Happy Valentines day :-) i hope you are feeling the love today. I guess a wedding blog is the perfect way to feel a bit of love if you haven’t got in the mood yet, and this morning’s wedding is sure to help.

Trudy and Scott were married in November, at the beautiful Gaynes Park Barns in Epping. They wanted to create a day which was rustic and pretty, but that was also full of love. 

I so love Trudy’s exquisite Delphine Jenny Packham gown, her simple side bun hair style and that gorgeous pink toned bouquet… she makes the most beautiful bride indeed. They put a lot of work into their reception decor, with floral garlands, super cute cake toppers and i just love the guest book table decor.

What a beautiful, fresh and pretty wedding.

Thanks so much to the wonderful Dorset based wedding photographers, Big Bouquet Photography for sharing their gorgeous images with us today, here is what they had to say about the day;

“Back in the summer we met Trudy and Scott for the first time as they asked us to do an Engagement Shoot for them. The idea was to get some nice little piccies they could use for Invitations and Save The Date cards. They were truly great sports that day, hiking their way around Durdle Door and travelled all the way from Essex to see us.

It was only fair we shared the hellish Motorway travel experience. So, on a nippy and changeable Autumn weekend we made our way up to Epping for their wedding at Gaynes Park.

We arrived early so we could have a good scout around the venue before things kicked off. Gaynes Park has the cutest, tiny Gatekeeper’s Cottage which can be used for bridal preps and as a honeymoon suite. It was here I met up with Trudy. She wanted some time to chill in the morning and visit the hairdressers in peace and quiet, so we started things off once the flowers had arrived and it was time to dress.

The ceremony took place in the Orangery just a stone’s throw from the cottage. We absolutely loved the fact the guests were seated facing inwards, rather than in standard rows. This was mostly for the practical reason the room is really wide, but the aisle is short. It gave everyone a chance to see the happy couple clearly, making a large ceremony group feel a lot more intimate (and Ian got some nice side shots as opposed to being stuck at the back). More venues should do this if they can!

Trudy and Scott had made so much effort putting together their table decorations and we were absolutely honoured to see they’d put their Engagement Photos to good use and used them instead of table names.

We cannot put into words what a thoughtful couple Trudy and Scott are. As we were a long way from home they’d not only seated us as guests and treated us to a slap-up meal but they’d made little place names for us too – like proper guests!

Scott even told everyone the backstory to the Engagement photos on each table during his speech and then we were presented with the biggest box of cupcakes! Amazing! We were so grateful for those on the way home and I’m ashamed to say (apart from one, which I gave to a friend who popped round for tea) we ate the entire box. Ooops!

It got dark really early, so after dinner we popped out for a bit of light-scribing with torches and to play with some sparklers. Then, it was time for the first dance and evening do at Gaynes Park’s Mill Barn.

Kudos to this wedding party for not only being the first group we’ve seen form a trailing Conga-line, but also for pulling this off with gusto as the second song of the night. The DJ said it couldn’t be done but they proved otherwise. I was also introduced to the strange, but ever-so-photogenic ways of the Cha Cha Slide. It’s a bit like Black Lace’s “Superman“, no?

A big shout out to Shoot Boutique too – without doubt the finest evening photo booth we’ve ever seen.

Thank you so much for all the fun, laughter, food and cakes, Trudy and Scott. And for letting us be part of your day x”

Names…. Scott & Trudy

Wedding Date…. Friday 4th November 2011

The Proposal…. Over 4 years into our relationship, Scott did something really sweet and booked us a night away at a swanky hotel for my birthday so we could spend some time together, just us. We checked ourselves in, switched the TV on and we were both just so happy curled up together in a perfect moment, and he asked me to marry him. It was totally spontaneous and romantic, and of course I said yes! Despite being engaged we both knew we didn’t want to get married right away, our main priority was to buy our first home together. It took us a year of hardcore saving, with minimal nights out and social activities, but when it finally came to moving day it all became worth it and we have never looked back! Our home is our paradise, and has been the perfect start to our lives together. It was only once we were settled in that we started to think about our wedding plans.

The Vision for the day…. A rustic, pretty, relaxed, fun and intimate day filled with lots of love.

