A Rustic & Relaxed Meadow & Barn Wedding

A Rustic & Relaxed Meadow & Barn Wedding

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Good morning to you :-) It’s Friday already and it’s the long straight before the weekend, YAY. I am so in love with todays real wedding feature and just know you will adore this couple too.

WWW readers Alex and Jamie married in June at Chaucer Barn, Norfolk. They had a touching outdoor meadow ceremony followed by a reception in the barn. They wanted their wedding to be informal and rustic with DIY touches. They had the sweetest jam favours, gorgeous stationery and home made cake table.

Alex looked beautiful in her lace dress and informal up do, while Jamie looked relaxed in his Marks and Spencer suit and tan brogues. I love the pretty yellow flower girl dresses and the girls looked wonderful in coral dresses from Matalan. And that coral peony bouquet? Wow.

Thanks so much to Miki Photography for sharing his amazing photography with us today.

 

The Proposal… Jamie and I decided to choose my engagement ring together before he proposed, we’d talked about getting married and knew it was something we both wanted. A few people were surprised by this and said it was the wrong way round, but I think it’s whatever works for you. I had no problem with knowing what ring I was getting, it didn’t make it any less special, and actually we really enjoyed going to jewellers together and finding the perfect ring, and I think Jamie appreciated not having to do it on his own in a panicked shopping frenzy.

In March 2012 Jamie surprised me by booking a weekend away to Paris for my birthday. We’d never been before so it was a really special trip. Everyone was convinced he was going to propose to me there, and of course the thought did cross my mind, but I was sure I hadn’t seen him pack the ring and after a couple of days of sightseeing and no sign of Jamie hopping down on one knee, I was pretty much certain he wasn’t planning it this trip. We had an amazing time exploring, Paris truly is a beautiful and very romantic city.

Towards the end of our break we went to see the Eiffel Tower (Aah yes you all know what’s coming now!) . We walked through some lovely gardens down to the Tower and as we were walking back through the gardens, we stopped to take some more photos and Jamie started getting all sentimental (the penny still hadn’t dropped for me at this point, doig!); he suddenly popped down onto one knee and produced my gorgeous ring. In typical me fashion, I burst into tears, said yes very quickly and threw my arms around him. It was very romantic, and a wonderful surprise – we even had a few claps in the background from passers-by!

We celebrated that evening with a delicious meal, and a bottle of champagne with friends who happened to be in Paris at the same time as us. It really was perfect!

The Vision for the Day… We knew early on the type of wedding we wanted and as with most things, we both had the same vision for the day. We wanted something as informal and relaxed as possible, a little rustic charm with a few DIY touches and a day where everyone would just have fun together and where we could enjoy the moment of having all our favourite people in one place.

To fit with our non-formal vision, we also didn’t want a typical 3 course sit down dinner. After chatting through ideas with our caterer, Alex Firman, he came up with a fantastic BBQ menu with various meat, fish and side dishes that should keep everyone happy and sounded delicious. He also came up with some BBQ canapés to have with our Pimms for the reception drinks, including some local crab and samphire which we thought was a lovely touch.

It was nice to have some local things tied into the day, one of the big things we love about Norfolk is the amazing food and produce available up there. Every time we visit Norfolk we stock up on a few bits to take back with us, one being the amazing jam made locally by Mrs Renshaw and sold at local stores and markets. I remembered her jam when I was thinking of wedding favours and as she has her address and phone number on the jars, I gave her a call and asked if she’d be willing to make us some smaller jars for our wedding favours. She was happy to oblige and made us a batch of strawberry and raspberry jam jars up which we picked up on our way to the venue. She left the jars blank for us so we stuck labels and little hessian hats on each, which Jamie’s mum, nan and some of the kids helped me with on the morning of the wedding.

The Planning Process… I started pinning like mad, creating inspiration boards galore and looking at real weddings on all the popular wedding blogs I came across. It was really refreshing to see so many unique weddings that continued to give us the drive to plan the day we really wanted, rather than sticking with tradition.

We were lucky that the planning process was pretty relaxed for us. Despite having a relatively short amount of time to book and organise things in, we were quick to agree on the type of things we wanted. We did leave a few things to the last minute, which I definitely don’t recommend, we were DIY-ing things in the last week before the wedding, so there were times where I was wondering if we’d get it all done!

