Background and Supplier Details from the Noel's Christmas Presents Wedding

From my previous post you all know about the wedding I organised for Noel's Christmas Presents on Sky 1. 

Below's post is just to give you a bit more info about the actual wedding and to thank the excellent suppliers who helped me, as well as some pictures!

I was contacted originally in August 2010 asking if I would be interested in organising a wedding for a local couple who had to postpone their own wedding until at least 2012 due to illnesses and after hearing their story there was no way I could not do this.


By the time they had approval for the programme from Sky it was late September, and they wanted the wedding to take place on the 31 October! Hmmmmm.... that was leaving it very late especially for the size of wedding they wanted and the fact they wanted all suppliers to donate their time for free.


My first step was to find a venue that could accommodate the numbers and would be willing to provide all their services at no cost. After numerous telephone conversations the beautiful Dartington Hall confirmed they were interested. They are a stunning venue in Devon with separate rooms available for the ceremony and wedding breakfast, as well as gorgeous grounds ideal for your wedding photographs.



Once the venue was on board it was time to source the other suppliers to give the couple their dream day.

I had to do all of this without actually meeting or speaking to the couple as their entire day was a surprise. They only found out 3 weeks before the date that they were actually going to be getting married - they didnt even know the venue until they arrived there on the day.

As you can imagine planning a brides wedding without speaking to her directly is not the easiest thing but with some help from her mother, and being creative myself, I designed and planned the rest of the day. The only information I was given was that they would like a white and gold theme, and the bride liked lillies and roses. I had to find and chose the stationery, room decorations, flowers, cake, etc.

The wedding took place at 1pm with 85 guests all of whom we had to ferry into the venue by coach as they were also not allowed to know the venue prior to the day.

The cars the bride and groom had dreamt of having for their wedding were a Rolls Royce and a Daimler and funnily enough they had been looking at the two cars I had chosen for them at a wedding fair so they were more than happy when they arrived to pick them up. The cars looked perfect and provided courtesy of JM Wedding Cars.

The cake was a modern style three tiered sponge cake with white icing and decorated with fresh flowers to complement the colour theme, and it was made by The Cornish Cake Box.

I knew the bride liked lillies and roses so I was keen for these to be part of her bouquet. The TV company were insistent on having red in all the flowers to "show" on TV, and to fit in with the Christmas showing of the actual wedding, but I took the decision to go against their wishes as a bride's bouquet is very important and personal to the bride. In the end she had a stunning teardrop bouquet made with ivory lillies and roses.

The flower arch in the Ceremony room and table centres in the Great Hall all had red and white roses. All of the flowers were provided by Philip Taylor Corps Florist who was an absolute star and even after being let down by his helper on the day, managed to get it all done with a smile.

Glyn Archer Wedding Designs were fantastic and after much discussion about which invitations to go with and how we could match them into the theme, managed to get 40 hand crafted invitations ready for the guests over one weekend. Something I am so grateful for.

They also produced the co-ordinating reception stationery including order of the day booklets, individual menus with place names, table name cards and favours.

The finishing touches to the room were provided by The Cover Cupboard. We went for white chair covers with antique gold and champagne gold double sashes tied in a flower effect with runners on the tables, silver candelabras with diamante droplets, crystal tea light holders, mirror plates and table confetti.

All of this finished the Great Hall off superbly and looked absolutely stunning - none of the guests nor the couple were allowed into the room until the wedding breakfast was due to start, and hearing the guests' comments made everything worthwhile.  The photograph below capturing the bride and grooms face as they walked in says it all!

My biggest thank you goes to Palmer Photography who are a husband and wife wedding and event photography team based in London who came down to take the photographs. They took over 8000 stunning pictures of the day and had to put up with a lot of stress from the TV crew and for that I am ever so grateful. 

Other thank you's go to:-

Ian Stuart for the stunning ivory dress that the bride chose following a day trying on numerous dresses at his London store.

Moss Bros and Coast for the groomsmen and bridesmaids outfits

Russell Watson for performing an amazing set for the evening reception leaving the guests, and the couple, totally speechless.

Partytime & Pyro for providing the fireworks to finish off the amazing day.

This experience has allowed me to learn a lot about myself -

Firstly that I must believe in myself more now.

Before I would never have thought it would be possible to have planned a wedding with only the smallest amount of details, in the time frame I was given,  from the bride but I did and in their words "It was their perfect day, we could not have asked for more". To get all the suppliers on board, for nothing to go wrong on the day whilst working with a TV crew was pretty remarkable even if I do say so myself.

Secondly, that I can be quite forceful (but polite of course) when I have to - not letting the red flowers go in the bouquet and constantly having to remind the TV people that it was someone's wedding rather than a TV show made me have to do this a number of times.

Thirdly, there are the most amazing suppliers out there who were very generous in giving their time and supplies for free. I know everyone, especially myself, is very grateful for all your help.

Finally, not to ever do anything like that again!! 

On a serious note, I probably would but with much stricter working arrangements between myself and the TV company. A wedding can be stressful enough, let alone one which the bride and groom, nor guests, know anything about and with numerous camera's/crew rushing around filming or instructing guests where they can/can't go!

All in all it has been an excellent learning experience and my main priority was to give the couple their dream wedding which I did so I could not be happier with the results.

Thank you for taking the time to read,

Claire x