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A note from us…

Where to start with Hannah and Adam?! Hannah beamed from ear to ear all day – she looked AMAZING! As cliché as it may sound, their day was filled with so much love and laughter and we feel so honoured to have been a part of it. They were an absolute delight to work with from the very first time we met them and they really do hold such a special place in our hearts.  Thank you to the lovely Anna from Pear & Bear Photography for the beautiful images below and to Hannah and Adam for being an absolute dream…

Why did you choose the Pumping House for your special day?

For our special day, we really wanted a venue which combined an industrial look with the feel of ‘being in the middle of nowhere’. For some time, we had viewed other venues to find they weren’t right for us, and had almost admitted defeat because we seemingly were never going to find something we loved. So, we decided to go back to the drawing board, and booked a viewing for The Pumping House. Perhaps cliche, but as soon as we arrived, we knew it was the venue for us. The stunning exterior was exactly what we had pictured, but the sheer size of the building and surrounding area blew us away. Then, once we walked through the double doors and explored the amazing spaces within, it only further confirmed to us that this was where we would become Mr and Mrs Willert.

The venue offered us the opportunity to customise all aspects of our wedding from start to finish, meaning it truly was right for us. In particular, The Quarters at The Pumping House are absolutely stunning and incredibly spacious and comfortable – this was perfect as we really wanted a venue that could accommodate our bridal preparations.

Every love story is unique – tell us yours?

We are both teachers at the same school. We had been together for 4 years when Adam proposed in early December 2017. In our 4 years prior to engagement, we had been fortunate to have visited 12 countries together. Although we love ‘everyday life’, our mutual passion for travelling and exploring new things in each others company is something we have done from the day we met and continue to do.

The story of our relationship, like all, is not always seamless. About 4 months after we had booked The Pumping House, we received the news that Adam would need to have major spinal surgery due to a severe compression on his spinal cord. This compression caused Adam to begin losing balance and feeling in his legs. So, at the start of the year of our wedding, Adam had major surgery, taking 9 hours which carried the risk of paralysis. Thankfully, Adam responded well with the support of Hannah from his release from hospital, and throughout his recovery and rehabilitation. Going through this chapter in our story put wedding planning and more into perspective for us; and in truth, more ready for married life than anything in the wonderful years we’d spent together prior to becoming Mr and Mrs Willert.

We can’t thank Adam’s parents, our family, friends, Ellie and The Pumping House team enough for their support and understanding.

What was your highlight of the day? 

Following our wedding ceremony as the nerves were gradually dying down and the most indescribable crazy-happy feeling was taking over, we had our first drink and private moment as husband and wife in the Bridal Boutique. Amongst everything that happened on the best day of our lives, we remember and cherish every detail of the 10 minutes we took to be just the two of us in a beautiful space, prior to the remainder of the day with our wonderful family and friends.

What advice would you give to couples planning their special day? 

There is heaps of ‘wedding advice’ out there and it can be overwhelming. For us, taking your time and remembering that the day is about you as a couple and gaining your own perspective from this would be the only advice we would offer. At present, there are many couples who have had to put their wedding plans on hold – be assured that like all good things, it will be worth the wait.

What was on the menu? 

Gail Dandy and her catering team were incredible. We chose to have tapas as our ‘wedding breakfast’ as we’re fans of informal dining and wanted something our guests would remember. To start, we went for a sociable anti-pasti board. This was followed by a range of tapas dishes including gambas pil-pil, patatas bravas and pinchitos. We concluded the meal with a trio of desserts; profiteroles, sorbet and biscotti.

In the evening, we opted for street food crates. Guests enjoyed our customised stonebaked pizzas, along with burgers, wedges and chicken. A member of The Pumping House staff kindly delivered a pizza to our Bridal Suite for us to enjoy.

Our beautiful wedding cake was also served in the evening. Local cake maker Dawn Dunn had created 3 scrumptious tiers; strawberries and champagne, lemon and white chocolate and chocolate orange.

  What was your inspiration for the day? 

The Pumping House is such a beautiful yet diverse venue; we honestly used this as our inspiration. For us, we knew that we wanted a relaxed atmosphere and to make our day as unique and true to us as possible. The Pumping House perfectly complimented our attitude towards how we wanted to feel on our wedding day.

