Quirky Rustic & Home Made Lemon Yellow Wedding

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Let me share with you just why I adore this wedding.

Pretty home-made rustic touches. Fresh zingy pretty florals. A country Cotswolds setting.

Yes it's WWW readers Lottie and Ben's quirky yellow wedding held on the Summer Solstice last year. Gosh I do love you guys, WWW reader weddings are the best, why? Because it's all about the marriage and the love. Lottie and Ben are head over heels for one another and their wedding represented their personalities perfectly. They did things their own way.

Be sure to read the full report below for all of those wonderful details.

Thanks so very much to Motif Wedding Photography for sharing these lovely images today.

THE PROPOSAL | Ben proposed on 23rd June 2013 in Lake Garda, Italy. We were there on holiday (our first time to Italy) and he proposed on the first evening we were there, as he was so nervous he didn't want to wait any longer and he was scared I was going to find the ring! We had been for dinner at a lovely restaurant in Bardolino and as we were walking back to the hotel along the lake front we decided to stop at a nearby bench to watch the storm happening in the mountains. Ben knows me well, and knew that I wouldn't like a huge fuss and certainly wouldn't appreciate him getting down on one knee and drawing attention to us, so instead he sat next to me, pulled the ring out of his pocket and opened up the box to show me. Safe to say I was in complete shock and didn't say anything for about 5 minutes, but after some prompting from Ben I of course said yes and put the ring on... later discovering I'd put it on the wrong hand as even at the age of 28 I seem to have trouble with my left & right. It was perfect! We recently had the opportunity to go back to Lake Garda almost exactly a year on for a friend's wedding and it was as beautiful as I remember it.

THE VISION | We knew we wanted something quite relaxed and laid back. We wanted to do away with the formality that often comes with weddings and have a more chilled out atmosphere where our guests felt at ease. Despite this, it was important to me to be married in a church so we went with a traditional ceremony followed by a less traditional reception!

Rather than a formal 3 course meal we had a BBQ wedding breakfast and we sourced an old vintage bath tub to use as a giant ice bucket so our guests could help themselves to cider & beer. With regards to style we opted for a rustic/vintage theme, the quirkier the better in our eyes! The running theme throughout the day was lemons! We had them EVERYWHERE, from the lemon drizzle wedding cake, to the place settings and centre pieces. There was a definite DIY aspect to the wedding which made it so much more special when we saw everything come together on the day. I designed all of the wedding stationery myself (having a background in Graphic Design), Ben made quirky grass letters spelling out our names which were the backdrop to the top table, and Ben's nan made all of the yellow & green gingham table runners.

We kept speeches short and to a minimum, again one of the wedding formalities we really don't enjoy, and we didn't plan to do a first dance (although we were persuaded to do one later on in the evening and luckily we had asked our band to learn our chosen song just in case!).

From the very start we wanted to arrange the wedding away from where we lived so we could make it into a mini holiday both for us and our guests. We also wanted to make the most of the British countryside and what better place than the Cotswolds to do that!

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We had just under a year to plan the wedding which at first felt like a lifetime but it went by in a flash. The first thing to check off the list was the venue... we knew we wanted a rustic barn in a countryside setting no further than 2 hours from where we live. When we found Hyde Barn, we then went straight to the nearest church to find out what their availability was. There was only one date that both Hyde Barn and the church could do so our decision was made for us. From then I went into full planning mode and enjoyed every minute of it! I loved being involved in every little detail and would do it all over again if I could. I seriously think I have missed my vocation in Events Planning ☺ I created a mammoth spreadsheet with every aspect of the wedding covered together with all of the costings which made it really easy for us to ensure we kept on budget. Everything went relatively smoothly, the only crisis we had right at the end was our band pulling out 3 days before the wedding. We were mortified, but luckily we managed to find a replacement band at short notice who were absolutely fantastic.

THE VENUE | We had the ceremony at St. Mary's church in Lower Slaughter. The church is what sold it for me, I fell in love with it the moment we walked in. It's a smallish village church which seats about 100 people. The village of Lower Slaughter is beautiful and a perfect backdrop to a wedding, there is an old mill built in the nineteenth century at one end of the village, and the road on which the church is situated was also voted Britain's most romantic street in 2011! As it wasn't our local parish church we had to go to 6 Sunday services in the lead up to the wedding, I particularly enjoyed the carol service at Christmas.

