Wedding Photographer Berkshire – Danesfield House

Whoop whoop, this is how I felt about Vicky and Dan’s wedding photography at Danesfield House! Prepare to chuckle at the honesty of how they first met 🙂
Couple: Vicky & Daniel Ashton
Wedding date: 26th June 2015
Ceremony & Reception Venue: Danesfield House, Marlow, Berkshire
How did you meet; what attracted you to one another?
Well we first met when we were about 17/18 in the Walkabout in Reading. Dan had a shaved head and I had braces (attractive) and we had a little snog in the middle of the crowded, sticky dance floor… I can’t remember exactly but I’m pretty sure we didn’t even talk, just kissed and then carried on dancing.
We didn’t properly meet again until a few years later when my best friend started going out with Dan’s best friend. She used to drag me along to watch them play football on a Sunday morning – if I’m honest I only went because the buffet at the pub after was so nice, but we got to know each other and after a lot of prompting from our friends, I finally plucked up the courage to ask him on a date. I’ve always gone for Italian looking men so I was definitely attracted to Dan’s dark hair and olive skin and he always made me laugh!
Dan – She were available…JOKING! Errr…I would say her eyes, her bum and that she was really good fun to be with.
How long after you first got together did you get engaged?
We were together for about 9 years (with a few tiny little breaks in between) before Dan proposed.
Who proposed? How, when, where? Was the timing/date significant in any way? Was it a surprise?
Dan proposed to me. I’d been out all day with some friends having lunch and drinking champagne (pre celebration without even knowing what was coming) and then we met Dan and some other friends at the pub in the evening.
We got home (not too drunk thankfully) and were sat on our Sofa watching a film when Dan asked me if I wanted to open one of my birthday presents (this was Saturday night and my birthday was on the Monday morning). I told him I didn’t because I would have less to open on my birthday, but he was very insistent, so in the end I agreed. He came downstairs with a massive present and when I opened it, it was a big canvass with ‘I love you, will you marry me written on it’!
I think he had originally planned to propose on my birthday; it was his parent’s 40th wedding anniversary the day before and they had asked if he would do it before the party they were having so it could be a joint celebration. He then planned to do it on the Sunday morning and had brought lots of nice food so he could ask over breakfast in bed, but in the end he was too excited to wait and popped the question on the Saturday night!
Although I was hoping he would propose, I wasn’t expecting it that night so it was a lovely surprise and I loved the way he did it.
What attracted you to the venue/s you chose for the day?
I’d been for afternoon tea at Danesfield House a few times, the first time I went there I fell in love with the place. The building itself is beautiful but what really attracted us was the terrace and gardens out the back and the lovely view right out to the Thames – it’s just stunning!
I’d always said it would be my dream wedding location but didn’t really consider it as we assumed it would be out of our price range. We had viewed a venue 5 minutes down the road from Danesfield House and it was only that we were so close that I suggested to Dan that we should pop in and have a look around…..more because Dan had never been there and I wanted to show him how beautiful it is.
I picked up a Wedding Brochure and was pleasantly surprised about the prices….it was probably a bit over our original budget but so worth it! It lived up to all of our expectations and the staff were amazing!
What was your theme / colour scheme
We agreed that we wanted Fuchsia as we both wanted quite a bold colour and a lot of the other decisions on the décor centred around the colour really.
Centre Pieces
Our centrepieces were floating orchids in tall vases with pink wire going through them. I saw them on VFB The Florist stand at a wedding fayre and knew they would be perfect with the colour scheme. This also made the job of picking the florist really easy and she was brilliant! I don’t know much about flowers but Beverly at VFB The Florist was so helpful. All I knew was I wanted some pink roses and the rest was all her suggestion, she did an amazing job of putting all the flowers together and they all looked beautiful.
Cake
The cake was made by Daisy Bo Cake Company. I came across the company as a friend had had a christening cake made by them and it looked amazing so I had a little look through her facebook page and saw a wedding cake that she had made before which I knew would fit right in with our theme – it looked and tasted amazing!
