I do love it when a family come together to create the perfect hand crafted day for the bride and groom.

Adam and Amy were lucky enough to have their loved ones contribute to their wedding, creating delightful florals and an epic carousel cake. Everything was a pastel delight, all fresh pink blooms, pretty maids and rustic décor.

Amy looked divine in her sweet tea length dress with simple accessories while the boys donned sharp blue suits. To make the day their own they skipped the readings, hired a magician and had a brilliant DJ.

Thanks so much to Kerry Ann Duffy for providing the sublime images today.

THE PROPOSAL | We went to New York for a few days, Adam had been acting very strangely throughout the trip... due to carrying around my engagement ring hidden in my own handbag! On the last day we were sitting by the big fountain in central park and Adam proposed!

THE VISION | Adam and I had been together for almost 8 years when we got married so we wanted it to be fun and relaxed. So we decided we wanted a rustic shabby chic kind of feel, with no three course sit down meal. From early on we decided we wanted a banquet bbq for the wedding breakfast and fish and chips for the evening. We used wedding blogs sent to us from our venue which featured other weddings that were held there, and pinterest to gain ideas and inspiration. We decided as well that we wouldn't have a colour theme as such just pale pastel vintage colours.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We started looking for venues before we decided upon anything. We did this by looking at wedding venues local to us in Kent on the internet. Once we found our venue everything else fell into place very quickly. We did most of our research online and used an excel spreadsheet as a checklist and to help keep track of costs. We also had help from family and friends giving us ideas and lending a hand. We got a lot of the big things booked fairly early such as venue and food. Then we tired to get the things we were doing ourselves done as early on as possible, how ever this did not go to plan with our wedding invites which we made our selves as we choose a far to fiddly design... shamefully some evening guests got an e-mail! We wish we had paid for them to be made in the end! We had family collecting all their glass jars, which we used on the tables for the flowers. My maid of honour, Penny, hand wrote all our place names with a chalk pen on to slate hearts which took her a few evenings! It really helped collecting things and checking off things early... although we still had a few important things that were left to the last minute such as our seating plan board and our music for our ceremony!

BUDGET | Our budget was originally £15,000, although we fair bit more than this with the help of family... our thought was we are only going to do it once!

THE VENUE | We saw Preston Court online first as it was suggested by friend. To our surprise it was only about 25 minutes away from where we live and we had never heard of it. As soon as we saw it online we both fell in love with it. We did look at other venues before Preston Court but as soon as we pulled up in our car for a viewing we knew we were going to get married there. It had everything we were looking for... two rustic barns one for eating and dancing and the other for dancing. Then of course there's Juliette's island which we had our ceremony on, our very own island with a wrought white iron bridge to get it. For the fun factor Preston Court had the option of hiring a carousel! We had quite a few children coming so we thought this would be a fab thing to keep them entertained and lots of fun for the adults too.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | I didn't go down the traditional route when it came to choosing my dress. I'd seen a picture of a gorgeous wedding dress in wedding magazine and decided that was the dress I wanted. I'm not so much of a girly girl and going shopping and trying things on is my idea of hell... even when it came to the important decision of a wedding dress. The dress I had seen was 50's style with lace long arms and tea length, so I simply googled what I was looking for and after some searching I found the dress. I found it on ebay being sold from china, so Adam did my measurements for me (without seeing the dress) and I ordered it for the bargain price of £90! This was early on in our planning so I thought if the gamble doesn't pay off I'll have to go down the shopping route! The dress didn't fit quite right when it came so I found a local dress marker, Sandra, and she took over and turned into my dream dress! I didn't go mad for accessories as I wanted it to be quite simple to fit in with everything else, Adam surprised by getting me some beautiful earrings and a beautiful bracelet which his mum gave me when were getting ready.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | Adam's suit was very easy, as we wanted a relaxed feel we decided not to go for the morning suit. He wanted something he would be able to wear again and something quite modern. We had also decide blue would be the perfect colour for our day. When we went suit shopping we found his suit in the first shop we went it, a gorgeous 3 piece blue Ted Baker suit. He then found a beautiful pair of brown shoes, which went with the suit so well. Adam's best men and ushers all had the same suit as well.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We agreed that we didn't want readings as part of ceremony, like I said we wanted a relaxed informal feel and thought our vows were enough to show our serious commitment to each other.

For our ceremony music we had Paolo Nutini playing while guest were being seated which we found worked really well. For my walk to Adam we choose Pachelbel's Canon D on piano. At midnight the day before we chose John Legend 'All of me' to play while we signing the register. It which was such a beautiful song and makes me recall that moment so clearly when I hear it now. For our walking back over the bridge as husband and wife we had 'Happy' by Pharell Williams playing which was good fun. Our first dance was to Ben Howards 'Only Love' which we both love and the whole album.

