Eclectic Colourful & Quirky Homemade Village Hall Wedding | Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

Eclectic Colourful & Quirky Homemade Village Hall Wedding | Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

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Oh it's such a pleasure to be a wedding blogger and days like this very wedding just make me happy and warm inside.

Anna and Dave married on the 3rd May 2014 and held their reception at Lympstone Village Hall in Devon. They alongside their loved ones planned and made everything, from the home grown flowers to the DIY décor and amazing (totally edible) wedding cake.

Anna looked beautiful in Suzanne Neville 'Promise' and wore a headdress she made herself. Such a loved up, vibrant wedding.

Thanks so very much to the amazing Miss Gen Photography for sharing her photographs this morning.

THE PROPOSAL | It eventually happened just before Christmas on Octopus Island, part of the Yasawa Islands in Fiji on our way home from a year of global travel. Anna had a severely sprained ankle so could barely walk, and after a few failed attempts and with a tropical cyclone heading our way. Dave took Anna snorkelling to a private part of the island and finally popped the question, getting down on one knee in the surf.

THE VISION | Located where we both grew up in Devon. We wanted it to be a fun, and relaxed celebration where everyone feels a part of it.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We gave ourselves a year to bring it all together and started off trying to get one big thing done a month. The biggest things, Dress, Venue, Date, Ceremony were the first things we got sorted, as we came nearer the time the jobs got smaller and more frequent.

BUDGET | £10,000

THE VENUE | Ceremony - Ottery st Mary Parish Church. Reception - Lympstone Village Hall.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | The dress was a Suzanne Neville number from "The Dress" in Teddington, Middlesex called "Promise". Shoes were TK Maxx and the first purchase made. The headdress was made by the bride.

FINDING THE DRESS | Its the classic story of "it was the first one I tried on". The shop is one that I have walked past so many times and always thought it was out of my budget so you can imagine the excitement when I saw "Sample Sale" written on the window. I immediately booked an appointment and called in my bridesmaid and best friend Jessie to come with me. She was so brilliant to have with me and it turned out to be extra special as she ended up not being able to come to the wedding.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | Austin Reed "Nick Hart" Charcoal 3 piece suit, Next shirt with silver collar pin, 2-tone grey striped Topman tie and a pair of black brogues shoes also from Topman. Accessories also included a custom made tie pin with the Groom's initials and as an extra special addition, the Groom also wore a pocket watch previously owned by his Great Grandfather.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | I knew quite early on that I wanted my mum to read a passage from "Captain Corelli's Mandolin". The music we found quite difficult but ended up with some great ones. I didn't want to have organ music as I walked down the aisle so we asked a family friend to play the guitar instead. He played an instrumental version of "Heartbeats" by Jose Gonzalez. As we signed the register we played a recording of Anna's choir, The Landmark Singers, who are based in Teddington. We had specially recorded a rehearsal session of them singing their version's of "Perfect day" by Lou Reed, and "The Book of Love" By the Magnetic Fields. As we left the church we had "Feeling Good" by Muse which sounded awesome, but also raised a chuckle.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | We had originally planned 6 bridesmaid's, The Bride's sister Jo, and best friend Jessie were the adults, and there were 4 more in the form of The Bride and Groom's nieces and their 2 nephews were also pageboys.

THE FLOWERS | Bouquets were made by the Groom's mum using both home grown and bought flowers. The table flowers were all home grown and wild flowers picked from the Bride's, Mother's garden, with some more picked from friends and family's gardens too.

THE CAKE | The cake was made completely by the Groom's Aunt. We had a consultation and left it completely in her hands to come up with a design. Everything was edible and she created some amazing sugar work to produce some stunning Peonies flowers at the request of the Bride.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Our photographer "Miss Gen" was just amazing. We couldn't have found anyone better, her service and quality were just second to none when compared to all our other suppliers. Our package included an engagement shoot so we could get used to her style of photography and so we were more comfortable with having our picture taken so much! We received some really nice touches along the way before the wedding day itself, such as a "welcome" pack that included samples of her style and even had a couple chocolate bars included which was a nice addition with a cuppa tea while we flicked through her booklet that explained all her processes for the day. She even detailed what camera's and lenses she'd be using as The Groom was particularly interested.