The Planning process…. When we first started thinking about the type of wedding day we wanted, a large family affair with all the trimmings believe it or not wasn’t really on the cards. I’m quite a shy person and the thought of being the centre of attention in a big white dress with everyone we know and love there to see me if I trip up down the aisle, petrified me! So instead, as we’re both lovers of all things Disney, we initially wanted to jet off Disneyworld, Florida to tie the knot during an intimate ceremony in the land of Happily Ever Afters, which would be followed by a party back home. This became an impossible dream for many reasons, mainly financially, and in July 2011 my mum was diagnosed with the dreaded ‘C’ word. We immediately started looking at venues in the UK and came across the stunning Gaynes Park Barns in Epping and simply HAD to get married there. The doctors weren’t giving us much hope for a 2012 wedding, so we promptly booked our wedding for the 4th November 2011. Sadly it took her too quickly; she passed on the 19th September. Despite this, we continued planning as it kept our minds off, and we were determined to have a wedding day filled with bundles of love, laughter and happiness, as mum wouldn’t have wanted any less for us.

Budget….  £10,000

The Venue… Gaynes Park Barns, Epping. We would without a doubt recommend this venue to anyone deciding to getting married in Essex. The staff and the owners are so wonderful. They really looked after us and despite having just 3 months to plan everything we didn’t have to worry about a thing! The food was 10/10, the sheep and pheasants give it lots of character, and the gardens are beautiful {even in the winter months!}… It is just the perfect venue all round for us!

The Dress + Accessories….. Being a size 2 shoe, the places I can buy shoes in general, let alone wedding shoes is pretty limited. I ordered my shoes from Pretty Small Shoes and I was so pleased with my choice. They weren’t the prettiest and ‘blingiest’ of bridal shoes, but they were SO comfy which to me was much more important.
I bought my headpiece at the Brentwood Wedding Show from a lovely lady called Louise from ‘Jewels by Design’ of London, who revamps one-of-a-kind antique and vintage pieces of jewellery. I saw my headpiece on her stand and instantly fell in love with it, and it’s a great feeling knowing that no other bride will ever have the same headpiece as me.
My something ‘Old’ and ‘Borrowed’ was a pretty silver butterfly brooch that I found in my mums jewellery box which I had pinned to my bouquet stems. My something ‘blue’ and ‘new’ was a beautiful charm I had made which I attached to the other side of my bouquet. It had a photo of mum on one side from her wedding day where she was conveniently wearing a shade of blue, and the other side was inscribed with the worlds ‘Forever in our Hearts’.
And my dress was the beautiful ‘Delphine’ by Jenny Packham.

Finding the dress…. Being a 4ft 11” size 6, I knew that finding a dress to fit, AND to look right on my tiny frame definitely wouldn’t be easy. Once we booked our date, with only just over 3 months to go till the big day I knew I needed to get a move on if I was to stand any chance of looking half decent! So Scotts Mum, his Aunt and my older sister arranged to take me dress shopping for the first time. I had been dreaming of a floaty Jenny Packham dress, so our first stop was a local stockist, it was only once we got there that we found out that they didn’t stock ANY of the JP dresses I liked. Never mind, I made the most of the situation and must have tried on over 15 dresses, each having ‘something’ that just wasn’t quite right. We soldiered on and tried a couple more shops, found a couple of contenders but nothing special.. then we came to the last shop, I tried on an Ellis Bridal gown and that was it, everyone was in tears and told me it was perfect! call it exhaustion and confusion.. but I thought it was the one too, and as it was just £375 in the sale.. I bought it! The next morning after a long rest, I was having serious wedding dress doubts. I kept staring at the photos, and the more I stared… the more I knew I had made a big mistake. I jumped straight online and started searching for my dream Jenny Packham dress, and it must have been fate – A bridal shop called Bridal Path in Sawbridgeworth, Herts just 5 minutes from where I work were holding a sample sale, and had ‘Delphine’, perhaps my favourite JP dress of all {which I thought had been discontinued!} I started panicking that it might no longer be available so I got straight on the phone Jo, the owner of Bridal Path in Sawbridgeworth, Herts. Luckily she still had it! Phew! I jumped in the car and went to try it on. This time I went by myself so I could really think about it without anyone else’s opinions, just my own. As soon as I slipped it on I just knew it was the one, it felt like ‘me’. As it was an ex-sample dress it was going for an absolute bargain, so I put a deposit on it there and then! So thanks to an extremely talented seamstress who successfully took the dress down 3 sizes, and just 6 dress fittings later, I was to be married in my DREAM Jenny Packham wedding dress after all… {very happy bunny!!}

Groom’s attire… Scott and his brother/best man got their suits from Burtons. Scott didn’t want a traditional ‘top and tail’ suit, instead he wanted something simple, something he felt comfortable in and that he could wear again. He definitely made a great choice, he looked incredibly handsome! They also both wore silver Chelsea FC Cufflinks as they both grew up together as massive Chelsea FC Fans.

