheese (as in cheddar), but again decided against it as we wanted to save the money for what we had decided was important to us.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Another provider we found from the Wedding Industry Awards website. Pete and Laura are a couple and their website for their business, Lawson Photography, was simply stunning. From initial contact we knew we had made the right choice. They both arrived for our preparations at Stanley House Hotel & Spa, and as per their suggestion, we had a sneak-peek with them before the ceremony - they got to photograph the first time we saw each other on our big day, and Sietze had no idea what I would be wearing. It is lovely to have those pictures; normally you are walking up the aisle and without being in the way, photographers could not capture the moment. They stayed until part way through our evening reception and captured still life moments, people being natural throughout the day and evening, as well as some formal pictures. At one point they even nipped to the garage for us (we had both failed to quit smoking before the wedding and had both managed to forget to bring any cigarettes with us!) . They were so thoughtful, kind, friendly, reassuring, and everyone is extremely impressed with the photos. We really wish we could afford to employ Lawson Photography full time to capture our lives' magic moments...

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | The timings and logistics of our day were quite complicated, so I decided early on to engage a toastmaster, George Phillips. He really helped everything to run smoothly, corralling guests as needed from room to room, communicated with suppliers and the venue, looked after my bouquet, fetched us drinks, made sure guests put cards in the post box, held umbrellas over us between photos in the rain and entertained guests with ghost stories from our venue (a reportedly very haunted building).

As our families are both very large there were lots of children at our wedding. After some searching around I found Little Tiddles soft play. I designated a whole room as a kids' play room for the whole day, and they dropped off a ball pool, rocking horses, little cars, soft mats, toys etc, set it all up and collected it later without fuss. The kids LOVED it - some guests even complained, as their children did not want to leave the playroom, so they were having trouble coming into the Great Hall to join us for a dance!

We also had a paid for photo booth - one strip went to the guests and a copy went into a book for us to enjoy afterwards; a bit of fun giving lovely memories for guests and us alike.

I found my hair and make-up ladies from the Wedding Industry Awards website. Tina Howarth from Beauhair came to where we were staying and did such an amazing job with me, our mothers and bridesmaid. I think I will have to dress up more, I had no idea my hair could look so lovely! Kerry Baker came to do the girls' makeup at our hotel and stayed all day to touch up and be my wedding fairy!

Very early on in our planning we decided that we wanted our big day to be memorable for others as well as us, so looked for someone to provide a fireworks display. I found Manchester Fireworks from an internet search, and we looked at some of their previous work online before booking them. We chose two songs that are special to us (and wedding-appropriate) and James Mellor from Manchester Fireworks synchronised the amazing display to the music! It was a breath-taking display, so so amazing and memorable.

We saved money on things we did not find important in order to be able to splash out on things we did want; we had no car (my uncle and Godfather drove me having carefully valeted the car beforehand), chair covers or cake, our wedding invitations came from a printer on Amazon, our favours came from Not On The Highstreet and we chose wild flower seeds which we had personalised for the day and also doubled as place name settings - we love the idea that all our guests will be sprinkling some bee and butterfly friendly flowers all around the UK and abroad!

We also decided to get a videographer (guess where we found him), so James Wray +1 followed us round all day capturing our preparations, service, first dance, Tim's string quartet composition by The Rossi String Quartet, fireworks and got video messages from family and friends.

