Rustic & Relaxed Barn Wedding with Clay Pigeon Shooting -...

Rustic & Relaxed Barn Wedding with Clay Pigeon Shooting -...

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I love the idea of entertaining your guests with something they perhaps have never tried. Today's bride and groom opted for laser clay pigeon shooting during their day, which was a unique and fun touch.

Michelle and Guy tied the knot on the 13 th June 2015 at Red House Barns in Worcestershire. They envisioned a relaxed and rustic wedding which wasn't too traditional. Think rustic barn setting, mismatched colours and a stunning naked cake creation.

Michelle wore the divine Watters "Penelope" gown with her hair in a gorgeous up do, how beautiful. I also love those Twobirds bridesmaid dresses, the girls looked fabulous. Enjoy folks.

Thanks to Darren Gair for sharing these joyful images with us today.

THE PROPOSAL | 21 st November 2013 - Birmingham Library, rooftop garden.

THE VISION | We wanted to keep it relaxed and rustic, nothing too formal and just have fun with it. We wanted a day filled with entertainment and wanted to veer away from anything too traditional.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We spent 6 months looking at venues all over, in the Lake District (as that's were Michelle is from) in the Midlands, in the Cotswolds and even Majorca at one point. We were open to anything and wanted to look at all possible options. But after all that we settled on a venue (Red House Barns) just 10 minutes from where we lived.

We wanted somewhere that was modern and stylish but with a relaxed feel - and red house barns was perfect for that. We actually booked the venue on the 13 th of June 2014 so we had exactly a year to prepare and plan. The venue helped us greatly with finding local suppliers. They held an event around September time were they invited all of their favourite suppliers and everyone that had their wedding booked within the next 12 months. This was a huge help - and we ended up booking the band, string trio, florist and some additional entertainment all in this one day. Everything else we worked on gradually over the remaining 9 months.

We got the rings from small independent jewellers. It was the same jewellers that made Michelle's engagement ring. The rings were the one of the few thing we kept quiet traditional.

Michelle made all of the invites in January. They were all designed on Photoshop and we then used a local printer. We gave them our guest list on an excel spread sheet along with the artwork so that each invite was able to be personalised.

THE VENUE | Red House Barns (Stoke Prior). We couldn't have possibly asked for a better beautiful well run venue! The barns are a bespoke wedding venue run by Jane and Jeremy. They provided us with everything we could have possibly wanted and more for our wedding. They work in partnership with Morgans Catering, who provided the amazing food and drink. We went through many meeting and planned everything to the last detail with all of them. Anthony Morgan sat down with us and had a long discussion planning a menu to our choice within our budget where anything was possible. A tasting was then arranged and we were not disappointed. The same level of quality there on the day. We also had a MC (Master of Ceremonies) Rob provided by the barns. He was very friendly and professional and made sure the day rolled along nicely with timings.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | The dress was from Serendipity Brides in Weedon Northamptonshire. It was a Watters Dress, called Penelope from their Love Marley collection. I knew I wanted something simple, that flowed and that wasn't too big. The dress had a low back which I liked and I also added a sparkly belt - also from Serendipity just to give it a bit of sparkle. My shoes were silver sparkly and from Dune - I had looked at a few bridal shoes but I was determined to keep my heels on all day (as I am quiet short) and these shoes were so comfy - yet still quiet high.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | Ted Baker suits from Moss Bros, Birmingham. The suits were blue with the ties and pocket squares from Two Birds Bridal to match the bridesmaid dresses.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | Our reading was read from Guys Aunty Mandy. We wanted something light hearted and nothing too traditional so she read "He Never Leaves the Seat Up". The music was played by the string trio with Michelle walked down the aisle to Bruno Mars Marry Me. During the Signing Wake Me Up by Avicii and for the exit Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros.

During the ceremony and drinks reception we had a local string trio. During the wedding breakfast we played a range of music from an I-pod organised by the venue.

We had a band called Capital Groove in the evening who we met at the venue as mentioned above.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | We had 4 beautiful bridesmaids - We chose to use Twobirds Bridesmaid dresses which we got from the wedding club in Birmingham - these were great as the bridesmaids live all over the country so it would have been tricky to meet up for fittings, but Twobirds come in one size and can be worn in many different ways - so everyone was happy and it was so quick and simple. The dresses were stunning - we went for four different colours as we didn't want one distinctive colour theme to the wedding.

We used a male hairdresser called Wayne Leddington who did all the put ups for the girls - he was great, so easy to work with and a good person to have around the morning of the wedding.

