Geologically awesome

Introducing Helen and Wes' #hideandseek invite.

When I spoke to Helen and Wes about their wedding stationery it was clear they wanted something different. Something that stood out from the rest, but wasn’t alternative; something that was memorable. What were they after? A geologically themed wedding invite, of course!

When I first met Wes, at a wedding fair in Bristol, and he explained wanting to have rocks on their stationery. I envisaged chunks of rock face: dark grey lumpy blobs on a page, thankfully he was meaning something far more beautiful - emeralds, diamonds, sapphires and amethysts... thank the Lord! - I did a little high five in my head when I realised! But what is behind the idea and why did they actually want it on their wedding invitations? Here’s my interview with Wes where I asked exactly that:

HOW THEY MET

'We first met each other at Upfest along North St. in Bristol back in 2013. I had moved to Bristol in September 2012 as I was offered a job as a Geotechnical Engineer in Bristol and Helen had lived here her whole life. As I didn't know anyone in this new city I signed up to Plenty of Fish online dating in order to meet people. After a handful of less than successful dates I ended up sending a message to Helen in May 2013 and the rest is history. At the time I was living a 5 minute walk from North St. and Helen was volunteering there doing face painting so it was the perfect place to meet.'

WEDDING STYLE

'Our main goal for our wedding was to make sure it was entertaining. Seeing as more than half the guests attending were not from Bristol and likely had to spend quite a bit of money to be there (fuel, accommodation, gifts) we wanted to make sure it was worth their while. One of the ways we did this was to hire 'singing waiters' to perform during the wedding breakfast. That was without a doubt the highlight of the day!'

THE VENUE

'Helen and I have been to quite a few of our friends' weddings and we always found our favourites were ones at manor houses. There were quite a few we looked at and originally we were not even going to bother visiting Tracy Park as on the same day we were visiting another venue. In the end the venue we had our heart set on we were actually quite disappointed with and Tracy Park, which we assumed would have been disappointing, we immediately fell in love with. We also like that it's only a 20 minute drive from us and we were able to visit there as many times as we liked for drinks or Sunday roasts, which is not possible at a lot of venues.'

THE STATIONERY

'As well as our wedding being entertaining we also wanted it to be memorable in a way even from the invites, guests would think "oh, that's new". It's important to note that in 2019 alone Helen and I had 4 weddings (including our own) of which one was 2 weeks before our own and another was 3 weeks after! We wanted to make sure that everyone, including us, was not bored of weddings by the end of the year and apart from diamonds I think it's very rare that people would have a geologically themed wedding invite. Ultimately they got a lot of positive feedback and we hoped this would get people excited for the big day to know that we were going all out with this.'

I also drew Wes and Helen a cartoon style picture of them both outside Tracy Park for their card table

TIPS

I asked Wes and Helen to give me their top tips for other couples who are planning a wedding. Here's what they said:

Guests:

'The most expensive part of the wedding. At most weddings you're looking at £80-£100 per guest. We were given advice from a couple about how to think about guests and it was so good we always make sure to let as many people planning on getting married know about it:

"Think of all the people you have on your guest list. Now if one of those people approached you at your house and asked for £100 would you give it to them? If the answer is no, then they probably shouldn't be at your wedding".

Wedding Stationary:

Use Sally 😃' - Thanks you guys!!