Hyde Barn in Stow-on-the-Wold is 5 minutes down the road from St. Mary's and where we had our reception. We loved the rustic feel to it and the events team there were amazing. We loved the beams in the main dining room and the lovely little arbour in the garden. They provided a large selection of catering options including the BBQ wedding breakfast which really appealed to us! The other reason we chose this venue was because it's next to Fosse Manor hotel (a great country-house hotel and former rectory) which was the perfect place for our guests to stay.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | I thought that finding the dress would be pretty straight forward... but I was wrong. I wanted something quite elegant and understated however a lot of the dresses I found had lots of layers and were very "blingy". After visiting about 8 different bridal shops I finally found one I really liked (Benjamin Roberts Tia 5312). It was a simple, slim-fitting lace dress which had a vintage feel to it. It had a chapel length train and the lace scalloped edge extended out a little further than the satin layer underneath creating a beautiful effect when walking down the aisle. I also had buttons sewn onto the zip line as an extra touch. I wore a 2 tier veil with a lace edge to match the dress which clipped into the back of my hair. Shoe-wise I opted for some plain satin shoes (Pink By Paradox) with a low heel as I didn't want to be taller than Ben!

For jewellery again I wanted something quite simple which didn't overpower the dress. I wore a single solitaire "diamond" (cubic zirconia) necklace and small drop earrings to match. On the morning of the wedding I was given a present from Ben which was a gorgeous silver bracelet to wear on the day.

I didn't wear any hair accessories (other than my veil) as I wanted my hair to have a soft "thrown together" look.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | We wanted Ben's suit to fit with the vintage country theme of the wedding and look appropriate for a village church... which meant we steered away from top hats and cravats! The suit he chose was a stylish all grey suit with matching grey waistcoat and sage green tie (our colour scheme was sage green & yellow). The day before the wedding my Dad gave him a very swish Armani watch to wear on the day and my present to him on the morning of the wedding was some silver scrabble tile cuff links with his initials engraved on them.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We had two readings during the ceremony. The first one was Corinthians 13:4-8, "Love is patient; love is kind" read by one of my best friends. The second reading was an excerpt from Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres ("Love is temporary madness...") read by Ben's cousin. It was a slightly unusual choice for a wedding reading but we liked the uniqueness of it and it's so beautifully written.

Music wise I walked down the aisle to Canon in D by J. Pachelbel - a piece of music which I remember walking into assembly to at Primary School and absolutely love! We had two hymns during the ceremony, the first one was Lord of the Dance which we liked as it's so happy & upbeat, and the second one was Jerusalem (seemed fitting to be singing about England's green and pleasant land). Ben and I walked back down the aisle together to the sound of the traditional Wedding March by Mendelssohn and the church bells ringing.
We had our impromptu first dance to Van Morrison's "Into the mystic" which our band performed brilliantly.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I had two of my best friends as bridesmaids (I'm an only child so have no sisters). Keely who I've known since year 7 and Teagan who I've known since primary school. Keely was also expecting her first baby (due 4 months before the wedding) so because of this we left bridesmaid dress shopping to the last minute and went with high street. We found some lovely pale green floor length satin dresses from Coast which they both looked stunning in. They wore pale pink shoes which matched the lining of their dresses and I bought them both a pearl necklace and matching earrings to wear on the day. I'm so pleased they were both part of our big day.

THE FLOWERS | Our florist Clare from Lilyfee Floral Design is an inspiration! She is incredibly talented and I was blown away by the flowers and venue styling. I had a very soft country bouquet made up of daisies, peonies and gypsophila tied together with rustic hessian. My bridesmaids carried bouquets of sunflowers & daisies. To continue the lemon theme we had jam jars of sliced lemons and stocks in the church, and church pew ends of gypsophila.

For our table centre pieces we had collections of vintage tins and jars containing sunflowers, stocks and other beautiful flowers, all sat on a rustic log base and finished off with lemons.

Our Mum's wore wrist corsages which included David Austin roses, scabious and freesias and the men's buttonholes were all slightly different including yellow roses and daisies tied together with twine.

