Hannah Marie and Matt ~ Maunsel House Blog

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Today we look back at the fantastic Wedding of Hannah-Marie and Matt here at Maunsel House.
We caught up with the happy couple who shared with us their thoughts and feelings of the big day!

Pictures come courtesy of Helen Lisk Photography.

"Matt and I were both at the University of Bristol and we met through the university Pantomime Society. Our characters ended up as a couple at the end of our first show – it was clearly meant to be! We were together for two years, including a year where Matt was studying in the U.S., before Hannah proposed and three years later we married.

The quirky, unique nature of Maunsel House really appealed to us – it seemed just the place to complement our own rather eccentric personalities. We needed hardly any decoration as the house is brimming with fantastic furnishings as it is. Our favourite place was the old pub style bar, full of a selection of disarmed guns – great for photos!

We're both quite theatrical people, so our inspiration was the Italian Commedian dell'Arte (masquerade). From that we chose our colour scheme (gold, black, ivory) and we used our collection of Venetian masks in the décor – along with some silly photo-prop masks for our guests to try on at the wedding breakfast! We kept the Commedia theme in our evening entertainment, which included a selection of old-fashioned tabletop games and a limbo set. Also, as our wedding was in December, we had mince pies and mulled wine as appetisers, crackers on the table, and Christmas carols during the service.

We fell in love with the gorgeous St Michael chapel in the Maunsel grounds and knew straight away we wanted to get married there. The wreaths in the church were actually left over from a wedding two days before – but we liked them so kept them for our wedding too!

Helen Lisk, our photographer, was absolutely fantastic. We and all our guests have been singing her praises. We loved meeting her before the wedding for our Engagement shoot – she is so friendly and helpful and made us feel totally at ease. On the big day, she worked incredibly hard, running around all over the grounds to get the best photos she could and it definitely paid off. We're thrilled to bits with our wedding photos and would highly recommend Helen to anyone!

We didn't use a florist, but instead bought twigs and branches sprayed white/gold to lay on the tables, along with fairy lights, baubles and table confetti. We opted for a Croquembouche supplied by Lick the Spoon – a tower of profiteroles wrapped in caramel – decorated with playing card suits and topped with chocolate roses. We wanted something a bit different and felt the Croquembouche fitted with the alternative, playful feel of our day. As the base, we had a dairy-free ginger and dark chocolate cake for our lactose intolerant guests, or those who didn't like profiteroles. Both cakes were delicious and had everyone going back for more!

The best advice for your wedding day is probably just to remember why you're getting married. When things got very stressful, we seemed to become even stronger as a pair. A lot of people warned us about how difficult it is trying to find compromises and make everyone happy – and they weren't wrong! It's true that a wedding isn't just about the bride and groom (that's what the honeymoon is for) and not everything will be exactly as you hope. It'll probably be little things you weren't necessarily expecting that you enjoy the most – like our impromptu limbo tournament and the best man's 'alternative' speech. But just keep the expectation of saying "I will" at the forefront of your mind and look forward to the days ahead, when you get to introduce yourselves as a married couple.

Something we'd really recommend is setting aside some time for just the two of you on the day. When we got back from the church, we sat in the bar by the fire and had a drink before going in to the reception. It was another of our favourite moments and just gave us a little bit of time to let it sink in that we were married."