Today I’m sharing with you the Orangery Rushton Hall Wedding of Natalie & Matt. Their wedding was one of the first to take place at the new multi-million pound addition to the already popular Rushton Hall in Northamptonshire. The Orangery itself is mightily impressive and a far cry from the ‘Pavilion’ (aka Scout Hut) which it has replaced. Tastefully decorated with muted colours and floor to ceiling windows the main space is full of light and a dream for photographers and videographers. We love that natural light! I’m sure this is going to be a very popular wedding venue in the coming years, and one which I hope I’ll be back at photographing.
So, what about Natalie & Matt? Well I’ve known Natalie for a few years through the wonderful world of USB memory sticks. Natalie works at USB2U a company extremely popular with us wedding photographers – in fact every wedding I’ve photographed and delivered images via USB have been on memory sticks from Natalie. And with her seeing work from an unthinkable amount of wedding photographers throughout the UK (and possibly beyond) imagine how flattered and honoured I was when they chose me to photograph their big day.
During the planning stages of the wedding I was very happy to recommend some awesome wedding suppliers who I’ve worked with over the past few years and I was super pleased that pretty much anyone I suggested was involved on the day. Namely, the awesome Craig of Amazingdayz on filming duties, the incredibly talented florist Rebecca of Florae Foray, the super star Make-Up Artist Aimee Garner, and the ultra cool band Mansfield Avenue. And add into the mix Toastmaster Extraordinaire Alan Hodge you’ve really got the dream team! List of suppliers and links at the bottom of this blog.
Ooh, and leading up to their wedding day we arranged to do a pre-wedding shoot in a field of lavender. You can see that shoot here…
In a slight change to how I’ve done blogs in the past Natalie has written a few paragraphs about the big day which you can read through right after a small selection of my favourite images from their wedding day.
From Natalie…
“Our wedding was traditional, luxurious and romantic, and our colour scheme was a blend of dusky lilacs, greys and metallic tones.
Our wedding flowers were supplied by the wonderful Becky of Florae Foray, who helped create the theme and style of the flowers. We wanted elegant, luxurious floral displays with an English country garden feel in keeping with the setting of the Orangery at Rushton Hall, making use of mint/grey foliage with primarily ivory, blush and dusky pinks, with hints of mauve blooms to coordinate with the Bridesmaid dresses.
The whole day was very romantic, my husband made me feel very special and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. The most magical moment for me was listening to my husband’s speech, where he summarized perfectly our relationship and our support system that got us to where we are today.
It was very emotional when I met my Dad in the courtyard of the hotel, ready to go in the car to the church. It was tears all round from then on! Outside of the church, the realisation of what was about to happen hit me. I was overcome with emotion and couldn’t bring myself to walk in in front of all of our family and friends. A very nerve wracking time!
We chose Rushton Hall as it is a beautiful, Grade I Listed Country House hotel less than 30 minutes from our home. It offers over 45 bedrooms, enabling our guests to stay over and not have to travel at the end of the night. They completed their brand new Orangery in the summer of 2017, so we were one of the very first wedding receptions to be held there. This appealed to us as we wanted our day to be unique, and we had been to many weddings in other popular venues across the county.
As I work for a company that specialises in personalisation, I was able to print and engrave a lot of the items we used on the wedding day ourselves. I really loved the window pane table plan as it was so different to any other plans I have seen previously. It was made by my uncle (who specialises in carpentry) and I painted it with white chalk paint and traced the list of names and table numbers. I found ideas for this on Pinterest. My florist dressed this beautifully with a few elegant flower pieces and candles.
My dress had everything I didn’t know I was looking for! I must have tried on over 50 dresses, but I kept coming back to this same one by Justin Alexander bought from Courtyard Bridal Boutique. The taupe underlay really brought out the detailed ivory lace. I also loved the pearl and sequin details which glistened in the light. The fit was also perfect. It was very structured to support me in all the right places (fit and flare design), but it still felt princess-like with a skirt and train.
The bridesmaids’ dresses from Maids to Measure were just sublime. They had a cowl back, showing off my girls’ figures beautifully. They were very well made, comfortable and suited everyone.
Top tips…? I had a monster of a spreadsheet (given to me by one of my bridesmaids, Emma – she is an Events Manager!) to organise the supplier and budget for the full day. Every cost was listed so we knew where we were with it every step of the way. We set up a regular savings account that we put into monthly to avoid getting into debt with any unexpected, last minute costs.
If we were doing it again, I would have perhaps waited a little while longer to order my dress. Whilst I loved it, I ordered it a full 12 months before the big day and I found that I lost quite a bit of weight in the lead up to the wedding, so I might not have chosen exactly the same style if I had tried on dresses a few months later.”
Here’s that supplier love!
Videographer – Amazingdayz
Flowers – Florae Foray
Cake – Joyful Tiers
Dress – Courtyard Bridal Boutique
Groomswear – Moss Bros
Make-up – Aimee Garner MUA
Hair – Stacey Granger Hair
Music/Band – Mansfield Avenue
DJ – DJS Entertainment
Toastmaster – Alan Hodge
If you’re planning your own Orangery Rushton Hall Wedding then get in touch and lets chat about your big day. Would love to hear from you.
