Whimsical Rustic Homemade Backgarden Barn Wedding | Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

Whimsical Rustic Homemade Backgarden Barn Wedding | Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

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Today's wedding got me excited for several reasons... The rustic beautiful back garden barn gem of a venue. The mountain of gorgeous DIY projects the bride completed. The sentimental meaningful love filled images. Oh yes.

Carol and Gareth married in May of this year with a church ceremony followed by a reception at Carol's parent's barn. The whole day was a huge home made effort, with everything being sourced or made by Carol and Gareth and their loved ones. I just adore the blooms and the amazing scrumptious looking naked wedding cake.

Carol was captivating in her Annasul Y dress which she wore with a lace edged veil, while Gareth went for tweed and a bow tie. Oh the style.

Thanks goes to Freckle Photography for sharing these delightful photographs today.

THE PROPOSAL | Gareth proposed on our epic holiday in California which he had got me as a surprise birthday present!. We started in San Francisco, where he proposed on the first day - I think he wanted to lose responsibility for the ring! At a beautiful place called the Palace of Fine Art, overlooking the golden gate bridge. We then hired a Mustang and travelled down the coast, stopping in various places, staying in motels etc. Such a spectacular holiday, which we we'll never forget!

THE VISION | I knew straight away that I wanted to have the reception in a barn as I just love the architecture of them, beautiful old timber beams etc , I knew I wanted it to be rustic and fun filled with beautiful colours. I also wanted it to be as 'handmade' as possible.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | I bought and inherited endless amounts of wedding magazines, which I read cover to cover which guided me in my planning process. I searched the internet and used Pinterest which was a god-send.

BUDGET | Sadly neither of us are millionaires so we chose to have a 2 year engagement in order to save hard. And we were helped by our parents.

THE VENUE | This was my parents 16 th Century Barn connected to their home - our family home. We looked at many barn venues and found them all beautiful but after every viewing I found myself thinking "I bet I could do that!" and so I proposed this to my parents. I thought having our wedding at home would be so special we had to pursue this idea and also my parents are selling the house so we thought this would be the best memory of our family home. We spent months of clearing the barn of garden equipment, bikes, garden furniture, rubbish etc and brushed out all the years of dust and eventually as the barn cleared and the timber beams became exposed I think my vision began to become more apparent. I knew I wanted low hanging crystal chandeliers from the beams to add some delicacy and class to the rustic atmosphere and also fairy lights to create a magical wonderland. My mum and my godmother spent endless hours gardening and creating floral masterpieces.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My beautiful dress was from The Ivory Secret in Crediton. I wore an Annasul Y. It was a stunning Romantic dress which completely fitted with my 'vibe'. My pearl necklace and earrings were from John Lewis and my bracelet was borrowed from my maid of honour - Lisa Hattersley.

FINDING THE DRESS | My sister got married last year and bought her dress from The Ivory Secret, she tried on my dress and I knew then that I loved it, I couldn't wait to go back and try it on myself! I didn't go to any other shop, I knew as soon as I tried it on that it was the one. The girls at the Ivory Secret are adorable and so accommodating I couldn't recommend a better bridal boutique!

GROOM'S ATTIRE | The Groom and the best men got their three-piece suits from Topman online. The grooms' parties ties were different coloured paisley patterns from The Tie Bar and then Gareth changed in to a bow tie at the reception bought from Mrs Bow Tie. The rest of the grooms' parties three-piece suits were from Next.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | My mother chose the readings, which were personal to her and were very fitting. With the music we knew we wanted to replicate the Royal wedding with our music, we wanted grand hymns that all our guests would be familiar with. Opening hymn: Jerusalem, Final hymn: I vow to thee my country - accompanied on the organ by my cousin Christopher Deamer. I walked down the aisle to: Romanze from the Gadfly by Shostakovich, played by Sarah Dumbrill (a friend) on Flute accompanied by Chris on piano- BOTH EXCEPTIONAL MUSICIANS! For the signing of the register we had: Kissing you from Romeo and Juliet again played by Sarah and Chris. Leaving music: Widor, toccata from symphony 5 played on the Organ by Chris.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | Maid of Honour: Lisa Hattersley - my bestest friend since birth, we have grown up together and experienced everything together - this was an easy decision. My bridesmaid was my sister who has also been a figure of inspiration throughout life and was a great support. Their dresses were from Miss Selfridge - a bargain buy I came across in the sale!

THE FLOWERS | The bridal bouquets, buttonholes and large flower arrangements in the barn were done by Wild About You Flowers. All the table flowers in the barn were done by myself and my sister. The Church flowers were done the by the church flower ladies. I wanted lots of colourful scented flowers, including stocks, freesias, roses and hydrangeas.

