A Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and…Love!

I love being a Wedding Blogger. Love it. You know why? Well, for lots of reasons if I’m honest, but one of the key ones for me is, I get to share in the wonderfulness that is the love between two people and that warm, glowing fuzzy feeling between them that exists immediately after they have got married.  I can’t quite find the right word for it, but anyone who is in love, and who has been married, will know exactly what I mean 🙂

When I first started out writing this blog almost a year ago, I had to go out and find the content to feature.  Now, that content finds me, and these days I receive many wedding submissions from Photographers and Brides all wanting to feature on these pages, that have become a little place in cyberspace that inspires so many.  And this particular submission, the wedding of Billy and Cathy, who tied the knot on 4th September this year, is one of my favourites…

“I married on 4th September to a wonderful man named Billy. Billy and I are both profoundly deaf but have never let that hold us back. We’ve been together for nine years so decided to have a big day celebrating and bringing our family together from all over the country to Sheffield and the Peak District.

Our day was extraordinary and beautiful.  Love My Dress provided me with endless inspiration and encouragement in the months before the wedding. We’d love to be featured…”

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2010, Oliver Collinge

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...


“Billy was born and grew up in Sheffield, my family, although now scattered about the UK, are originally from the Peak District. It was a lovely trip down memory lane for all the family that came to the wedding.

We decided to combine Billy’s childhood city Sheffield with the countryside of the Peak District where my parents grew up. The ceremony was at Sheffield Town Hall and the reception in a yurt in a field by Smallshaw Farm…”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Groomed To Perfection…

“We knew straight off we wanted something with a bit of colour. We found Billy’s suit in Jaeger, the first shop we looked in, on a sale for £250 and then had it altered to fit. It’s a striking blue colour with a very subtle and unusual geometric patten on it. It was real find! I then discovered the Trident Floral Tie in Fuchsia by Ted Baker at John Lewis and we matched this with a pink shirt. It sounded like a loud arrangement! But when he had it on it worked brilliantly.”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge... Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

“Our order of service had a painting on front by me of a vintage wedding bus on the way from the town to country…”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

I so love this shot below – it captures that emotion in a Bride on her wedding day, moments before she talks that walk down the aisle.  Cathy’s gorgeous dress was by Manuel Mota for Pronovias

“When I started dress shopping my only criteria was “definitely not strapless!” as I was worried about lack of support.  I was also determined to find a dress that was forgiving enough so I didn’t need to wear magic knickers! The more dresses I tried on the more I realised bling, lace and embroidery just wasn’t me either and I didn’t like the feel of synthetic fabrics of the more affordable ranges. I basically turned into every bridal shop assistants nightmare as this automatically ruled out 98% of their dresses in stock!

I upped my budget and went to the Pronovias store on New Bond Street with a friend  – and I was persuaded to forget my no strapless rule and try the Onil dress…”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

“The quality of the fabric was stunning, the fit was brilliantly designed to be supportive around my bust and waist and the silk was quite dense, but not heavy. It felt light as feather and the style was so simple but had a cheeky bow at the back. But what took my breath away is that when they put on the train they gave it a big flick and the air caught underneath it like a parachute with a big ‘whoosh’ and then settled beautifully on the floor – it made me giggle with delight and I knew that was it.

On the day the train looked beautiful without us needing to fuss about with it – the quality of the fabric and the cut meant that it glided across the floor and fell naturally. The train being removable was very practical as well for the evening dancing!”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

A Cautionary Tale…

“I had a gold and silver wire leaf design hand made for me. I was inspired by all the jewellery on Love My Dress but couldn’t find quite what I was looking for and had a specific image in my mind. So in the end I commissioned a piece from someone I found online (not through Love My Dress please note!).

The reason why I went for this particular designer was because she had a room in London where I could try things on and many other designers seemed to be online and outside of London – in hindsight, I should have asked around more. The maker let me down badly as she didn’t get it ready by the date we agreed, then sent it by post to the farm three days before the wedding but when it arrived I found it was on a headband. It was a bit of disaster because head bands give me headaches and make my hearing aids whistle!”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

We had an agreement in writing that it would be on a small side comb but she forgot. She was unfortunately quite defensive when I contacted her, obviously immediately more concerned that I may ask her for money back rather than finding  a solution.   She wrote saying she should have charged me 20% more because I only gave her five weeks notice for the order and implying I should be lucky she made it at all. She wanted me to send it back and then she would amend it and post it to arrive at 9.30pm the night before the wedding.