For our evening music we hired a DJ called the 'Wedding Smashers' who were absolutely brilliant. With our invites we asked everyone for a favourite song which we then passed on to the DJ who played them all! When booked them they sent us a booking form which asked us to list songs which we wanted to hear and songs or a type of music we didn't. We really liked this as it made us feel we would be getting the type of music that all our friends and family would enjoy, a real mixture. The Wedding Smashers mixed all the different music together wonderfully and seemed to have a good feel for the music people wanted.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | We had six bridesmaids and three flower girls! Which is a lot but we wanted all of our special friends and family to be apart of our day so once again we went with 'we are only going to it once'. Our bridesmaids we know from all different places, some old friends from the beginning of secondary school and some more recent ones but all just as important to us.

Our beautiful Daughter Emily was a flower along with Adam's best man's daughter and her mum was a bridesmaid and Adam's Cousin was also flowers girl.

The bridesmaid dresses were really hard as to find a dress that 6 girls like and suit wasn't easy, it helped that we didn't have a set colour theme, I found the dresses on an American website and had them shipped over, I loved their unusual colour and the detail on the straps. The flower girl dresses I searched for a long time in high street shops, I couldn't quite make up mind on whether they should be pink or white or big and bouncy or straight. In the end I saw the ones I got in a wedding magazine and thought they were gorgeous and fun for little ladies, they were from BHS.

THE FLOWERS | When it came to flowers we wanted 'garden' type flowers to go in our jam jars such as roses, sweet pea etc. We also didn't want to spend a lot of money on flowers, Adam's mum, Millie, cut lots of flowers from her garden and we got flowers from supermarkets and market stalls, then on the morning of the wedding Millie filled all the jam jars up with the flowers. Millie also did an amazing job of putting together six bouquets for the bridesmaids. Adam's Nan Penny was amazing too as she did all the flower girl baskets with flowers from her garden and she also made my beautiful bouquet too, which was so special to have one made by a family member.

THE CAKE | Our wedding cake was also a family affair! My auntie Nicki made our cake, she rang and asked some general questions about the wedding and then made our amazing cake. Neither Adam or I knew anything about the cake so it was real surprise when we saw it and we couldn't have asked for anything better. The chocolate layer was especially tasty! As we were having the carousel Nikki made the top of the cake into a MOVING carousel that spun around, she also used the colours that were in the barn for the icing.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Our photographer Kerry Ann was amazing and real pleasure to have at our day. Kerry Ann was on a list of contacts given to us by Preston Court, we wanted a photographer who had been there before ideally as we thought they would be able to get the best shots and we were in no way let down. Kerry's photos captured everything we wanted, there were some family ones and natural ones of people enjoying themselves. Photos were a very important part of the day and Kerry made everyone feel so relaxed that photos were perfect.... we just don't have enough wall space for them all!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Other things we had was a sweetie table, we brought big jars from bargain stores and then bulk brought lots of sweets, to add a personal touch we ordered personalised paper sweet bags. We also made up 'party bags' to be the children's place names and put things in them to keep the busy for some of meal, we put things such as pencils and colouring books and bubbles. The slate hearts we used a place names we doubled up as favours which so many people said they liked after and have told us where they have put them in their homes.

For décor we kept things pretty simple, we had hessian bunting hanging up over our top table which said 'just married' and we used hessian, lace and ribbons to go around the jam jars on the table. We brought paper pom,poms from ebay to hang in the barn to add colour, theses were pastel coloured to fit in with our theme.

THE HONEYMOON | For our honeymoon we went to a Greek island called Santorini. It was the most beautiful place we have ever been to and very relaxing! We stayed in a hotel called honeymoon petra which had an incredible pool and cocktails!

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | There are so many memorable moments from our day but our favourite has to be towards the end of evening, the DJ played one of our favourite songs "hey ho" by the Lumineers. All of our friends and family stood in a circle around Adam and I and we danced in the middle while everyone else danced and sang around us. It was such a high note to end the evening on.

Another memorable moment was having Etienne Pradier the French magician, he was so fantastic and really entertained everyone between the meal and the dancing and Kerry Ann our photographer got some amazing photos of peoples reaction to his magic.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | To get as much done as early as possible! DIY is great but always having a look on sites like e-bay and weighing up if paying a bit more is worth it as doing things yourself can be time consuming and very stressful! Most of all enjoy it because it goes so quickly and if you can take 5 minutes for the two of you!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Magician | French Magician

Cake | Little Brown Fairy Cake

DJ | Wedding Smashers

Venue | Preston Court

Photographer | Kerry Ann Duffy

Ekk so lovely!

Thanks so much to Adam and Amy for sharing all about their wonderful wedding with us today XOXO Lou