Lucinda and Jay 's Wedding in Lake District , Cumbria

We had Elysia String Quartet play music for our ceremony and reception. As a surprise to our guests we also booked an owl ring bearer. Juno the barn owl flew down to the best men over the heads of our guests and dropped the rings at the end of the aisle! We then had two readings, and further pieces of music played during the signing of the register. We exited the room with the family dog, Sapphi, who had a special lead for the day.

We then had a confetti throw (with confetti made from flower petals collected by Lucinda and friends and family for months leading up to the wedding) and canapés, accompanied by beautiful string music, and photos. Storm Kathleen was blowing 50 mph winds so we had to have a mixture of photos inside and out, depending on what the weather was doing! We ran an Easter Egg hunt around the venue for the children and had a ‘crisp bar’, with lots of packets of crisps laid out in the bar for people to dive into.

We were super pleased with our wedding breakfast set-up. The tables looked beautiful with jars of flowers and tealights, plus mountain themed place names, and Lake District postcards (Jo Witherington design) as table centres. We had Grasmere Gingerbread as favours. Tables also had a starter game ‘who has the groom’ - we made little cards with a tux on and scratch card stickers stuck over the face - our guests had to scratch to see if it was Jay’s face that they revealed and if they did then they won a prize (other cards had famous faces on).

We then tucked into a four course meal, which was absolutely amazing, followed by speeches by Jay and the Best Men. Due to the aforementioned storm, we had a very tight time frame to get down to the lake for photos (which was something we really wanted to achieve as we just love the Langdales backdrop) but Tiree Dawson, our photographer, was phenomenal; she got us down there just in time to capture some absolutely gorgeous sunset photos.

We returned to find our band, The Wolfpack, setting up for our evening entertainment. We chose to choreograph a short routine for our first dance to ‘Everything I Do’ (Bryan Adams) in tribute to one of our favourite guilty pleasure films!! We loved the band’s version of this song and the fact that our guests responded so well, by joining in with dancing and singing along. The rest of the music was just as well received; the band had exactly the upbeat, folksy sound that we wanted with a mix of instruments, including a violin. Everybody had a great time dancing, and we just loved seeing our guests enjoying themselves so much.

It was the wedding we had dreamed of and more; we were blown away by the enthusiasm and love of our guests, the professionalism and kindness of our suppliers, the absolutely flawless running of the day by Caleigh and the Merewood Team. We were delighted to be able to share a special place with so many people (many of whom had never visited the Lakes before and will definitely be going back!)