Cycling Themed Wedding Photography | Janelle & Tom

It’s time to catch up 

I’ve been wanting to share this awesome wedding for a while now but have got somewhat behind in blogging! Something I very much intend on catching up with this year. I want to get to a point where I’m sharing the things I’m shooting a little after actually shooting them. This particular wedding was in May 2018 (insert face palm emoji here) I could just skip to my recent work but it seems a shame not to tell the story of some amazingly unique weddings I’ve had the pleasure to be involved with, like this one. 

Ripley Town Hall

Janelle & Tom’s celebrations were held in Ripley Town Hall, (also know as Ripley Star Club)it’s more used a gig venue now but made a great blank canvass for their DIY wedding day celebrations. I asked Janelle some questions so you can hear about them and the wedding in her own words, I’ll hand you over to now! Then you can see my Cycling Themed Wedding Photography below!

An Unmiskable Wedding

We met and school and got together at 16. We have been together (for the most part) ever since. We got engaged on Christmas eve, eve 2016. We wanted to get married somewhere unmistakably ‘Yorkshire’. My Dad had his 50th birthday at Ripley Star Club and he suggested it for the wedding. It was perfect. A blank canvas we could put out own stamp on with a hidden gem at the back – a gorgeous English country garden. The flowers were supplied by Blue Belle Botanical.

Handmade Wedding Dress

My dress was hand made by my sister, Leanne. I can’t think of anything more special than that. I felt amazing in it and it was so comfortable! I wore flats from seiko susso and bee earrings (a nod to our home town of Manchester) by Lisa Angel. Tom’s ‘hipster’ jacket is from ASOS.

Themed Wedding Photography 

I decided on a cycling theme to ensure the wedding was about Tom too (he was pretty hands off about the whole thing!). We made bunting in the colours of the Tour de France jerseys and had a tandem which I thought would be purely decorative (turns out you can cycle in a wedding dress). Our beautiful flowers were provided by Carolyn at Blue Belle Botanical – who just so happened to open her florist in our venue a few months after we booked. How perfect!

Personal Ceremony

I am a huge Friends fan and loved the idea of having a best mate perform the ceremony. We would have been fighting over which side our friend Ashley would be on otherwise. It meant we had the most personal wedding ceremony you could think of, all the way down to the silk stole he wore with our initials embroidered on it. Ashley wrote the whole ceremony himself, with a little help from some friends. We just remember laughing the whole way through at all the stories, year book quotes and memories he’d managed to weave in. There were a few serious moments too including a lovely reading by both our Mums inspired by a Bob Marley song.

Wedding Photography 

I found Mike’s photos on a wedding blog and absolutely loved how they captured special, spontaneous moments. I knew it was fate when I contacted him and realised he lived 5 minutes round the corner from us! As soon as we met Mike he put us immediately at ease and we knew he’d be able to capture our day perfectly (without loads of standing around posing which is so not us) Mike was a brilliant, warm presence on the day but also had the ability to capture really personal moments almost without you realising he was there. We found ourselves saying ‘how did he get that!?’ when looking back through the album. I hoped to have one nice photo of us I could put in a frame but we just have so many beautiful ones to choose from.

The Entertainment

The entertainment was one of the most important parts of the day for me. Whilst we were eating our pizza we had an amazing musician called Seikou Susso who plays African music on the kora and improvises songs about the people around him. He was fantastic and really set the relaxed tone for the day.

I’m a singer myself with a band called The Rumour Mill and we did a special set to kick off the evening celebrations including a guest appearance from my Dad, Roy, on the melodeon.

Our wedding band was the incredible New York Brass Band who I first saw at Matt & Phreds in Manchester. It’s been my dream to book them for years and they did not disappoint on the night. They even let me sing a song with them (fan girl moment achieved!) The dance floor was full the entire night and the photos from this section of the night are eye opening to say the least!

In summary 

I can’t possibly pick a favourite moment. I loved every minute from drinking tea with my maids in the morning to looking at my filthy dress hanging up at the end of the night.

The truth is, I found a lot of the ‘admin’ quite boring! So I tried to make it fun by getting together with friends and family as much as possible to go on shopping trips, make bunting and scroll through Pinterest. It was definitely a team effort. We worked up until the last minute to get everything together but then as soon as I woke up on the morning I just stopped thinking about it and focused on enjoying it. I knew if anything happened (thank goodness it didn’t!) our friends and family would deal with it.