A Vintage Wedding At Le Petit Chateau – Ruth & Richard

Today on Marry Me Ink I get to share with you Ruth and Richard’s vintage wedding that took place at Le Petit Chateau based in Northumberland from Lee Scullion Photography.

We first met through some friends on a night out but, after some terrible flirting attempts, nothing really happened. We then worked together in a local coffee shop for around 5 years without really noticing how close we were getting. One day things lined up nicely so we decided to drop the friend act and pretty much dove straight into living together! From then on we were inseparable.

We picked a few themes which we felt defined us best as a couple; our love of music (Richard is a drummer and plays a bit of guitar, but we both love going to gigs and festivals), our tattoos, and the 50’s. These themes tied everything together and really helped to make the day personal to us. We really wanted the day to be relaxed, fun and a little bit different. That, ironically, meant meticulously planning every detail from our favourite song lyrics as the table names and the music throughout the day, to the custom plectrums and temporary tattoos that we had as wedding favours. Plus our wedding was at Christmas time and we love Christmas!

We tried to do as much as possible ourselves as we wanted to have the day oozing with our personalities. From the invites and the wedding day website, the table hashtag cards and place names, to the home-made instax/photobooth area. We made our own graphics to match our favourite song lyrics for each table, designed a logo for the website and other printed materials along with some custom plectrums. We even sacrificed one of Richard’s drums to use as a gift card postbox by cutting a hole in the top skin. Pulling together all of the music probably took the most time, though, as we split up each part of the day into Spotify playlists and ordered the songs so the heavier tracks were toward the end of the night. But, even with all of that, the most fun was designing and testing the homemade stick-on tattoos!

I always knew that I wanted a tea length 50’s style dress, although I did try on some longer ones to make sure. I designed my own dress, and it just so happened to show off my tattoos perfectly. I didn’t go out of my way to show off my tattoos, but no part of me ever wanted to cover them up, I love my tattoos! Plus, I couldn’t let Richard be the only one showing off his tattoos on our wedding day!

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A Tattooed Fawn Bridal Shoot

Today on Marry Me Ink I get to share with you a styled bridal shoot from Stella Photography who created ‘Offbeat Stories’ a small group of wedding suppliers based around the Manchester/Cheshire border. Their love of dealing with brides with a strong sense of their own style brought them together for their first photo shoot ‘Spring Fawn’. Their main aim for this shoot was to go with the celebration of Spring and to keep it as quirky as they are as a group.

The idea of using taxidermy, tattoos and vintage furniture came from our collective love of antiquities, skull structures and ink. We used antlers and flora as a theme to build around then we each added our individual contributions of talent and due to some good local knowledge from Bec, half of the Diddibox team we ended up with the perfect, tumble-down cottage in which to stage our painted Fawn bride.

Diddibox Flowers used a mixture of home grown sweet peas, succulents, eucalyptus, phalaenopsis orchids, parrot tulips, David Austin Juliet roses, lissianthus and ivy. Chief at Diddibox, Alison says using seasonal blooms always works better for weddings as flowers are at their natural best. They created a loose, informal, wild look to the designs as if the ingredients had been picked, fresh that morning.

The cakes (because lets not forget cakes, we are talking weddings here and who doesn’t love cake at a wedding?) were made by the lovely Sarah of Pink Cocoa. A ‘semi naked’ layer cake was created using handmade sugar ranunculus, succulents and rice paper feathers and the second cake which was iced and featured an extra deep middle tier was adorned with sugar antlers and moulding, finally being covered with a glass dome, to echo the taxidermy/skulls element of the shoot.

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A Classy Rock And Roll Derby Wedding – Lizzie & Wayne

Lizzie and Wayne got married in Derby’s Breadsall Priory where they had a big rock and roll wedding. They both met at a Zebrahead concert 10 years ago (EPIC), but Wayne didn’t introduce himself to Lizzie until five years later when she was performing burlesque at a charity event with the Nottingham Roller Derby Team. This is also how Lizzie and Wayne chose their wedding photographer Emma of Luna Photography (She’s part of the same roller derby team!). Lizzie wore a gorgeous dress by Justin Alexander and her hair and makeup was done by the amazing duo of Lucille Locks and Ms Moo Make Up to complete her glamorous rock n’ roll look

Wayne first spotted me at a Zebrahead gig in Rock City back in 2007, but he didn’t introduce himself until 5 years later! We officially met in 2012 at a fundraiser for Nottingham roller derby team, the Hellfire Harlots. I’d been invited to perform burlesque at the event and Wayne was down there with his friend Paul, who was a member of men’s roller derby team, the Super Smash Brollers. 

“Dude, you pulled the stripper!” were the words that came out of his friend Paul’s mouth (and would later find their way into his Best Man’s speech!). But funnily enough, Wayne later told me that if he’d seen me perform that night, he would never have been able to speak to me. Wayne had in fact missed both of my performances and the thing that’d compelled him to approach me that night was the gig we were at 5 years earlier; he didn’t want to miss another chance to speak to me! He’s so sweet, and to this day I still have the piece of paper he gave me. 

Wayne sells tools to the automotive industry for a living, so when I started to think of how to present our wedding rings on the big day, it had to be in a toolbox! Wayne’s Nephew Thomas was our ring-bearer, so we had to pick a toolbox that’d be easy for him to carry. Wayne picked this amazing little blue toolbox; the thing was covered in rust and we got it for just over £4.00 from Ebay! I had this idea to have some sentimental words written on it, and after a week or so I’d come up with a sentence I wanted to use. We then sent the toolbox down to Robyn of Miss Atomic pinstriping to be lacquered and decorated. We couldn’t fit the whole sentence on the front of the toolbox, so it continues onto the ring cushion that’s inside. It reads “All the tools we need for happy lives together”. It’s quite symbolic of our hard work, creativity and our love for each other. 

My Dad is an accomplished Graphic Designer, and I knew I needed his help to give the wedding that personalised touch. It was great fun working together on ideas, and seeing them turned into these incredible finished products.  I also enjoyed putting together our centrepieces and our quiz! Each table had a theme that meant something to us as an individual or as a couple. The centrepieces were an object to represent the theme, and a little sign explaining what that theme meant to us. The signs were filled with fun little facts, so I decided to use them as the basis for a quiz! There were 12 questions, one for each table/theme. To answer all 12 questions, guests had to walk around looking at each of the centrepieces and interacting with other guests in the process. Some guests got very competitive!

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The Tattooed Wedding Collective At Scarborough Tattoo Show

So after a month of quiet here at Marry Me Ink (Seriously, it’s been chaotic here), many things have happened including welcoming a rescue Dachshund into our home. Over the second May bank holiday weekend, myself and Legend Bridal took The Tattooed Wedding Collective on tour – this time to the Scarborough Tattoo Show.

We had a wonderful weekend in Scarborough along with Andy of Peacock Obscura Photography and Stuart and Jason of Kokino Hair.

Whilst there at the weekend, Rachel, Sam and Stuart all got tattooed by the beautiful Maddison Magick Tattoo.

Later on on the Saturday night, Maddison tried on one of the new Legend Bridal designs – and boy did she look hot in it!

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