Sally & Adam: 'And the bride wore Oxfam'

Sally and Adam Worman

Photos by Louisa Russell

www.louisathruthelens.com

The Proposal

Friday, December 2, 2011

We were on a weekend away to celebrate our anniversary. Adam had set up several surprises (including that we were going to Swanage which shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise as it is our favourite place and we go several times a year). The proposal took place on a bench overlooking the sea (we call it our bench, as we sat and ate our picnic there the first time we went to Swanage together).

Adam asked if I would like my last surprise and I squealed ‘yes please’ because I couldn’t really think what other surprises there could be. Then he got down on one knee.

Obviously I immediately accepted! The (second) best surprise was that my sister, brother-in-law and niece were waiting for us in our favourite cocktail bar. We cracked open the champagne and celebrated together.

The Ceremony

All Saints Church Maidenhead, Saturday, July 14, 2012. It’s where I was christened and also where my parents were married. It is also stunning and Adam loved it as soon as he saw it. We were really welcomed by the community there and have been back several times since.

The ceremony was very traditional and led by Reverend Jeremy Harris. I walked down the aisle to Wagner’s Bridal Chorus and we walked back up as man and wife to Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.

We had readings by Adam’s godfather, by one of my best friends, and my cousin’s two young sons who read the lyrics to You’ve Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story.

The Bride

There is a bit of a story behind my wedding dress. My mum had asked me if I would wear her mum’s wedding dress (which was over 70 years old) and then I would change into a different dress for the evening. But I thought I might as well have a look at wedding dresses ‘just in case’. I knew that I didn’t want anything off the peg and the same as any bride other could be wearing. So the only place I looked was the bridal department of the Oxfam shop in Shirley, Southampton – one of Oxfam’s two biggest bridal departments. The choice was huge and I picked out several dresses to try on. The last one I pulled off the rack, and the first one I tried on, was a very over-the-top

1980s design with puffy sleeves, a choker and it was bright white. It reminded me of Charlene’s dress from Neighbours and I tried it on as a joke. But actually, my mum and

sister both gasped as I stepped out of the changing room. I tried on only one other dress and couldn’t decide between the two – so bought both (they were so cheap that I could really afford to – both were a fraction of the price of a brand new dress).

I took the ‘Charlene’ dress to a fantastic dressmaker – Tina Waller. I was still undecided between the two dresses so asked her advice. She immediately ran off a list of alterations that needed to be made (including cropping the length of the train which was longer than I was tall!). I loved Tina’s confidence and decided to go with it. She turned an oversized and ill-fitting dress from the 1980s into ‘my’ dress. I loved it!

The Groom 

Adam wore grey tails with a grey waistcoat from Moss Bros.

The Bridesmaids

We went with pastels and vintage as the overall theme for the wedding. I had two bridesmaids – my sister Rebecca Reeves and Adam’s sister Cassie Worman.  Because there was no single colour scheme, I decided to go for white bridesmaid dresses. I loved the simplicity of the three of us all in white as we walked down the aisle together. A friend of mine also told me that this was the traditional colour for bridesmaids as they were meant to look like the bride, as they would all walk to church together, and it would trick the devil if he was trying to get to the bride!

Adam had a best man and seven ushers. They all wore their own suits with ties and handkerchiefs in pastel colours (each wore a different pastel colour which Adam matched to their personality and then bought them hipflasks with Mr Green, Mr Blue etc engraved on).

The Flowers

Inspired by a wedding magazine, the bouquets and buttonholes were gypsophila. My friend Helen Green did the flowers for us and they looked beautiful.

The Music

I was very lucky and won the services of a DJ Adam Denton from Silverbird Entertainment at a wedding fair! He was fantastic and really easy to work with. We had a list of songs we wanted included and he managed to find all of them. Our first dance was It’s All About You by McFly – we’re both fans of the band.

The Reception

We had champagne and canapés at All Saints Parish Hall. It was lovely not to have to rush off from the church and our guests appreciated that they only had to pop across the courtyard. We went for sweet canapés of chocolate covered strawberries, melon bouquets and a Ferrero Rocher tree. The Parish Hall reception was overseen by Penny and Poppy events.

The wedding breakfast and evening reception was at the Pavilion Marquee at Windsor Race Course. It was a venue that we both really liked the idea of and the only one we looked at as it ticked all the boxes! The grounds were stunning. The wedding breakfast was sausage and mash or fish and chips.

As the theme was vintage, our table decorations were old cups and saucers, sugar bowls etc. Adam’s mum did a brilliant job of finding them all in charity shops around Maidenhead. We filled them with sugared almonds and flowers, and my Dad and I made some into teacup candles.

Instead of paying out for favours, we donated money to the Thames Valley Adventure Playground. So we invited the ladies on each table to take a vintage teacup and saucer

as a memento, and provided paper bags for them to go home in. I went to a wedding in Canada eight years ago where there was a magician. I have wanted one for my own wedding ever since and we found Daniel Reed through a wedding fair. We’d seen other magicians but Daniel just blew us away. He performed tricks at the top table before moving onto other tables – he ended up having a crowd following him around the room!

The Cake 

By Ann at Cakes Unlimited. We decided to serve the cake as dessert so at the last minute changed the order from a three-tier to four-tier! Ann was fantastic, all I told her was that the colour theme was pastels and that we wanted each tier to be mismatched.

We didn’t see the cake until the actual day but we were so pleased with it. And it tasted delicious.

The Honeymoon

We spent four nights in Las Vegas and nine nights in San Diego. Adam had been to Las Vegas before and I always hoped he would suggest there for a honeymoon – and he did! We stayed at The Luxor hotel which was huge! It was my first time in America so going to Las Vegas first was amazing.

We hired a car and drove the seven hours to San Diego (stopping off at a ‘50s diner in the middle of the Mojave desert).

Originally, we didn’t really have any set ideas about where to go for the second destination. We talked about the things that we wanted, somewhere we could explore on foot, good bars and restaurants, near the sea and not too hot. We plucked San Diego out of the air really and when we both did our separate research, we were quickly convinced that it was the place for us! (And it was. Even after nine days I wasn’t ready to come home!) 

My Tip

Enter as many competitions as you can! I won a DJ plus decorations and flowers for the venue. And I also can’t recommend highly enough just checking out an Oxfam bridal department.