I am more than a little in awe of bride Helen this morning. In fact you'd be hard pushed to find a bride as dedicated as this blonde beauty to her wedding day. I don't think Helen will mind me saying this but her big day was a BIG deal, after all she'd only been planning it for her entire life!

In all seriousness though there are oodles of details for you to pour over this morning, from the chalkboard signs, to the decorated aisle and her ruffled wedding cake even down to her cupcake table plan. I can honestly say that I've never seen an edible table plan before!

Helen's dress is also a stunner with exquisite back detailing and which Helen has accessorised perfectly from her glittering headpiece down to the tips of her heart adorned toes.

We're as proud as punch to have Gavin and Helen's big day on the blog especially because RMW was such a big part of their planning journey. We love that we have and continue to inspire all you gorgeous grooms and beautiful brides out there.

Let's take a look then shall we...

Helen The Bride: RMW was my daily ritual in the lead up to the wedding. I would get home from work and sit down to read the day's blogs (I had withdrawal symptoms at the weddings when there were no new weddings to peruse). Many of my ideas came from browsing through all of the wedding days of the lovely brides on RMW, so I know I have a lot to be thankful to RMW for!

I was trying to think of a phrase to summarise our day and I just couldn't decide on one! I would have to use a variety - "all about the detail" "dream come true" "addicted to pinterest" and probably "stress fest".

In my mind had been working towards being able to be married for a very long time, ever since being a very little girl. For everybody who knows me, even just a little, they would know that I'm quite a fan of the old wedding. I'm sure it didn't take Gavin too long after meeting me to realise this - I don't know whether it was the picture he received of my box of wedding magazines I've hoarded over the years that gave it away, or the picture of me whilst at a wedding photobooth sporting a veil, grin and a thumbs up, or my slight obsession with the wedding category on pinterest (thank goodness that Pinterest introduced secret boards!). Basically this day was a BIG DEAL; a whole life of planning had gone into it!

We got married at the beautiful Mount Stewart, in the Temple of the Winds, a National Trust site that looks out over the water at Strangford Lough (in Northern Ireland). My dad is a Salvation Army Minister and we had chosen for him to marry us. He had done this for my sister, and has just kind of become a family tradition, and enabled us to personalise the ceremony in its entirety. Our guests joined us for dinner at the wonderful Deanes at Queens.

The morning of the wedding was reasonably relaxed. I had my wonderful friend Dyanne of Wedding Hair NI doing our hair, and the beautiful Jenna Somerville doing our makeup. After managing to hide all the mess, I gave my bridesmaids their gift bags which I had personalised and included perfume for the day and a lippy, a little hand crafted 'love' bracelet, along with badges to wear whilst getting ready, and a 'here come the girls' card which I felt summarised my beautiful team bridesmaid well! In what I'll call 'the beautiful room' my something old - my late Granny's handkerchief, new - my lovely dress, borrowed - a beautiful coat which we subsequently forgot, and blue - my fantabulous shoes were all laid out with their rather lovely handmade labels attached.

The under-part of my dress was a really fitted lace number with a sweet heart neckline. This was overlaid with tulle with lace appliqué detail, with one shoulder and button detail down the side. I loved that my dress was almost like having two dresses and it meant for the dancing I was much less inhibited. I wore a beautiful bespoke headpiece made by the very talented Ali Faye with earrings to match.

It turned out earrings were my gift from my hubby to be on the day so I did have a moment on the morning as to which ones I should wear...I did in the end make the right decision and gratefully wore the ones my hubby had so kindly bought me. My Vivienne Westwood shoes were one of my absolutely favourite things and were my something blue. I loved the big red heart, and they made some of the photos peeking out from underneath my dress.

My bridesmaids were stunning in Dessy dresses. I absolutely loved the nude colour with a hint of pink, they just set off the whole classic look of the day. Ali Faye also made beautiful brooches for the front on their dresses; it is unbelievable how such a small thing can completely transform an outfit. We used antique colours with gold, pearls and pinks, and they girls had earrings to match which were simple pink studs.

I had one little flower girl who was super cute in her pink bob and blossom tutu, and who carried a sweet little bouquet of gyp. My super cute page boy Caleb and my cool older nephew Thomas, looked cute and dapper in their ted baker chinos, white shirts and polka dot bow ties which I had bought online from Etsy.