The Dream Team…

Everyone was outstanding and played a huge part in ensuring our day came together as we’d hoped.

Florist – Peonies and Plumes. Danielle was incredible! We arrived to meet her with so many ideas and she was able to create exactly what we described to her. My bridal bouquet was an absolute dream, I wanted it to be big and full, whilst having delicate roses at the same time. We got married under an arch of the most beautiful greenery…Everything else, from the buttonholes to the flower girls embroidery hoop provided the most stunning detail for our big day.

Make-Up – Beauty by LD. Laura is my cousin, and I felt so lucky that she was able to work with me to achieve the look I wanted on my wedding day.

Photography – Pear and Bear. The Pumping House is such a stunning location, the big windows and luscious grounds create the most stunning lighting. Anna captured our day beautifully, we are over the moon with our photographs. The day goes so quickly, but we have images of every detail that we spent so long planning for and putting together.

Ellie and The Pumping House team – we honestly could not have wished for a more professional, friendly and experienced team throughout the preparation for our wedding and on the day itself. Ellie thank you so much for always being able to answer the most obscure of questions, and always being understanding and reassuring.

A note from us…

Sophie and Tom – WHAT A DREAM! The bride looked simply beautiful, the groom arrived on a motorbike, their guest of honour has to be up there with one of our favourite guests to date (Walter the Frenchie!), the venue smelt like a dream (Jo Malone candles on every table!) and all on one of the hottest days of 2019! Thank you to Sophie and Tom for sharing their story and to the ever lovely Henry Lowther for coming through with the coolest images…

Why did you choose the Pumping House for your special day?

After looking at a few venues, we had decided that we loved the more industrial feel (no surprise with Tom being an engineer) so we wanted that for our venue. We also both love the countryside and nature so we wanted to find the perfect mix – I think we had given up until we came across The Pumping House which absolutely ticks both boxes. The Pumping House has an industrial feel but is so stylish at the same time and is one of the most beautiful buildings we’d ever seen in the most beautiful of settings. The team at the Pumping House are so welcoming from the get go and we knew it would be so easy to work with them, which is probably one of the most important things! I remember the first time we visited my Mum and Dad came with us and they were absolutely blown away and just said “this is so you two!” so that was it…there was no other option.  

Every love story is unique – tell us yours?

We met at a Canadian pub in London during the 2014 Winter Olympics. Tom actually loves winter sports, I was just out for my birthday and love a good old fashioned pub! It took a while after that first meeting to actually finally get together, we both blame each other for how long it took (it was definitely Tom though). Not long after, I decided to get a puppy, Walter (who was a part of our day)…nothing like training a puppy to bring us closer together. I taught him the must-dos and Tom taught him how to High Five! Tom eventually moved in with Walter and I in London where we lived for 18 months together. As I mentioned, we both love nature and being from a village in the countryside I was ready to move back home. Tom managed to find a job and uprooted his life for us and we moved back to Derbyshire and into our dream house. After how long it had taken us to actually get together I hadn’t held out much hope for getting engaged anuyime in the near future but on a Saturday afternoon, after being tricked into going for the day with my parents, I came home and Tom proposed to me in our kitchen with a message from Walter and some gin – all my favourite things, so he really does listen sometimes!

What was your highlight of the day? 

Tom: My highlight was the entire day itself! I enjoyed every minute of it, from arriving on the bikes with my best man and brother to seeing Sophie walk down the aisle to celebrating with all of our friends and family in the evening. If you pushed me and I had to pick one specific highlight itself it would be the moments that people didn’t see. The moments when it was just Soph and I and we could take a breath like walking through the woods having our photos done or straight after the ceremony realising that we were husband and wife.

Sophie: For me it was our first dance, we had ‘Love on Top’ by Beyoncé so it wasn’t a conventional first dance song but the moment everyone came to join us on the dance floor was just amazing! Everyone was so happy and just ready to party with us and it really made me feel loved and appreciative to have so many people I love in one room with me. I also loved the morning getting ready with my bridesmaids, it was special and important to share a moment like that with my best friends and my Mum.

What advice would you give to couples planning their special day? 

