2 weeks ago my beautiful wife and I finally said “yes” to each other. It was a beautiful day indeed – many friends and family members shared this wonderful day with us, making this a very memorable day in both our lives. While the weather was said to be “rain and thunderstorms” according to the Met Office, we were lucky that it was only raining lightly, and when the ceremony finished the sun came out for some amazing photo opportunities. The wedding breakfast and speeches followed, and after that – the first dance and the hog roast!
Looking back at it now, there is only one thing I would have liked to have changed: that everything would have happened at a snail’s pace! It felt like the day started, people got ready, guests arrived, the ceremony happened, some photos happened, and then it was midnight!
My wife Vikki and I are very happy for everyone who attended, and I would like to take the opportunity to say my thanks to a number of parties and companies who helped make this day a very special day:
Thank you Chloe, for your help on the venue!
First of all, without a venue there is no wedding. As such, my first thanks has to go to Chloe and all of the staff of Burnham Beeches Hotel for everything! If it wasn’t for Chloe’s massive amounts of help we wouldn’t have been married in this beautiful venue, and if it hadn’t been for the staff on the day before, on the day of and on the day after the wedding it wouldn’t have been such a successful day!
Every staff member we encountered (from reception to bar staff, staff during the meals, cleaners, etc) was extremely friendly, supportive and had this amazing “can-do” attitude that just made things perfect. As we were told from them “Difficult we can do, impossible takes a bit longer” – thank you guys!
Thank you to James for your amazing photos!
James is not only a great friend of mine, but he is also the most talented and gifted photographer I know! Him and his colleague Gurdev managed to take some amazing shots of the day (all photos you can see here on this blog post are from him), thanks for a very unique style of casually walking around, mingling with people and then taking some amazing shots of us, of friends and families.
Throughout the day we felt being taken care of while at the same time not being ushered here or there for photos, we felt very much in control of what we wanted to do, and thanks to both James’ and Gurdev’s casual, friendly – sometimes comical – way of dealing with us and our guests it made everything look and feel even more natural. Thank you both!
A gallery of our wedding photos can be found here on James’s website.
If you would like to get in touch with James or would like to hire him:
James McClean
James McClean’s Facebook page
Thank you Kirsty for the dance lessons!
A wedding is one thing – preparing for your first dance is another. Thankfully, Kirsty managed to make it happen:
Just so you know, I am pretty bad at dancing. I have never ever had one lesson in my life, I understand music and rhythm, but next to the speech the one thing I was really worried about was the first dance. Thankfully, Kirsty has this positive and up-beat attitude to even get the most useless of people in terms of dancing (i.e. me!) to understand the dance and learn even a quickstep within a few hours! Once we picked the music we liked Kirsty went away and choreographed the whole routine, making amends and quick changes when any of us three felt that something wasn’t working or wanted to include something a bit more special. In fact, it took us not long at all to get the dance sorted, and on the night we managed a great performance!
View our full dance on YouTube.
If you would like to get in touch with Kirsty or would like to plan dance lessons with her:
Kirsty’s Facebook page
Kirsty on iMDB
Thank you, Cleo, for the cake!
We had real issues with finding an affordable wedding cake to begin with. We went to a place in Hitchin which was recommended to us, named the Cake Hole. In there the notion we got throughout our conversations was “pay us a deposit, then we will contact you before the wedding about what we could do.” Wedding or not, you don’t do business like that, ever. Not with someone who has worked in sales for a very long time. We were quite disheartened, until we met Cleo.
Cleo was amazingly helpful and friendly, and prices are very reasonable. Starting from our basic requirements, she talked us through all sorts of options, with help from her extensive recipe collection and portfolio, until we had our perfect cake planned out. She really knows her stuff and the word “no” doesn’t seem to be in her vocabulary. The cake was so delicious that every single bit disappeared on the day, and it looked just stunning. She also liaised directly with the hotel and florist regarding delivery and flowers for decoration, which saved us some work.
If you would like to get in touch with Cleo to discuss a wedding or birthday cake:
Cleo’s Creative Cakes
Thank you, Suzanne @ Hot Flowers, for some amazing floral arrangements!
Hot Flowers were very friendly to deal with, happy to have as many meetings and emails as needed (although we only needed 2 short meetings and a few emails to get everything sorted out). They were very prompt in replying every time and communications very clear. Flowers were beautiful, smelled lovely, with the exact colours and feel that Vikki wanted, and were very well put together. In fact, a friend of mine showed me the floral arrangement she took home 3 days ago, and they still looked amazing!
Suzanne offers a wide range of arrangements, bouquet and buttonhole/corsage styles, bay trees, and also hire of candles etc if wanted, so we felt we were in really good hands here. There was a slight hiccup over the cost because of misunderstanding about whether we were on a set package or not (and so whether the hotel would contribute towards the flowers) but it was dealt with very professionally.
If you would like to get in touch with Suzanne about flowers or floral arrangements:
Hot Flowers & Art
And finally, thank you, Bridal House, Leeds, for the wedding dress!
Since I was not involved on this one I let Vikki take over:
“The Bridal House Leeds is a lovely independent bridal shop with friendly staff. During the process of finding a dress or the fittings I never felt rushed or pushed into anything, and when I burst into tears on realizing “I’m getting married!” they were on the spot with tissues and water. Brides can take two people with them when trying on dresses or for fittings. My sister got her dress from the same shop two/three years beforehand, and they still recognized her when she came in, and were eager to know how she was getting on. As I had to travel 3+ hours for each fitting, they were very helpful with trying to arrange these for convenient times. Alterations were high quality, and the selection of dresses was quite large, with some unusual styles on offer. They also stock various accessories and shoes, and offer a bridesmaid dress service.”
If you would like to get in touch with the Bridal House:
The Bridal House, Leeds
I think that’s it for now, once again, thank you everyone for your help, work and support for our wedding, it was such an amazing day! 🙂
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A few months ago I gave a talk in London about the use of social media for travel and tourism industries, which I think was very well received (considering I received no complaints but follow-up questions I take that as successful), and one of the key questions that was asked a couple of times was – should brands monitor what is being said about them? Why should they? Is it worth the effort? What do you focus on? How would this be monitored? And more importantly, is there an ROI to be taken from this? So, I thought I’d begin a little set of articles about this.
We have just launched the Show me Wales iPhone / iPad app!
I am very pleased to announce that we have launched the mobile version of the Visit Colchester website yesterday!
Steve Jobs passed away last night. In my mind he was one of the most inspiring, creative and technology-shaping people in this world. Under his reign, Apple became one of the most (if not THE most) influential companies in the world, and he shaped the way we listen to music, the way we interact with mobile devices (from iPod over to iPhone and iPad), and the way we make use of technology in our every day lives.
The app developers Kavcom have finally released the remake of the 1996 classic Z for £2.99 on the iTunes store.
