By The Beach Festival: Beautifications, Clothing & Accessories

Ok this could take a while... anyone who has read a bit of my blog before will know that quite a lot of thought goes into my every day outfits, I like things that have special or hidden meaning, quirky things and nerdy things that will make me giggle to see out in every day life. A lot of weddings have a standard format for clothing, but if you want to - you can inject your personality into the proceedings in all sorts of ways without going wild (not that you shouldn't go wild, that's awesome too!).

The shoes

What a bloody palava this was. I. LOVE. SHOES. All kinds of shoes. This was always going to be a challenge. I shopped with... My mum. My sister. My bridesmaids. Alex. Online. In store. By recommendation. Through emailed ideas. I bought 8 different pairs before settling on the ones I eventually wore (but kept two pairs of the others for good measure...). The ones I eventually settled on are these sparkly beauties from Kurt Geiger - GRIND, which I fully intend to repurpose for the Company Ball in the future! They're a kind of blush/nude colour satin with lots of crystals stuck all over. I'm not a super girly girl but I do love a shiny thing. These are the disco-ball of shoes, they just shone light everywhere and looked completely fabulous. Sold.

The Beautfications

Hair & Makeup was done by the lovely Kate Pymm who bless her, was seriously ill with food poisoning that day, but made sure she was there at 6.30am for us regardless, what a pro! She took into account the lighting for our outdoor photos on the beach etc. and made sure I wouldn't be shiny or anything, and had to carefully match up my face with the spray tan I'd had earlier in the week too. We didn't really have a set plan for hair, just nice loose casual up-do's with some flowers in, and framing our faces nicely - no 90's slick-back buns here! (see full photo at the end!)

Tan & Nails were booked in my one of my lovely bridesmaids Emily, from afar! As we all live in the Midlands, we had no idea what Kristy's in Whitby would be like, but they were absolutely fantastic! I had my tan done a few days before everyone arrived, and my gosh it was dark! Instead of the St. Tropez spray I'd had done before, it was a different one that looked a lot stronger going on. The next couple of days the top layer washed off and settled, and in the end I was really pleased with the colour.

Heading in for the second time with Emily and Al's Mum to get our nails done (them French mani, me lace effect) the ladies were absolutely fantastic, and stayed over an hour later than they were open to get my nails right, there were all sorts of issues with the lace overlay but it worked out in the end! I had a peachy pink colour for all nails except my left ring finger, which was blue! I had matching blue toes too, and much to my delight and amusement - the blue polish was glow in the dark too, how awesome is that?! Click on the picture to zoom in for a look at the lace...

Wrist wear

Both the watch and the Wedding ring belonged to my Granny Louise and it was lovely to be wearing something of hers on the day, especially as we were at Runswick Bay - her/my family's holiday home. She had tiny wrists, luckily I have too!

The tiny blue bead bracelet you can see was a wedding day gift from my sister (a something blue) with a lucky horseshoe charm on it, very cute!

The festival style wristbands were made up by ID&C who make wristbands for big event companies and festivals all over the country. We always knew we wanted proper fabric bands made for all our guests to get into the spirit of it! I did the designs using vectored images I bought off the web, then used their wristband designer template to create it. I used the same fonts and images we put into our invitations, as well as on our table names/seating plan, so that it all tied in. The image is waves on the sea and a tiny tipi tent! 

Lanyards

As everyone knows, a fancy lanyard at a festival means you're either in charge of something important or a celebrity. Being long time hoarders of press passes from our festival escapades, we thought it was high time we got a AAA pass - to our wedding! My Bro-in-Law Adrian made these fancy things up for us, VIP ones for close family and friends, and Rob had a proper media pass to add to his collection of proper ones for photography too, haha! The designs I did match all of the invitation/reception stuff and the hand-drawn map of the Bay is on the back too - for easy access to help out any lost guests.

The Bouquet

So so so so sooooo special. If I didn't dream of the dress I would have, I definitely lusted after these. Yes you've seen them on every wedding blog ever, probably all one colour, matching and perfect. But I am a hoarder. My family are hoarders. Not just of stuff, but of interests. The brooches and badges in this bouquet represent different memories and parts of our lives and I adore it. We collected brooches from family members, home, vintage fairs and I had some as gifts too, I used florists wire to steadily get them all 'stalked' and then my Mum and Sister worked tirelessly over Easter (and beyond) to wrap each stem, add flowers, arrange and turn it into this masterpiece. Needless to say, I did not 'throw the bouquet'!

