I can quite happily say that country house weddings aren’t for everybody. I’m considered one of those people: a flowery pants English stately home with landscaped gardens just wouldn’t suit me – and it wasn’t for Hannah & Laith either. This gorgeous, music-loving pair selected iconic Manchester venue Band on the Wall for his or her wedding party. The vibe is beyond amazing, the ceremony styled with vibrant sunflowers, and I’ve fallen head over heels for his or her epic modern wedding day! Images are by lovely Priti Shikotra Photography, who’s based in Manchester and gets a wonderful review from the pleased couple!
Wedding photographer’s website
Priti Shikotra https://www.pritishikotraweddings.com
Wedding photographer review
Priti was just sensible! She was organised, reassuring, lovely to speak to, and naturally, the photographs were perfect. Priti met with us just a few months prior on the venue to pick some good picture shots for on the day, which was such a very good idea because we could go straight to every planned shot on the day and get the formal photos out of the way in which nice a quickly! We got a collection of photos just just a few days after the marriage, then the complete lot just just a few weeks later. Truthfully, she was value every (extremely competitively priced) penny!
Your best wedding moment or memory
Oh it’s so hard to choose! I did love walking down the aisle, and meeting Laith on the front. The room looked so beautiful, all our family and friends had dressed so colourfully and looked amazing, the sun was shining and the room was filled with light… it was perfect! I also loved the cake cutting, it was lots of fun, we just laughed rather a lot and made plenty of jokes. I’m also in a community choir called SHE choir, and so they did a surprise performance just before the evening party began!
Tell us anything you probably did in another way – we love hearing about NEW traditions (or none in any respect!)
I suppose we did things barely in another way from the start. For a start, Laith helped me pick my wedding dress and got here with me once I tried it on and picked it up from the eBay seller! We booked venues that weren’t often wedding venues, and we had a Jamaican buffet for our wedding breakfast and patties for the evening food! We had no first dance or videographer, we just weren’t that bothered about those things, and we had the frontman of Dutch Uncles DJ the evening do!
Venue name + review
The ceremony was held on the People’s History Museum and the drinks reception, wedding breakfast and evening reception were held at Band On The Wall, each in centre of Manchester. Each of those venues are Manchester institutions with very unique buildings with plenty of character. All of the staff at each venues went above and beyond, and were instrumental within the day running as easily because it did. My biggest shoutout goes to Laura the Operations Manager at Band on the Wall, she was so helpful, reassuring and really was a delight to work with!
Tell us a bit about your outfits – each of you!
The dress was a beautiful second hand Willowby by Watters white lace dress, bought off E-Bay. It was lovely and figure hugging, showed off my tattoos, and had a tiny train so was practical all evening!
I loved my veil! It was beautiful lace white chapel length with embroidered white dots throughout it – it was so different and felt very ‘me’ and in no way stuffy and traditional. It was hired off By Rotation, and the brand was AM Faulkner Studio in London!
My heels were Irregular Selection (bought second hand off Depop), and I slipped into some white Jordan 1 Mids for the evening. My necklace and earrings were from a beautiful indie jewellery maker called Ray Makes Things.
Laith’s suit was mostly from Moss, with just a few bits from other small suit shops. He decided to go full black-tie, with a STUNNING plum/burgundy velvet blazer, tuxedo shirt and trousers, bow tie, the lot! (Except the cummerbund, I put my foot done on that one haha). We helped one another find and put together what we were wearing, and were each very happy with the outcomes. We enjoy trying out different clothes rather a lot, so this was the fun part for us!
Florist name + review
The bride and bridesmaid bouquets were from the Dried Flower Shop in Bolton. She made me essentially the most beautiful dried sunflower and autumn greens bouquets, they looked and smelled amazing, and better of all, I still have mine! My granny did all of the fresh flowers for the ceremony, she did the flowers for her daughter’s wedding, and now mine, and so they were just perfect. Finally, I did all of the dried flower arrangements on the tables for the marriage breakfast myself! I purchased bunches of autumnal dried flowers from a wholesaler and arranged them into about 24 vases. The toughest part was trawling charity shops and Vinted for months picking up vases – I used to be very picky!
Cake maker name + review
The Teatime Collective. They do the very best vegan cakes – nobody at my wedding could tell the cake was vegan! Catherine is incredible, get your cakes from her whether you’re vegan or not!
Stationery maker’s name + review
My little sister designed our invitations, she was a effective art student on the time, and has just graduated! She is totally trying to pick up more design work – @pinktillypaints on Instagram! All the opposite stationery, table labels and so forth, I made myself from parcel labels, ink and stamps, and a pleasant pen!
Any crafty projects or homemade styling touches?
Probably most of it! Our invitations were designed by my sister as greeting cards, after which I wrote all of them myself, I made all of the table labels myself, and located plenty of pinecones to placed on the tables too! I made dried flower arrangements for the tables, and the seating plan was made up of bookmarks that my sister made and my dad wrote everyone’s names and tables on in his best handwriting!
Wedding readings?
Invitation to Love by Paul Laurence Dunbar, read by my mum
First dance song? Playlist recommendations?
No first dance! But we did have the choir I’m in do a surprise performance as a substitute! They even sang a remodeling of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own which went ‘I’m on the altar, saying my vows, ohhh…’, they’d re-written it specially for me!
Wedding planner name + review
Haha, I’m an event manager by day, and I’ve run a good few weddings in my time, so I planned the entire thing myself! If I were to review me I’d say I did a fairly good job by and enormous but probably might have been a bit less stressy towards the top! It seems it’s quite different on the opposite side, even when you already know how every part works, and I even have a extra sympathy for all of the brides I’ve worked with up to now!
Hair + makeup name + review
Hair and makeup: Jodie A. Smith – @jodiemakeupuk
Jodie was wonderful! She is the loveliest person, and my makeup and her were perfect on the day – I truthfully couldn’t have asked for higher! We also happened to have very similar music tastes and spent half our time sharing recent artists with one another and talking about them. I highly highly recommend her!
