Mary and Jona’s May wedding was an explosion of colour and fun.

They wanted a long celebration, outdoors in Norfolk, with family and friends camping afterwards. Their whole day was a laid back party, with a meaningful ceremony and their meal served on picnic blankets.

They home made much of their day, with Mary making her own dress, the bridesmaids creating their own dresses, DIY flowers and streamer decorations. Fantastic!

Thanks so much to the brilliant Eliza Boo for sharing her images with us today.

 

The Proposal… Jona proposed on the deck of a beautiful wooden sailing boat, anchored in the bay of st tropes, at sunset!

The Vision for the Day… Day starting with the ceremony, very personal to us, followed by a right good rollick with all our friends and family in the beautiful setting of the norfolk countryside, our friend Jack of  Coyote Moon Cafe proving us with our favourite meal, hallumi curry! And lots dancing of chilling out in hot tubs and round the fire come evening. Everyone sleeping over in tents, and a big veggie fry up the next day!

The Planning Process… Jack took care of a lot. But of course, there were many, many bits and bobs in addition to the essentials, but we loved it all!

The Venue… Jack’s beautiful field in Norfolk, where he put up his geodom and yurts.

The Dress + Accessories… My dress was a home made doozie, with cream silk body and net and chiffon skirt underskirt, and home made net over skirt, with lots of yellows and browns and golds.

My friend Titania Fisher is an amazing milliner and she made me a beautiful fairy-esque head band, which I attached a veil to.

Groom’s Attire… Vintage tails and a frilly shirt, Top hat adorned with feathers, and a psychedelic cummerbund.

The Readings + Music… Tom Conway (grooms brother) is a classical guitarist and played the music for the ceremony. One of his pieces for the entering of bridal party, and accompany,ent for the songs, morning has broken, and give me joy in my heart.

Later on him and his ‘post-anti-folk’ band(koi paraga) played an impromptu set, with a song written especially for the occasion, which was very touching.

Beautiful Bridesmaids… We had a bridesmaids dress making weekend, and all six made themselves wonderful and completely unique dresses, out of provided materials with a bright orange, pink, purple, yellow colour scheme. most of them had little or no sewing experience. It was a really fun thing to bring all the bridesmaids together, and the results were better than I could’ve imagined.

Then they all made their own gypsophila head dresses the morning of the wedding!

The Flowers… We planted hundreds or Peoney tulips for the occasion, and they all came out too soon! Was wonderful having lots of lovely flowers to give away before the wedding though. In the end a friend who grows loads of flowers in her Polly tunnels as a hobby helped us out, and we got lots from Norwich market. Jo (grooms mother) and christime ( friend who grows flowers) did an amazing job of arranging them all. Bouquets were all bunches of  purple alliums with gong trailing stems.

The Cake… Our genius raw foodie friend, who has a raw cafe in norwich called Nectar came up with something very special. A tiered fruit cake with white chocolate icing covered in edible flowers, and some different flavoured cashew ‘cheese’ cakes. They were all raw and vegan.

Your Photographer… Eliza Boo, she was absolutely brilliant. A very talented photographer, her shots perfectly captured the essence of the day, the colourfulness, the anticipation, the celebrating, the emotions. She’s also a very lovely lady, which is important when someone’s following you about on your wedding day!

Jona and I really didn’t want to stand around for hours having photos taking, and Boo seemed to get most of the family portraits before we’d really noticed we were posing for them! 

The Details + Decor… We went for a maximal approach to decorating, and got all the decor out! Jona and I have a big decor box from festival work so that came in handy. Also made lots of brightly coloured streamer- style bunting which looked pretty flitting in the breeze around the open sided old scout tent that we held the ceremony in (and disco!)

The Honeymoon… We stayed for a week on the lend where the wedding had been held, and chilled out with lots of friends, enjoying a week of non stop camp fire and lots of saunas! And occasionally escaping to the pub in the local village.

Memorable Moments… Just felt wonderfully high all day!

There were slip ups in the cenermony and groom dunked my head under the water in the hot tub at about 2pm, messing up my hair and make up, but it all just added to the whole day being a laugh. Danced all evening with best friends followed by singing in the hot tub after the amplified music curfew at 12am.

Advice for Other Couples… Just have fun! And if anything happens which isn’t supposed to just embrace it!

Credit Where Credit is Due…

Coyotemooncafe.co.uk

Thenectarcafe.co.uk

Elizaboophotography.com

 

A May Pole and ribbons aplenty… amazing. Thanks so much to Mary and Jona for sharing their beautiful wedding with us today XOXO Lou