Louise & Adam’s gothic fairytale wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Louise, Intelligence Researcher

Her offbeat partner: Adam, website designer

Date and location of wedding: Highbury Hall, Birmingham, UK — October 24, 2011

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Adam had bought me a birthday card a couple of years prior to the wedding, featuring a gorgeous print of purple and white dragons in flight in the shape of a heart. I loved it so much that it influenced the whole theme of the wedding: on our wedding stationery, Adam’s cufflinks, our guestbook, and the wedding cake. We even managed to find toasting flute glasses of dragons that form a heart when they’re placed next to each other.

Adam and I consider ourselves to be film buffs and we love film quotes. We worked these into our theme with cupcake flags featuring a quote from our favourite films, and tables named after planets from various films and TV programmes! Our stationery font was from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Tell us about the ceremony: I walked down the aisle to the theme from the video game Metal Gear Solid. My brother read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.

My maid of honour played “In Dreams” from The Fellowship of the Ring on a flute for us. It was really emotional.

Our biggest challenge: My biggest challenge through the whole of the wedding planning was finding my dress. I wanted a purple dress but I either couldn’t find the right colour or the right style. I eventually stumbled across an independent dress-maker on the internet. We had a consultation, and I explained how I wanted the dress to look and she scouted for fabric samples. She eventually came across the gorgeous purple taffeta in Belgium! Unfortunately, mine was the last dress she made, since she no longer is in the dress business.

My favorite moment: I loved helping my mum into her wedding coat. She had chosen her velvet dress coat many years before I had even met Adam, so it was a really special moment when she got to wear it.

Adam wrote a letter for me to read the morning of the wedding. It was written on personalised writing paper. It was a very emotional moment for me.

Also, while we were outside having photos taken, my maid of honour was really excited when she spotted a ladybird on my dress. She pointed it out to the photographer as she was sure it was a symbol of good luck!

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? For me, it was worth investing in a good photographer. The day flew by, and it meant so much to have such wonderful photographs to relive the day, and also see moments that we were too busy to notice at the time.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: Newton Photography
• Chair covers and sashes: Melanie Elizabeth Venues
• Flowers: Pink Corsage
• Cakes: Blue Door Bakery
• Stationery: Purple Fairy
• Hair and makeup: Makeup Artist Midlands

Enough talk — show me the wedding inspo!