Rustic Simple & Crafty Farm Wedding

What a pleasure it is to be sharing the joy filled, happy, summer wedding celebrations of WWW readers Hannah and Mark. The perfect way to begin the week!

Hannah and Mark were hitched on the 20^th July 2019 at WWW Wedding Suppliers member’s Huntsmill Farm in Buckinghamshire. Their day was perfectly rustic and crafty, the barns were decked out in personal touches and cool details. I really love the macramé hanging backdrop, the blue florals and semi naked cake of dreams. It’s great to hear that another one of our Supplier Love members Shropshire Petals provided the confetti for the special confetti moment post ceremony, so fluttery and pretty!

Didn’t Hannah look amazing in her open back gown?! Meanwhile Mark was suited and booted in a grey check suit and blue tie to coordinate with the bridesmaid dresses. So stylish.

A massive thank you goes to Sam Bennett Photography and Film for sharing with us these awesome photos, you are going to love the smoke bomb portraits guys.

The Proposal

Mark had surprised me with a trip away for my birthday in 2018 to Budapest. He had booked a gorgeous hotel overlooking the River Danube, arranged for us to see my Aunty etc. We had a lovely time exploring, eating and drinking. Mark kept telling me not to go in his suitcase as he had a birthday present in there for me. The night before my birthday, Mark had organised a cruise on the Danube which was so beautiful.

The next morning, Mark said let’s get ready and then we will go an have breakfast. Once we were ready, Mark told me to sit down with my eyes closed and hands out. When I opened them again, he was down on one knee with a ring in his hand asking me to marry him. I burst into tears and of course said yes. It was so perfect – we had the moment all to ourselves, with the lovely view of the Danube and chain bridge behind us. A day and a birthday I will never forget.

The Vision

We both wanted a fairly relaxed wedding where we could be surrounded by our family and friends. We liked the idea of having family and the wedding party stay over at the venue so we could make a weekend of it.

The Planning Process

I really enjoyed the planning process and I actually really miss it. We were both fairly laid back when it came to planning. Mark would let me get on with it pretty much but he would give his opinion and suggest things. I was given a wedding planner folder by my Mum which we used to plan the guest lists, tables etc. I used Pinterest for inspiration for everything.

Budget

£18,000

The Venue

Due to us both wanting a rustic, relaxed wedding we looked a few barn style venues. Our friend suggested we take a look at Huntsmill Farm, we both looked at the website and decided to arrange a visit for a look around.

We both fell in love with the venue when we saw it, it was exactly what we wanted and it had the perfect date left for us – it was meant to be!

It has a gorgeous, converted barn that is a blank canvas. A lovely courtyard that has festoon lights, benches, deckchairs etc so your guests can take a break from dancing the night away. So much lovely grass area with a few hidden gems doted around like a traditional red telephone box.

There are 7 cottages on site so we were able to have our family and wedding party stay for the weekend.

Every little detail has been thought about at this venue and the team are just so friendly and helpful.

Your Outfits & Accessories

Hannah – my dress was from Shop for Brides in Daventry. They were having a sale and me, two bridesmaids and my Mum thought we would go along and have a look at some dresses etc. I knew that I wanted a slim fitting dress with some type of back detail. I tried on about six dresses and fell in love with two. We narrowed it down to one and I phoned Mark and he said it was too early to pick a dress (we hadn’t got a date, venue etc at this point) and said I should try more on. The ladies agreed they would hold it so I could try some others on elsewhere. No other dress compared so I went back to Shop for Brides. The dress I chose was a slim fitting ivory dress that had a lace upper body with some simple bead work and a completely cut out back. It had a train and I chose no veil as I wanted to show off the back detail. Looking back at my Pinterest later on in the planning process I had actually pinned the exact same dress when looking at styles – meant to be!

I went for a dusty blue shoe with a block heel, a simple drop necklace and earrings and then a filigree style hair comb.

Mark – Mark’s suit was from ASOS, he had ordered a few different styles/colours from different websites but didn’t find any that he was completely sold on. We decided on a light grey for the colour and chose one from ASOS that had a light check and was slim fitting. The best men were going to have the same suit so Mark got a matching waistcoat for himself to stand out. Mark and his two best men wore white shirts, brown belts and shoes and a light blue jacquard style tie that we bought from Debenhams. Mark was given his Grampy’s silver tie clip to wear and the two best men also wore tie clips.

Groomsmen

The suits were the same as Mark’s and brought from ASOS – the only difference was Mark wore a waistcoat and the best men just had blazers.

Bridesmaids

We had ordered a style of dress from ASOS that we all really liked, it was a dusty blue dress with a mesh layered bottom and a camisole embroidered top. However, we decided to go and have a look at Wed2B just in case. They had a shade of blue that matched our theme perfectly. The girls all tried various styles on and we had sneakily brought with us one of the ASOS dresses to compare. Even though we all liked the ASOS one and thought it would fit in well with the theme, we all agreed that the Wed2B dress looked better. It was more flattering and grown up but it still looked right for our relaxed wedding. All the girls chose the same style of neckline, which was a pleated front and a low cowl neck on the back. They all looked so beautiful in their dresses.

Beauty

I had a few leaflets about hair and make up artists from various wedding fairs. After having a look at their work etc I decided to go with Emma Goodwin Hair and Makeup. I had asked for my bridesmaids opinion too as they would be getting their hair and make up done. We all agreed that Emma’s work looked perfect for what we wanted. At my trial I met Alison who would be doing our hair on the day. Both Emma and Alison were lovely, it was a super early start on the day but that didn’t stop them from having a laugh and doing a fantastic job.

