An urban warehouse bash with gold fringing, indoor food trucks, DIY pom poms, a wedding day newspaper, life size Princess Leia and inclusive eats; today's real wedding is all kinds of cool! Jenny & Paul live in London, but this Northern Irish groom and Sheffield bride, headed up north to tie the knot in Jenny's home town. The Hide was the perfect canvas for their creative celebration, giving them a distinct urban feel with the intimacy you don't normally find in a warehouse wedding venue. Positively packed with gorgeous ideas, brace yourself for major inspiration because Folega Photography captured the lot!

Jenny and Paul met in a pretty unique way, so we’ll let them explain it! “We met at a pheromone party in East London! Paul’s friend was hosting the event, and I went along with a flatmate as we thought it would be a fun night out, and a funny story to tell (not thinking that story would be told at my wedding!),” jokes Jenny.

You guys, this might be the sweetest wedding day mani ever!

Not sure what a pheromone party is? Us neither, so we'll let Jenny fill us in! “For three nights before the event you wear the same t-shirt to bed. You then bring this along and it’s put in a bag along with a number, only you know what your number is. All the bags of t-shirts are put on a table, and when the event starts, you basically start sniffing! The theory is that pheromones are chemical triggers of attraction in mammals… so if you like how someone smells, then you’re meant to be! So at the event, if you like how someone’s t-shirt smells, you take the bag and have your photo taken with it, which is then projected on a wall. Throughout the night, if you see a picture of someone holding your bag with your number, and you like the look of them, you can go and find them and introduce yourself.”

Love at first pheromone, Paul picked Jenny’s t-shirt! “It was nearing the end of the event and I worked up the courage to go and say hi, we chatted then said bye. As I was leaving the venue I thought ‘I really should get his number’ - and as I went to look for him, he was also looking for me to ask for my number! He was still living in Northern Ireland at the time, and was actually flying back the next day, so came back to see me a couple of weeks later, and it was pretty much official from there!”

The couple started off the celebrations together, with a first look outside their wedding venue.

Paul popped the question in the sweetest way, on his and Jenny’s three-year anniversary, “We were over in Northern Ireland and were in Belfast for the day, and he took me to the rose gardens in the Botanic Gardens, where I thought we were just going to be exchanging cards,” explains Jenny. "He handed me a piece of folded up paper (which I still have!), on which he’d written ‘I don’t want you to be my girlfriend’, and as I was reading it he’d moved behind me. When I turned around he was on one knee and said ‘will you be my wife?’. It was very sweet and I pretty much burst into tears instantly! He proposed with his grandfather’s ring, then we went to a jewellers to pick out a ring together.”

How stunning is Jenny's bouquet? The blend of textures and colours are beautiful!

Most of the real weddings we feature on the here on One Fab Day are chilled, but this one was particularly free of formalities, "Our wedding was relaxed, laid-back and full of laughter and love. For the look and feel, it was urban and modern, with DIY and fun, personal touches. We really wanted to create a day that represented us as a couple, and to make sure we had a day that was personal to us.”

The couple made a very special pre-ceremony pit-stop. “A special moment in the day was visiting my grandparents. They unfortunately were too ill to attend, so after our first look, and before the ceremony started, we went to see them to spend some time with them and have some pictures taken.”

Killer style game among the guests!

As a venue, The Hide covered a lot of bases for the bride and groom, as Jenny tells us, “Getting married in Sheffield, we knew we wanted to take full advantage of the urban location and have a warehouse wedding. However we were also having quite a small wedding, with just 50 people, so didn’t want a warehouse that was huge and would feel empty when everyone was inside! The Hide was the perfect intimate size, and I personally fell in love with the wall of fairy lights! We were also allowed to decorate it however we wanted, and practically, they allowed us to come in the day before to set everything up - extremely helpful!”

For both Jenny and Paul, the ceremony was the high point of the day, “It was a humanist ceremony led by the incredible Sarah Powell, who we cannot recommend enough. The ceremony was super personal to us, told our story, was relaxed and full of laughter and happy tears - it really set the tone for the rest of the day.”

Jenny’s mum and dad walk her down the aisle, “And my three-year-old nephew had the rings (which he adorably dropped when he handed them to us). The ceremony included a reading from my brother David, of Neil Gaiman’s poem ‘All I Know About Love’, and then Paul’s dad Terry wrote us a poem for the second reading. The first time we heard it was when he read it, so it was very special.”

The couple’s were focused on giving their friends and family a great day out. “It was really important to us to make sure our guests felt comfortable, were well fed and generally had a lot of fun. For example we had quite a few vegetarians and vegans, so wanted to make sure they had great food, and were not an after-thought. Trudi & Justine who run the venue also run the catering, Percy & Lily’s street food, and really made sure that they had amazing options in our Middle Eastern buffet, as well as a vegan cheeseboard, and we got donuts from a vegan bakery as an alternative to the wedding cake.”

How gorgeous is this! The couple created their very own personalised wedding day paper! Such a clever idea and such a lovely way to personalise your day.

Looks like they made for interesting reading!

And the third star of the show? Jenny’s three-year-old nephew, Alex, “He just had the best day - there was a sweet moment when we were waiting to go to the venue and we sat and played a colouring in game together on my iPad.”

How have we not gushed about Jenny's dress yet! The bride nailed laid-back glamour with her caped gown with subtle sparkle - what a babe! Her bridesmaids chose their own black dresses and the trio looked gorgeous together!

The couple named their guests after their favourite David Bowie records.

What a cool space for a party!

It looks like every corner of the room was decked out in fun, unique and eye-catching details.

We love the wedding planning advice these two have to pass on, “It’s ok to not care about things you might be expected to have, do or include on your wedding day - but it’s also ok to care about them! If spending a lot of time making sure that everything is in just the right shade of blue, then that’s fine - but it’s also fine if that’s not one of your priorities! Just do you, and focus on the things that matter to you. For example, I spent quite a bit of time making pom poms to use as napkin rings, and making gold tinsel hanging decorations - I know a lot of people can say 'in the grand scheme of things they don't matter' but I still really enjoyed doing it all, and was really proud of the finished look (also seeing my nephew running around and collecting everyone’s pom poms to throw them in the air was so worth it).”

Wondering what this is all about? This pair got married on May the 4th! “Star Wars Day! Partly because it was a bank holiday weekend, but also because Paul loves Star Wars,” explains Jenny. “We had two life-size cardboard cut-outs of Han Solo and Princess Leia that guests loved posing with, and I’m pretty sure they even ended up on the dance floor at some point in the evening!”

Straight after the wedding, the pair headed off to the Peak District on their mini-moon, “We booked a beautiful little Airbnb barn conversion near Buxton, perfect for chilling out and de-compressing post wedding. If you aren’t having a big honeymoon, or are planning to have it at later date, we’d really recommend a mini-moon. Preferably somewhere with no or poor wifi connection so you can cut yourself off from the world, enjoy your first few days of married life and reminisce on your wedding day. For our main honeymoon, we’re going on a road trip around New England in October!”

There's just so many amazing ideas in this wedding - thanks so much to Jenny and Paul for sharing your day with us and to Folega Photography for sending it our way. Make sure you hit the gallery to see even more from this unique celebration.