Customer advice, help and tips, wedding entertainment ideas

Libby & John’s Quintessentially English wedding with The MP3’s

Libby & John booked The MP3’s for their evening reception at Ansty Hall Hotel and have kindly shared details from their beautiful wedding day with us.

‘From their first song to their last song the dance floor was packed and everyone was busting out the best moves’

Anstey Hall - John & Libby (c) Liz Greenhalgh Photography-1752

1. What was your best single moment of the whole day?

Looking back the day has a dreamlike quality.  All the people we love the most in the world coming together just to celebrate us as a couple. It was an incredible feeling. Of course all the obvious parts of the day really stand out – my Dad seeing me for the first time in all my bridal glory, looking into Johns eyes as we were standing at the alter and being introduced for the first time as ‘Mr and Mrs’. Strangely one of my standout favourite points of the day was right at the end. Everybody had either left or gone to bed, but we were still so hyper we couldn’t even think of going to bed so we sneaked a bottle of prosecco and went into the snooker room with the best man and his girlfriend. It was a few minutes of downtime that we hadn’t had all day to process everything that had happened. I remember just feeling totally overwhelmed with happiness knowing that all the preparation, bickering and late night emails had been totally worth it! 

Anstey Hall - John & Libby (c) Liz Greenhalgh Photography-1194

2. Did you have an overall theme?

We both really wanted to steer away from a colour scheme. To my surprise when we said this to people they would look at us with bemusement – by the 20th time I was starting to wonder whether we had made a terrible mistake.  I knew from hours (more like years) of incessant pinteresting I wanted a vintage, countryside quintessentially ‘English’ feel to the wedding. Lots of bunting, fresh flowers and candles! Our venue was a stately home so reflected this theme perfectly. Everything came together beautifully and I’m so glad we held out for what we wanted and not be side tracked by other people’s influence.

Anstey Hall - John & Libby (c) Liz Greenhalgh Photography-1020

3. Why did you pick your venue?

From the moment we stepped into Anstey Hall we knew it was the place for us. A beautiful stately home just outside Cambridge city centre and minutes from where I grew up. We simply fell in love with its quirkiness and charm. The owner has a relaxed approached and gave us a relatively free reign with decorating the marquee. We could also decide what rooms were used for each part of the day, this allowed us to tailor the venue to meet our needs. Tracey De Bruyne, Anstey Hall’s resident event planner, was incredible giving us the benefit of her wealth of experience whilst listening to our ideas. She was totally on our wavelength and took the ideas we had and made them realistic.   

Anstey Hall - John & Libby (c) Liz Greenhalgh Photography-1027

4. How did you hear about The MP3’s?

We did a lot of research! Booking the band was actually one of the last things we did as we couldn’t decide what kind of entertainment we wanted for the evening. After agreeing that we wanted a live band we trawled the internet looking for one that would play the kind of music that we liked, whilst being affordable. We stumbled across them after enquiring about another band, heard some of their material online and really liked it.

Anstey Hall - John & Libby (c) Liz Greenhalgh Photography-1754

5. What did they bring to your day?

In all honestly I was really nervous about what the band would be like. We’d only heard them online and had never met them. We’d been to weddings where the entertainment is a bit of non- starter and the dance floor lies empty all night. I had nightmares that our reception would succumb to the same fate.

In reality the polar opposite happened. From their first song to their last song the dance floor was packed and everyone was busting out the best moves. Having a live band as opposed to a DJ made for a great atmosphere. 

Anstey Hall - John & Libby (c) Liz Greenhalgh Photography-1773

6. Did you have a first dance song and what was it?

In my life by The Beatles. Beautiful lyrics that say it all!

7. Where did you draw inspiration or find suppliers for your wedding?

I think any bride will agree that pinterest is the holy grail of wedding inspiration. I found lots of quirky touches that I managed to incorporate in the day to bring out little glimpses of our personality.  I looked at lots of wedding magazines. ‘Bride’ a magazine with regional publications is great for sourcing local suppliers and venues. Word of mouth is always good and a few of our suppliers came from recommendations.

Anstey Hall - John & Libby (c) Liz Greenhalgh Photography-1589

8. What did you think of the service provided by Warble?

Really professional. Emily was really good at maintaining communication with us and we always had a prompt response to any emails that we sent. With everything else that we had to organise it was great to get clear instructions about when payment was due etc. 

Anstey Hall - John & Libby (c) Liz Greenhalgh Photography-1744

9. Name your favourite suppliers from the day

It might sound really clichéd, but I can’t believe how lucky we were to find all our suppliers. Everyone was amazing and provided a fabulous service from start to finish.

Flowers – The Manor Florist, Burwash Manor Barns.

Venue – Anstey Hall, Trumpington, Cambridge.

Photographer – Liz Greenhalgh Photography.

Catering – Toms Kitchen.

Photography Booth – The Good Booth Company.

Transport – Brides Cars.

Wedding Dress – The O zone, Brighton.

Hair and Makeup – Hairs and Graces, Harston, Cambridge.

Rings – Lambton’s, Brighton.

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