The Venue… Where do I start with this one? We had a really hard time finding the right venue. We live in Hertfordshire and although our family are dotted all over, the majority are in the South East. We scoured the internet for venues in Hertfordshire at first and then moved further out, we ended up visiting venues in Essex, Suffolk, Surrey and Oxfordshire! Although we did see some lovely venues, we were really put off by being tied to expensive suppliers and forced to either pay outrageous corkage charges or have pricey wine and fizz. Not only was it stretching our budget to the limit but the day was starting to feel overly structured and like people were going to be telling us what to do when and how to do it, which just wasn’t for us.

Just when we’d started to think about a wedding abroad, a last ditch internet search came up with Chaucer Barn in Norfolk. It looked lovely on the website, but it was now the beginning of 2013 and we’d been aiming to get married that Summer, however by some miracle stroke of luck the website said they’d had a cancellation and the 15th June 2013 was available. I quickly gave them a call and made arrangements to visit the venue, I showed Jamie the website that night and he was just as excited as I was about it. It’s a beautiful building in a gorgeous setting and lovely grounds, but is a total blank canvas so you can use all your own suppliers, or the ones they recommend, as well as having enough rooms to sleep all our immediate family. We drove up to North Norfolk that weekend and absolutely fell in love with the venue. It was exactly what we’d been looking for, with the beautiful flower meadow for the outside wedding we’d always wanted. We’d have the whole place for 3 nights so we’d be able to spend the whole weekend with our family, which we knew was perfect for us and made the wedding feel like less of a rush. It was an added bonus that it was in an area we revisit every year for holidays and is like a second home for us, which just made it extra special.

The Dress + Accessories… My shoes were a nude peep toe from Debenhams. I wanted to keep my accessories simple with just earrings, bracelet and something for my hair. In my hair I wore a set of 3 peach pearl and crystal hair pins that were custom made by the lovely Jennie Glaze from Jewellery Made By Me. I ordered these the weekend before the wedding and was really worried I wouldn’t have them in time but Jennie surprised me by making them that very weekend and sending them off straight away. My earrings were crystal tear drop earrings made by Erika from Blucha, who was super helpful when I said I had sensitive ears and offered to make a custom order in any metal I required.

I had trouble finding a bracelet I liked but on the morning of the wedding I was presented with two lovely gifts from Jamie, a Creed fragrance aptly named Love in White and a beautiful Tiffany bracelet. I don’t know how he knew that I couldn’t find a bracelet to wear, but the one he bought me was perfect.

I didn’t really do the ‘Something old, something new…’ thing properly as I left it too late to work out what to use and my sister couldn’t find her sixpence which was going to be my something borrowed and the sixpence in my shoe; so I just wore pale blue knickers as my something blue and my something old was a vintage silver clip on earring which was my gran’s. I have fond memories of trying all her clip on earrings when I was little and I loved the style of the vintage silver ones but the pair had been lost so I only had the one. I wasn’t sure what to do with it but luckily as I was getting into my dress I realised it would clip in the centre of the bust so I popped it on and it actually ended up looking like part of my dress so it fitted nicely.

Finding the Dress… I didn’t really think I wanted a very bridal dress as I didn’t think they would suit me. I knew I definitely didn’t want anything white or too big and fussy. I saw a lovely Justin Alexander tea length dress online after we first got engaged which they stocked at a bridal store near me, so my mum and me popped along one afternoon so I could try it on. As soon as I had it on I knew it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t very flattering on my petite frame. The lady in the shop picked out a few others for me to try including a very fitted lace one, which I thought I’d hate, but actually seemed to suit me. I still didn’t feel it was the one though and the prices were way over budget so we left empty handed.

I didn’t look at any other dresses until after we booked the venue, then I suddenly realised I had very little time to find the right dress. I tried on a few more dresses at a bridal shop a bit further away that make their own designs and decided on a white fitted lace dress with an open back design. It was the complete opposite of what I thought I wanted so it definitely goes to show you need to try different styles on. There were a few glitches with the dress along the way, and to be honest I wasn’t 100% happy with it, but on the day it was the last thing on my mind and everyone said they loved it and thought it really suited me, so it all worked out in the end.

Groom’s Attire… Jamie knew he didn’t want to be super formal and he didn’t want to wear a tie, as he felt it would be too much like boring work attire. He’d bought a lovely pale blue shirt from Ralph Lauren and found his suit in Marks & Spencer. It was a light grey super slim fit style and fitted him perfectly. He found some nice braces in Matalan and his shoes were a lovely tan brogue from Zara. He tried it all on before the wedding, looked really confident and the whole ensemble was very him – and I loved it on him! I asked my sister to present Jamie with his gifts on the day, which were some fun socks from Happy Socks and a Marc Jacobs watch. It was nice that we both bought each other gifts that we could wear on the day and lovely to have things that were a total surprise.