The Readings + Music…. Our reading was ‘It’s you I dream of’ by J.R King which Scotts uncle kindly read for us. This was very sentimental to us as it was also read at our pre wedding blessing which we had at Farleigh Hospice for my mum before she passed, so this was a really nice way to tie in both events. Walking up the aisle I had ‘Dream’ by Priscilla Ahn. I love this song, it is so beautiful. I kept this a secret from Scott, but to this day he doesn’t remember hearing any music while I was walking up the aisle, he says he was too focused on watching me
For our first dance we had our favourite, ‘Better Together’ by Jack Johnston. We love this song as it’s quite happy, up-beat but still romantic and has such sweet lyrics. We decided to have our first dance followed by ‘The Conga’ by Black Lace. This was possibly one of my favourite moments of the whole night, everyone joined in and it really got the party going! To end the night we had one of my favourites… ‘Ever Ever After’ by Carrie Underwood from the Disney movie Enchanted. This was then followed by one of Scott’s favourites… the Chelsea FC song ‘Blue Day’ by Suggs. We’re pleased we played this last, as if it was played any earlier any rival footie fans may have up and left!! Haha!

Beautiful bridesmaids….. I decided to keep things simple and budget friendly by just having my older sister as my bridesmaid. She wore a stunning floaty dress from Coast and looked gorgeous. We also had our 3 nieces as flower girls who looked adorable in their pretty monsoon dresses, and our 2 nephews were Paige boys and looked very handsome and grown up in their suits. They all had lots of fun and did amazingly well the whole day, we’re so incredibly proud of them all!

The Flowers… Our first choice of flowers would have been Peonies and Garden Roses, however as these weren’t in season in November it would have cost us an absolute fortune to have these. So instead our second choice was Dutch Roses in ‘dusky’ and ‘rosey’ pinks, Freesias in ivory, with Wax Flower and Eucalyptus for foliage – I was so pleased with the bouquets they turned out even better than I had imagined.

For the centrepieces we used my mum’s large collection of cut glass vases which we had randomly placed on the tables filled with our choice of flowers. This turned out extremely budget friendly as we only had to pay for the flowers alone. For the top table we decided to have a long rustic twig garland mixed with our choice of flowers, it looked beautiful! Our florist had lots left over so instead of taking the unused flowers back to the workshop, she decorated our ceremony table, guestbook table, our cake stand and even filled our ‘use these if you can’ vases from Ikea with some left over gypsophilia and lined them up behind the top table which looked fab! Our florist went above and beyond for us and we couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out!

The Cake… We didn’t want to spend a lot on the cake, so we opted for the M&S Romantic Pearl wedding cake in Ivory which tasted scrumptious! Our stunning solid oak cake stand was lent to us by a very generous colleague of mine, and we ordered some custom made ‘wooden doll’ cake toppers which I had my eye on for a while. They turned out even better than we imagined, and we even had one made of our beloved pet bunny as a way to include her in our day

Your Photographers…. For our 7 year anniversary in August 2011, Scott and I decided to take a short trip away to revisit the beautiful Dorset. It was here amongst the stunning scenery of Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door that we sowed the seeds of our relationship on a school geography trip 7 years previous, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to have some nice photos taken of us to remind us where it all began. We started searching for local photographers and thankfully came across the wonderful Emma and Ian of Big Bouquet Photography. Their work is so natural, light and airy which we loved. We instantly knew that they were the photographers for us. It was a few days before our trip that we had confirmed our wedding date for 3 months later, so we emailed to find out if they were available to shoot our wedding as well, and if they would be willing to take on the 4 hour drive to Essex, and thank goodness they were! So we ended up signing our contract and having a chat about our wedding right before our e-shoot. From the get go they made us feel so at ease and it was such a fun experience, and it made us feel really comfortable being in front of the camera. They went above and beyond for us, traipsing up rocky slopes and hobbling over the pebbly beach with their giant photography kit and picnic basket, which they had thoughtfully kitted out with drinks, strawberries and cakes for us to use as props {and for when we got a bit peckish!} And by the time it came to our wedding day it was more like having a couple of friends around with big cameras   And the photos that came out… Wow! Definitely the BEST investment that we made!!
Photography, and getting lots of lovely photos of our guests, was one of our main priorities for the day. So when we came across ‘Shoot Boutique’ and their photobooth set-up we just HAD to have them at our wedding!! Their set up meant that you could have lots of people in the booth at the same time {our party killed the record for most people in the booth at the same time with a whopping 21!!} it has gorgeous selections of décor, and it has no restrictions where our disabled guests were concerned. The booth was such a massive hit with our guests, everyone loved it and got to take home as many large glossy prints as they liked, and we were sent a disk with all of the photos that were taken. Rick and Laverne were so lovely with us and our guests, they were a pleasure to have around – we would recommend ‘Shoot Boutique’ to absolutely anyone!

