A colourful party wedding in Liverpool with friends, dancing & rain – Beth & Ben
If there’s one thing I have learned during my 7 years as a wedding photographer it’s ALWAYS FOLLOW YOUR HEART!
When your heart is yelling for an elopement on a hillside in Scotland or a vineyard in Italy, do it. Maybe it’s shouting for a festival themed day on a farm. If so, just do it. And when your heart is literally screaming for all of your family & friends to have one huge party all day long, then JUST DO IT.
(If you didn’t picture Shia LeBeouf just then, you’re definitely on the wrong website).colourful party wedding rain
A fun-filled, colourful, rowdy party is EXACTLY what Beth & Ben’s collective heart was yearning for and this is EXACTLY what they got.
(Oh and Jimmy Corkhill from Brookside turns up during groom prep at one point… don’t believe me?? Keep on scrolling!!)
I have so many great memories of Beth & Ben’s wedding. The party literally started in the church with everyone singing along to the recessional song as Beth & Ben danced back up the aisle together. And it did not stop there!
At one point during the wedding breakfast, my second shooter Lauren & I had to run to grab our cameras when all of the guests got up on the chairs to very vigorously dance and sing along to the acoustic band set (that I think was meant to be playing background music as everyone ate). Upon hearing some of their favourite songs being played Beth & Ben’s friends abandoned their food, got up and belted out the numbers, such as “Proud Mary” and “Aint Nobody”. It was absolute mayhem, but good mayhem. (Check out the video below for the before and after.)
BEFORE
AFTER
All this and the mains hadn’t even been served yet – I knew we were in for a raucous evening!
To be fair, it wasn’t a surprise to me at how wonderfully crazy Beth & Ben’s wedding was – I had already shot 2 or 3 of their friend’s weddings prior to their own big day, so I was fully aware of the scale of enthusiasm this friend group had for celebrating life and all that goes with it. There really is nothing like being amongst that much positivity and love.
I am due to shoot another of their friend’s weddings next year (Linzi & Anthony) and I can’t wait to see them all completely lose their shit again to Chaka Khan!
Now, enough babbling from me, here are Beth & Ben in their own words…colourful party wedding rain
OUR WEDDING SOUNDTRACK
Click on the image to listen to Beth & Ben’s wedding soundtrack while you enjoy the rest of their blog post.
We chose “All You Need Is Love” by The Beatles because this was the song Ben proposed to me with. He did this in Glastonbury with an amazing brass band! We got sooooo many gifts with ‘all you need is love’ on them and it was on our drink coasters at OH ME OH MY. It was also the first song our brass band played when they came down the stairs during the evening DJ set.
We also chose “Here Comes The Sun” by The Beatles because we played this song as we walked out of the church. It was particularly poignant because we had had 3 months of beautiful weather and then it decided to rain the day before and the morning of the wedding. But when we walked out of the church the sun came out so we believe this song brought it out for us.
And the list wouldn’t be complete without “Finally” by Cece Penniston because this was the song we played when we walked into the reception with a confetti canon. It’s a Liverpool club classic and it puts everyone in a great mood. We love this song and the lyrics were important to us on our special day.
OUR FAVOURITE PARTS OF THE DAY
Every part of the day was amazing! From start to finish, the whole day was so fun. We loved the church as it was full to the brim with all our wonderful family and friends, but the reception was exceptional! One part we really remember was the starters had just arrived and we noticed that lots of seats were empty around us because all of our family and friends were up dancing to the live singer (see video below).
We were just so happy that people were enjoying the day as much as we were and we made sure we joined in the dancing.colourful party wedding rain
WEDDING PLANNING AND ADVICE
Beth says “The planning part went quite well and luckily there weren’t any major disasters, but because I’m quite a laid back person when it comes to organising things, my friends would constantly have to remind me to sort table plans or to begin looking for wedding dresses!”
“We did a lot of things ourselves such as table plans, place settings, candles, menus, invitations etc. We did this mainly to keep the cost down so we could have more guests at the wedding but I enjoyed the process. If you are going to DIY a lot by yourself, make sure you do it with plenty of time to spare. The day before our own wedding should have been a relaxing one but it was really hectic as Ben was drawing images of places in Liverpool for our table names, then I had to go to my mum’s house to print and sort all the table plans out. This was much trickier than expected! What we thought would be a one hour job ended up taking six hours and we didn’t make it to our hotel until 7pm!
TOP TIP
Plan your DIY wisely and allow MORE time than necessary for each job!
WHY WE CHOSE AMY
Beth says “Before I was even engaged, I knew I wanted Amy (yes I looked before I was engaged!). I’d followed her work for a while and I was always really excited to see her at the wedding events and see the images in her photo albums. I loved the natural images she took of the bride and groom and all the images looked so beautiful.”
“Amy was great on our wedding day! We had a really big wedding party and she did fantastically trying to organise our family shots. I loved so many images from the day as they were all so natural. She also found some quirky places in Liverpool to take pictures of us together. It rained a little as we were taking some of our pictures but Amy made this work and used it to her advantage.”
OUR FAVOURITE PHOTO
We couldn’t pick just one as there are so many! We love the images of us getting ready in the morning, and the ones of us dancing down the aisle after we were married, our portraits on the streets of Liverpool with our brolly up, arriving at the reception with all the confetti… The list is endless! colourful party wedding rain
AND FINALLY…
Beth says “I always said from the beginning that my aim was to have more people than things at our wedding. Many of our guests said the atmosphere at our wedding was electric and so fun from start to finish and this genuinely was because we invited everybody we could.
I know everybody’s idea of a wedding is different but I would always say try and do as much as you can yourself to ensure you have a great guest list!
ALL THE AMAZING SUPPLIERS
Venue: OH ME OH MY
Second shooter: Lauren Elliott Photography
Dress: Grace Loves Lace
Shoes: Dune
Groom’s suit: Hugo Boss
Bridesmaids dresses: Lulus
Groomsmens suits: Next
Cake: Cakes by Andrew
Makeup: Jessica Grant Makeup
Hair: Hair by Jessica
Table place names: drawn by groom
Band: New Power Soul Club
DJ: Shit Indie Disco
Band: New Power Soul Club
Oh no, it looks like you’ve come to the end!!
Well don’t end your blog journey here – make sure you head over to one of my other blog posts to read more advice and see more images from my other gorgeous couples weddings by clicking on one of the images below.
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