A Summer Wedding for Amy and James
In August, James and Amy tied the knot at the Layer Marney parish church and followed the wedding ceremony with a reception in the Long Gallery at Layer Marney Tower. Here, we take a look back on the build up to their special wedding day and find out about the planning and preparations beforehand. (Karen – Wedding Coordinator)
When did the wedding proposal take place and how did it happen?
James proposed in September 2018. We have always loved going for long walks locally and on this occasion we were walking along the coast at Tollesbury. James had suggested we go out to “practice using our new drone” before our trip to Iceland the next day. He had actually planned to record the whole proposal however I forgot the memory card, so none of it actually recorded! So, although it didn’t go exactly to plan it was very special and we love that it is somewhere we can go back to…and we have done already!
Did you have an ideal wedding venue in mind before you began your search? How did you research your wedding venue?
Despite having been together for over 4 years, we had not discussed weddings at all. We both wanted to wait until it was really happening so that it was all new, and even more special. We actually started researching venues the day after we got engaged, whilst we were in Iceland! As I have worked in the wedding industry previously, I knew of many local venues, but we did not have a certain one that we were set on. We did the classic Google of “wedding venues in Essex” and started from there.
How many venues did you visit and why did you choose Layer Marney Tower?
Layer Marney Tower was the first venue we visited and we absolutely loved it. I think we both knew it was “the one” but made sure we visited a few more just to make sure, so we also viewed several other wedding venues in the area. However, Layer Marney Tower has lots of meaningful ties with us, which sealed the deal. For example, it is equidistant between where we both grew up, I had visited there as a child, my Dad went to school with the owner and the view from the grounds actually looks over the the estuary where James proposed!
We both knew we also wanted a grand building/entrance for our venue and Layer Marney Tower of course ticked that box! From the moment we arrived it did not feel like we were being “sold” a venue, it felt comfortable and homely.
How far in advance did you book your wedding day?
We booked our August 2019 wedding in October 2018, so we had less than a year to plan everything. I loved the planning process though and never found it a chore. We thought the guestlist and seating plan would be the trickiest part but actually it was quite straight forward in the end.
Did you have a wedding theme?
We didn’t have a theme as it isn’t really our thing. We are both fairly traditional so I guess if I had to label our wedding theme it would be traditional/classic British. We are also avid travellers and have visited over 20 countries together, so we did name all of our tables after our favourite countries we have visited.
How did you choose which wedding suppliers you used?
Having worked in the industry and with my cousin being a local wedding photographer, we were at a good starting point. We only actually contacted a couple of different suppliers for each area of the wedding and chose the ones that felt right, and mostly the ones that replied the quickest! A big priority for us was music so we ended up having a harpist, acoustic singer, string quartet and live band throughout the day! Music is very important to us and we certainly made this clear on the day – we had so many comments about how brilliant the musicians were.