The Readings + Music… We chose two readings for our ceremony, The Promise by Luke Wright, which had a bit of humour to it and was very us; and an Excerpt from “The Bridge Across Forever” by Richard Bach which was a more sentimental piece about soul mates.

We also wrote a few words about each other which we asked the registrar to read as part of our vows, we didn’t know what the other one had wrote so it was a lovely surprise and made us both a bit teary!

We had planned to do the music ourselves as we were a bit worried we’d get stuck with a dodgy cheesy DJ who tried to play puppy love all night! But we struck lucky when we came across the amazing Paddy at Disco Wed and it was definitely money well spent. He took care of the music throughout the day, from the ceremony, to the meal background music, to the party in the evening. He also spent a lot of time setting up awesome lighting in the barn which looked amazing in our photos.

We really wanted a band for the wedding but couldn’t seem to find anything right so we gave up on the idea fairly early on. A week before the wedding I came across Neill Ryan & The Rebel Sounds mentioned on a wedding blog, the blog had mentioned that they also busked, which prompted me to look them up as they sounded like they wouldn’t be your typical wedding band. After listening to the first ten seconds  of their version of Jamiroquai – Love Foolosophy, I knew I had to see if they were free and decided it would be a nice surprise for Jamie. Neill gave me a call and said they were free and amazingly were willing to travel from Leeds to Norfolk for the gig. Neill played during the reception drinks, and then the band kicked off the party in the evening after we’d had our first dance.

There were so many choices and beautiful songs we wanted to include, but we finally decided on James Vincent McMorrow- Higher Love for my walk down the aisle and Barry Louis Polisar – All I Want Is You for our walk out as a married couple. We had Vitamin String Quartet playing as background music during the meal and our first dance was City and Colour  - We Found Each Other in the Dark, which was the first band we saw live together.

I cannot recommend both Neill and Paddy highly enough, they kept us on the dance floor all night and everyone was raving about how good they were. They’re also genuinely lovely people too so it was a pleasure to have them as part of our day.

Beautiful Bridesmaids… My bridesmaids were my two sisters, Ruth and Katy, and I also had Jamie’s nieces, Megan and Lexie, as my flower girls. The flower girls dresses were from Debenhams but it was a bit trickier finding bridesmaids dresses as Ruth lives in Mexico, and it was hard to find something that I thought both would like. I ended up finding their dresses in Matalan, which was pretty unexpected, but they were very pretty and feminine, and looked like they would suit both of them – plus they were in the coral/peach colour I was looking for. Luckily they fitted them both and they looked so beautiful on the day.

The Flowers… Our wedding flowers were from Emma Askew at The Rose Garden in Cromer, Norfolk. She was very helpful in the lead up to the wedding and kept us up to date with what was available. Our flowers were a mixture of Coral Charm Peonies, Peach Hypericum Berries, Pale Pink Sweet Peas, Blue Delphinium, Succulents, Eucalyptus and Dusty Miller. Unfortunately the Peach Dahlias we wanted weren’t available so we substituted them for Peach Spray Roses. The day before the wedding we dropped off jam jars which I decorated with hessian and twine for them to fill with the flower arrangements and vintage aqua coloured bottles for them to put single stems in.

We also bought some little Echeveria succulents from Tricia Newell on Etsy which I potted into a set of 12 small terracotta pots we had. Tricia was very helpful in telling me when to buy them so they would be at their best for the wedding.

The Cake… We decided not to have a wedding cake. We weren’t fussed about having that ‘cutting of the cake’ moment and we liked the idea of having multiple cakes. In the end we had a dessert table, with a few bought cakes, but mostly home made cakes from our guests, and a big fruit cake that Jamie made a few days before the wedding. We borrowed our neighbours collection of cake stands and I loved setting all the cakes out the morning of the wedding with my  two little happy helpers helping me write the little chalkboard signs. It was so nice to see the effort people had made making delicious cakes and desserts for our day.

Your Photographer… Our photographer was Mick Shah from Miki Photography. I think we could write a book on how much we love Mick’s photos. We were so happy when he said he was free on our date and that he’d be willing to travel from London to Norfolk for the day. We were absolutely sold on him once we’d chatted on the phone one evening, he came across so friendly and relaxed and we knew we had to book him.

Part of the package was an engagement shoot, which we hadn’t planned on having but I’m so glad we did. It was great to meet Mick before the wedding and it’s a good way to get used to being in front of the camera if it’s something you’re not naturally comfortable with. We love our engagement shoot photos and it’s great to have some casual photos of just us together.