Make-Up - We used a lady called Lydia Repton who was lovely. Everyone loved the make-up and she was so quick. She even hung around when she was done to help us tie dresses; fasten jewellery and all of the little last minute bits.

THE FLOWERS | We used Hillary from Eloquent Flowers. The flowers were one of the simplest things to organise - as Hillary was so easy to work with! We never knew what flowers we wanted (we were both clueless when it came to that) but we knew how we wanted it to look - we wanted it to look natural / rustic. We wanted the colours to be in keeping with the colours of the bridesmaid dresses and we wanted berries to be incorporated. That's all we had to tell her - and from that she took care of everything. So many people commented about the flowers on the day, we couldn't recommend her enough.

THE CAKE | We used a Lady called Lois who you can find on Facebook under "The Cake Lady" she's so creative and up for anything. We wanted to have a naked cake and we had actually seen a picture of one in the good food magazine that we wanted to recreate - we found Lois on Facebook after a lot of traditional cake makers had refused to do a naked cake. Lois took care of sourcing the flowers and the berries and all the other decorations that went on to the cake.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | We used Darren Gair. We spent hours searching for a photographer and eventually found him through Pinterest. We liked that he had done weddings at Red House Barns before and when we met with Darren in a pub in Bromsgrove we knew that he would be perfect! We met for a pre wedding shoot at the Licky Hills in January 2015 so we got an idea of what would work on the day - he even let us bring along our dog, Bentley. On the day of the wedding Darren went to guy's parents' house first to capture all of the boys getting ready. He then went to the venue to meet the girls and get ready for the day ahead. All of the photos are perfect, relaxed and in the moment that really told the story of the day. Darren even stayed until about 10.30pm as we had arranged fireworks, which was great. We couldn't recommend Darren enough - he was so laid back and flexible, a great person to have around on the day.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | As Red House Barns is naturally so beautiful we didn't really need to decorate the barn too much. They have recently installed large trees inside the main timber barn with fairy lights running up them - which were great and saved us having to get extra flowers.

We used a company called Marksman Leisure who set up laser clay pigeon shooting. This was one of the best bit of the day - everyone really got into it and it made for some great photos. We had them there for the drinks reception and in the evening.

We gave out Charbonnel et Walker Truffles which we got from John Lewis - we got them in three different flavours which meant we had three different coloured boxes going around which fitted in with our decorations / theme quite nicely.

We decorated all of the T-light holders ourselves - which were just jam jars with hessian string round with a bow.

We did a bucket list instead of a traditional guest book. We got hold of a shiny metal bucket which we decorated with twine and then got some pre made bucket list cards from the web site weddingofmydreams.co.uk. We didn't want a standard guest book as we would never look at we liked the idea of having plenty of things to do after the hype of the wedding had died down.

We made the table numbers / name's ourselves. We had a berry theme to our wedding so each table was named after a berry. We made them on Photoshop and then framed them in simple white frames that we got of Amazon online.

Menu cards we also made ourselves again on photoshop - we then printed them on a glossy paper and mounted them onto thicker card. These took a long time as we had food choices at our wedding so each person needed an individual / personalised menu and we had 120 people at our wedding.

We made the table plan ourselves - we kept this simple and did it the same as the menu cards and table numbers so that it all tied in.

We also had a dessert table which we decorated using log slices - using these instead of plates and then a large log slice in the middle which had our wedding cake on.

There was a complimentary "Cigar Bar" Guy spent time choosing cigars and Michelle made the signage. This was placed on the bar and again added something a little different to the day.

THE HONEYMOON | We booked our honeymoon with Virgin. We went to Mauritius for 10 days and Dubai for 3 days on the way back.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Watching all of the guests arrive. Walking down the aisle and seeing each other for the first time. Watching Bentley (our dog) bringing the rings down the aisle. The food was unreal. The speeches were hilarious and seeing everyone enjoying the shooting and fireworks.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Try to take it all in your stride. We found you can go on, and on with every little bit of detail but try and draw a line / go with your instinct and make decisions. Mostly just try and enjoy it!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Venue | Red House Barns

Caterers | Morgans Catering

Photographer | Darren Gair

Band | Capital Groove

Flowers | Hillary at Eloquent Flowers

Cake | Lois the Cake Lady

Dress | Serendipity Brides

Bridesmaid dresses | The Wedding Club

Suites | Moss Bros

Shooting | Laser Shooting

Fireworks | Extra Fx Fireworks

Make Up | We book Lydia Repton through Victoria Jones

Hair | Wayne Leddington

Wow, such a fun day with the cigar and fireworks to finish too.

Michelle and Guy, many thanks for sharing your wonderful story with us xo Lou

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