At that point I just knew I had to let it go and not let her get me down and be in control of the situation any more. I locked myself in bathroom and unpicked the damn hairband myself with a pair of tweezers then texted Richard my hairdresser and he reassured me he would make it work and everything would be OK. Thank goodness with a few hair grips and some hairspray it stayed on until late into the night. If any brides would like to create something similar there are lots of designers and makers on Love My Dress that I am sure would do a much better job and be grateful for the custom…”

Readers can look up Love My Dress recommended Bridal Accessories right here…

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Good Old Fashioned Hollywood Glamour…

I just love the look that Cathy went for on her wedding day – the hair, the red lipstick – so Hollywood Glamour!

Richard Harvey and his assistant were fantastic. Richard understood completely what I wanted – I sent him pictures of Veronica Lake and Kate Winslet and he got it spot on. It’s a difficult style to wear as it can drop quickly if you have fine hair like mine, but with Richard’s expertise it still ended up looking great at 3am the next morning! He was really easy to lipread and that was a relief for me.  We used Clinique and also Richard’s own collection of professional makeup.”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

You Were Meant For Me…

“An old university friend of mine and talented singer Omoyele Thomas agreed to create a contemporary version of “You Were Meant for Me” from our favourite film Singin’ in the Rain. Gene Kelly sings it in a scene with Debbie Reynolds. This was translated into sign language beautifully by my other University friend Danny so that everyone whether they were deaf or hearing enjoyed the emotion of the song and lyrics. The lyrics are just perfect for walking up the aisle to.”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Omoyele also performed “When Tomorrow Comes” by the Eurhythmics, an old favourite of mine during the service. Both are not well known songs so it was enjoyable for our guests to listen to them and for Omoyele to learn something new. We did exit to an old favourite though – “It Had to be you!” Billy’s family was singing all the songs from the ceremony in the bus all the way to the farm so we got to listen to them twice!”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge... Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge... Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

“I took a London black cab to the Town Hall and booked two Yorkshire Heritage Buses to take guests to the farm after the ceremony and one our favourite moments was coming out of the Town Hall to see the buses waiting and a crowd of random onlookers with all their saturday shopping getting their camera phones out to take photos of us.  It was such a fun but bizarre moment!”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge... Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

173 Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge... Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

A Yurt Wedding…

“We went camping in Cornwall the year before whilst we were on our way to a friend’s wedding. On the campsite they had small yurts and I fell in love with the cosiness and beauty of the  wood frame design and searched online when we became engaged and found Cheltenham Yurt Hire . Our friend’s wedding was also on a farm and we both enjoyed the relaxed feel of the wedding. We are however very much city slickers coming from London so we decided to have a Town and Country approach combining the best of both worlds.

Mary and Jim the owners of Smallshaw Farm were so relaxed and helpful.When we visited them we liked them immediately and the setting overlooking the moors with a wind-farm behind was stunning. As we’re both deaf, ensuring we could communicate clearly and easily  with our suppliers was very important to us, and probably helped us make decisions about who to go with as people who are good communicators tend to be good at what they do.  Mary and Jim even hand-built an oak bar specially for the Yurt and sorted out all the drinks for us and handled all the suppliers on site. They were so quick to reply to any emails and their beautifully sweet children also helped to chip in pretending to be our guests when we had a ceremony rehearsal in a field at the farm! We are so glad we decided to book the farm and not a hotel. Although it’s much more work to do it this way because you need to hire in all the suppliers but you get a much more personal and bespoke arrangement.”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

“The Yurt at the farm was designed by Cheltenham Yurt Hire and is the only yurt of its kind in the UK as it is a specially elongated design and transparent roof light, and was hand built in May this year.

The Yurt was beautiful in its own right, designed and hand-built by William Templeman of Cheltenham Yurt Hire. He and his partner Suki drove up in an old battered post office van with the yurt folded into a trailer and spent two days constructing it on site. It was fascinating to watch it being put together. The only thing we added was hand-made bunting by my mother Maggie which she created based on the flower scheme Judith at Arena Flowers had designed and of course the incredible flowers themselves.”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge... Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

“Our table plan was a watercolour painting that I painted based on the landscape surrounding the farm. We didn’t worry about having a theme or colour scheme we just went for things we loved and had fun making and creating.  I painted the backdrop to the table plan myself, having done a degree in fine art many years before and we hand wrote all the guests names onto squares of watercolour paper and stuck them on top…”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

No Cake?…

“We got the family to “donate” cheeses from wherever they lived or to bring some back from their summer holidays and then just piled them high on a cheese board – it went down very well with our guests and our family members appreciated being able to contribute something.”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Flowers…

“Billy had two best men, one an old friend and another his cousin William. William made the wedding extraordinary by agreeing to organise all the flowers through his ethical flower business Arena Flowers. He drove them up personally three hours up the M1 to get them there the night before the wedding. 

