You may well recognise the gorgeous Rachel and Joe, as i featured their super cute engagement back in September. One of my favourite things about being a wedding blogger is being able to follow a couples journey from engagement to their wedding day, and today i get to do that… yey!

Rachel and Joe were married at Manor Barn in Buriton in October. They wanted a day that was full of fun, not to mention filled with homemade elements and a rustic barn feel. Well i can tell you now they certainly achieved that objective :-)

I so love this DIY filled wedding, from Rachel’s stunning asymmetric wedding dress, Joe’s floral shirt, the pastel coloured maids dresses, to those fabulous corn pew ends. I love love love this wedding :-)

Thanks so much to the uber talented Danielle Benbow Photography for sharing her incredible images with us this afternoon, here is what she had to say about the day;

“Back at the end of October, Rachel and Joe got married in the stunning Manor Barn in Buriton, near Petersfield, Hampshire. All day there was an amazing orange autumnal haze in the sky, which was just magical for the photographs. Also, how awesome is that bus!!

This wedding has smiles, bunting, stunning details, lovely shoes, a vintage bus, adorable personal touches and a scrummy barn! What more could you want?!”

Names….  Rachel & Joe

Wedding Date…. 22^nd October 2011

The Proposal….We had gone away to the Cotswolds for the weekend, a place with happy memories for us. While out on a walk in the snow covered hills Joe got down on one knee….

The Vision for the day…. For people to have fun!! We decided early on while planning that we would like a barn dance as it allows everyone to join in. This then naturally led us to looking at barn venues. We had lots of home-made elements in our day (mainly thanks to ‘the mums’) and found ourselves using the word ‘rustic’ rather a lot as then it didn’t matter if our cutting/ sticking/ sewing was a little wonky!

The Planning process…. We had 11 months from engagement to wedding which gave us plenty of time to get everything ready. Once we decided on the venue everything else just fell into place, we both had quite definite ideas about what we wanted (luckily they were very similar ideas!) Joe is a fantastic ‘organiser’ so did most of the ringing round to suppliers getting quotes etc while I sorted the fun/ girly aspects to the day.

The Venue… www.themanorbarn.co.uk  Such a beautiful barn which really did retain its original character. Unlike some other barn venues we looked around The Manor Barn wasn’t too ‘weddingy’ or business minded which suited us, we hated the idea of just being another wedding passing through the door. Tim and Janet who organise the weddings at the barn could not have been more welcoming; we had homemade brownies every time we went to visit- yum!

The Dress + Accessories….. Acapulco by Pronovias with a floor length veil and Vivienne Westwood Melissa shoes in pearl. The hair chain I wore was my ‘something borrowed’ from the lovely Phillie but it originally came from Once Upon a Time Tiaras.

Finding the dress…. Before I started searching for my dress I had definite ideas of what I wanted (again!) I knew I wanted a one shoulder dress made of chiffon fabric and definitely no sparkle!! That is just not me. So armed with these ideas I went looking at the local wedding dress shop in my town over Christmas as my sister was home, although I was only ‘looking’ I actually tried my dress on that day however spent the next couple of months going to various other wedding dress shops with different members of the bridal party just because I could, when else can you get to try on lots of pretty dresses?! I tried on other styles but kept coming back to my original idea so a one shouldered chiffon dress it was.

Groom’s attire… Early on in the planning we found a picture of a pinkish floral tie which we tried to buy but couldn’t find one anywhere. Then one day I stumbled across the Marc Wallace website and found not only floral ties but floral shirts.  They also make floral boxer shorts but Joe drew the line at these!

Music…. We called in a few favours where music was concerned! My friend Katie is a talented musician so she played her saxophone while guests were arriving and during the signing of the register played ’Signed, Sealed Delivered’ and ‘New York, New York’. We walked back down the aisle to ‘You make my dreams come true’ by Hall and Oates just because it makes us smile! We came into dinner to the England cricket theme tune- my husband is a big cricket fan. A family friend plays in the band ‘Juke Box Money’ so they provided the evening entertainment, favourite songs included 9-5 by Dolly Parton and of course a bit of Take That which resulted in some of the guests recreating the dirty dancing lift!