Table Names
One of the things Dan and I love doing together to chill is watch boxsets so we thought it would be a great idea to name our tables after all the boxsets that we’d watched together so we had ten tables of all of our favourite programmes from The OC, Games of Thrones, Downton Abbey to One Tree Hill……not so sure how our Guests on the Walking Dead table felt tho!
Luckily the venue supplied the place names so that was one less thing we had to worry about.
Table Plan
We were dreading putting the table plan together as we wanted everyone to feel completely comfortable with who they were sat with and just have a nice time….in the end it was nowhere near as hard as we thought it would be and we’re very lucky that our friends and family are lovely and so easy to get on with that even people who were sat with people they hadn’t met before seemed to laugh, chat and have fun!
Wedding Favours
Sadly my Dad passed away from cancer three years ago, we wanted to be able to include and remember him as much as possible during the day so the favours were really all about him. For our female guests we gave them all a Swallow Pin Badge from Cancer Research and made a donation on their behalf. When my Dad was alive he loved having a little bet on the horse racing on a Saturday afternoon, so for our male guests we put on a little bet on all the horse races that were taking place on our wedding day at the time we were due to get married. We also had a lovely picture of my Dad and a remembrance candle on our present table – it was so important for us that his presence was felt even though he couldn’t be with us on our special day.
What dress did you wear (who was it by/what was it called); why did you choose that particular style? How did you accessorise it? What was your style of bouquet/flowers used?
I wore a dress by Sincerity (I don’t think it has a specific name). It was a chiffon A-line ivory dress embellished with a Sabrina neckline. I knew I definitely didn’t want a boob tube top wedding dress; I wanted some sort of cover at the top and totally fell in love with this dress as soon as I saw it. I cried when I tried it on as I loved the way it looked and it felt so comfortable too!
I had a lovely side hair band which really complimented the detail in the middle of my dress finished off with a veil. I found my dream dress at Bride to Be in Reading. I’d been to a few different bridal shops and Bride to Be were just amazing, the staff were brilliant and couldn’t do enough for me, and the seamstress there was amazing and tweaked my dress to fit me perfectly.
What outfit did the groom wear? Did he stand out from the rest of the groomsmen?
Dan and the groomsmen all wore navy blue suits with Fuchsia pink ties and pocket squares. Dan wore a waistcoat with his to stand out from the others. I know I’m bias but he looked sooo handsome!
Dan has a thing about his socks matching the colour of his tie so he got all the men in the wedding party bright pink socks to match the ties. It all worked really well as the flashes of pink looked amazing in the pictures.
What did the bridesmaids wear? Colour/style/was it a difficult choice?
The bridesmaids all wore long, pink, one shouldered dresses which I ordered from a website called JJ’s House. It was a bit of a gamble, as once ordered they were non-returnable! Thankfully the gamble paid off as the dresses were great!
It was difficult picking what style of dress to have as all the girls are different shapes and sizes, you can’t help being drawn to a style that you would pick for yourself but I was really happy with the end result as the style suited everyone and all the bridesmaids looked stunning.
How did you entertain your guests?
After the ceremony, during the reception drinks we had a steel band playing. This was something that my mum wanted to do for us after seeing one and loving the music at a party years ago. They were brilliant and kept our guests well and truly entertained and even had them doing limbos!
In the evening we had a DJ who was also great. We’d asked all our guests to give a song with their RSVP’s as we wanted a mixture of songs that would get everyone up dancing and having a good time.
I walked down the aisle to Eva Cassidy’s Songbird and our first dance was Christina Perri’s ‘A Thousand Years’.
How did you both feel on the day?
I was unbelievably nervous and woke up at about 4.30 and felt really ill with nerves for a while. I was getting myself into a right state until I had a word with myself about not ruining the best day of my life by getting so nervous. It wasn’t marrying Dan that was making me nervous, it was the whole walking down the aisle and saying my vows in front of everyone that petrified me.