Your Photographer

I knew from the moment we got engaged I would love for Sam Bennett to be our photographer. I knew of Sam through a friend and I just knew that his and vision would be the perfect fit. I showed Mark some of his work and luckily he agreed with me. Sam made us feel so comfortable on our pre wedding shoot and when it came to the big day it felt like Sam and Shannon were just two more of our friends.

Your Filmmaker

At first we was just going to have photography but after watching some childhood videos with Mark’s family, we both changed our minds instantly. There is something about videography that just captures the moment and personality of people brilliantly. So we got in touch with Sam to check if Shannon, his videographer was available on our date and she was. One of the best decisions we made during the wedding planning process.

The Details & Décor

As we wanted the wedding to be quite rustic and as the venue was so gorgeous anyway our décor was quite simple.

I decided to make/do the majority of the details myself – I learnt how to do macramé and made a large wall hanging that Kate adorns with the garland. This was on a wall behind us during the ceremony and then it was moved to the wall behind us during the wedding breakfast.

I was going to learn pyrography in order to do the name cards but instead I ordered some wooden hearts online and calligraphed everyone’s names on them.

For the table numbers, I got some clear acrylic and in a white pen calligraphed the number on and then painted the back of the sign in some dusty blue coloured paint – Emma, one of my bridesmaids helped paint the background and she is the least crafty person I know so I was well happy. I also did a few of these signs with quotes on to place around, for example one sat on top of a basket filled with blankets saying “to have and to hold, in case you get cold”.

We got hold of some wooden pallets to make welcome signs and an order of the day sign – Sophie, another one of my bridesmaids helped with this.

We also made a noughts and crosses game out of the pallets and brought some X and O’s which we painted in a silver.

For our wedding favours we ordered personalised M&M’s that had Mr and Mrs Shearn on them. We tied the packets individually with twine – it looked worked well with a dusty blue napkin, the M&Ms and the wooden heart.

We hired a couple of vintage looking suitcases from Nickie and Little Orchard Vintage Hire for our guests to put cards/presents in and Nickie also supplied us with a sweet cart which made my dreams come true!

We hired the rustic DJ set up from Smooth Move events which worked perfectly in the barn.

We ordered a personalised mix of real confetti petals from Shropshire Petals which we then had the guests take handfuls from a wooden basket.

Another one of the best decisions we made was to hire a photobooth – we hired Photohoof and they set themselves up in the courtyard and it was so much fun – everyone had a great time with it.

The Flowers

We went to meet Kate from the Greenery to discuss all things flowers and it was such a good meeting. Firstly, there was homemade brownies waiting for us and Kate was just a fountain of knowledge and so friendly. We are not green fingered at all but I had seen some images of flowers that I liked on Pinterest and Mark knew that he wanted a lot of foliage. Kate helped us bring our vague ideas to life, suggesting flowers and foliage that she thought would work with our colours and theme. We went for soft, delicate and natural flowers, they were pastel blue and cream combined with silvery green foliage and hints of blush pink. The flowers included roses, delphiniums, nigella, poppy seed heads and eucalyptus. My flowers were a loose, cascading bouquet tied in a naturally dyed silk ribbon that trailed down. The bridesmaids had smaller bouquets that were tied with twine and matched the best men’s boutonnieres. Mark had a boutonniere style for his lapel that featured a combination of smaller flowers from my bouquet. The venue had two rustic milk churns outside the main door, which we decided to do a large flower arrangement with. Down the aisle, we decided on large jars that were filled with delphiniums and foliage, these later got moved to the tables for decoration and the little alcove areas. Kate also did flowers for our mums to wear on their wrists, for the bridesmaids to have in their hair, flowers for the cake and also a garland with lots of trailing foliage to adorn a macramé wall hanging I made.

The Cake

We went to a few different local cake makers and eventually chose Claire from Bake my Cake. Claire was lovely to work with and she truly made our cake come to life.

We wanted a semi naked cake on a wooden log slice that would be decorated with real flowers and some fondant decorations.

Instead of the traditional bride and groom toppers we wanted a Bear and a Mouse – Claire suggested that the groom could have a blue tie and the mouse a blue flower tucked behind the ear.

We also wanted a figure of our dog, Echo, sleeping (that is all his does) as he couldn’t be at the wedding – we sent various photos of him to Claire so she could get his colourings right etc and the result was amazing – it looked just like him, even down to his facial expression and the way he curls up to sleep.

We settled on 3 flavours – chocolate baileys, salted caramel and Victoria sponge.

The Honeymoon

For our Honeymoon we went to the Hotel Grand Mediterraneo Resort in Corfu. We flew out on the Monday after the wedding for 10 days of all inclusive, relaxation. We had a room with our own private pool and it was just heaven.

Memorable Moments

When Sam and Shannon came up to me and Mark, and just randomly said that they have smoke bombs in the car are we up for having a go with them. We went into a field with them, my three bridesmaids and Mark’s two best men and we had such a laugh and they are some of our favourite photos.

It was so lovely seeing everyone have a great time on the dance floor.

Waking up the next day and seeing everyone emerge from their cottages, sharing a coffee and a laugh remembering moments from the night before was perfect and exactly how me and Mark wanted the wedding to be like.

Advice For Other Couples

Don’t stress about it too much – your family and friends will have a great time regardless.

Take a few moments where it is just the two of you to look around and take it in.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

I just love a rustic wedding style, oh so lovely.

Hannah and Mark thank you so very much for sharing with us your wonderful wedding day xo Lou