Our advice is to not worry about the small things, just remember that everyone is there because they love you and want to share your special day with you. If everyone is there for that reason the day will be amazing no matter what! It’s probably easy for us to say as neither of us get too stressed but if you are relaxed you will enjoy the day so much more because you won’t be worrying about every details and you will be able to take everything in! Trust in the wonderful team at The. Pumping House because they really will look after everything!

Also if it is looking like it might be 32 degrees on your wedding day, just invest in some fans in advance!!!

What was on the menu? 

What wasn’t?! We had anti-pasti platter starters which as it was such a hot day was perfect, we then had roast lamb or chicken chasseur finished off with Eton mess or lemon torte. The food was absolutely delicious and the team catered for everyone as we had quite a lot of allergies and food intolerances – everyone thought the food was amazing! My Mum also made a pick & mix table and 110 lemon biscuits with personalised icing – not bad for someone who actually doesn’t bake! In the evening we had a Hog Roast as well as an ice cream bike which was where my Dad could be found hanging out all night! Not to forget the gin bar which was gone in about 30 minutes haha!

  What was your inspiration for the day? 

Our inspiration was really just to keep it relaxed yet emulate the stylish and industrial feel the venue had – we met with the lovely Gemma from Save the Date and we literally nearly hired everything! We found a lot of what we wanted there and then we made some of the other bits ourselves which were all very much in keeping with the venue and our vision: balloons with foliage, copper and wood menu holders and wooden signs with faux foliage.

In terms of colours; as we were getting married in the summer and because of the feel of the building – we mainly went for white and green with hints of blue, grey and copper fittings (lanterns, arches and menu holders).

After we learnt that we could have a Gin Bar at the venue, we thought actually maybe we could incorporate gin into the day somehow so we decided to name our tables after gin bottles (yes we drank a LOT of gin in 2018/19!) Our lovely friend Katy illustrated gin bottles for our table plan, she also had designed our invites so we used the design on a lot of our ‘on the day’ stationery too which made it really personal to us.

We felt scent was such an important part of the day, smell can bring back so many memories so we chose my favourite Jo Malone Candle – Green Tomato Leaf and had these on each table. The fresh scent complimented the aesthetic and to this day people still refer to the candle as ‘our wedding candle’.

The Dream Team…

We had the amazing Henry Lowther as our photographer, just the nicest guy and laughing non-stop all day! We knew as soon as we saw his photos we needed him as our photographer and he truly captured our day even better than we had hoped – Tom wants to hire him to just come everywhere with us now haha!

Henry also helped us find our incredible videographers For All The Days (Jamie and Sarah) again they were jus the best people to work with and captured such a beautiful set of videos for us, they totally work around you and having two people to do it made it so we could capture everything.

My florist was a lovely lady I used to go to school with, Poppy Scout (Hattie). Tom and I are pretty rubbish when it comes to flowers; knowing what they are called, what will be in season etc. so Hattie just took our Pinterest boards and made them a reality. She made me the most amazing floral crown and the boquets and button holes were beautiful. She also did some beautiful foliage for us in the ceremony room on a copper arch as well as in the entrance hall and it really bought our vision to life.

We had the lovely Save the Date who we hired some of our styling accessories from. Gemma was amazing and so accommodating in getting us everything we needed and wanted. We are still swooning over the peacock chairs!

A HUGE part of our day was having our dog, Walter there and we had the awesome Michelle from Hurley’s Wedding Day Dogs to look after him. Michelle came and collected him in the morning to take him for a groom and pamper so we could all relax and get ready. She then came back with him and looked after him throughout the wedding and made him pose for pictures (need some tips on that). She was amazing with hum, we highly recommend contacting her if you want to have your dog there on your day!

We also had a wonderful and delicious breakfast delivered from Fig & Ginger in the morning for my bridal party. It meant we didn’t have to worry about food in the morning and it was all set-up beautifully for when we arrived at The Quarters.

A mention also to Silk Brides which is where I got my dress from as they made my experience something I will never forget and really are wonderful at what they do.

We also had a lot of help from our lovely friends with our day – my Mum made biscuit favours, my Dad helped Tom make the menu holders, about 10 people helped us with the balloons, Katy did the invites and table plan, Sharryn and Emma did mine and the bridal party’s make-up, Morgane did the bridal party’s hair, our family friend Jane made the incredible cake and Christy made the flower crowns for the bridesmaids and the flower collar for Walter.