Mick was fantastic on the day, we really felt like he put us and everyone else at ease. We were so excited to see our photos and couldn’t believe some of the amazing shots he got. We love how relaxed and happy everyone is, he really captured our day beautifully and everyone has been complementing our photos.

The Details + Decor… Our colour scheme was peach/coral and pale blue. We were lucky that we had lots of helpers on the Friday and Saturday, Jamie and a few of the guys spent the Friday evening putting up fairy lights in the barn and across the gardens and my mum and a few of the girls helped finish off our peach paper pom poms and hang them round the venue on Saturday morning.

We decided that instead of using table numbers, we would use old photos of our parents and grandparents on their wedding day. Our guest book was a fingerprint tree which we printed out ourselves and bought little washable ink pads for people to print their fingerprints with. I love this as it’s something we can now frame and have up in our home.

We had hessian table runners and each table had a lace covered jam jar with a tea light in, an aqua bottle with a single stem in, a hessian covered jam jar with our flower arrangements in and a small succulent in a terracotta pot. We stuck each table photo into the pots.

We wanted our day to be really fun, so we had two piñatas which the kids loved whacking so much they didn’t seem too interested in the sweets inside; and we hired a bouncy castle – we made sure it was adult friendly too, not just for the kids! We, of course, had a good ol’ bounce and Jamie, of course, came off injured after being ambushed by the kids! We planned to have lawn games but they got a bit forgotten about when we were setting everything up, and I don’t think anyone missed them in the end.

Once it got dark we went outside and did some sparklers. We tried some paper lanterns too but it had got quite windy by that point so we gave up after a few failed attempts.

The Honeymoon… It’s never been us to do things the traditional way, so we’re actually having a two part honeymoon. Greedy hey? We decided that seeing as my sister Ruth and her husband were only over from Mexico for 3 weeks, it didn’t make sense to jet off somewhere straight away. My parents and sisters decided to stay up in Norfolk for the week after the wedding and we decided to do the same, so we all rented our own little cottages in Sheringham and met up for day trips and dinners during the week.

Our final part to our honeymoon is yet to be determined. We’d like to go somewhere long haul for a couple of weeks and a bit of sunshine. We’re quite glad we haven’t already booked this as it gives us a project now that the wedding planning is over!

Memorable Moments… Wow so many! Since the wedding we haven’t stopped reminiscing and remembering little moments.

I think the biggest thing is just how happy we were on the day, we didn’t stop smiling all day and we also felt like everyone genuinely had a good time, which is so nice after all that planning. We definitely felt like all our hard work had paid off. It was fantastic to see it all come together and lovely to have compliments throughout the day about the little touches we’d spent so long organising.

Watching the band dive behind cars to avoid Jamie spotting them, and running back and forth with their kit trying to unload their van was pretty funny. I was sure Jamie was going to spot them!

Advice for Other Couples… Whatever you can do before the day, do it. Don’t leave everything to the last minute as it does get a little stressful, and you’re more likely to forget things.

If you’ve bought a nice new  pair of shoes for the day, don’t forget (like I did) to remove the labels from the soles. I only realised halfway through the night when I kicked off my shoes!

Supporting each other is a big thing. We were very lucky that we agreed on pretty much everything, but there’s still moments where you’ve got a pile of pom-poms to make or your bunting just seems never ending that you’ll need someone to give you a pep talk and bring you back to reality. It’s quite easy to lose the plot and feel like all the DIY projects are the most important thing, when on the day I can honestly say you and everyone else won’t notice and won’t care – you’ll be too excited, happy and buzzing from the amazingness that is your own wedding day!

I had a little wobble quite early on about our budget, but talking about it with your other half really helps to allay any fears or worries you might have had. Sometimes all you need is to vent, a cuddle and a hot bath to soak the stress away.

Credit Where Credit is Due…

Venue: Chaucer Barn

Catering: Alex Firman

Furniture Hire: Banqueting Hire

Photographer: Miki Photography

Videographer: One Wedding

DJ: Disco Wed

Band: Neill Ryan & The Rebel Sounds

Florist: The Rose Garden

Bouncy Castle: Abouncylot

Nails & Make Up: Karen Hilbrown Beauty Therapy

Hair: Naz

Wedding Bands & Engagement Ring: Bespoke

Oh my, so beautiful. I just love all of the fun entertainment lined up for the adults children too. Thanks so much to Alex and Jamie for sharing their wedding with us this morning XOXO Lou

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