East Quay Venue Wedding – Katrina & James

Well, what can I say about this Wedding.  Only that it was one of my absolute favourites from last Summer.
Katrina & James were such a joy – simply wanting to have fun.  As well as being quite keen to have their photos taken too!

Their day looked lovely, with so many personal touches and accessories.  Katrina & her Mum even hand made the wedding dress and veil, which is very impressive!

The wedding cake was one of the nicest I’ve seen (although, most cakes are incredible to be fair) and fitted in with the nautical theme perfectly.  It was such a shame to have to cut.
It really was the most gorgeous Summer’s day,  that ended with the best golden, evening sun.  Too perfect in fact, to be inside and screamed at them to have their first dance out on the beach.
which was incredible.

Here a few words from the happy couple themselves!
⚓️

Who were your main suppliers?

Photography:  Emma Migden Photography
We met Emma at a wedding fair in Canterbury, but at the time we thought we were going to get married in Devon. We had a lovely chat with her and had a look through her beautiful albums, and thought she was absolutely lovely.4 months later, when we decided to get married in Kent instead, I tore the house apart looking for the bag of fliers and business cards we had picked up from that first fair to find Emma’s! We were and still are so gland that we found it!

Cake: Sonja at Whitstable cakes
our cake was the most incredible cake ever!
I love baking so the cake was really important to me. It had to be something that I could never dream to be able to create myself and she definitely delivered. When we eventually brought ourselves to cut it at 11.30pm it was equally delicious as it was beautiful. 

Celebration sounds
Ian is great. Him and Angela came over 8 weeks before the wedding to talk about the plan for the evening and our musical tastes and were both absolutely great. 

Rachel at Crumbs Cakes
For the delicious savoury scone and cream tea (touch of Devon), and brownies and blondies for the cake table. Rachel is very organised and incredibly professional, we would 100% recommend her. 

Charlotte from Lotties Locks
Came to where the bridal party were getting ready to do bride, bridesmaids and mother of the bride hair. She was excellent, and put so much time and attention in to getting it right on the hair trial so that it ran smoothly on the day. 

Jane at Graham Greener
for the bouquets, button holes and venue lighting.

Why did you chose your venue?

We really liked the idea of a beach venue. I come from Devon originally, and after looking in to getting married down there we decided to look a bit closer to our home in Kent. I came across East Quay on an Internet search one evening, and we had visited and booked it within the week. It was the only venue we actually visited in the end!

 What was your wedding theme/style & why?

Why choose one theme when you can have quite a few! There were lots of things that we wanted to incorporate, and I think we managed to quite successfully – without going to over the top in the end. We wanted the wedding to be colourful, so the bridesmaids dresses were teal and the flowers were pink and summery. We also wanted to recognise the beach venue, therefore all of our stationary featured anchors and nautical stripes, and on the day we had a life bouy hanging that we had painted and personalised with our name and wedding date which featured in many of the photos. Both of us have one Scottish parent, so we recognised this by having tartan waistcoats for the men, as we didn’t want to go the whole hog with kilts. 

Did you make anything for the wedding?

From an idea I saw on pinterest, and in keeping with the nautical theme, we up-cycled a life bouy, by painting it in the wedding colours and adding our Name, Date and Place. We had this hanging on the venue, and have some amazing photos of people inside of it. We sent a picture of it to our cake maker, Sonja, who put a miniature version of it on the cake.  I made bunting with our names on to decorate the top table. I also made ribbon bunting by attaching strips of ribbon to washing lines, which were strung along all of the outside areas, and up the stairs inside, which all looked amazing too. We had our own deserts table on the day , and I made cheesecake squares, and apple crumble slice for this. There were also beautiful cupcakes made by my good friend Emma and brownies and bloodies from Crumbs Cakes. 

Did any family or friends make anything or did you borrow anything?

My wedding dress was made by my mum and me (mainly my mum, although I take full credit for the veil). She made her own dress 35 years ago and has made various garments since then. We went to a wedding fair and tried on a few different styles, from there we picked out elements of a variety of dresses that we liked and designed one together. We made a simple mock up of the dress, then choose lace and satin to make the final dress. It was lovely to make the dress together and I’m so glad we did it. Mum put in so much hard work to finish the dress in time, and she did an amazing job. As if that wasn’t enough, she also made her own dress, and the four tartan waistcoats for the groom, best man and groomsmen. 

What were your most memorable highlights?

The weather. 24 hours of weather centred conversation with every family member leading up to the day – will it/wont it rain, and a frantic dash to buy a big white umbrella the day before the wedding. On the day it was beautiful all day and we were so pleased. In such an amazing venue it would have been lovely regardless of the weather but the sun just made all of our guests so relaxed, and the atmosphere was as if we’d taken everyone on holiday. 

At 8pm when it was time for our first dance, we were ready to skip the dance, as we didn’t want to bring all of our guests inside when they were having a lovely time outside. We had our first dance on the beach instead. our DJ Ian moved the speaker outside, and we were the first couple to have our first dance Al Fresco at East Quay!

What was the best part of your day?

All of it! Literally! Sorry that this answer is a bit of a cop out.

Did you have any entertainment?

We had a DJ (Ian from celebration sounds) in the evening, but the day music was just playlists that we had created on spotify. The perfect weather and amazing photo backdrop of the beach was the only entertainment our guests needed. We had plenty of champagne, and oysters, which do provide entertainment in their own right I suppose! 

What was your first dance and why?

Our first dance was Drops of Jupiter by Train – we sung karaoke to this song when we bumped into each other on a night out the day after we first met. 

How would you sum up your day?

Exceeding expectations in everyway!