This afternoon’s wedding is the perfect way to get this week’s real wedding features underway. I promise you will be dreaming of sunshine and warm days once you have seen this gorgeous images.

Following this mornings DIY tutorial, what better way to round off the day but by featuring a homemade wedding, where Heather and Tim’s family all roped in to help. With the wedding cake made by heather’s Aunt, the favours made by Tim’s mum, the amazing pebble table plan created by the couple themselves, and their friends helping with the décor.

I am head over heels for Heather’s amazing feather wedding dress.… doesn’t she look incredible?! What a dreamy, bohemian, and  fun day.

Thanks so much to the amazing Brighton based wedding photographer, Brighton Photo for sharing her images today, here is what she had to say about the day;

“Heather and Tim’s wedding … was a absolute delight starting ..if not sometimes a bit confusing with so many Heathers floating about – but everyone knew my name…  The ceremony was held at Lewes Town Hall and then a short drive through the country to the lovely Hollambys Farm.  Heather had collected hundreds of glass jars and there were flowers everywhere.  The catering and china plates, cups, cake stands and lots of lovely little touches were supplied by the lovely Helen from Doily Days wedding planners.  The day started off with a few drops of and ended in glorious golden sunlight.”

 

 

Names…. Heather & Tim

Wedding Date….  June 25 2011

The Proposal…. Tim surprised me on a road trip around California – it really did come out of nowhere, I couldn’t speak for a day!

The Vision for the day…. We just wanted to have a relaxed day that everyone could enjoy – young and old. For me it was important that there was plenty of fresh air and countryside, and lots of different places for people to sit and chat. We chose to have our wedding around Midsummer so we could take advantage of the long, light evenings. Once we had set a date the traditions of feasting and countryside celebration from this time of year had a big influence on the day, and led to us hiring the brilliant Kate’s Kitchen Band for a traditional barn dance in the evening of the reception.
It was also very important to us for to include our guests in the day, and so many made things for the wedding; from the jam used as wedding favours, the guitar music for the ceremony to the wedding cake and reception cakes and much more…

The Planning process…. This involved a lot of online research and hard work as we only gave ourselves 4 months to plan the whole event! We were looking for a venue that wasn’t usually used for weddings as we wanted to avoid being herded through the day by wedding planners.  Once we’d found Hollamby’s farm, it all started to fall into place. We organised all of the music, tables, chairs, décor, flowers and venue ourselves always trying to find local, independent businesses. I also found a wonderful company called Doily Days who provided us with a camper van as wedding transport, vintage crockery and a lovely BBQ for the reception.

The Venue… http://www.hollambys.co.uk/

The Dress + Accessories…..  Cher Feather Dress by Anoushka G, silk flowers from little fabric shop in laines, bracelet a gift from mother in law, shoes from Mr Shoes!

Finding the dress…. I didn’t enjoy shopping for my wedding dress at first — I felt pressurised to wear something I didn’t feel right in. In the end I found a dress on a normal shopping trip with my Mum to House of Fraser (quite unexpectedly) and fell in love with the Cher Feather dress by Anoushka G. Not only did it make me feel wonderful, it was also very comfortable and easy to wear.
Groom’s attire… after trying lots of high street suit shops and finding nothing, we went to the fantatstic ‘Dandy in Aspic’ shop up in Camden Lock. They have the most amazing collection of vintage suits in gorgeous materials, which were perfect for Tim’s frame and fitted perfectly. Tim’s suit was only £120 but it looked made to measure.
I made all of the bouttonieres for the groom, best man and my Dad myself from felt, buttons and wire. I wanted them all to have something handmade that they could keep after the wedding day.

The Readings + Music…. For the reading we chose a beautiful Carol Ann Duffay poem, (By Heart (Carol Ann Duffy) which my Dad read for us:
I made myself imagine that I didn’t love you,
that your face was ordinary to me. This was in our house
when you were out, secret, guessing what such difference
would be like, never to have known your touch,
your taste. Then I went out and passed the places
where we’d go, without you there, pretending that I could.

Making believe I could, I tried to blot out longing,
or regret, when someone looked like you, head down,
laughing, running away from me behind a veil of rain.

So it was strange to see you, just ahead of me,
as I trailed up the hill, thinking how I can’t unlearn
the words I’ve got by heart, or dream your name away,
and shouting it, involuntarily, three times, until
you turned and smiled. Love makes buildings home
and out of dreary weather, sometimes, rainbows come.

We felt it captured the way we feel about each other perfectly – having been together for 8 years before the wedding, we really did know each other by heart. For the music I chose the entrance song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJOzdLwvTHA, and Tim chose the exit song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKfD8d3XJok both of which are favourites of ours. A close friend who plays guitar beautifully composed gorgeous live music especially for us for the signing of the register.