THE CAKE | We are lucky enough to have a close family friend who makes the most amazing cakes (Lindsay Tarbox from MMYC Bakery). She specialises in stunning rustic cakes which taste incredible. She completely understood our vision for the wedding and created a wonderful dessert table for us consisting of a "naked" lemon drizzle cake, a 2 tiered carrot cake (with wooden bride & groom cake topper from Etsy), mini Victoria sponges, lemon cake pops, a jar of gluten free chocolate brownies and a big pot of lemon curd all placed on an old shabby chic dresser.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Our photographer was the wonderful Sarah from Motif Photography. She is hugely talented and gives every wedding her undivided attention. The reason we chose her is because she had a very calming influence which put us both at ease, especially as neither of us felt particularly comfortable in front of the camera. We told her the sort of style we wanted and we went through her previous work to pick out elements we liked. I also love the fact she captured all of the little details & decorations that we had spent so much time & effort creating.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | This is probably the bit I loved planning the most! As I mentioned our florist did a fabulous job in styling the church and barn. She created all of the individual centre pieces and dressed the trees outside with tea lights in jam jars hanging from the branches and bunting hanging from the beams and arbour.

For the place settings I had the idea of using individual lemons with ours guests' names sticking out on little flags. I also designed "Guestlibs" (fun questions & advice for the bride & groom) which we placed on the tables as well. For wedding favours we decided to have scratch cards (as Ben likes a cheeky bet or two) and I designed envelopes for them with the phrase "Eat, drink and be lucky!".

The theme for the table names were ski runs in Banff, Canada (one of our favourite places).

On my bouquet I had a memory charm which was a photograph of my Grandad who had passed away just after Ben and I got back from Italy. I was very close to him so I wanted to feel like he was with me in some way on our big day. I also had a photo of him and Grandma on their wedding day and him giving my Mum away on her wedding day on our entrance table.

For our wedding car we had a vintage 'Inspector Morse' style Daimler, much to my Dad's delight, with beautiful red leather interior.

We had giant white balloons at either end of the barn which looked really cool and we used them in some of our photos. The day after the wedding we let one of them go with the words 'Lottie & Ben married 21/06/14 lived happily ever after' ☺

I made our table plan from a shabby chic white frame that a friend had lent me and used hessian as the backing. I then used luggage tags for each table and attached them to lengths of twine with little wooden pegs.

Rather than individual menus on each table we had a big chalkboard menu on an easel in front of the dining room. We also had a chalkboard welcome sign and little chalkboard signs in the men's & ladies toilets with fun sayings on them.

THE HONEYMOON | We went to Crete for 10 days for our honeymoon and stayed in the beautiful Domes of Elounda hotel. Elounda is a small fishing town which overlooks the island of Spinilonga (a former leaper colony) featured in the book The Island. It was a chilled out holiday which was much needed after the wedding! We tried paddle boarding (much harder than it looks!) and we hired a speed boat which was so much fun.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Bouncing on the bouncy castle with Ben. Dancing the night away to Counting Stars by One Republic. Sitting in the wedding car with Ben on our own just after the wedding trying to take it all in! When it was just Dad and I left waiting to leave for the church I gave him a present which my friend Claire at Crafty Pretty made for me. It nearly bought a tear to Dad's eye ☺

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Make the most of every minute. The day will go in a flash. Don't dwell on the bits that might have gone wrong, it's not worth it and chances are no one will have noticed anyway!

Don't feel like you have to conform to convention or do things to please other people. It's your day, make it exactly what you want.

Enjoy the planning process. You'll probably spend the best part of a year (or longer!) creating your big day so make sure you have some fun along the way.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Wedding dress | Benjamin Roberts Tia 5312 from Harmony Brides

Photographer | Sarah Hinchliffe from Motif Wedding Photography

Hair & Makeup | Anna White

Florist | Clare Lee from Lilyfee Floral Designs

Cakes | my friend Lindsay Tarbox from MMYC bakery

Cake topper | Claire Hardwick from littledollsUK (Etsy)

Car | Paul Hazelton from Evesham Classic Wedding Car Hire

Giant Balloons | Paula Marshall from Fairford Balloons

Chalkboards | Sophie Gyamfi from Flash Fabulous

Band | Save The Last Dance

Bouncy castle | Every Event Hire