Sweet Like Chocolate

Chocoholics Sarah and Paul incorporated this delicious theme into their big day

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Early days…

It was a case of game, set and match made in heaven for Sarah and Paul who met through mutual friends and started playing badminton together. Love blossomed off the court, the friends became best friends and gradually over a year it turned into love; they have now been together for nearly five years!

The proposal…

Paul initially proposed to Sarah on a beach in New Zealand……unbelievably he was turned down. He tried again a few months later during a holiday to Rome and this time was successful. It was actually in the ruins next to the Coliseum, the couple hope that hasn’t jinxed it! The engagement ring was a platinum ring, with brilliant cut, claw set diamond solitaire.

Hen and stag parties…

The hen party set off across the Channel and headed for Reims in France, for a Champagne Testing weekend, organised through Grape Escapes Tours. Sarah was joined by 14 friends, she remembers; “It was fantastic fun despite my friends making me hand out willy shaped sweets to strangers on the Eurostar!”

Paul had an action packed stag weekend, here he fills us in on what he got up to; “On the Friday we had a day of activities including go-karting and golf. That evening we ventured out for a curry and some drinks and met up with a slightly large crowd (around 12-15). This was followed by an early wake up on the Saturday to go and watch the Hampshire cricket team play at Lords, dressed in full Hawaiian outfits…..they lost and it was cold and wet! On the Sunday we had a cricket match to play……still dressed in our Hawaiian clothes!”

The venues…

St Luke’s Church was the ideal wedding venues because it was very close to Sarah’s parent’s house, Sarah adds; “It is just a beautiful church with a lovely vicar”.

The reception venue was a bit harder search, the couple recall; “We booked appointments to see various venues in the Surrey area, which we found through wedding magazines, the internet and the yellow pages. We fell in love with Cain Manor as it is such a stunning building with beautiful surroundings and it was also close enough to the church to allow us to have a horse and carriage (you have to allow about 10 minutes per mile for a journey in a horse & carriage)” Both venues were booked a year in advance to avoid any disappointment!

The attendants…

Sarah had two bridesmaids to help her on the big day, Emma and Lucy who are both close friends that Sarah ahs know since her school. Sarah’s four year old nice, Isabelle was the perfect little flower girl at the wedding.

Keeping in with Sarah and Paul’s chocolate themed day the bridesmaids wore striking chocolate brown dresses, with silver tiaras. Isabelle wore an ivory headband with little flowers on it & held a small ivory handbag to match her dress

The best man was Paul’s best friend Richard, along with Sarah and Paul’s brothers, Simon, Chris and Garry taking on the role of Ushers on the big day. The groomsmen, including Sarah’s 7 year old nephew Ronnie wore traditional morning suits with black jacket, striped trousers, white shirt and a brown tie to complement the bridesmaids.

The dress…

Choosing the dress is the best bit for most brides and Sarah reveals how she came across her perfect gown; “As I am very pale skinned I choose to wear a champagne colour rather than white. My dress consisted of sweet heart shaped bodice made from silk with lace overlying it with a few crystals to make it sparkle and a floor length A-line style skirt with 2 overlying layers of organza in a champagne colour, it was beautiful”

The bride accessorised her gown with a small diamond and pearls tiara, along with a diamond pendant and earrings set to match. So that her footwear matched the colour of her gown Sarah had her shoes dyed the same colour as the dress! Keeping in with tradition Sarah’s something old, was her necklace, her dress was new, and her tiara borrowed, for something blue, Sarah had a blue ribbon sen into the inside of her bodice.

The decorative touches…

The reception room at Cain Manor is stunning as it is covered with oak wooden beams so several large pedestals of ivory coloured flowers was all that was required. The table centre- pieces featured tall glasses containing ivory lilies and bear grass. Sarah adds “Both of us are chocoholics so we named each table after a type of chocolate and we provided miniatures of those chocolates on the tables. For our favours we had chocolate lollipops with the guest’s names on which also doubled up as place names. For the children we also made them bags containing toys to keep them amused during the speeches.”

The best bits…

So what did the happy couple love most about their big day? Sarah replies: “All of it – it was all amazing and we would not have changed anything!”

Top tips…

It’s always helpful to hear advice from other brides and grooms, here’s a suggestion from Sarah and Paul:

~ “Weddings are very expensive so spend time saving up for it. It takes a lot of time to organise a wedding, so allow yourselves at least a year to do it and ask friends and family to help to reduce costs & your own stress levels!”
~ We bought a second hand Polaroid camera on eBay & placed it next to our guest book, resulting in fantastic photos of all the people at our wedding as well as the comments which are a great memory to look back on.
~ For our thank you cards we uploaded one of the wedding day photos to www.photobox.co.uk which was printed on to cards.
~ We organised our honeymoon through a personal travel advisor that we met at a wedding show – Trisha Holden, from Enchanting Destinations, who we would thoroughly recommend. We gave her a rough idea of what we wanted and she did all the research, came up with various options and recommendations and, she even booked private transport for us to and from the airports. Organising your wedding is stressful enough, so it was great to remove the stress from organising the honeymoon.

The honeymoon…

For there honeymoon Sarah and Paul spent and amazing three weeks in South Africa and Mauritius. Would they recommend it? Here’s what they said: “We would recommend it 100%. Our honeymoon was fantastic! We flew to Cape Town and spent the first 3 nights at the Twelve Apostles Hotel. From There we flew/drove to Richard Branson’s Private Game Reserve, Ulusaba. This was the most incredible experience of the honeymoon. We had 4 amazing nights there, with 2 game drives per day – we managed to see almost everything there was to see. The people there were superb and couldn’t do enough to make our stay memorable. Our guide and tracker were very knowledgeable and made each game drive a thoroughly interesting experience……I hope we manage to go again one day. If that wasn’t enough, our final 11 nights were spent at the Le Touesserok Hotel in Mauritius. All in all, a fantastic 5 star honeymoon experience.”

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