Brides name: Emma Stratford Groom’s name: Daniel Gant Home town: Cambridge Ceremony venue: South Farm Shingay-cum-Wendy, Cambs Reception venue: South Farm Shingay-cum-Wendy,Cambs Wedding date: 28th December 2011
JUST GOOD
Friends
We first met when we were 17 and became really good friends, but didn’t get together until we were 24 and both realised that there was more between us than just friendship. However, soon after we got together I was due to leave for Thailand to do a bit of travelling. In the end Dan gave up his job and flew out to visit me, he stayed a while and we ended up coming home together! We got engaged on the August bank holiday in 2009, after we had been together for six years. We went for a Sunday morning walk along the river Cam, when suddenly he got down on one knee and proposed to me. I started to cry and didn’t immediately say yes as I was too busy saying “thank you”. I was eight months pregnant at the time so was very surprised and emotional! Dan
later told me that he had been a bit concerned I was going to discover the ring, he had hidden it in his backpack and when we got out of the car to go for the walk, I started to rummage about in it looking for something. Thankfully, I didn’t discover the ring, which was a single solitaire diamond set in a platinum band. Although we both loved the idea of an outdoor summer wedding we decided upon a winter wedding pretty quickly as we both felt that the British summer was far too unpredictable. We didn’t want to spend thousands of pounds planning an outdoor wedding only for it to be grey and miserable. We decided to marry in winter as we could plan to be indoors and cosy regardless of what the weather was doing.
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We both really wanted a log fire and had our hearts set on a barn for the reception. We spent a lot of time looking at venues online, but only visited two. The second venue was South Farm and we just fell in love with the place! We first visited just after the New Year on a very grey day, but the venue was bright and colourful and still had all the Christmas decorations up. When we walked into the barn we just looked at each other and both knew that it was where we wanted to celebrate our marriage. We also loved that there were different rooms which we could use for different parts of the day. As the barn looked so beautiful all decked out we decided on a Christmas wedding, but without a Christmas theme. We chose a date between Christmas and New Year as many people are off work then and without a lot to do! My wedding dress was an Amanda Wyatt, it was the fifth dress I tried on and it just felt right. I haven’t seen a wedding dress that I like as much since, it was beautiful. I had planned to wear it with a fake fur or feather wrap to keep warm, but decided that the dress was too beautiful to be covered so only had a light scarf to put around me for when we were outside. We wanted an informal feel to the day so didn’t hire suits, the men wore their own but with a teal tie to match the bridesmaid dresses. We wanted our friends and family to feel comfortable. I was happy for the bridesmaids to wear their hair and make-up however they wanted, I also took into account their preferences when searching for dresses. In the end they wore teal coloured Coast dresses with a fake fur shrug and a bag instead of flowers. We met wedding photographers, Tom and Lina, at the Red Lion in Histon to discuss our wedding, we liked them straight away and didn’t bother meeting with any other photographers.
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The best man was Dan’s oldest friend, Andrew, and the bridesmaids were my sister, Heidi and Dan’s sister, Deryn. Our little boy Alex (2) was the pageboy, and my friend’s daughters, Anna (4) and Lucy (2), were unofficial flowergirls. We didn’t put any pressure on the children to do anything, I didn’t mind if on the day they didn’t feel like walking down the aisle with me. The night before the wedding I stayed at my sister’s house with her and her boyfriend, just eating pizza and having a glass of wine. I was up at 6am for a morning run in the dark, just to have time to myself before the day started. On the way to the hairdressers I stopped off at the crematorium, where my Mum’s ashes are scattered and practiced my wedding speech! My sister is a hairdresser so her colleague, Sarah, did our hair. It was very relaxed in the salon, we were drinking champagne and eating croissants as our hair was being styled. We then headed to South Farm, where we met the make-up artist Kate, who is also a friend of my sister. It was a really relaxed and fun morning and I didn’t feel nervous at all, just really excited. The ceremony was at 2pm and held in the Old Dairy at the venue. My bridesmaids Heidi and Deryn held the hands of my two year old son Alex; all three followed me down the aisle. I had also asked the daughters of my friend, Katie, if they would like to walk down the aisle as well. Lucy (2) was a bit overwhelmed and started to cry but Anna (4) was not going to let that stop her and was happy to have her moment! My Dad gave me away, and as we started to walk down the aisle I felt very emotional and the tears started. Rather embarrassingly I was sniffing quite a bit during the ceremony and the registrar had to hand me a tissue! I walked down the aisle to Etta James’ ‘At Last’. We kept the ceremony pretty short with just one reading from my Aunty Pam. It all seemed to happen very quickly, but I
in a Cambridge pub and thought that they would be perfect for us. Although it wasn’t cheap to have a live band perform at the reception, it was worth every penny as we had such an amazing party. It was brilliant to have all the people who we care about most with us celebrating, dancing and drinking. Those memories are very precious. As we have a little boy we didn’t travel far for our honeymoon. We had three nights in the Arden Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was very luxurious and a wedding gift from my father in law. Since getting married our little family has grown, with the recent arrival of our daughter Poppy. From the outset we wanted a relaxed wedding which is actually quite hard to achieve. In many ways having it so close to Christmas did add a certain amount of stress to what is already quite a stressful event. Obviously businesses close for Christmas and there is the possibility of bad weather affecting deliveries etc. I tried to avoid putting too much pressure on myself. For example, I didn’t really have any flowers, just a bouquet, button holes and posies for the flower girls, so if there was a problem with the flower delivery it wouldn’t matter too much. Instead we decorated our tables with candles, which was perfect for a winter wedding.
really enjoyed it and I don’t even recall feeling nervous. I was more concerned that my nose might be running as I fought back the tears! The drinks reception was held in the House at South Farm, with warm winter Pimms and Thai canapés. It is such a beautiful room with a log fireplace. The fire was lit and the room felt cosy and Christmassy. Before the rest of our guests joined us, Dan and I spent some time together chatting and having our photos taken. Tom and Lina, the photographers, made us feel very relaxed so we could chat naturally to each other and with them as they took the pictures. I was freezing for the outdoor ones but it was worth it as the pictures are amazing! South Farm has a Thai tuktuk, so we went for a spin in it with our son which was great fun and a great surprise. Our wedding meal was a Thai buffet followed by crème caramel. Neither my Dad nor Dan felt comfortable doing a wedding speech, so breaking with tradition I did a speech. I mainly thanked people, but it was very emotional and I know that it wasn’t just me feeling a bit tearful by the end of it. Thankfully the best man’s speech was absolutely hilarious, certainly the best I have heard, it was genuinely funny and well thought out. Instead of a wedding cake, my friend Emily made cupcakes for us as a wedding gift. She also sculpted figurines in icing of Dan, Alex and I, which must have taken her ages! One of the things that we felt was really important was the music in the evening. We could only afford to have a small wedding with about 50 day guests and another 50 in the evening, so we really wanted the evening to be a party and to be equally as important as the wedding day. We both wanted live music. Dan’s sister, Deryn, saw a local band Charlie and the Funk Factory playing
Recreating
Daniel and Emma’s
W e d d i n g
Lina and Tom at Liquid Photo www.linaandtom.com Flash Kate www.flashkate.com South Farm www.south-farm.co.uk Charlie and the Funk Factory www.charlieandthefunkfactory.co.uk The Bridal Pixie www.thebridalpixie.co.uk Petals and Pearls www.petalsorpearls.co.uk
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