THE CAKE |My glorious cake was made with love by my very good friend Mandy Knight who is a work colleague and an amazing baker but very modest. Mandy knows I adore strawberries and ever since she made her famous strawberry cupcakes I knew I needed her to make our wedding cake. She has such a natural talent. The cake was Victoria sponge filled with delicious buttercream and strawberries, decorated with beautiful blooms.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Emma Latham from Freckle Photography who I can safely say is most definitely now a firm family friend after also photographing my sister's wedding back in August last year. She has been excellent and we adore her. Her photographs are fantastic and we are ecstatic with them.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | I spent lots of time on Pinterest searching ' barn weddings' and pinning everything I liked. The beauty of having your own wedding is that you can literally have everything you want! (within budget!) and you can make everything personal to you. I didn't want to have too much fancy stuff but lots of little details that would make an impact.

I went for personalised matches, flip flops for dancing shoes. collected old pictures so that I could have the empty frames. Collected mirrors from charity shops and also collected china from charity shops. I picked up little pieces like my typewriter from eBay and I raided our parents lofts for other quirky items like the vintage radio. I made bunting by cutting up mulberry paper and cutting up old music and then punching holes in the top and weaving thick yawn through. I made all our wedding stationery using pretty craft card from Hobbycraft - this was a continued theme throughout the wedding.

For place names I again used the card cut into luggage tags and pegged them to the napkins, this then doubled up as a name badge :-). For the table flowers I collected hundreds of Jam Jars of all different sizes - I wrapped East of India ribbon around the tops of some of them and plain pastel coloured ribbon around others to create simple but pretty vases. For the table centrepieces I placed old books, which I had collected on top of each other, I then popped a vase on the top and some around the edge and wrote the table number using scrabble tiles and old wooden scrabble tile holders. With the remaining jam jars I covered them in Epson salts which made lovely pretty candle holders - for this I painted the jars with PVA glue using paintbrush, mixed the Epson salts with small amount of food colouring in a separate dish, rolled the glued jar in the salt and then poured the salt over the jar, once dry I sprayed them with crystal clear adhesive.

In the garden I placed a number of garden crooks to line the walkway for when it got dark and then I hung jam jars of them with tealights in - I made the handles for the jars using craft wire from Hobbycraft and bent it with pliers, usually for jewellery making. We hung various coloured paper pom poms from the ceiling at different levels in the side room to create a different warming atmosphere. My mother in law - Dawn White - made the ladies wedding favours - mini hessian bags filled with dried lavender tied with string and finished with a heart.

THE HONEYMOON | Gareth was in charge of this - I organised the wedding, he did the honeymoon! We both love adventure and knew we wanted to go somewhere we hadn't been before. After having such a fantastic time in California for our engagement we knew America would be a safe bet. We decided on New York! Followed by a week of sun and partying in Vegas.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Entering the church and seeing and hearing gasps and whispers of excitement and then seeing Gareth's face when he saw me - very overwhelming - I cried! Also the car journey to the church with dad, the last car journey as a 'single lady!' felt very strange, we were both extremely nervous. The speeches - I was reduced to a tear or two during my Dad's speech and Gareth's speech. Gareth did such an excellent job and spoke so well, I was immensely proud of him. The best men also did a very unique speech, which had all our guests in laughter. We had THE MOST AMAZING day, spent with absolutely marvellous people with endless smiles and laughter. I could not have asked for anything different.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | My only regret is nobody filmed the speeches so I would definitely advise to ensure someone videos the speeches on some kind of a device, either you hire a videographer for the day or you ask someone just to film it on their phone. My other advice is to make sure you spend as much time as possible with your new husband; we partied hand in hand into the early hours! - After all it is your wedding day and you should celebrate together! And lastly - don't let the wedding prep get on top of you, take a step back and remind yourself that essentially it is just one massive shindig! So prepare in the same way you would for any other standard party: booze, food and friends!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Church | St Thomas More Church, Knebworth

Reception Venue | Mum & Dad's barn and garden

Toilets | Mobile thrones

Caterers | The Lobster Pot

Furniture | Highield Events Company + my own collection

Vintage China | Everyone's Cup of Tea + my own collection - on Facebook & Everyones Cup of Tea (EveryCupofTea) on Twitter

Wine | Tescoonline wine

Wedding dress | The Ivory Secret

Photographer | Freckle photography

Flowers | Wild About You flowers

Evening Reception | St. Albans Dj

Music (flaughtist) | Sarah Drumbrill

Wow wow wee. Love this wedding.

Thanks so very much to Carol and Gareth for sharing their amazing wedding with us XOXO Lou

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