Lee and Robert had a dreamy indoors outdoors wedding day at Tewin Bury Farm Hotel, Hertfordshire. They had an abundance of pretty natural looking purple flowers, with bark and woodsy touches. There were Morris dancers and the most amazing naked wedding cake which looked delicious.

Lee looked elegant in a Justin Alexander lace dress with Prada shoes, while Robert opted for a traditional morning suit in charcoal grey and purple cravat. So much pretty.

Thanks so much to Pavone Photography for sharing their gorgeous images with us today.

 

The Proposal… Rob proposed in December 2012. It was a rather quick decision (although the ten years preceding might have helped). Rob decided on the Mon 10th Dec to propose on the Sat 15th Dec. He managed to arrange this as a total surprise to Lee, asking her dad for permission in the week and utilising their house guest, a friend known as Graycat to take a bag of their clothes up to the Mayfair Hotel in London, and encouraging Lee to believe her Saturday night out in town  was just leaving drinks for him.  Whisking Lee up to town, Lee was kept in the dark about the events of the night to follow, surprising her with cocktails initially, followed by the announcement that a room had been booked and a dinner as well “as a Christmas Treat!”. Wanting to see the hotel room, Lee was then surprised by the bottle of champagne chilling, and taking a second look at the neck of the bottle…. she saw a beautiful engagement ring tied in bow to it, and spun round to find Rob on one knee! The rest as they say, is history!

The Vision for the Day… Lee wanted a garden/meadow theme – very “outdoors indoors” with tons of flowers, amazing scents and very visual colourful accents.

The Planning Process… Whipping up a wedding in just 8 months can be done, you just have to be focused! Both Rob and Lee were very hands on with research and comparison of vendors and prices – but made decisions relatively quickly once all the information was gathered together, so all the major decisions such as venue and date were resolved within the first few weeks of being engaged, taking off a lot of the pressure. There was also a nice lull after about 2 months of heavy planning where they relaxed more before gearing up again a couple months before the wedding for all the final decisions.

The Venue… Tewinbury Farm in Hertfordshire – Tythe Barn. Perfect for us, had private entrance, plenty of grounds, some accommodation for the bridal party, wasn’t too far for people to travel, and looking at various hotels and marquees, we decided we definitely wanted the rustic feel of a barn and meadows.

The Dress + Accessories… The dress was Justin Alexander. Accessories were Prada shoes in Cadbury Purple to match the bridesmaids, a vintage pearl bracelet, pearl earrings from Katherine Swain (notonthehighstreet.com) and a beautiful pearl and crystal halo hairpiece, handmade by Heather Taylor from Tailored Tiaras.

Finding the Dress… After a day of shopping around with my mum finding some amazing dresses, THE dress was found the very next day when shopping for bridesmaids dresses for another friend’s wedding. It was an immediate YES.  I knew I wanted something with shoulder straps and ideally lace, but I couldn’t have imagined the dress until it was on me, I just loved it!

Groom’s Attire… Suit was hired from Debenhams along with all the best men, ushers and page boy suit in a charcoal grey shot through with silk and matching Cadbury purple ties and an ivory waistcoat.

The Readings + Music… We had a violinist, Victoria Yellop, play me down the aisle to Pachel Cannon in D, and we danced back up to a CD of Stevie Wonder, For Once in My Life, with Signed, Sealed and Delivered straight after to get all the guests out.

We walked into our reception to This Will Be – Natalie Cole.

Music was an hugely important part of the day as Lee loves to DANCE. A huge play list was created for background music for the meal, the violinist played for part of the reception drinks, followed by 2 sets of Morris Dancers (Lee Bishop nee Morris… get it?) which went down a treat, everyone loved them and the dances were hysterical with people being pulled in and shown the ropes!

Readings were the lyrics of Everybody’s Free – Baz Luzman – with the lyrics slightly adapted – read by old and close friends Laura Hayes and Justin Thorogood and Rob’s sister read Marriage

A marriage is a promise

That two heats gladly make

A promise to be tender

To help, to give and take

A marriage is a promise

To be kind and understanding

To be thoughtful and considerate

Fair and undemanding

A marriage is a promise

To share one life, together

A promise filled with love and truth

kept lovingly, for ever.

