Real Wedding: Ellie and Michael's Spring Affair

Today we're thrilled to welcome real bride, Eloise, to the blog to tell us all about her spectacular spring wedding.  No matter how many weddings you look at a day (so, a lot!) there are still those occasional gems which make you stop and say 'Aww!'. Enjoy! Tell us about the proposal... I was doing a skydive in aid of Help for Heroes where me and a friend had managed to raise £1,840.  My whole family had come to (as far as I was concerned) watch me jump out of a plane but it turned out my other half, Michael, was waiting for me at the bottom with a beautiful ring J everyone there knew, of course, except me!  We'd been together 7 years so I was beginning to give up hope! What was the first thing you did in the planning process? We started planning straight away and booked several viewings at different venues.  I ordered my dress a month after we got engaged!! I fell in love with it straight away when we went to a Ronald Joyce designer weekend at Serena Bridal (www.serenabridal.co.uk) and I didn't want to wait until nearer the wedding – even after the two year engagement I still loved it!  I also booked our photographer, Ross Holkham (www.rossholkhamphotography.co.uk) before we actually booked a venue as his pictures were just amazing and I didn't want him to get booked up! Why did you choose your venue? Parklands, Quendon Hall ( http://quendonhall.co.uk/) was the first venue we looked at, we absolutely loved it but thought it was best to have a look at some more rather than book the first one we visited!! However, every other venue we went to we compared to Parklands anyway so we eventually decided there was no point looking elsewhere as we had both fallen in love with Parklands!  The grounds were so beautiful and, being animal lovers, having the deer park surrounding the venue sold it for us! Did you have a theme for the day? Spring is my favourite time of year so we wanted a very spring like wedding with tulips and corals/pale yellows and pinks.  We also had butterfly stationery and cake to continue the spring-like theme! How did you spend the morning before the wedding began? Me and my bridal party arrived at Parklands at 9am thinking we'd have so much to do but Suzy, our wedding planner at Parklands, took all the decorating off our hands and did it with the Parklands staff!  She was absolutely amazing and everything looked exactly how I'd imagined it!  However, that left me with nothing to do so, while my bridesmaids were having their hair done, I had an indoor picnic with my little page boy (Tyler, 3) and bridesmaid (Chloe, 8).  It meant I could relax and enjoy the morning! What was your favourite part of the day? I loved every minute of our wedding day but I think my most favourite part was when we read our promises to each other during the ceremony, it was such a lovely moment and yes – we both cried!! Do you have any advice for brides? I'd say give yourself plenty of time to plan everything.  We had two years to plan (and save for!) our wedding and this meant I didn't get even a tiny bit stressed as everything was booked well in advance.  Also, an Excel spreadsheet is a must-have budgeting tool!!