Beautiful DIY Easter Weekend Glamping Wedding at Ash Barton

Natalie and Dom opted for a weekend glamping wedding extravaganza, over the Easter weekend no less. Their celebrations ran from Thursday to Monday with a whole host of fun times and it sounded epic!

Their day was very much so a DIY affair with a relaxed atmosphere. Think dried wedding flowers, twinkling fairy lights, rustic wedding cake and the most stylish of outfits. All the fun was held at Ash Barton Estate in Devon. PS. Do also look out for a fun surprise at the end of the night as well as gorgeous bridesmaid dresses from WWW wedding supplier Rewritten!

I can’t thank Grace Elizabeth enough for sharing with us these joy-filled and beautiful images of a super weekend wedding.

Weekend Glamping Wedding

The Proposal

Dom proposed on Natalie’s birthday during covid.

With celebrations being limited Dom wanted to bring all of Natalie’s family and friends together. So he asked people to record a video message wishing her a happy birthday and then put them together knowing that at the end he would do a message and ask Natalie to marry him.

Then at the end of the video, a montage of photos/videos of all of our memories together were played to Natalie’s favourite song ‘Always a woman to me’.

The Vision

The main thing for us was for things to be as stress-free as possible and to get to spend as much time as possible with the people we care about.

We knew it would be the first big celebration for many post-covid, so we wanted to commemorate this and make it one big weekend celebration, which is why Ash Barton was the perfect venue.

We wanted things to be relaxed and this translated into rustic themes such as dried flowers, pastel colours and personal mementoes. We knew we wanted a venue where things could be a real team effort, with friends and family all chipping in with drying flowers for confetti, designing cups, making the cake and bouquets etc.

The Venue

We chose the wonderful Ash Barton Estate in Braunton. We wanted a place that could facilitate all guests to stay on-site for the weekend and plenty of activities to keep people entertained (yes, they have a games barn).

We loved that it was a DIY venue so we could make it exactly how we wanted. It is in a wonderful location, in the middle of nowhere allowing no curfew for the avid dancers, but close enough to drive 10 minutes to the beach and nearby towns.

The venue was a weekend hire venue so we had access from Thursday midday to Monday morning across the Easter bank holiday weekend, which allowed an evening for just family, a pizza and quiz night, the big wedding day with an easter egg hunt and a hungover day with a trip to the beach and BBQ.

The Ceremony & Music

We choose to get legally married the Thursday before the wedding, at Ash Barton’s sister venue, The Arches, with only immediate family in attendance. The main reason for this, was because we knew we wanted a celebrant-led ceremony to tell our love story, and Bex The Celebrant absolutely smashed it!

We were so lucky, the sun came out and was absolutely shining, so we were able to have our ceremony outdoors.

Sam Dowden performed our ceremony and canape music. It was so nice having live music and he created such a nice atmosphere.

Entrance Song – Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley
Recessional Song – You Make My Dreams Come True – Hall And Oats

Your Outfits

Natalie’s Dress – Bride by Design Warminster. I had tried a few high street dresses but knew once I tried the dress this it was the one. Then after the first dance, I changed into a trusty jumpsuit.

Dom’s Suit – Moss Bros herringbone tweed. I wanted something that wasn’t going to cost the earth, that was relaxed and comfortable.

The Styling & Decor

Katie at Best Day Ever was a huge help over the weekend. Dom’s sisters did a huge amount of work like making the cake, arranging all of the dried flower bouquets and buttonholes as well as designing and printing all of the signage.

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

Grace is such a great person and a fantastic photographer, and we could not recommend her enough. She captured the day perfectly, and it honestly felt like having another friend in attendance.

The Honeymoon

Immediately after the wedding weekend, we headed for a minimoon at a treehouse in mid-Devon which was so lovely.

We are still in the planning process of our main honeymoon, but we are hoping to travel around Western Canada for a few weeks in October this year.

Memorable Moments

The feeling of being surrounded by everyone you love and care about for a whole weekend is memorable in itself. However, if we had to choose a few other standout moments:

The ceremony, hosted by Bex, was a standout! How she had captured and delivered our love story was beautiful and being able to hear this, stood out in the sunshine outside under the Oaktree was amazing.
We had fireworks that were choreographed to “I believe in a thing called love” by The Darkness, which were amazing, and much to our amazement, we had actually managed to keep them a surprise from everyone. So when they started after we finished sparklers everyone was in awe, including us!
Dancing the night away with all of our guests was incredible; and definitely affirmed we made the right decision choosing a venue with no curfew, as we were still going strong on the dance floor at 4:30am.

Advice For Other Couples

Enjoy it. It can be easy to get consumed with the small details but remember to enjoy talking about what you want with your partner. Testing out things and on the day have time together to soak everything in and be present to realise how amazing the day is.

And if you can, go for a weekend venue!