Morning lovelies. I hope that you had a great weekend and are ready to start the week with a bang. I sure am :-)

WWW readers Amy and Duncan were married on Easter Monday earlier on in the year. They chose the lovely Hyde Barn in the Cotswolds to host their day, which worked perfectly. There was a quaint vintage feel to their wedding, with old fashioned crockery on the tables, a fondant fancy cake and gorgeous seasonal blooms.

Amy wore the stunning Connie by Alan Hannah and I so love the ankle length frock teamed with the sweet heart shoes. The girls wore pretty grey dresses while the gents went for blue suits. How utterly beautiful.

Many thanks to Scuffins Photography for providing the exquisite imagery today.

THE PROPOSAL | In Cyprus, we had talk about it a lot and Amy had even picked the ring which was an antique ruby and diamond ring bought from a second hand shop in Brighton.

THE VISION | We both wanted a relaxed day, with lots of champagne and gin. I love vintage tea pots and tea in generally so we knew from the get go that they would be our centre pieces. We both knew that we wanted pastel shades and something that was quite soft. We wanted to avoid anything that felt too formal and just really wanted to have a relaxed wedding which would hopefully be a lot of fun for everyone. Duncan and I don't take ourselves too seriously and we wanted that to be reflected in our wedding.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We got engaged in June 2013 and married in April 2015 so we had lots of time to plan the wedding. I am super organised where as Duncan is the opposite (well they like to say that opposites attract!). Duncan thought I was mad when I arranged to see Hyde Barn in August. We found picking a date really hard. I didn't want to get married in the summer and ideally wanted and December or Spring time wedding. We have a lot of friends who were teachers and so we knew it either had to be a Saturday or a bank holiday! When Easter Monday came up we thought it would be the perfect date, we would have the long weekend to do last minute planning.

We tried to do all the big things early, venue, photographer etc. I am so pleased we did as I think we would have struggled to get the people we wanted if we hadn't booked them so early. Plus it spread the cost out because we paid the deposit so early in the process.

It got to about 6 weeks before the wedding and Duncan admitted that he was pleased I had been so organised in the beginning as it did make the last few weeks less stressful.

BUDGET | We had hoped to do it for about £15,000 but spent a little bit more than that with the honeymoon. We did however get to a point where we spent more on unexpected things like getting dresses steamed etc! I would recommend adding £500 into any budget for all the unexpected costs (petrol etc).

THE VENUE | Hyde Barn, Stow on the Wold - The venue was beautiful and as soon as we went to it we knew it was perfect. It is a Cotswold stone barn which is essentially a blank canvas. The staff were absolutely amazing and from the very start I felt like I was the only bride! The grounds and the view were stunning. Attached the to the barn was Fosse Manor hotel which is used exclusively for weddings. When we booked the wedding the hotel was a little dated, by the time we got married they had completely redone it and it looked fab.

Annie and Gary at Hyde Barn totally made our day, nothing was too much bother and they catered for everything.

The barn let you bring your own alcohol and were really flexible about what we could bring, our guests were treated to Prosecco and gin and tonic for the drinks reception. The staff were so attentive, almost too attentive with the processco, there were many a sore head in the morning.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My beautiful dress was a dress called Connie by the designer Alan Hannah. My body shape suits the 50's style (I was clearly born in the wrong era) so I always knew I wanted a shorter dress with a 50's style. Lace was always what I wanted and the beautiful French lace on the dress is stunning. Audrey Hepburn is my all time fashion idol and I was keen to look timelessly elegant. I had fresh flowers in my hair and had a belt specially made. The belt really set off the dress and looked stunning.

I had simply pearl drop earrings and a pearl bracelet. It was simple yet beautiful.

FINDING THE DRESS | I tried on a few dresses in a boutique in Oxford. I tried on a whole range of dresses. After having my heart set on a shorter dress someone I was really close to has one for their wedding and I tried to convince myself to go for a longer dress. While all the longer dresses were beautiful none of them were quite me. As we were coming to the end of my appointment I saw the Connie dress and tried it on. I fell in love with it instantly. It was definitely the dress. However my heart was broken when I heard the price, with alterations the dress would have been over £3000. While it was my dream dress I did not want to pay that much.

I gave myself the task of finding a similar dress second hand. When I googled the dress I found that a shop in Bury (I live in Somerset) had the longer version of the dress on sale for £1,000.00. I immediately called and asked about the condition. They stated that it had never been tried on. I arrange to go up and see it and immediately purchased it. The shop did the alterations for me. The dress I tried on in Oxford was a classic T Length but when it came to alterations I decided that I would have it slightly longer so it stopped just above my ankle which I am so pleased about as the cut was beautiful.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | Duncan wore a suit from Debenhams. The suit was a gorgeous shade of blue! A tip for you all, if you buy the suits you can haggle at the price. We bought 4 and saved ourselves a bit of money which actually made them very close to the cost of hiring them.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | My very close friend is a fabulous cello player so I asked him to play something as I walked down the aisle. I have no clue what it was as I left it solely to him being the expert. We had two readings throughout the ceremony, both of them were sweet but not in an overly romantic way. It is so hard to find readings that haven't been done 500 times before.