As the morning went on and all the bridesmaids, hairdresser and makeup artist turned up my nerves really settled and I went from petrified nervous to excited nervous.
By the time it came to walking down the aisle, I couldn’t wait and as soon as I saw Dan all my nerves just disappeared and I was ridiculously happy for the rest of the day!
Dan – I was anxious in the morning as I wanted everything to be perfect and go to plan. I then felt far more at ease once I got to the venue and saw everything looked great and Denise (photographer) took me off to take pictures and was relaxed and good fun.
What parts stood out for you the most?
Actually marrying Dan and saying our vows to each other was very very special! The speeches were all amazing but really the whole day was magical and I enjoyed every second of it!
Dan – Pure cliché but seeing Vicky walk down the aisle…then the speeches and meal. Oh and the picture of Vicky’s three aunties all looking like they’re at a funeral rather than a wedding…lots of tears 🙂
Any funny stories or unusual anecdotes from the day.
I’m ashamed to say that I’m known for never being on time for anything but I think I was pretty much ready when I needed to be on the day only to be told that the registrars were running 15 minutes late……that just backed up my philosophy that it doesn’t pay to be on time 😉
Dan – No, nothing went wrong thankfully so there’s no ‘funny anecdotes’…everyone was perfectly well behaved and the venue and their staff were all amazing. I would expect our guests may well think the steel band and limbo were rather fab and not usual wedding entertainment.
Who/what made your day extra special?
God the list is endless – so many people just went above and beyond to make our day special. My Mum, just for being as brilliant as she always is and putting up with everyone getting ready in her room….it looked like a bomb had hit it afterwards!
Dan’s mum and dad for being so supportive, my sister and the rest of my bridesmaids who were amazing all day, even decorating the bridal suite for us at the end of the night.
My nephews for being the best looking little pageboys ever and being so grown up leading us all down the aisle.
Ben our best man and the ushers for getting Dan there, both our brothers for reading during the ceremony, my uncle Jim for taking on the ‘Father of the Bride’ duties – no one will ever fill my Dad’s shoes but he did a bloody good job for me that day!
All our guests for being there and sharing in our happiness and all of the suppliers we used, from our hairdressers, makeup artist, florist, cake maker, the registrars and the staff at Danesfield were all brilliant. Denise of course was brilliant and really made us feel like we were having our pictures taken by a mate rather than someone we’d only met a few times before.
And last but not least Dan….his speech blew me away and he changed the song for our first dance as a surprise for me to the song he knew I really wanted.
Dan – Well, Vicky of course for organising it, Denise (photographer) for putting us both at ease, Peter and Adam at Danesfield, Jim’s speech, my brothers reading and the weather…doing exactly the opposite of what had been predicted.
Honeymoon!
Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We had a little ‘minimoon’ straight after the wedding and went to Tenerife for a week for complete relaxation which we both really needed after the build up to the wedding – we really chilled out and had a lovely time.
For our official honeymoon, we’re off to Tuscany for 11 days so we’re massively excited about that!
Do it their way – Suppliers
In order for us to acknowledge the people that made your day what it was, please could you list as many of your suppliers below, with contact details:
Venue www.danesfieldhouse.co.uk
Photographer www.denisewinterphotography.co.uk
Bride’s dress & Accessories www.bridetobe.co.uk
Bridesmaids’ dresses www.jjshouse.co.uk
Hair www.facebook.com/jessica.page.1253 www.58barbershop.co.uk
Make-Up www.facebook.com/bellemakeup01
Groom’s suit Next
Wedding cake www.facebook.com/DaisyBoCakeCo?fref=ts
Flowers www.vfbtheflorist.co.uk
Chair Covers and Post Box www.vesuviuschaircoverhire.com
Entertainment Steel Band – www.caribbeansteeldrumbandforparties.com
DJ – Ian – 07760 221236
Wedding photographer in Berkshire, Surrey, Hampshire and London.