The Details + Decor…. We decided to ‘kill 2 birds with one stone’ and combine our favours and name plates in one by hand making hearts out of clay with peoples names stamped and painted on. We then threaded twine through them, added a wooden bead and tied them round all 68 napkins. They took us most evenings and weekends the run up to the wedding to make, but we had fun making them, and a lot of our guests commented on them, wore them as bracelets and said they would take them home and would even hang them on their Christmas trees!

One of the things we loved about our venue is that it is already so beautiful and has so much rustic charm that it didn’t require any decor whatsoever. We did of course have floral dotted around, but apart from that, the main area we decided to get a bit creative with was our guestbook table. We had a rusty bird cage we used for our table plan, a rustic pigeon hole holder, and we added lots of little sentimental bits to make it look pretty.

The Honeymoon…. I have never been to Disneyworld Florida before, it has always been a dream of mine and Scott has wanted to take me for years, so we have booked our dream ‘Disneymoon’ for the first 2 weeks of November 2012, which means we’ll be out there to celebrate our 1 year anniversary

Memorable moments… Trudy – Wow there’s way too many! Seeing the beam on my very handsome husband-to-be’s face as I approached the Orangery, and then rushing up the aisle to see him and having my dad keep telling me to ‘slow down, it’s not a race!’. Whist I was repeating my vows I remember slowly pushing the ring up his finger further and further, so when it came to being told to place the ring on his finger it was already done..oops! Our first kiss as husband and wife, the moment during the speeches when we had NO clue what was going on, then our flower girls and paige boys emerged from the back of the room with Mickey and Minnie Mouse balloons to give to us, adorable! The part after cutting the cake when we both tried to shove a slice each other’s faces!! Photobooth madness… sparklers… dancing… and THE CONGA!! {choo choo choo…}
Scott – I loved every single aspect of the day but a few things that stand out are: Seeing Trudy looking absolutely stunning in her dress for the first time. She looked like an angel walking down the aisle and I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful bride. Having to do my speech was one of the hardest and most nerve wracking things I’ve had to do but was so worth it. It got very emotional as I made a toast to Trudy’s late Mum who was a wonderful woman who was loved by so many people. The ceremony itself really stood out for me just for the pure fact that that was the time that Trudy was going to become my wife. The food was outstanding and I think we made the perfect choices for the wedding breakfast. The evening entertainment was absolutely fantastic particularly the Photo Booth. It was such a hit! I think my brother and cousin had a little too much fun in there as they were in the booth most of the night. It was great having all of our friends and family with us on our special day. I can honestly say it was the best day of my life and it was all capped off getting to spend the first night together as man and wife in the lovely Apple Loft cottage just a stones throw from the party.

Advice for other couples… When it comes to making decisions, go with your gut instinct. Don’t think about things too much, and RELAX! Everything will turn out beautifully, and at the end of the day you are marrying the one you love, what else really matters anyway?

Credit where credit’s due…

Photographers: www.bigbouquet.co.uk
Photobooth: www.shootboutique.com
Venue:     www.gaynespark.co.uk
Custom Cake Toppers: www.etsy.com/shop/knottingwood
Custom Bouquet Charm: www.etsy.com/shop/DelaneyPhotoJewelry
Dress: www.bridal-path.com
Headpiece: www.jbdlondon.co.uk
Shoes: www.pretty-small-shoes.com
Floral: www.staceystevens.co.uk/home.htm
Bridesmaid Dress: www.coast-stores.com/SYMPHONY-MAXI-DRESS/Maxi-Dresses/coast/fcp-product/2224754036
Flower Girl Dresses: www.monsoon.co.uk/girl-3-13-years/flower-girl/icat/girlbridesmaid/&bklist=icat,4,shop,bridal,girlbridesmaid
Cake: www.marksandspencer.com/Romantic-Pearl-Wedding-Cakes-Wedding-Cakes-Food-to-Order-Entertaining-Food-Wine/b/77004031
Hair & Make-up: www.getyourfaceon.co.uk
DJ: www.dreammachinedisco.co.uk

Thanks so much to Scott and Trudy for sharing their gorgeous wedding with us today, i so love your epic report Trudy too :-) thank you xoxo Lou

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