THE HONEYMOON | We have had some bad experiences with travel agents over the years, so decided to look up travel agents in Which magazine; Audley Travel came #1 in customer service so we used them. We had researched which countries in general were good to visit in March (which was straight after our wedding) so asked to be put through to the various country specialists to see if they could inspire us. We spoke to Nik Horncastle at Audley about Belize and quickly loved the prospect of the varying ecosystems and good SCUBA diving it had to offer (we are both nature and animal enthusiasts, keen amateur photographers and qualified SCUBA divers). Following Nik's suggestions about area but adding our preferences for things like private hot tubs/ Jacuzzis/ 5* spoiling/ private trips, Nik designed a custom itinerary, tailor-made over three locations within Belize to give us experiences of the Pine Ridge Mountains, Chan Chich Rainforest Reserve, and Ambergris Caye, and taking into account my many and varied injuries. We stayed at Francis Ford Copolla's Blancaneaux (beautiful with amazing service and they upgraded us for our honeymoon with compliments to the huge villa on the river!), Chan Chich Lodge (can't wait until we go back) and El Secreto (mixed experience, see our Trip Advisor Reviews!) respectively. Nik booked us a private trip to the Mayan Ruins of Xuantunich, and Barton Creek Cave, a flooded cave system with stalagmites/ stalactites and Mayan offerings. We locally booked some additional private tours to the butterfly farm, Lamanai Mayan Ruins, a boat trip to see manatees, snorkelling and SCUBA diving. The birds, monkeys, reptiles and underwater life were plentiful and simply beautiful. Nik, on hearing I was poorly, even sent a bottle of wine to our first villa along with a note saying 'get well soon'! Audley Travel were amazing - we will be using them for all our future holidays and recommending them to everyone.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Neither of us could stop grinning from ear to ear - ALL DAY! We loved meeting up in secret before the 'walk down the aisle'. Seeing all our friends and family in such a beautiful setting, decorated so beautifully and with such lovely music was like a dream. One of our friend's daughter gave a surprise reading of a poem in place of speeches during the Wedding Breakfast, it was very moving. Our first Dance was very special as we had never danced together in public beforehand! Sietze even woke up for several days afterwards with Come What May playing around his head! Seeing everyone's faces during the fireworks display was magical.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Be yourselves! It is YOUR wedding, no one else's. We had no speeches, because no one likes to do them and no one likes to listen to them either! I changed out of my heels and into flip flops after the Wedding Breakfast in order to be comfortable - awesome decision. Be kind to your bridesmaid - pick a dress that suits their figure and they will be happy to wear again on another occasion - otherwise what a waste of money! Be decisive - dithering seems to be a common issue for many brides, and also the cause of poor communication between bride and supplier which cause frustrations all round - avoid this by going with your gut instinct. Be realistic - certain things take a certain amount of time. Also, unless you have eloped, you are almost GUARANTEED to have a horrible family member of friend try to spoil your big day (we did) - make sure the venue evicts them immediately so you can recover and enjoy the rest of the day - it is YOUR day, enjoy it. Be organised and make sure you get everything done in advance, that way you and your fiancé can escape the madness and go to the spa for a couple of days beforehand. We did this and it was wonderful (not to mention that our skin was better than it has ever been and we were very relaxed)! Save money on things you don't find important. Splash out on the flowers and photographers. If you are limited on numbers, create a 'spares' list of people coming to the evening reception only; on the day there will be a certain amount of rude/ unfortunate people who fail to show up. By having a spares list you can get your best man or bridesmaid to give them a quick call once you notice their absence and the food you have paid for will not go to waste. Keep the kids entertained - I had a dedicated playroom all day and night, and had provided children's favours at the table with puzzles, colouring in, as well as bubbles to blow, and glow sticks (a hit with both the children and the adults which doubled as mini torches when the guests streamed out to the Golf Course for the Fireworks). Leave a gap between your wedding day and honeymoon! We were on our feet all day and dancing all night and were still exhausted when we packed and left for our honeymoon. I also tend to catch lurgy easily and someone at our wedding gave me a chest infection, so I was extremely ill for the first week of our honeymoon...

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Venue | Salmesbury Hall

Photography | Lawson Photography

Videography | James Wray Videography

Make-up Artist | Kerry Baker (& wedding fairy)

Hair Stylist | Beauhair

Design/ Flowers | Redfloral Architecture

Harpist | Maxine Molin-Rose

Soft Play | Little Tiddles

Toastmaster | George Philips

String Quartet | The Rossi Quartet

Photobooth | Dave Spink Photography