Beautiful bridesmaids… Cara and Katie, the two grown-up bridesmaids, were in simple strapless ivory dresses from H&M that they accessorised themselves. I bought them birthstone necklaces from Forged in Life, a jeweller based in Seattle that I found on Etsy Izzy, my niece, wore the peach ‘Cross my Heart’ dress from I Love Gorgeous a diamanté headband she picked out in Accessorize.

The Flowers… the flowers from from a shop in the laines called Scent. The bouquets were very simple, I just asked for seasonal, local flowers to be used Flowers for the venue were delivered the day before and I arranged them all in bottles I’d collected together for the wedding.

The Cake… The beautiful wedding cake was made by my wonderful Aunty Barbera, who came out of cake-making retirement especially to create it. I didn’t know what it would be like until the day before the wedding when she drove it all the way from Wem in Shopshire but I honestly couldn’t have wished for a more beautiful cake – she made all of the sugar honeysuckle by hand.

Your Photographer…. We found Heather to be great fun on the day of the wedding – and she really captured the feeling of the whole day. We had lots of great feedback from guests who said how lovely she had been, and we’ll always treasure the beautiful, creative photos she took.

The Details + Décor…  because the wedding reception was on a working farm we wanted the décor to work in harmony with the surroundings, and so we chose to use local, seasonal flowers arranged in old bottles and jars, hay bales from the farm and some twinkly lights for the roof of the barn. We also wrapped some string around jam jars to hold candles and flowers and hung them on the fence outside the barn, which looked beautiful in the evening.
Tim’s Mum made the most amazing strawberry jam to give away as wedding favours, which we hand decorated with our lovely friends Jake and Sam. I bought some hessian cloth and cut rough runners for the tables, and we hired mismatching crockery from Doily Days (who also provided us with the BBQ and the gorgeous camper van that took us from the ceremony to the reception).
For the table plan we collected pebbles from Brighton beach, attached tags with the guests’ names and arranged them in a lovely old letterpress drawer from a flea market.
We also chose to give our guests local ales from Larkin’s brewery, as well as cider and mead (a traditional honey wine) from Middle Farm — in keeping with Midsummer traditions.

The Honeymoon… The day after the wedding we drove from Hollamby’s farm to a little wooden cabin on a lake in the Dordogne, We had a week there all to ourselves, with our own private lake covered in lily-pads and a little boat to row around it. Looking back I’m not quite sure what we were thinking as the drive took 12 hours! I would definitely recommend a honeymoon there, but I think flying would be much less stressful!

Memorable moments… there were so many! Highlights for me were seeing my Aunty’s cake for the first time, getting ready with my lovely friends in the morning, feeling overwhelming joy and good will coming from our guests throughout the day, the trip in the campervan with wonderful friends from the ceremony to the reception, the sun breaking through the clouds just as the first guests arrived at the farm, having a go at Morris dancing, outside by candlelight and then, when all the guests had gone, blowing out all the candles and looking at the stars with Tim.

Advice for other couples… don’t let anyone tell you how to plan your wedding! The best thing you can do is to focus on what you want and ignore any traditions that make you feel uncomfortable. We only had very close family and friends at the ceremony because we both felt nervous about getting up in front of loads of guests, and we didn’t do any speeches either. I’m so glad that we stuck to what we wanted, because it made our day magical.

Credit where credit’s due…

Clothes: Bride’s dress from: http://www.houseoffraser.co.uk/Anoushka+G/BRAND_ANOUSHKA%20G,default,sc.htmlBride’s shoes: http://www.mr-shoes.co.uk/womens/G/heels/laser-cut-peeptoe-shoes-camel.aspx
Groom’s suit from: http://camdenlock.net/classified/business.html?name=A%20DANDY%20IN%20ASPIC.
Bridesmaid’s dress from: http://www.ilovegorgeous.co.uk/bridesmaids/classic-dresses/peach-cross-my-heart-dress.html
Bridesmaids necklaces from: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ForgedInLife.

Food and Drink: Vegan/wheat free cake from http://www.angelfoodbakery.co.uk/
Mead and Cider from: http://www.middlefarm.com/
Ales from Larkins Brewery: http://www.camrawestkent.org.uk/breweries-in-kent/
BBQ, Camper Van and Vintage China from http://www.doilydays.co.uk/

Venue:Ceremony venue: http://www.lewes-tc.gov.uk/infopage.asp?infoid=626
Reception venue: http://www.hollambys.co.uk/
Flowers from Scent: http://www.northlaine.co.uk/scent/index.html.
Honeymoon: http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/rochechouart/116049
Photography: www.brighton-photo.com

Thanks so much to Heather amd Tim for sharing their beautiful wedding with us today xoxo Lou