Beautiful Bridesmaids… Julia Conway, Emma Wayman, Clare Goshawk, wore Cadbury purple Coast dresses. Flowers girls were Lee’s nieces Ava (5.5 yrs) and Olivia (3yr) in BHS flowergirls dresses with new purple sashes added on

The Flowers… Lee was recommended by a friend to see a local florist, whom she had already shown interest in as the shop was at the bottom of her road! Lee loved the displays created by Lisa from The Bloom Bar in South Woodford, and together they came up with the outdoor indoor theme, based around a bark heart that Lisa has hand crafted for Valentine’s Day. You can see it above the aisle in the photos. With the bark as a basis, the centrepieces were varied on different tables, including mini rose gardens , handmade bird nest style  baskets with cut herbs and flowers in, a long log based decoration for the top table, lots of coloured glass and vases with individual stems on a bed of moss as well as tons of jam jars with fresh daisies, and other wild flowers scattered around the barn and the outside areas. There was also a pedestal flower arrangement of a moss covered tall vase with branches in that had mini baubles of petals hanging from the sticks!

The Cake… Created by Sharina Taylor of TM Treats. Lee knew she wanted a naked wedding cake, and with Rob being a huge lover of ALL cake, Sharina knew flavours would be the keen.

With 4 layers exposed and tons of petals and fruit as décor and the base as a wooden crate, and a spare layer cake out the back there was plenty to go around. The flavours were: Top layer was coconut and lime and pineapple curd. Next was orange and poppyseed with orange curd and buttercream filling. Then lemon with lemon curd. Then vanilla sponge with buttercream and strawberry jam. And the layer cake was carrot cake with orange curd and buttercream filling.

Your Photographer… AMAZING  - Louise and Sam from Pavone Photographers – simply the best decision we made. We used their recommended colleagues as our videograpahers too, Unique Visuals, and both teams were phenomenal. The photos are stunning, with everything taken into account and the colours are just amazing, so many people have commented on them. They were all just so lovely and friendly the whole way through the process and worked their socks off too bless them!

The Details + Decor… wooden crates, wicker hearts, a wooden calendar, heather plants and pretty vintage patterned mini suitcases for décor on the gift table, with all the stationery on a brown kraft card with cadbury purple roses designed on the corners (Claire Page – Petal And Pray online) and the table names as English garden flowers and herbs,  hand decorated jam jars,  flowers and petals and colour EVERYwhere, hurricane candle lanterns outside, a fairy light canopy in the main barn and strings of fairylights up the barn struts – everything was twinkly and sparkly but natural looking.

The Honeymoon… Lee and Rob are off on their dream honeymoon – safari in South Africa, followed by a few days of relaxation on the beaches of Mauritius.

Memorable Moments… EVERYTHING!!

Advice for Other Couples… definitely take time for each other on the big day, and in the run up to it as well. Our amazing photographers took us off for a half hour or so in the early evening to do couple shots, and walking down the pathways chatting to each other whilst they took their footage is some of our most special time together. Other advice, don’t sweat the small stuff, seriously no one notices, and as long as you are smiling and having fun- all your guests will too!

Credit Where Credit is Due…

Venue:  Tewinbury Farm

Florist: The Bloom Bar

Band/DJ: Austin [email protected]

Photography: Pavone Photography

Videography: Unique Visuals

Morris Dancers: English Miscellany 

Violinist: Victoria Yellop [email protected]

Lights: BDJC Events

Cake: TM Treats [email protected]

Stationery: Petal and Pray

Suits: Youngs at Debenhams

Wedding Dress: Mia Sposa

Headdress:  Tailored Tiaras

Honeymoon: Africa Rose

 

How gorgeous?! Thanks so very much to Lee and Robert for sharing their beautiful wedding with us today XOXO Lou