Nataly Jennings: Our Wedding Day

So, we're finally married! Wow!...

So I'm going to take all of you through our wonderful day.

Now for all those who are actually reading, and especially any future brides out there:

Your day will most likely not go exactly as you planned.

But it will still be oh so wonderful.

It goes by quickly, so take it in, and enjoy it and don't stress (!!!) about anything that may have gone wrong.

I'm a bit of a control freak and like to organise everything, and I wish I would've just not stressed about some things and realised it was always in God's hands in the first place.

There are a lot of people to thank, and I wish I could write all of you down, but I will name a few. But overall, to everyone that came: thank you for sharing our day with us, you hold a special place in our hearts.

I will start by thanking my parents, for helping to make our day so special. We love you and you are amazing.

And in case before I start, you're wondering who took our photos, thank you Anthony Gibbes for coming down and being our photographer (@anthonygibbes), and also a special thank you to Jorge, David, Joao, Josh, Joyce, and Mark for helping out with the photos/video etc.

Now, let's move forward and begin with the recounting of the day.

I woke up super early to go and set up in our venue, the Salterns Hotel with my wonderful florist and beautiful bridesmaid Naomi. (You're going to love her flowers oh my word!! Find her here: Naomi Joy Floral Design) We then headed back and I went to the salon to get ready (V Design in Bournemouth).

Isn't this bath robe just amazing? Thanks to David at Dead Colours Designs for it! I feel so blessed throughout our wonderful wedding because of how many people were willing to help us out and shower us with their wonderful talents.

I arrived home and my bridesmaids were getting ready and having their makeup done with Carla - thank you Carla!!

I continued getting ready. Now ladies, especially for the budget bride, I'm just going to let you know now. I had been worried about not finding my dream dress within my budget. I had seen many Berta Bridal and Inbal Dror dresses that I was absolutely head over heels for, but could not afford to pay for the £8k price tag that came along with it. So, I bought my dress from China, which were modelled similar to these dresses. I've got to say, the quality was pretty great, I had my doubts but it turned out amazing; And I got it altered by Sassa Patchwork who did such a wonderful job.

My veil, as you will see in pictures below, was also only £17 from China! Absolutely beautiful and I would not have wanted any other veil.

Here are the links to the places I bought them: Joannesdress.co.uk and the veil: eBay link here

So after we all finished getting ready, we made our way downstairs to the limo that had arrived to pick us up. Jorge had my camera so I totally borrowed it and took pictures of the bridesmaids bouquet and Jorge took some of mine. Isn't Naomi amazing?!

And the button holes!! Oh my word I loved these. Matched so well with our pink, white, and rose gold theme. Thanks Nai!

We headed into the beautiful white limo, that had a wonderful pink bow outside it. Can you tell I like pink? Lol.

I looked over my vows (after having to rewrite them because I forgot the other piece of paper in my bag lol) and I tried to remember. I had some butterflies in this moment!

We waited a little while in the limo to let people arrive - there was a lot of traffic coming down from London unfortunately.

But all was well as my bridesmaids spoke of how they met me - such a special moment to hear what they had to say. So happy to be able to do life with them.

A lovely moment of prayer before the ceremony began.

And so we carried on, and the ceremony began.

My niece was the cutest flower girl!

And Nathan's reaction. Thanks Jill Jennings for getting a snap!

And so we began with Nathan's pastor from Northern Ireland starting off with an introduction - beautiful words from the lovely and hilarious John Scott.

We then entered into a beautiful worship moment with Lari singing Good Good Father - such a beautiful song really capturing how good our Father in heaven is.

My dad began to officiate the ceremony, and we then did our vows. Thanks Gus for translating!!

We exchanged rings and had a lovely prayer spoken over us by my dad and another by Sam Lysak.

And then we were married! Yay!

We walked down the aisle and stopped to say hello to everyone and take a few selfies.

We began to make our way out, but not before taking quick pictures.

And then Nathan whisked me up in his arms and we headed out of the church into our car for the day.

I'm so happy with this dress, the detail on it and the buttons on the back were incredible, I can't believe it was from China!

Anyways, so we made our way in the car down to the beach for a few pictures and then made our way to the Salterns. I will share our couple pictures a little further on :)

We made our way to the hotel, where we gathered for some delicious dinner.

Our colour scheme was pink, white and rose gold, but our theme was actually fairytale Disney. I added subtle hints of it all around - our table plan was a door surrounded with a pink rose garland, and the table names were lands in Disneyworld and Disneyland.

Our centrepieces were Beauty and the Beast themed - also done by Naomi - and looked absolutely incredible.

Now, the dessert was absolutely delicious. It was a passion fruit and raspberry mousse in between a vanilla shortbread stack. It was mouthwatering, refreshing, and with every bite it felt like the passion fruit (my favourite part and my favourite fruit) was just like a cloud pillow dissolving into deliciousness while the shortbread also slowly crumbled with a small bite. Yum!

And so everyone took a break after having their tummies filled, and afterwards we moved onto speeches.

Some lovely speeches from our friends and family, thank you to all who spoke!

After dinner, we all headed down for group photos before the reception kicked in. And we had a lot of fun.

Can't get a serious one from the boys now can ya ;)

I totally love all the fun pictures though, so much better that way!

Lol I absolutely love this one!

And then began the family shots.

And finally before the reception started, we had our beautiful couples photos. I'm so in love with these! The marina at the hotel was the perfect place for pictures it was insane.

And then the party began. Our DJ Jevanni Letford was killing it! Amazing songs and the whole atmosphere was crazy amazing.

Our cards and gifts table was also at the reception, and was Up! themed. I just love that movie! So I made an "Our Adventure Book" so people could sign it as our guestbook, so lovely.

I also did calligraphy for our reception table plan - one of my favourite hobbies! Can't wait to set up an Etsy shop and sell prints!

A big thank you as well to Andres over at The Photobooth Club for bringing down these amazing giant letters that I've been wanting. It really lights the room up and they're mega cute!

And we started dancing the night away.

Lol!

It was the greatest atmosphere and I'm truly grateful for everyone that came and made it such an amazing atmosphere!

We then went onto cut our cake, beautifully baked and designed by our friend Nic at Baked Blessings. I've wanted a half and half cake for such a long time but wasn't sure exactly what I wanted. But then I decided I wanted it to be expressions of us and not just fancy on one side and messy on the other. I decided I wanted it to be pink and gold watercolour for one half, and the other half like a motorbike track. Nathan loves motorbikes, cars, and all that so I thought, what a better way to incorporate it! I surrounded the table with peonies - such beautiful flowers and just the right touch to highlight that wonderful cake.

Nic captured my vision absolutely perfectly, and made it exactly everything I wanted it to be.

And thank you to my mother-in-law, Maree, who is absolutely so creative and made our wedding cake topper. She hand-made everything tailored to what we wanted. She is so wonderfully creative and will hopefully have a website up soon.

And so we cut the cake. But before, I thought I'd surprise Nathan with a surprise Harlem Shake, which a few people were in on, but he was not. Thanks Mark for capturing it on video!