The flowers at the reception included white, purple and pink-white gladioli; cream, pink and purple stocks; blue agapanthus, liatris, hot pink roses, eucalyptus and hydrangea in beautiful rustic baskets – a complete sensory overload! I’ve worked at Kew Gardens in the past but I had never seen such incredible arrangements before – I had to go away and have a little cry when I saw them for the first time. I’m so proud of William for setting up and building Arena Flowers into what it is. I couldn’t believe how hard Judith had worked and how much care she had taken. I hope she wins awards for her work one day, she truly is very talented and works through the night to make things perfect for her brides.”

I love rosemary as I grow tons of it in my garden and Billy and I use it a lot in cooking, I also know it represents remembrance for family members we had lost. The beautiful scent of the herbs, roses and freesias will stay with me forever…”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

We did a lot of things ourselves which were fun and also got a lot of people to chip in. My mother saved jam jars for months for candle holders on the tables and outside to create a candlelit path.

We made the table numbers by getting a big sheet of watercolour paper splashing it all over with paint and cutting the numbers out before sticking them on the jam jars!

Each place setting had a glass with different origami birds which we hand made – Macaws, Swans, Peakcocks and Hummingbirds – each name label had a description about the bird such as “Beautiful Hummingbird wings beat at 12,000 times a minute. They are said to symbolise joy, and their endurance reminds us we can accomplish what may seem impossible in life.

The origami paper cost ¬£4 off Ebay and we learnt how to make the birds by watching You Tube videos. The Moroccan lanterns were bought in a sale from Matalan. The bunting was made from old curtains and cheap fabric. Altogether I think the decorations in the Yurt all in cost under £50 and looked beautiful. We also hired cheap portable toilets instead of the expensive wedding toilet trailers but decorated them with second hand artificial flower garlands and flashing fairy lights stuck on with tape!

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge... Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

“We spent a week on the farm before the wedding, so were completely switched off from work and relaxed. We used the time to go for walks in the countryside together and made all the order of services by hand sitting at a picnic table in the sunshine with a glass of wine. We practiced our speeches in fields to an audience of bemused cows and invented our first dance routine in the empty yurt two nights before the wedding day. It was a wonderful way to prepare and pro-longed the magical feeling you get from getting married…”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge... Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Light a Lantern of Love…

I love the lanterns that lit up the scene in the evening – “We bought 10 hour tea lights so they lasted all night….”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

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Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Heaven, I’m in Heaven…

“We love the classic film scene when Fred Astaire sings Dancing Cheek to Cheek to Ginger Rogers. We are always playing it on You Tube at home and dancing badly along in the kitchen to cheer us up after a long day at work! Billy created a specially subtitled version for the wedding and then we hired a projector and danced to it whilst it played projected onto the wall of the yurt in the background. Our dancing skills were just as bad as ever though!…”

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Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

“You don’t need to spend a lot of money on decoration and don’t worry about having a strict theme, we just did what we liked even if it didn’t make much sense – from Mongolian yurts, to Fred and Ginger, to moroccan lanterns, to japanese origami,  to traditional english bunting – we just threw it all together and I think we got away with it! I guess it was a bit like a globetrotting James Bond film changing sets and scenery!

We loved every second of our wedding day and were so grateful to the farm owners, florist, photographer and yurt builders for contributing to making our day so special to our family and guests…”

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

Town & Country Yurt Wedding with Sign Language, Origami and...Love!  Wedding Photography by Oliver Collinge...

You see, this is why its so important to get a good Wedding Photographer – these photographs tell such a beautiful story and will be being smiled over and talked about for years and years to come.

These wonderful photographs were taken by Ilkley, Leeds, Harrogate and Yorkshire Wedding Photographer, Oliver Collinge; “Oliver was a recommendation of a photographer that Billy regularly works with when making films. He was fantastic from day one and came out specially to the farm to discuss everything with us. He as a lovely personality and so much enthusiasm for what we wanted – it didn’t feel like just another job to him, he genuinely seemed excited by our wedding and the photos were incredible…”

One last thing, I have a little video treat for you! I’ll let Cathy explain…

“Billy is a film director and a producer for BBC2’s Culture Show and I work as a Producer at the Southbank Centre in London.   Our creative backgrounds means our wedding had quirky and artistic touches. Billy made a made a short film for our guests before the wedding and I thought you might like to see it…”

Thank you so much Cathy for sharing that ‘glow’ with my readers today 🙂

Much love,

Annabel xXx

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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