With a budget of £5000 WWW readers Rachel and Chris got super crafty and DIY'd much of their wedding day. They tied the knot on Saturday 24th May 2014 at Newstead Abbey in Nottingham.

It was important to them to bring their loved ones together; with a lot of smiles and the sweetest little ones. Rachel arranged the flowers and crafted the colourful decor herself, I especially love the fun naked sponge cake.

Rachel looked beautiful in lace, while Chris donned a polka dot preppy look. Oh so lovely.

Thanks goes to the wonderful Light and Stories Photography for sharing their images today.

THE PROPOSAL | Chris decided we were going to stay a couple of nights in the Brecon Beacons for my birthday and it was the perfect gift! We went out walking in our waterproofs and wellies and ended up on a huge hill surrounded by cow pat and sheep. The views were amazing from the top and were made even more picturesque by the Sun beaming down across the landscape. Whilst I was busy with my nose stuck through a camera lens trying to focus in on a kestrel hovering above, Chris was sat on a rock. I carried on walking oblivious until I realised I couldn't hear him jibber jabbering on about something so I stopped to turn around and saw him staring into the distance. I went back for him and thought he was ill or something due to to the glazed look in his eye. Then he all of a sudden stood up, shoved his hand in his pocket to pull out a box and went down on one knee! Elated and gushing, I said yes. After a cuddle, some tears and a few phone calls home, we etched our initials into a heart shape onto the rock. I can't wait to go back and see if it's still there!

THE VISION | Our vision was really just to bring our loved ones together to celebrate so we wanted big smiles, laughter and dancing!

THE PLANNING PROCESS | Planning? Not sure we know the meaning of the word! For example, we originally booked the wedding for August last year but we had to postpone it due to our little happy accident that is our beautiful Niamh, now aged 10 months.

We kind of knew the look and feel/theme we wanted to go for which was rustic/shabby chic and we knew that we wanted to do as much of it as we could ourselves so we were expecting it to be a bit 'rough around the edges' but in a good way of course. I (Rach) like to think I'm a bit crafty and I love doing a bit of DIY so that's exactly what we did. I handled all the décor, flowers etc whilst Chris sorted out all the financials and hiring of the Dj, car etc.

BUDGET | We gave ourselves a budget of 5k. With having a baby we really wanted to keep costs down.

THE VENUE | Newstead Abbey, Nottingham. We lived on the grounds for a while and used to go for daily dog walks. We fell in love with the place.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | eBay, and proud! Although I love the thought of buying British, it just wasn't in our budget to and if I'm honest (other brides might turn away in horror) but I always hated the idea of visiting bridal shop after bridal shop, so I didn't. I trawled the web for images of dresses that I loved and found plenty of them, with the hope that with sending the images off to an eBay seller, they'd be able to re-create it but this turned out to be more expensive than what I wanted to pay. I did however find a lovely dress and it was tailor made and sent out to be in little over a month. And all for about £90 so I can't complain.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | The suits were probably more hard work than our dresses just because their weights changed (honestly worse than women :p ). They were a selection from various high street stores, again keeping costs low and it meant they could mix and match with different colours and styles to tie in with the more 'preppy' look Chris wanted.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | The music we chose for the ceremony wasn't traditional at all. It was all instrumental music but were songs such as Oasis-She is Love, Paramore-Only Exception and I'm pretty sure I heard the music from Austin Powers (what happens when you leave things up to Chris). I walked in to ColdPlay-Viva la Vida...the best instrumental music ever!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My lovely bridesmaids were my best friend Helen, my sister in law Lisa, my niece Layla and daughter Niamh. Who probably got frustrated with me for not wanting to go to bridal shops and not planning ahead. Helen's and Lisa's dresses were from Etsy, I didn't want a traditional dress for each of them as I wanted them to be able to wear them again so I went for an infinity dress, one that you can wear multiple ways which also came in handy for Helens growing bump! They decided on how they wanted to wear it on the day, as well as how they wanted their hair which was perfect for me as I hate telling people what to do. Layla and Niamh's dresses were from Monsoon and again weren't your typical bridesmaid dress but this meant they were more modern and oh so cute!

THE FLOWERS | We started off by visiting a few local florists. It was silly, and unintentional, but we ended up going on Valentines day. My advice? Never, EVER visit a florist on Valentines Day to ask about wedding flowers. I've never had such a bad reception from asking for a few quotes about flowers and was often cut off before I could finish... serves me right I suppose. So anyway, as neither of us are great at planning we decided to leave it all until the day before, visit our local flower market, and just pick up whatever we could find which luckily added to the 'rustic' feel we were going for. It was a risk, but thanks to the time of year, there were some nice, vibrant colours. We basically separated the bunches, cut them to size, and bunged a few in each jar.

THE CAKE | Was amazing! I knew Karen from Classy Cupcakes from when I'd ordered some birthday cakes from her a couple of years previous so I knew she was good. We went for a 3 tiered, 'level 6 ooziness' sponge cake with different flavoured sponges. I really couldn't have asked for anything more. Karen set up and provided the fruit on the cake which finished it off beautifully. Best ever cake I've tasted.... and I've eaten a lot of cake!

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Josephine for Light and Stories - Chris was responsible for choosing the photographer and when he told me that Josephine was travelling up from London, I must admit I was a little apprehensive, until he showed me her website. I remember feeling really nervous awaiting her arrival as I'm not the most photogenic person and hate the idea of someone looking at me! When Josephine arrived she immediately put myself and my bridesmaids at ease. It was easy to see that photography is her passion which made me feel completely happy with leaving our wedding photos in safe hands. And, ta dah! The photos are amazing! I can't thank her enough and would recommend her to anyone! She even managed to put my new mummy at ease I front of a camera, which is no easy feat.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | So décor was mostly if not all done by myself only because I love crafting and we didn't want to spend a lot on it. And it was great practice for setting up a new business on Facebook called Canoodle Designs (plug plug). From the flower jars to the sweet table, cake bunting to the table backdrops and runners and from the girls headbands to favours and favour boxes. I only started the month before so it didn't take me too long but it did help knowing exactly what I wanted... I say I, because Chris probably wouldn't mind if the tables were bare and the flowers were dead!

THE HONEYMOON | We have a little one, Niamh who was 8 months old at the time. We really didn't want to leave her for very long at all so we enjoyed a mini moon in Paris for 3 nights. We ate like kings.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | All of it. Really needing a wee when I was already late for the ceremony!

The feeling full of nerves and excitement just before I walked down the aisle knowing everyone was waiting on me.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Everyone says this but soak it all up. After our ceremony we went for a 15 short drive in the wedding car and it was the perfect opportunity to get all our feelings out and just relax a bit after all the formalities and it was perfect. Try to find 5 minutes alone with your new wife/husband to really make the most of it.

Another bit of advice from bride to bride to be would be, don't worry about what people are going to think and say about your day. Spend it the way you want to spend it, so if it's prancing around all night long on the dance floor with your mates then just do it!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photography | Light and Stories

Cake | Classy Cupcakes

Dress | eBay

Bridesmaid dresses | Etsy

Gorgeous.

Thanks so so much to Rachel and Chris for sharing their brilliant wedding story with us this morning XOXO Lou