A happy first wedding anniversary at Hundred House Hotel, Shropshire

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"As well as being ridiculously talented photographers Phil and Toby are genuinely two of the nicest human beings you could hope to meet and will add to your day."

Today on our blog we want to share Kate and Ollie's wedding day, from exactly a year ago today. It's a special first anniversary blog post!

We met Kate five years ago at an outdoor boot camp fitness class! We bonded over the horrific experience of doing burpees, squats, and press-ups in all weathers. But the great thing about our boot camp group is that it’s very social – we meet up outside the park to undo all our good fitness work by going to the pub!Kate’s got a very similar irreverent outlook on life to our own, and we’ve become firm friends. Kate and Ollie’s wedding day at Hundred House will stay in our memories forever. Obviously it was great to be shooting a wedding with so many of our mutual friends present.

When Phil is editing all the photos from our shoots, I work part-time as a registrar, and because it was friends getting married I applied to have special permission to conduct their ceremony! It meant I could write a special personalised script for the Kate and Ollie. There was lots of laughter, and maybe just a few tears, too. The rest of the day was fun, relaxed, and bathed in sunshine. After dark we took Kate and Ollie outside for some dramatic portrait pictures, before returning to the hall to dance the night away.

“When Ollie and I met it was the usual love story – girl’s car breaks down, girl hires car, girl can’t work out if its good customer service or flirting, girl and boy falls in love.

I had lost fifth gear in my car, and needed to drive to Southampton so thought I’d use the services of a well-known American hire car company. I had a lovely chat with a very handsome man behind the desk, and we worked out we were having similar weekends (both watching T20 cricket…I don’t think I’d ever done that before, or have ever done that since). I returned the car, he dropped me home, and that – I thought sadly – was the end of that. Then followed a ‘just checking if all was well with the customer service?’ email … and there began an almost year long conversation.

Let’s skip the slightly rubbish bits where I asked him out, and he said no, and then I moved away to Bristol. After a year of conversation, the world’s longest pre date warm up ever, we finally went out and I knew I had met the man I wanted to be with. Cheesy but true.”

“The proposal happened when we had gone on a weekend away to Brighton, and had a gorgeous room in the Grand Hotel overlooking the seafront. We had a lovely bottle of champagne, and whilst stood on the balcony Ollie dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him. All very smooth and stylish, no?

What I hadn’t realised was that he had informed the hotel he was planning on asking me, and so every friendly customer service interaction he was terrified someone was about to drop a clanger. He had also put the ring inside his wallet, and popped to the bathroom whilst we queued to check in, giving me the wallet in case I needed it to pay for the room with. Luckily no one blew the surprise, and Ollie managed to depart the bathroom at high speed before I could accidentally discover the ring.

The whole day was so lovely and exciting, I forgot to eat dinner, but didn’t forget to drink champagne, so I started engaged life with a ‘slight headache’, and my lovely breakfast in bed went very much uneaten. Poor Ollie probably wondered if it was too late to change his mind.”

“Let me be the first to say – I am not Bridezilla. I have not always dreamed of my wedding day. I hadn’t picked out my dream dress in my mind. (stick with me, it does get better). I genuinely found the prospect of lots of people turning up to a place to look at me very uncomfortable and high pressured – which is even stranger when you consider that I am a teacher, and that’s basically my life. Five times a day, people turn up to a room to look at me (and maybe learn something too).

But I quite enjoyed buying a few wedding magazines and giving it some initial thought. Wedding plans got put on hold a few months later, as Ollie and I became pregnant with our lovely little boy Freddie. I didn’t fancy being pregnant on my wedding day, and then motherhood hit me hard, so it took us a long time to return to wedding planning. Nearly three years. But we decided to do it, and we decided to move quite quickly, so gave ourselves around 8 months to put everything into place.

We looked round a few venues, looking for something barn like, intimate, rustic, places to stay nearby, within budget, and available in October. Optimistic? We thought we had perhaps been, until we spotted the Hundred House Hotel online, and I knew it would be the one.

We loved it from the first look round, and it was the first place I got excited about and could genuinely imagine us getting married in. See, I told you it did get better!"

Here's a few photos of the celebrations and shenanigans from a years ago.

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Currently planning your wedding at the Hundred House Hotel in Shropshire, or anywhere really, and want fun and relaxed wedding photography? Get in touch!

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CREDITS
Venue: Hundred House Hotel - https://www.hundredhouse.co.uk
Wedding Designer: Stella York - https://www.essensedesigns.com/stella-york/
Dress Store: La Couture Bridal Boutique - https://www.lacouturebridal.co.uk
Suit: Moss Bros - https://www.moss.co.uk
Cake: Cakes by Karen - https://www.cakesbykaren.co.uk
Florist: Beautiful Flowers by KB - https://www.beautifulflowersbykb.co.uk
Hair stylist: The Hive Salon - http://thehivesalon.co.uk
MUA: Zoe Louise Makeup - https://www.facebook.com/zoelouisemakeup/

If you were another of the great suppliers that helped Kate and Ollie have an amazing day, please get in touch, we'd love to credit you. If you'd like to use photos to promote your business and services, it's super important you get in touch with us before using any photos. Have a read go our wedding supplier page.

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