On the day we got to choose a location we were particularly fond of for some personal photos and spent an hour on the beach getting some really awesome shots. For our day, "Miss Gen" actually consisted of two photographers, Genevieve Chapman and her partner Matthew. I didn't once think they were intrusive at any time and having two different perspectives meant that they really captured every aspect of the day. As for the photographs themselves; they were fantastic. You could tell each one had been graded individually for their respective compositions and a lot of time had gone into ensuring quality of colour, contrast and content. The presentation is something Genevieve has nailed, and to complete the process we received a neat package with some fine art prints and USB memory stick containing all high res images of our day, so we had complete ownership of the final product. Awesome.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | All the decorations and detailing were completely done by our team of family and friends. We bought a load of IKEA table and ceiling lanterns (ROTERA and REGOLIT) and dyed the paper lanterns ourselves in light shades of blue and green using Dylon fabric dye to match our pastel colour scheme. We also bought some paper lanterns really cheaply from eBay too.

The table runners were hand sewn by the Groom, all 100m of them! The table-cloths/crockery/food were organised by the Bride's mother and a team of family and friends, we also hired a hog roast which was incredible through Greendales in Devon.

We had a custom illustration drawn for us by our friend Elissa Elwick for our invitations and our ceremony's order of service, with the designs and layout created by the Bride and Groom and printed through moo.com.

Smaller details such as some origami hearts and some venue posters were created by the Bride's sister Jo Spencer. The bride created a "love is" blackboard which allowed guests to leave us a few interesting messages! We also had a cream tea for everyone when they arrived at the venue, and all the cake stands were either charity shop bought or donations from friends and family for the day.

THE HONEYMOON | We're planning on heading to South Africa to tour the whole country. Instead of having a gift list we asked for donations from guests to help fund the adventure, which has really helped us out.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Seeing our nieces and nephews walking down the aisle before the Bride at the ceremony was particularly hilarious, each one carried a flag that spelt out "Comes here the Bride", hopefully you can see what it was meant to say!

The Groom had planned to open up a bottle of champagne that his Nan received on her ruby wedding anniversary 50 years prior as a toast to absent friends and family, but the cork had perished and a sombre moment was actually hilarious and relaxed thanks to the lack of the appropriate "pop"! The brown champagne in the bottle was poured down the sink!

An hour's break for photographs on the beach after having Champagne in the car driven by the Bride and Groom's brother-in-law was a particularly nice moment. It was a really relaxed moment and really enjoyable to be on the beach in such great weather.

Our band, "Copper's for Karma", were a massive hit, and if you're umming and ahhing about booking a band, DEFINITELY do as it makes a lot of difference on the night.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Don't leave the most important things until the last minute! It will be stressful at times, but as long as the most important things are booked/bought early like the venue, ceremony, food, drink etc then you'll know a party will happen and you just need to turn up!

Hire a cleaning team for the morning after if you're going to do a wedding by yourself. Our cleaning team was incredible! If you're thinking of doing the drinks yourself too, I can definitely recommend hiring in a mobile bar service rather than buying a load of booze yourself. Our bar hire company - Event Bars South West were superb, all welcome drinks, table wines and toast drinks were sorted out by them, with a fully stocked bar available all night too. They even cleared away and cleaned up everything they brought, amazing!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Our awesome photographer | Genevieve Chapman

Church | Ottery St Mary Parish Church

Vintage Hire Company supplying chairs, tables etc - we got our chairs from here | Virginia's Vintage Hire

Ask the Butcher's for their Hog Roast service, it's AMAZING! | Greendales Farm Shop

Our Band | Copper's for Karma

Our venue | Lympstone Village Hall

Our Bar service | Event Bars South West

Wow, such a fun filled colourful day.

Thanks so much to Anna and Dave for sharing their utterly brilliant wedding story with us XOXO Lou

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