Wow, do we have a dreamy romantic treat for you today! WWW readers Sheena and Luke wed on the 9th July 2016 at WWW faves Bassmead Manor Barns in Cambridgeshire. Whilst the venue speaks for itself, there are plenty of pretty details to feast your eyes on as the pair used soft pink, green and cream to create gorgeous pastel decoration, from the beautifully arranged card table to the signs created by talented friends and family. I just love the stepladder table plan and I think you’ll agree that Sheena and Luke really took the sweet table to the next level!
Of course the florals took centre stage with blousy peonies featuring in the bouquets and amazingly delicate gypsophila hearts adorning the venue, as well as simple touches of greenery.
Such a romantic wedding wouldn’t be complete with a stunning ball gown and Sheena looks incredible in her Lilian West dress. The beautiful bridesmaids wore For Her and For Him dresses in the three colours of the pastel palette chosen by Sheena and Luke and his groomsmen looked fantastic in their matching Next suits.
Thanks so much to Lauren from Sung Blue Photography for providing these dreamy images.
THE PROPOSAL | New York City on 17th January 2015.
Luke had surprised me with a trip to NYC as a Xmas present. We set off on 15th January 2015 and a proposal was the last thing I thought would happen despite everyone telling me he would do it. On the day of the proposal we visited the 9/11 memorial towers, the Natural History Museum topped with a private helicopter ride where he dropped down one knee just before getting into the helicopter.
THE VISION | Soft pastel colours with a rustic/vintage/romantic theme.
THE PLANNING PROCESS | Started as soon as we got back from New York by writing the guest list. We determined exactly how many people we would like to attend the day and the evening. We then looked into budget and the generous offerings we had from our parents.
We viewed only 2 venues and didn’t want to view any more as we had completely fallen in love with the first venue we saw – Bassmead Manor Barns
We then set a date and sent out our save the dates. Then from that moment on my whole life was taken over by wedding ‘stuff’. As I was on maternity leave at the time, this enabled me to make phone calls and shop around for everything we had decided we wanted. I was determined to not have to settle for second best, so got in there quickly before dates got snapped up!
BUDGET | £30,000
THE VENUE | Bassmead Manor Barns, Staploe, Cambridgeshire – AMAZING
THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Lillian West Tulle Ball Gown with sweetheart neckline and a simple elbow length veil. Swarovski crystal square cut earrings and necklace (wedding present from Luke) and my bracelet was borrowed from my friend and bridesmaid, Carla.
My shoes were a very light dusty pink covered in crystals from Kurt Geiger. I wore Miss Dior perfume.
FINDING THE DRESS | My friend, Carla and I regularly have random conversations and she asked me once, before I was even engaged, what dress I would have if I was to get married. After looking for a while I found it! A Lillian West dress with beautiful lace and a tulle ball gown. So I knew exactly what dress I wanted as soon as Luke proposed, it was just a case of finding where I could buy it. I managed to find a stockist of the designer in a town not far from me. Ann’s Bridal Room in Leighton Buzzard were able to ship the sample in for me to try on – no pressure! It fitted like an absolute dream and I completely fell in love with it. I tried on around 5 others but none compared to this Lillian West dress that I had had my heart set on.
GROOM’S ATTIRE | Simple slim fit suits from Next in a gorgeous light blue.
We had a bit of a nightmare with the suits. We went to a shop in town with all the groomsmen plus dads and managed to pick a suit. The men all made sure they got their correct sizes so we could proceed with placing the order there and then. Unfortunately 8 weeks before the wedding we got a phone call from them to say they had completely run out of fabric and the fabric had been discontinued so were unable to finish our order. Devastated!! However Next came up trumps and we had to agree that the suits were even better from there and were all delivered the very next day. Perfect!
Luke wore a bow tie, which consisted of all the colours in our colour scheme. I found this on Etsy and couldn’t have been happier with my find as it matched and fitted in brilliantly. The groomsmen and page boys all wore a mixture of the colours, 3 wore pink, 3 wore green and 3 wore cream.
Oscar, our beloved family dog, wore a cream bow tie which again was a great find on Esty.
THE READINGS & MUSIC | The song I chose to walk down the aisle to was The One by Kodaline, the words were pretty true to our relationship.
My sister in law, Jess read the first reading which was called On Your Wedding Day and Luke’s mother, Jacquie, read the second one which was called I Will Be Here.
Whilst signing the register we had John Legend, All of me and The Calling, Wherever You Will Go play.
We then chose to walk out to the song Ho Hey by The Lumineers.
These songs were all sung beautifully by an amazing singer called Cara Beard. She sung for a further 2 hours at our reception and people were in awe of her, she truly was amazing. She has since signed a record deal!
Our first dance was Kiss Me by Ed Sheeran followed by a second song called Lets Stay together by Al Green as this was the second song played at Luke’s parents wedding – 36 years ago.
BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I had 6 beautiful bridesmaids, they consisted of family, lifelong friends and best friends. As I had 3 colours in my colour scheme I had 2 of each wearing the same colour, 2 in pink, 2 in green and 2 in cream.
Jess – My sister in law, she wore green
Carla –friend, she wore cream
Tanya – friend, she wore green
Char – friend, she wore cream
Hayley C – friend, she wore pink
Hayley A – friend, she wore pink.
