The Hoste wedding – Bekah and Mark’s cosy coastal Norfolk day.
March 21, 2024
It’s only in the last year or so that we’d become aware of The Hoste at Burnham Market in Norfolk as a wedding venue. We’ve known the pub for ages, it’s been around 300 plus years after all and it’s not far from one of our favourite beaches. However, The Hoste had more recently set out to offer weddings and when they’d caught the eye of Bekah and Mark, our clients, we got to spend a cracking day at this warm and cosy venue. Before we hand over to Bekah and Mark to describe their day in their own words, we’ve gotta say that a The Hoste wedding has become one of our firmest favourites now. A combination of beautiful location and the excellent wedding planner, Jade, who we rate as one of the best in the business along with a really practical private wedding space and food which is off the scale, means we look forward to more happy wedding days at this cute venue. There’s a photo from the wedding shown on OK! magazine’s blog here too, which is cool!
So here’s the couple to tell is about their The Hoste wedding day.
Please introduce yourselves Bekah and Mark.
We both have fairly hard to explain jobs so, for simplicity, we usually go with that Mark ‘sells shampoo’ and Bekah ‘designs PowerPoint presentations’. We both love running and travelling. When we’re less active we watch endless episodes of Friends or Gavin and Stacey with our little dog Doug. We’re definitely not night owls so hunkering down in the evening as our little gang of three is our favourite part of the day.
How did you get together?
We met at our local running club where we became friends over a number of years before we eventually started dating. It all really started when we drove to Wales together, just the two of us, to run a marathon where you had to chase horses up a mountain (yes that really is our idea of fun). After a weekend of hanging out together and talking non stop, I think we realised how we kind of fit together like puzzle pieces. The fact we were friends for so long is such an important part to our relationship now.
Describe the proposal.
We went to London to see Abba Voyage (we both come from big Abba families) We stayed in London overnight afterwards. In the week leading up to it, Mark was adamant he wanted to upgrade our room to a suite ‘as it was such a good deal’, but it was really so he could propose on the balcony overlooking the Thames. We both love London so it felt so special getting engaged in front of the London skyline and as it was a Sunday, it felt like we were the only two people in the world!
What were your early plans for your The Hoste wedding?
We both don’t do well in the heat and secretly count down the hot summer days to autumn…so it was only fitting that our wedding vision was cosy and autumnal. We love the beach on those blustery wintery days where you wrap up in coats and scarves, then come into the warm for a roast dinner by the fire. That’s the vibe we went for – being cosy and safe inside while it is grim outside. The Hoste has a conservatory which was perfect, with big windows and lots of fairy lights. As we sat down for dinner and it started getting dark with all our friends and family together in one place under candle light, we knew that we had nailed it.
Give us an idea of the planning process and timings.
We got engaged in February and as we knew we wanted to get married in that autumn. We’d either got 6-9 months to plan or a 18 months to plan. Being too excited so we went with the former! Choosing the venue was first as the North Norfolk coast is special for us. So asked if the Hoste had any availability and the coordinator, Jade (legend), gave us three dates so we picked from one of those and went from there. Luckily, as we were getting married in November, many vendors still had availability so we pulled together a great team for our special day.
We are very lucky that we both have very similar tastes in design and agreed on the scale of the wedding and what to prioritise. We did have to be quite organised as we had less time, but fortunately Mark arranges an annual running race for 500 runners and Bekah is a graphic designer. Between the two of us, organising a wedding suited our skillset completely and we had a great time doing it.
Any planning blunders?
The first time we met Lisa and Neil, we had a zoom call where they took us through everything we could think of about planning a wedding and how they fitted into it as the A Team photographer duo. This call was amazing, we spoke for an hour and knew instantly that they were for us. However, we didn’t realise at the time that Bekah had covid – she took her jumper on and off constantly throughout the call and probably looked a total state. We also had our three month old puppy Doug acting like a hooligan throughout the call too, so we can only imagine what they thought of us!
L&N say – ‘For clarity, we thought you two were lovely or we wouldn’t have come to your wedding, that’s a rule of ours! ‘
How was your The Hoste wedding ceremony?
We got married at The Hoste in their Garden room, which is the calmest, brightest and most welcoming space we’ve ever seen (even on a rainy November afternoon).
Most memorable moment of the day?
I think for both of us it was the confetti! We felt bad making our friends and family stand outside in the rain for it, but it was totally worth it! The confetti was so fluttery that afterwards we could see it all drifting away into the sky – who knows how far it travelled!
Our band also deserve a shout out – The Herringbone Cocktail club – as they were incredible. The atmosphere at the evening reception was like nothing I’ve ever been to. We wish we could could go back and do it again. Our guests also helped us out here as they were up on the dancefloor by the second song, dancing to an ipad playing music while the band were setting up. The dancefloor was full most of the night with even the bar staff joining in at one point while collecting glasses!
A funny moment was during our couple’s portraits. Lisa was telling Mark to look straight ahead and pull a serious face, but in his eyeline was a phone box with a giant willy spray painted onto it!
Which of your photos would you say are favourites?
Such a tough decision, they were all incredible. The confetti shots were amazing, our couples portraits are so nice and the dancefloor shots captured the vibe so well. We were hoping for no rain but obviously November isn’t known for it’s dry weather. Lisa took some photos of us outside the venue in the dark in the mizzle and they are so magical. They are glittery and atmospheric and without the rain she wouldn’t have been able to capture that perfect moment!
If you had a ‘redo’ what would be different?
Genuinely the only thing we would do is order more confetti cannons!
Thank you Bekah and Mark for having us there and for sharing your thoughts on the wedding. Here’s Bekahs review on Google.
We recently had Lisa & Neil photograph our big day and couldn’t have been happier! We still consider their presence at our wedding one of the highlights of the day! As two people who haven’t had a wedding before we were lost in the maze of wed-min and after some time researching photographers decided this was a good place to start. A zoom call with both Lisa and Neil instantly made us realise these were the people we needed to photograph our wedding. Their experience in the industry meant they could guide us through everything from – sunset times, running order of the day, useful things to consider (can’t thank you enough for the snack basket idea!!) right through to how much confetti we should get for the perfect shot. We were instantly calmed by their efficiency in this area! As the months went by, we kept in touch with them and shared ideas about what we could do on the day and their experience really helped point us through some really sensible decisions. Finally the day itself came and we were both excited to meet Lisa and Neil in person! Our friends and family commented on how much they loved having Lisa and Neil around as they effortlessly blended into our family and friends. Not actually forgetting they take a great photo – we got them so much quicker than we thought! At first when the email came through we thought they were our “preview” photos but were shocked that they had worked so quick to deliver us all 600 of our photos! The actual photos were super and we look through them every day. We aren’t naturally people who like being in front of the camera, but our couple shots were great fun and didn’t feel hard work at all! Thanks Lisa and Neil!
We'd love to hear all about you and your wedding day! Meet us over zoom for an informal chat and a bit of a giggle. We'll get to know you both, find out how your plans are shaping up and explain how we work.