Beautiful bridesmaids…..  I was lucky to have 4 gorgeous and tall bridesmaids with similar figures which made dress shopping easier. We had planned a trip to London to find the dresses altogether but one rainy afternoon in town I spotted the perfect bridesmaid dress in Mango so promptly brought a variety of sizes and rang my bridesmaids to tell them the shopping trip was off! Luckily they all loved the dress and only minor adjustments were needed (cue mum stepping in!) My super talented sister in law then made the bridesmaids belts using some hessian and ribbon- we received so many comments about the belts so I’m glad we added them. The girls then chose their own shoes; we brought flowers from John Lewis and attached them to head bands to finish off their look. After the dresses had been bought we found out Emily was going to be 8 months pregnant on the wedding date but luckily found a dress from Oasis that toned in beautifully with the others and showed off her gorgeous bump (now baby Harry)  to perfection!

The Flowers… We were recommended Michele from Someflower by the venue. She was brilliant! Many of the people you meet connected to weddings just nod and smile but she really listened to our ideas however if she felt something wouldn’t work she told us! The ‘wishing tree’ guest book was her idea…

The Cake… A cake came low on our priority list- what’s the point in spending hundreds of pounds on something that you eat (or at many weddings doesn’t get eaten as people are stuffed after the wedding breakfast!). But then our friend Robin came to the rescue and ‘volunteered’ ;) to make us a cake. We don’t like fruit cake so that was out, in the end we decided on victoria sponge, lemon and chocolate cake (the biggest tier was of course chocolate!). My mum made the ‘mini’ bunting to complete the cake.

Your Photographer…. The super super talented and generally all round lovely person Danielle Benbow (and not forgetting Rob). We met Danielle through friends while they were having their engagement shoot and we ended up having a few snaps (which included eating a gingerbread man in one picture- this made me like Danielle even more!). She made us feel so comfortable (including Joe who up until our wedding has been allergic to anything to do with photos) so we knew we had to have her at our wedding. I love her ‘vintagey’ style and her love of shoes.

The Details + Decor…. I guess we added quite a few details to our day but never set out to do so they all just evolved from each other. I made the invites (with a little help) using squares of hessian and a pink checked heart. This then led to the idea of making hearts to hang on the backs of all the ladies chairs which kind of acted like favours. I spent a lovely morning making ‘button hearts’ with some friends. I really enjoyed all the making bits of our wedding and I think if you leave yourself plenty of time they can make the planning process more enjoyable and sociable.  Joe wrote an ‘interesting fact’ about each guest which was on the back of their place name- luckily our guests knew Joe and took some of the more risqué facts with a pinch of salt! They were a fantastic talking point at dinner. A talented friend of mine made us a personalised heart stamp with our initials on which we used on the orders of ceremony, bar menus, labels (anywhere we could!). The star piece of decoration was the knitted wedding party; no detail was missed out- Emily’s baby bump and all! Thanks to my mother in law and sister in law for spending many an hour knitting…

The Honeymoon…. We went to New York; Central Park was beautiful in the autumn sunshine and allowed me to try out my new camera. Our ‘knitted’ selves made an appearance at some of New York’s top sights!

Memorable moments… Singing and dancing to ‘All the Single Ladies’ with my bridesmaids and mum on the morning of the wedding and my dad then walking in looking slightly bewildered! Climbing over a stile in my wedding dress to have photos in a cow field! Walking across the courtyard with dad, listening to Joe’s fantastic speech, the dance off…. the list goes on.

Advice for other couples… Just plan the day for the two of you, if you don’t want to do something then don’t! Most importantly HAVE FUN!!

Credit where credit’s due…

Venue: The manor barn www.manorbarn.co.uk

Florist: Someflower  www.someflower.co.uk

Band: Juke Box Money www.jukeboxmoney.co.uk

Dress: Acapulco by Pronovias  www.pronovias.co.uk

Hair accessories: Once Upon a Time Tiaras www.onceuponatimetiaras.co.uk

Catering: The barbeque and banqueting chef www.bbqchef.co.uk/

Huge thanks to Rachel and Joe for letting me share their beautiful wedding with you today :-) Have a great weekend lovelies XOXO Lou

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