Oh. My. Word.

Not only is Clare an incredibly beautiful bride, all glowing skin and glossy locks, but her and her husband Ben held their wedding reception in Clare's grandfather's garden...and it is so ruddy beautiful.

Simple, elegant, pretty, relaxed - perfectly executed in every way. I love the use of mis- matched chairs for the wedding breakfast and the minimalist yet feminine table centre arrangements. Also, who knew an old chimney pot full of plants could make such a style statement?

*Wonders if a chimney complete with trailing foliage might look a bit much in the kitchen*

Clare The Bride: Ben and I knew as soon as we got engaged that we wanted our wedding to be the church in the Village where my family have lived, All Saints, in Ockbrook followed with the reception just around the corner at my Grandfather's house.

We wanted to keep the wedding as low-key and as personal as possible which meant that the whole day became a big family team effort! We all mucked in and transformed his garden with a marquee and decked out his potting shed with garlands of hops and strings pegged with family photographs to become a makeshift bar.

Stationery

Chris and Hannah at The Smallprint Company helped us with our wedding stationery with some wonderful letterpress work. We worked together to make our invitations, order of service and the labels for our seed packet favours.

Fashion

My dress and my bridesmaid's dresses were from Jenny Packham. I work at Jenny Packham and was lucky enough to have some input into the design from the beginning. I was absolutely thrilled with my dress on the day and felt so comfortable and elegant wearing it.

The Ceremony

The church in the village had been part of my life up until then it felt so personal to be able to have our wedding there. St Andrews school choir sang "Going to the Chapel" by The Dixie Cups and "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" by Diana Ross while we signed the register which was wonderful to hear in church!

Transport

My Dad organised our wedding car which was a blue Morris Minor convertible which my Granddad drove for the day. He had to make several trips to the church for all of my bridesmaids and my Mum before finally coming back to collect my Dad and myself!

Flowers And Decor

Along with help from Kerry at The Blossom Tree Boutique florist in Melbourne, I assembled all of the flowers on the morning of the wedding. I wanted a really soft, cottagey feel to them which I thought would tie in with the old chimney pots that we had filled with plants to decorate the marque. We picked lots of soft white flowers mixed with textured foliage that we dropped into antique bottles and jugs that I had collected. The beautiful bouquets and hair bands that Kerry made for me, the bridesmaids and the flower girls had a similar feeling to them.

The gorgeous flowers, added to the mismatched vintage chairs from The Poppy Trading Company, festoon lighting, antique step ladders and old fruit crates helped to create a rustic and relaxed feeling in the marque.

Photography

Our Photographer, Joe Stenson was the only external supplier at the wedding. We booked him some time in advance after seeing the natural images on his website, which we thought would suit our plans. He was such an affable character on the day, interacting with our guests and making them feel at ease with his presence! Joe also put together a slideshow of images from the morning up until our wedding breakfast and displayed them in the marquee after our meal, which was a lovely surprise! We're delighted to have such beautiful photographs to remember such an amazing day.

Food & Drink

Ben's brother, Tom, kindly offered to take on the huge task of cooking the wedding breakfast. My uncle made some amazing BBQ's out of disused oil drums on which Tom and a couple of his friends cooked legs of lamb for each table. For the food, we wanted the guests to 'break bread' together and have the food placed in the centre of each table to share amongst themselves. We gave one person from each table a letter of instruction from the chef and an apron to help them on their way!

With a bit of help from other people, Ben sourced amazing beers, some locally in cask from Derbyshire from the Derventio brewery, some in bottle from London where we live and some from as far away as Germany! Ben then sourced lots of glass tankards from charity shops and vintage markets which he gave to all the guests drinking beer to keep for the day and take home with them afterwards.

We had so many generous friends and family who collected dried rose petals for confetti, baked some amazing cakes and made pork pies for the guests to enjoy in the evening and helped Ben and I with the music for the playlist.

The whole day was the perfect relaxed family affair that we had dreamed of.