My dashing groom wore a suit from Remus Uomo, which had a slightly different cut and was a lighter blue than his best men (he had 3!) who all wore navy suits also from Remus. They also each had a pocket square to match the bridesmaid's dresses, tying together our colours.

Waiting at the bottom of the hill to drive up to the Temple of the Winds was a nervewracking moment. It was at that moment I realised all the many months/years of planning was all about to come to fruition. We walked down the aisle to 'Marry Me' by Train, and I was just so happy to see Gavin and to be in a room full of all our closest friends and family to witness us becoming man and wife.

We left the service to 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' and loved watching our parents dancing back down the aisle. We gave all our guest handmade confetti bags (sporting a little woo hoo on the front), with handmade coloured rice confetti. Our florist Tim of Floral Earth, had beautifully decorated the temple with two lanterns, swags of flowers with material in the bridesmaids colour and pearls draped around the front seats, rose petals lined the aisle, my favourite 'love' cups filled with flowers stood in the entrance window and it was finished off with a sweet pink gypsophila heart on the window at the front of the temple. The whole place was stunning.

I love flowers and chose lots of pinks, greens and whites to pull together the pastel theme beautifully. We used ranunculus, garden roses, dahlias, phlox and succulents to name just a few. Gypsophila featured quite heavily, I love the simplicity of it and how amazing it looks when used in large volumes. After realising my original ideas for the top table decorations weren't going to be feasible I went with an idea of a backdrop of a mixture of ribbon, lanterns and singularly hung flowers, this turned out to be really beautiful and lit up as the light faded.

After the service, we then trotted off with our bridal party into Belfast city centre and stopped off in the 'Cathedral Quarter' to a little pub 'The Duke of York' which happens to be the place we tried to go to on our first date. The boys had a pint of the good stuff, and we got my favourite pictures of the bridal party on a bench in the little cobbled street, sheltering under the awning from the rain.

When it came to our reception, we made a conscious decision to go for something different, we wanted guaranteed good food. One Sunday we had been heading out for food and had been turned away from Deanes as they had a wedding on, and there was our lightbulb moment. We hired out the restaurant for the day and it was amazing. Deanes at Queens seats 120 guests and has room to dance - perfect all round. On arrival we had a formal drinks reception so as to welcome our guests who were just joining us, along with some relaxed acoustic songs played by Chris Campbell - a guy I accosted one day in a coffee shop to come play at the wedding.

We chose a cupcake table plan which nearly pushed Esther from The Bumblebee Bakery over the edge but it was perfect. Our tables were named after different years throughout our lives and had pictures with myself and Gavin in that respective year: each cupcake stand represented a different year and table, and each guest had their own cupcake with their name on. "Find your cupcake, find your year, seek your table, find it here!" We also had a beautiful two-tier victoria sponge ruffle cake, with glitter heart toppers to cut after dinner.

I changed out of my overlay part of the dress into the much lighter under lace gown for the dancing. I have always wanted a barn dance kind of thing, I just love getting people together and believe me it is incredible fun. We compromised and went for a ceilidh which was so much fun, Haste to the Wedding were brilliant, and I think all the sweaty people were a testament to how much fun people had!

Creativity wise there was a plethora of craftiness - too much to mention. Some of my favourite things were; the wedding party chalkboard - rather than printing out a list of the bridal party we had the board displayed for all to see, the little ceramic scrabble tiles for our wedding favours, and our ingenious invitations. Rather than a paper invite, we sent our guests a DVD invite, which kindly one of our friends, Jason, filmed for us.

I could go on forever about our day, and despite this very long post, I feel like there is so much more detail I could cram in. Getting married was absolutely the best thing ever.

I couldn't have felt more loved that day, and that was the most amazing thing about it all, and you know what, it was amazing to have a very rare opportunity to thank those people for the influence they have had in your life and journey - take and savour it!

Photography by Epic Love Photography
Venue Deanes at Queens, Northern Ireland | Dress Enzoani | Boutique Petticoat Lane Bridal | Shoes Vivienne Westwood | Groom's outfit Remus Uomo | Hair Wedding Hair NI | Make up Jenna Somerville | Entertainment Haste to the Wedding | Florist Floral Earth | Cake The Bumblebee Bakery | Bridesmaid dresses Dessy | Videographer Eyram Seneadza.