Real Bride: Roxy

Roxy and Chris had a beautiful, romantic wedding in the UK. Everything about this wedding was simply beautiful. From the bride's amazing illusion neckline gown, the unbelievable cake, to the adorable wedding party. You can really feel the love between this couple.

Your name: Roxy

Groom's name: Chris

Wedding date: July 15, 2017

City, State: Derbyshire, UK

Tell us more about you!

How long have you been together?

We have been together around 8 years now. We met in our local village pub and well, the rest is history!

How did he propose? (Or how did you propose!)

I was a little fed up of waiting for Chris to propose to me so I took it upon myself to ask him, but I didn't do it under normal circumstance......I did it on a leap year and took him on live national TV to do so. The show we went on was a breakfast TV show called 'This Morning' with Holly Willoughby & Phillip Schofield.

I had to lie and get him to the London ITV studios. I was told to say we were going on the show for the chance to win prizes and a holiday when in actual fact the prize would be me!

For the secret proposal we played a round called "Guess The Object." Chris was blindfolded and had to guess the kitchen object put in front of him... little did he know, at this point I got down on one knee....when he took the blindfold off, there I was kneeling in front of him live on the TV--It was probably one of the scariest things I have ever done, but it was definitely worth it just to see his reaction. Can you imagine if he would have said no?!

What was your favorite part of the wedding?

My favorite part of the wedding was seeing Chris standing there at the top of the aisle. I had managed to keep it together up until this point but I was a blubbering mess walking down to him, which in turn set him off. It's such an emotional moment, after all the build up of wedding planning, our time had finally come.

What went wrong with your wedding?

The only thing which didn't go to plan was that the Registra [officiant] was running around 1 hour late. It wasn't a major problem but it did set everything else back an hour. The registra was a real character and he made us laugh so much, as you can see in our photographs.

Did you find any tricks to save you money?

Yes we found lots of ways to save money.

I got my dress from an off the peg bridal shop [outlet store] which saved me around £500 I'd say. Going to an off the peg shop just means you are able to get amazing dresses at affordable prices as they are all on offs.

One of my good friends mentioned to us about having a dummy cake instead of a real edible tired cake as a brilliant way to save money. It saved us around a third of our cake cost. We decided to have a three-tier cake. The bottom tier was real cake and the middle and top tier were iced polystyrene. We then had 2 tray bakes [sheet cakes] hidden that were cut and ready to hand out to all of our guests. This was my favorite way to save money on our wedding and you would never know to look at our cake that the majority of it isn't even edible.

If you could go back and redo it, would you change anything and what?

I know this might sound like a complete clichè, but I wouldn't really change anything about our day at all.

I suppose actually thinking about it, I wish that we would have had someone to video the whole day for us, but we just couldn't afford it unfortunately. We did get a family member to video a few bits but I would have loved to have a little film of our day to watch.

Also I would have liked to have made time stand still so we could have taken more of the day in. It's almost as if you're in your own little bride & groom bubble.

Do you have any advice for new brides?

My advice for new brides would be to sit down with your groom and work out what's important to you both...we wrote down one thing each that we wanted at our wedding and we made sure we had them. Chris wanted a string quartet & I wanted a photo booth- this shows a lot about our personalities I think!

Get a wedding planner and write lists, these will become your best friends in wedding planning.....just make sure you don't lose your lists like I did!

Also when you are wedding dress shopping take people with you whose opinion you trust, but also remember it's your special day and it's your dress. It's very easy to fall out of love with a dress you love because a family member or friend doesn't like it so much.

Oh and one last thing....let friends and family help you. Wedding planning is hard, hard work and if family offer to help, let them, as it can take over your life.

Did you over-plan or under-plan or was it just right?

I think I got the balance just right to begin with as we had 18 months to plan it all, but as the wedding drew closer, I was a little unorganized if I'm honest. I didn't have my makeup & hair trial until 3 weeks before my wedding, even though I had already purchased my veil & hair piece. I had no idea if it was going to suit the hair style I had chosen...luckily it all fit together perfectly!

Did any of your vendors knock your socks off?

To be honest, every single one of the companies we used for our wedding were amazing but we were mega pleased with the string quartet and also with the photo booth. Both were a massive hit with the guests also.

Did any of your vendors disappoint?

No!

What was one (or more!) special element in your wedding that isn’t in most?

The special thing we had was waking down the aisle to a live string quartet. The sound is absolutely amazing. It's no wonder I was trying to hold back tears.

We also had them for our wedding meal and it was a perfect background sound for our guests to eat to!

We also hired [rented] 5 foot LOVE letters which made for lovely photos for us and our guests.

What do you wish you’d spent more on (whether you were able to or not)?

I really wish we would have had a videographer to document our day. It would have been amazing to watch it all back as the day went so fast, it's impossible to take all of it in.

We have our amazing photographs though, so I'm not too sad about it.

Where do you feel like you could have saved money or overspent?

We over spent on the food a little I think, but we do love our food!

We let each guest choose their own starter, main & dessert which was a bit of a nightmare table plan wise but nobody wants to go to a wedding and eat food you dislike.

How many guests did you invite vs how many RSVPed vs how many actually came?

Every single guest, bar two, came to the ceremony & wedding breakfast and I think around 5 of the guests we had invited to the evening reception didn't end up coming, so I think we had an amazing turn out.

Wedding venue: The Derbyshire Hotel

Caterer: The Derbyshire Hotel

Photographer: ACJ Media - Alex Cantrill Jones

DJ/Band: Bliss Wedding DJ

Bridal Salon: House of Oliver Bridal

Bridesmaids Salon: House of Oliver Bridal

Menswear: House of Oliver Bridal

Florist: Tracey Joines

Hair stylist: Solo Hair Design

Makeup Artist: Gabriella Tyler

Cake: Michelle Graham of Cake Sensation

LOVE letter hire: Once Upon a Time Fairy Tale Wedding