First Wedding Anniversary

Today Paul and I have been married a year! So, I’m going to share with you our own wedding:)

We were married at Colwick Hall Hotel in Nottingham and had our civil ceremony and reception in the Lakeside Pavilion. From the very first time we set eyes on Colwick Hall, we fell in love with it. Every unique room has it’s beautiful traditional or contemporary decor, the bridal suite (Lord Byron suite) is the biggest I have ever seen and there is a really pretty lake to the back of Colwick Hall.

Our wedding photographer was Ken Lam Photography, who did us an amazing job of capturing our wedding at Colwick Hall. Our wedding DVD was shot by the amazing Pete from Engage Cinematic. So here I share with you our wedding day in photos and in film trailer! Hope you enjoy!

Carmen & Paul’s Movie Trailer from Engage Cinematic on Vimeo.

Photography by Ken Lam Photography 

On the morning of our wedding, my bridesmaids all wore a gorgeous Oriental style gown

A Chinese bride is never without her red umbrella or parasol before she is married. I was no different!

 

The moment we became Mr & Mrs!

One stunning room at Colwick Hall is the Grand Ballroom. Another reason why we fell in love with this venue!

With my stunning bridesmaids.

I wore a traditional Chinese wedding Kwa and bridesmaids in their Qipao… including our cute flowergirl!

With our very much loved Chinese Wedding Lion Dancers… with lettuce and Red Envelopes ready!

I chosen a Chinese themed wedding, so our favours were no different!

We had flavoured and coloured, wedding fortune cookies in mini bamboo dim sum steamers. They had a combination of 5 different personlised messages from Paul and I inside.

The Chinese Double Happiness symbol only ever appear during celebratory Chinese events such as weddings. Here they are on our lanterns. The Character is of two Chinese symbols of ’Happiness’ together… looks just like two people standing side by side holding hands!

 

 Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony

 Paying respect to our elders by giving Chinese sweet tea on our knees

Setting the mood for our Wedding Breakfast by Paul Hollis on his saxaphone

Instead of a wedding guest book, we had a hand painted guest message canvas. One year on, we are still able to read our messages everyday!

Paul did his wedding speech in both English and ‘attempted’ Chinese!

 He did me proud and I still get emotional every time I watch it on our wedding DVD

He also did my parents and our family and friends very proud too… getting the biggest cheer on the day!

 Our wedding day brought me every emotion I can think of. Feeling a little over-whelmed when I  began my few words to family and friends who travelled from all over the UK and from as far as 6000 miles away for our wedding.

We had a very pretty crystal tree for our Escort Cards instead of a traditional table plan…

 These chinese wedding parasol shots are some of my favourites of my bridesmaids and I

First Dance – ‘Thank You for Loving Me’ by Jon Bon Jovi

One of the most memorable moments of the day for me

 

A very Happy Anniversary …and the first of many…  to my husband, Paul xxx