We’re so excited to share this morning’s wedding with you because it’s the wedding of one of our Love Lust List recommended suppliers Milly & Her. Carly caught the wedding bug when planning her own big day (although when you read her report, I think you’ll agree that she already had the wedding bug…) and wanted to set up a company that offered the kind of decor she longed for, but just couldn’t find in the UK. It’s a little treasure trove of delights – if you’re searching for finishing touches for your big day, do check it out. (Oh and the company is named after Carly’s gorgeous dog Milly, who you can see in the slider above).
Carly’s wedding, as you’ll read, ended up being a little different from the day she had dreamt of as a little girl. But as far as we’re concerned – it’s pretty much perfect – she looked absolutely beautiful, and married the love of her life, in front of all of her friends and family, on a sunny day, by the sea. When a couple faces a truly life changing event together, it makes their bond practically indestructible, and I can only imagine how special it was for Carly and Nelly to exchange their vows and become a married couple, and when all is said and done, it’s only the love that matters.
I think it’s impossible for any of us to understand what life would be like if we had an accident like Carly and I’m overwhelmed by how strong and honest she is – if you want to read a little bit more about Carly’s wedding day, check out her personal blog Carly Taylor Fights Back. And I’m pleased to announce that she is blogging for fabulous boutique, The Mews, so you can keep up with her there too!
Now to enjoy the images & film from her & Nelly’s big day…
Our Story
Carly The Bride: As a little girl I constantly dreamt about my wedding day – especially the part when I would walk down the aisle with my Dad. But fast forward to 2011 and becoming paralysed from an accident I knew when my big day came, things were going to be different. Nielson (known as Nelly to a lot of people) and I got married on the 4th July 2015. We first met in 2007 at Gloucestershire University where we both studied sport and lived next door to each other in Halls of Residence. To me it was pretty much love at first sight, through the tough few years our love has grown stronger and even though our lives have been scattered with madness we’ve somehow found the strength to keep going.
The Fashion
Having done a lot of research I fell in love with French Designers Laure De Sagazan, Delphine Manivet and Rime Arodaky. The bohemian effortless beauty of these dresses really appealed to me, so I travelled up to The Mews in Clifton to try them on. With the help from my Mum, Nelly, Kelly and Rebecca from The Mews I tried on lots and lots of dresses and found myself getting upset at the person in the mirror looking back at me – the flowing of the beautiful dresses almost swamped me in my wheelchair and I knew then I had to choose a different style.
There was a beautiful dress in the shop window, strapless, lace and tight fitting; something completely different and was by the English designer Suzanne Neville (the Willow dress). As soon as I tried it on and looked at myself in the mirror I couldn’t stop smiling, I felt and looked like me instead of this girl in a wheelchair and with my Mum and Kelly in tears, I knew it was the one! The Mews couldn’t have been anymore helpful, they made my experience memorable and Gail and Rebecca kindly came down on the day to dress me.
I’ve always had expensive taste and loved my Kate Spade shoes I wore which for me will permanently remain brand new!
I wore my Tiffany necklace that Nelly got me, and pearl earrings from my dad.
The one thing I’ve always been sure on was a floral crown, which I adored and the very talented George Mackay created, it smelt amazing all day.
The Groom
Nelly’s suit was by Hugo Boss, he always wanted to wear a blue suit with tanned shoes so his outfit was pretty easy. At first we wanted coral ties and matching pocket squares, however we found it impossible to match the colour with the bridesmaids dresses. So we sourced the web and found Mrs Bow Tie who did navy and coral polka dot ties and matching pocket squares, they were ideal!
The Ceremony
We both agreed on the ceremony location, so this was fairly easy too! With Nelly coming from South Africa and me a Cornish girl, our connection was the village where we now live with my parents and the place I grew up in…Crantock. Crantock church is a very quaint church in the heart of a friendly village and just down the road from my house! Along with my bridesmaids, flower girls, Mum, Nelly’s Mum, my Dad and Brother we walked down to the church. It was such a special moment as hearing the bells whilst walking towards the church was surreal and magical at the same time. Milly and Dora our dogs are important to us so we thought it would be a good idea for them to be ring bearers, needless to say working with animals didn’t go to plan, one little dog got stage fright!
The Venue
Ever since I was little and went on a school trip to this place I’ve always wanted my reception there. The Headland Hotel in Newquay was the scary but almost beautiful building in the film The Witches. The Headland Hotel over looks Fistral Beach and the massive Atlantic Ocean, it also has great wheelchair access which for me was amazing! The quality of the food and the organisation of the day from the staff was awesome everything ran smoothly and our guests really enjoyed the day.