Prefect badges from school, a Norwegian Krone with a tiny ship's wheel in the centre (we lived in Norway when I was little) a Steampunk key from WGW, a Kangaroo (we lived in Australia and my Roller Derby name is Anger Roo!), My Granddad's Model Boat Club badge, an owl (Owls are so in right now)

Yankees logo (double significance, Yankees are my baseball team and Alex plays baseball, and it was actually a gaudy necklace prize from the 2p machines in Whitby, haha!), a rocket for Alex, and earrings that belonged to Alex's Nanna. There are some more you can't see like a Knight (Alex used to do battle reenactment), a Peacock for my Mum, a Guitar and a Drum (I play both - not exceptionally...) and a snowflake for winter too.

A blue heart brooch from my Aunt & Nanna, a better look at Granddad's MBC pin, a pirate ship. Ooh and a proper look at Kathy's necklace!

Lovely Ladies


My lovely bridesmaids wore their own dresses and looked more amazing than anything I could have put them in! You can't see too well here but we got them and my Sister custom made nautical name necklaces from Punky Pins, Emily & Kathy had small boat charms on theirs and Rachel had a tiny blue anchor on hers! I'll try and add a photo in when I can find one...

Here's Rach doing a reading at the ceremony of Edward Norton's 'A Lovely Love Story'

Emily & Kathy also needed a bouquet, so we decided on blue swirly lollies! I wrapped them in anchor print ribbon to make them easier to hold and they looked adorably delicious (the lollies and the ladies!)

My Mum also wore the most amazingly chic outfit and the colours all complemented what we were wearing perfectly, I have to give her snaps for looking great as I've seen some other 'Mothers-of-the-Bride' wearing some diabolically outlandish things before!

Manly Men

Slater's Suits in Birmingham decked out Alex & his Best Man (Trigger) with grey 3-pieces (the waistcoats even had blue satin backs!), Al's brown brogues were from Hudson Shoes and the shirts were from the very helpful and patient staff at Hawes & Curtis. Both Al & Trig liked their shirts so much, they bought a few more each for special occasions/fancy work events!

Alex's very dapper cufflinks were given to him on the day by his Mum, and belonged to his Grandfather:

We knew we weren't going to have flowers at our Wedding (lots of reasons, mostly organisational but also to do with costs... we had other things to spend money on!) so buttonholes were always destined to be something interesting. We decided to make lego figurines of all the guys, and let me tell you it took a while! We scoured ebay for the right faces and bodies in individual bits to make up each little lego man and all were related to their personalities or hobbies. My Dad and I glued them all together and stuck pins onto the back so they could just be put straight onto lapels, ebay win! We had:

John: A Tourist with a camera, Dan: A chef with a goatee/beard, Dave W: A DJ with headphones, Trigger: Hulk costume, ginger hair and glasses, Alex: Baseball outfit with a Ninja sword, Mike: A dinosaur costume, Tom: A mountain bike and helmet, Ade: A squash player with raquet and a Mandalorian cape to represent his tattoo, Dave H: A paintball player

As part of our Wedding-Day gift packs that we gave to our Groom/Bridal parties, the guys also had these amazing handmade tweed bow ties from the online store Mrs. Bow Tie, who make a frankly incredible range of bow ties, including cartoon/comic prints and a mystery box which asks you to say a few key words about yourself on purchasing. Alex went for it and put in something along the lines of "I'm a physicist and I like space" and they sent three stunning nebula/galaxy print bow ties (coming to a work-do soon!).

We also got all the guys 'Port & Starboard' socks from the RNLI shop in Whitby. Instead of money or presents - we asked all our guests to donate to The Runswick Bay Rescue Boat and The Staithes & Runswick Lifeboat so we tried to get a few of our wedding things from the RNLI shop too, every little helps!

The 'Other' Shoes

With a reception in a field, my beautiful heels were never going to survive so there had to be an alternative. What else but the iconic shoe we both have lots of pairs of already? Converse. Comfy and stylish. What else could make a pair of converse better? Customisation. Two colours of blue to match the bow and underskirt of my dress, moustache print on the inside and 'Bride' and 'Groom' embroidery on the back tab. Awesome.