After the ceremony we had a guitar and saxophone duo by Kim Cypher Band. They were fabulous and the fact that they could play outside, with everyone drinking champagne and eating canapés was one of the loveliest parts of our day. They were fab and I would recommend them for any wedding!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I has three bridesmaids, Sarah, Danielle and Laura. They wore grey embellished halter neck dresses which I found on the internet (on sale somewhere!). I knew I wanted them to be in grey as they are all very fair and I thought grey would be the best colour for all of their skin tones. The dresses were an absolute bargain. I bought them all beautiful duckegg blue cashmere cardigans (which weren't really needed as the weather was stunning) and they had silver glittery shoes to match. They all looked beautiful and their hair was finished off with fresh flowers.

THE FLOWERS | The flowers were grown by Rachel from Green and Gorgeous in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. She grows all her own flowers so its very much what ever has grown goes. I really wanted beautiful natural looking pale flowers and she delivered. Rachel did all of our beautiful bouquets and she provided all of the flowers for the venue. Me and the bridesmaids did the flowers for the venue the night before will a bottle of Prosecco! It was nowhere near as stressful as I thought as the hard bit of knowing what flowers go together was done for us. Everyone commented on how beautiful they were and it kept the cost down. Rachel also provided the gorgeous flowers for me and the bridesmaids hair.

THE CAKE | The cake was almost one of my favourite parts of the day. From the moment we got engaged I knew that I wanted a giant French fancy as a wedding cake with lots of little cakes around it. I made one for my best friend (and bridesmaids) birthday a few years back after we became obsessed with a website called 'pimp that snack' where they basically make giant versions of regular things. Duncan's amazing mum made the cakes for us!

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Chris and Helen from Scuffins Photography were our wonderful photographers. We met with Chris very early on when he had only done a few weddings however he 'got' us from day one. Plus he was so enthusiastic that I knew he would do a fab job. Little did we know how much he would take off. He has turned into a very sought after photographer and I can absolutely see why. His attention to detail and beautiful creativity made our wedding photos amazing. Numerous friends have commented that they are the best wedding photos that they have seen. Including their own.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | I loved planning our wedding, while it was stressful at times a lot of the time it was fun. After visiting Hyde Barn I quickly knew that I wanted lanterns hung from the ceiling throughout the barn. We found House of Bunting who were great, we rented all of the lanterns and they put them all up and took them all down. They were amazing. They dressed the whole day for us and it was by far some of the best money we spent.

Our tables were very rustic and had a piece of reclaimed wood in the middle. Each table then had a vintage teapot with flowers in it. Each table also had three teacups which were filled with love hearts, mints and mini eggs!

Our wedding favours were little bottles of sloe gin which we had painstakingly made the previous year. They looked amazing and we had a luggage tag attached to them to serve as the seat name.

In the evening we had a sweet table which we did ourselves and the cost of it was really low but kept the children entertained in the evening

THE HONEYMOON | We flew to Bali the day after the wedding where we rented a villa which came with a chef, driver and a cleaner. It was pure luxury for 12 days!

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Our first dance. Duncan and I aren't very sentimental so we were really struggling for a first dance song. Duncan suggested 'Rock Around the Clock' and I thought it would be perfect. Duncan had no idea that I had a 50's style dress. The first dance was so fun and I remember looking over and seeing Duncan's 90 year old aunt desperate to gate crash the dance floor.

Another memorable moment had to have been sitting in the arbour outside the venue catching my breath for a few minutes and seeing all my guests having lovely time and music playing, it was absolutely perfect.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Do whatever you want and don't get too bogged down with tradition if you don't want to. We didn't cut the cake, I walked myself down the aisle, I didn't have a veil or a train and we had a lot of fun. Everyone has their opinion on weddings but as long as you do what you want to do then you don't regret anything.

Everyone was horrified when I said I didn't want a formal cutting of the cake but not one person on the day noticed that we didn't!

Also don't worry about things on the morning, honestly if you have forgotten to do something then it is too late and no one will notice, I promise.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Venue | Hyde Barn

Guitar and Saxophone Duo | Kim Cypher

Photography | Scuffins Photography

Flowers | Green and Gorgeous

Disco | Euphoria Disco

Just so very wonderful.

Thanks so so much to Amy and Duncan for sharing their wedding story with us here at WWW xo Lou