The Decor
I really enjoyed sourcing wedding decorations, I found myself being on Etsy for hours finding those unique things that would add that little special something to our wedding. The table numbers and other bits were from Etsy a shop called Pelemele. Mason Jam jars were shipped from the U.S, we placed 3 jam jars on each of the tables with 3 tea lights; which I roped my bridesmaids into creating. They wrapped gypsophila and limonium around each tea light, they looked perfect next to the jam jars. Nelly made our amazing table plan and I stalked all of our guests Facebook pages to get a picture to print out on Polaroids! Nelly also did an awesome job on making our guestbook, which consisted of each guest signing a piece of wood and dropping it into a frame. I also added cute floral straws, words of wisdom (which we laughed at reading through) from my little shop Milly and Her. It took us a while to decide on wedding favours as we wanted to give our guests something they would use and not leave behind so mini alcohol and mixers it was, which went down a treat with our guests and were from Just Miniatures.
The Wedding Party
My five bridesmaids including Nelly’s sister are my closest friends, through thick and thin these girls have been there for me. I got each of my bridesmaids a robe from a shop on Etsy called Piyama and a silver bangle which are made in Crantock by a guy called Bruce Crantock! The bridesmaids dresses took a while to choose but I eventually found the perfect dress from Kelsey Rose and the colour had to be pastel coral.
My little cousins were my flower girls they wore gorgeous dresses from Monsoon with cute pumps from Next and to add to the cuteness, their daisy crowns were made by George Mackay.
The Flowers
I always knew what sort of flowers I wanted, I took my Pinterest board to George Mackay and she worked her magic to create the most beautiful arrangements, the colours were amazing together all different types of pinks, purples, coral and cream. I loved peonies, which George knew and I had peonies everywhere in the archways of the church, in the jam jars on the tables and on my wrist corsage. Roses, sweet peas, eucalyptus, lavender, stocks and lizanthus were just some of the flowers. They couldn’t have been prettier!
The Beauty
My hair was done by my hair dresser Kim from Blush, she also did my Mums and Nelly’s Mums hair. She knew exactly the look I was going for and I couldn’t have been happier. My style for my hair was a boho inspiration, as I’m not really a neat kind of girl with my hair so why change it on our wedding day?! My makeup was done by Victoria Penrose, I wanted a bronzed natural look which she created perfectly. She also did the bridesmaids hair and make up too.
The Entertainment
We were determined to keep all of our guests amused so as well as a DJ in the evening we had a band called Company B. They played swing music that the guests thoroughly enjoyed and even got my Dad swinging his hips! We also hired a photo booth from South West Photo Booths; the pictures we got from the booth were classic and added to such an awesome evening.
Our first dance was London Grammar – Strong. The song really did mean something to us as what we’ve been through has made us stronger. Nelly simply picked me up and swayed with me to the music, it was so perfect.
The Cake
The cake was as yummy as it looked; we wanted to go for something a little different so a three tier naked cake with personalised cake toppers was for us. The cake was made by Cupcake Mama and was delicious!
The Stationery
I spent days searching for unique stationery and I finally found Alice Brazier, I loved her map style invites and her illustrated order of service so I just had to go for personalised menus for every guests, they worked perfectly with the jam jars on every tables.
The Photography
I met Nick Bailey through my Bridesmaid Lucy. I liked the way he captured a moment and how natural his photos looked. Nelly agreed and that was that. Nick captured memories that I will always cherish which is exactly what I wanted. I was also lucky to have my good friend Carla snap some photos as she runs her own photography business called The Little Green Leaf photography she also captured the day so beautifully.
The Videography
I knew how important it was to capture the day, so we could always look back on such an awesome day and relive it. We chose Pete Cox whose work is amazing, the video of our wedding day is perfect and we’ve watched it several times. The best part about having a video is that even though we’ll get older and change, the memories it contains never will.
Advice
Take a few minutes to absorb the atmosphere; I couldn’t stop smiling during the meal seeing our guests enjoying themselves in front of me, it was truly a special moment.
Enjoy planning, don’t rush into a decision. I saved a lot of websites to my iPad home screen and went back closer to the date of the wedding.
Use Pinterest but remember, everything looks amazing on there, but in reality not so much! But for colours, table decor and invites it’s a massive YES.
Etsy is a must!
Finally remember you can create your dream wedding! I may have had to change my dream, but to me my wedding was strategically made up of all my ideas, memories, happiness and hopes that made it amazing. My wedding is now a story I will always remember and will tell for years.