Holly and Dan planned their idyllic North Yorkshire countryside W-day all the way from Barcelona where they were living at the time. Obviously quite a challenge, especially when your wedding party are hundreds of miles away.

However, this didn’t mean that Holly due to time and location constraints doesn’t end up finding the most perfect Vera Wang gown….sometimes these things are just meant to be.

Our colour scheme was always going to be grey – it’s Dan’s favourite colour! But, he did agree that we needed something to brighten it up and so I drew up a shortlist and he went for yellow – it seemed a bit brave but we both loved the summery combo!

I was quite nervous about walking down the aisle (despite our tiny church and having my Dad to hold onto!) but once I saw Dan, I completely forgot about making sure that I didn’t fall over and just couldn’t think about anything apart from how happy and lucky I was that I was about to become his wife!

My dress was ‘Dinah’ by Vera Wang, purchased from Farah Novias in Barcelona. My Mum came out to Barcelona and we had a fabulous day trying on beautiful dresses but nothing jumped out as ‘the one’ and the stores put a bit of pressure on about timings, which wasn’t very comforting.

I was then recommended Farah Novias by a colleague at work and squeezed in an appointment during my lunch break on my Mum’s last day in Barcelona – I’m so glad we did! The ladies there are absolutely lovely and offer great advice. After trying a few different dresses they got a feel for what I was looking for and then brought out ‘my’ dress and I instantly felt excited just seeing it in the bag. When I put it on my Mum and I just looked at each other and said ‘yes’ simultaneously – with a few tears.

My two older bridesmaids (my best friend Elle, and my sister-in-law Mel) wore grey chiffon dresses. Mel was over 6 months pregnant at the wedding and these dresses work perfectly with or without a bump – both the girls looked absolutely stunning in them.

I really wanted to have a lot of flowers for décor – I love them! That said I’m no expert on types of flowers, I just wanted them to look beautifully bright, rustic, hand picked and incorporate our colour theme.

For the table centrepieces, we had a mixture of tall glass vases filled with big displays, and flower rings surrounding hurricane vases filled with candles. We also dotted small tea light holders of flowers and candles everywhere. We sourced all the glassware from Ikea and the next day we gave these to people who had helped us as a momento of the day – it’s really nice to now see them as part of their home when we visit!

Some of my favourite memories of our day are of Dan & I having our portrait shots done, as it was an opportunity for us to have a bit of time just the two of us and revel in the magic of the day. We had two short portrait sessions instead of one, and this was great as it meant that the Photographers captured two completely different times of the day, and that we weren’t away from the celebrations doing photos for too long at one time. We absolutely love our photos, so much so that choosing the shortlist for the album was an absolute mission but we received it just before Christmas and its amazing!!

Our wedding was more than we could have ever hoped for, and ultimately it was because we were surrounded by our wonderful family and friends, celebrating the start of the rest of our lives, which in itself is an absolutely magical experience! Living abroad means that we don’t get to see our loved ones nearly as much as we would like, so having them all together to share in our day was just amazing.