I teamed them all with personalised rose gold necklaces (Etsy), a pair of rose gold earrings (Etsy) and rose gold bags (Accessorize). I also bought them all the same lipstick to wear. They managed to find themselves rose gold shoes to fit in with the theme.
THE FLOWERS | My flowers were done by a lady called Angelina Batty. They consisted of peonies, roses and green foliage (there were possibly more but im struggling to remember what they were) She made me a lovely bouquet finished with silk ribbon. The bridesmaid all had a bouquet each, the flower girls had flower balls which they hung around their wrists and the Groom, groomsmen, fathers and mothers all had beautiful personalised button holes.
Angelina made stunning flower arrangements for the register table, top table, individual tables and in 2 big bird cages that stood on pedestals. She also made 2 gypsophilia hearts and provided all the gypsohilia that were placed in jars on the chairs in the barn.
THE CAKE | My amazing cake was replicated by Trudy Scrumptious from a cake I had found on the internet. It consisted of 3 tiers with my colour scheme and vintage/rustic theme.
First tier was chocolate, second tier was white chocolate and raspberry and the third tier was lemon. It was safe to say it went down an absolute treat as there was none left over.
Trudy is an extremely talented lady with an amazing personality who I highly recommend.
YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Sungblue Photography, Lauren Dewar.
I was recommended Sungblue after having a complete meltdown. I had been searching for a photographer for a long time and I was receiving quotes that I thought were just totally unreasonable and didn’t include photo albums. Once speaking with Lauren, seeing her work/photos and price list we were instantly drawn to her. Not only is her photography simply stunning but she was the most reasonable we had come across, so much for your money with an amazing service.
We were offered an engagement shoot, which Luke wasn’t too keen on but was an opportunity to get used to the camera and also have some couple/family photos. The day was very windy and our youngest, Lois decided she was going to be the devil reincarnated but the photos turned out lovely. So we knew we were in for a treat on our wedding day and well the pictures speak for themselves, could not be happier with them.
THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Bassmead Manor Barns is a venue that honestly doesn’t need much décor as it is stunning in its own right. This is what we loved about the venue but we felt we had to put our own ‘stamp’ on the place. However we couldn’t do this on our own as the timings of the wedding the day before and the start of ours meant there was absolutely no way we could have got this done. So we hired some help. A lady my mum works with, Lisa Scott and her husband have a wedding business on the side – Scott Celebrations and I could not be more grateful for how they made the place look for us.
For the Rickety Barn we had pompoms of 4 different sizes and the 3 different colours hanging from the beams. Cream petals scattered along each side of the chairs on the floor and every other chair (first chair only of each row) alternated with lace ties and jars filled with gysophilia. We had 2 hearts made from gypsophilia that were hung on the pillars.
We had decorated jam jars (done by the birdesmaids, my mum and myself) scattered around the courtyard and grass area at the front of the venue.
In the dining barn we had 33 lanterns hung on the horizontal beams towards the ceiling and more pompoms placed and hung around the room. We also had 5 flower garlands wrapped around the vertical beams.
We hired large light up LOVE letters that were placed in the corner on the dance floor – these were a great feature.
In the foyer we had a guest book table, which had a vintage typewriter, a sweet cart, a table plan ladder and bird cage gift table. These we all hired from a lovely lady called Becky Rideout and her company is called The Fabric Florist.
To add a personal touch in the seated area of the bar we had some photos printed of mine and Luke’s grandads who had sadly passed away in 2013 and 2015 with a plaque and some tea lights to remember them.
We had signs (Instagram and ‘pick a seat’) made by our very talented friend Denise Rowlett who is a graphic designer with her own company called We Can Creative Ltd. She also designed our beautiful invites.
Another close friend, Matt Bonson, handmade and painted the signage for the wedding, such as ‘Luke & Sheena’s Wedding’, ‘Ceremony’ etc.
THE HONEYMOON | We chose to go to Mauritius. It was a toss-up between here and Maldives but as you get far more for your money in Mauritius we chose to go there. We took the opportunity to just totally relax, what with both of us working full time and having 2 children, doing absolutely nothing was a welcome break for the pair of us. We did manage to get out of the hotel to take a walk with the lions, along with playing with the baby lion cubs and quad biking.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS | The most memorable moment for the pair of us was of course the ‘I Do’s’ however there was one moment in particular that will stay with us forever. At the end of the night the song Champagne Supernova was playing and all of our family and friends and created a circle around us and our 2 children. We started off by dancing as a foursome which led to us breaking off into couples. Luke had hold of our daughter, Lois, and ran around the circle asking her to high five all of our guests. Whilst I stood in the centre dancing with our son, Charlie, sobbing my heart out at the fact that we were finally husband at wife, celebrating with all our family and friends, having the best day we possibly have asked for.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Take a few moments to take a step back from your wedding and take it all in together!
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |
Photographer | Sung Blue Photography
Venue | Bassmead Manor Barns *WWW wedding directory member*
Wedding Dress | Ann’s Bridal Room
Bridesmaid Dresses | For Her and For Him
Cake | Trudy Scrumptious
Prop Hire | The Fabric Florist
LOVE Letters | Summer Lily Love Letters
Photobooth | Giggle Booth
Flowers | Angelina’s Flowers
Venue Dressing and Lace Chair Ties | Scott Celebrations
Instagram Signs/’Pick a Seat’ Sign | Denise Rowlett
Accessories | Etsy
Thanks ever so much Sheena and Luke for sharing your dreamy day with us. Rachel x
