Good morning! Did you have a lovely weekend? Tour de France fever peaked in Leeds on Saturday and it was crazy! It was so nice to see Yorkshire looking so beautiful on the TV but I must say I am glad that all of the helicopters and traffic have moved on. On Sunday we went over to a friends for food, pimms and tennis. It was so nice to sit outside on deck chairs watching it as it was another gorgeous day. Back to blogging now, and there is a new feature coming up on thursday AND sat/sun so look out for that this week.
How perfectly summery is this submission from Michael at My Beautiful Bride? Not only do I love how much bunting there is, I love that they had The Hound Dogs who I have seen play several times as I think they are localish to Stamford.
Incredible suit by Duchamp
Dress – Dana Bolton. For my dress I ended up going to a bespoke wedding dressmaker, Dana Bolton, who is based in Muswell Hill in London. I tried the shops and found lots that were lovely, but none were completely perfect, so I designed one combining all their best features. Dana was on the same page as me throughout and she did such a beautiful job.
Dresses - Dessy, Alfred Sung. I had bridesmaids from one year old to thirty one, so ended up with three different styles of dress. We linked them by putting the younger girls in white dresses with sashes that matched the older bridesmaids and they all looked to die for (especially the one year old!).
It was an easy choice to have the wedding reception in the garden of my family home where I grew up, as it’s so beautiful there. However, we had to think about where to have the ceremony, as we didn’t fancy a church wedding. In the end we took a massive gamble on the weather and had it outside at a beautiful little folie in some fields just down the road from the reception. It completely paid off as we were so incredibly lucky with the weather. We kept it rustic with hay bales for seats, big white festival flags in the fields, flowers and an ivy arch behind us.
Because the ceremony location wasn’t licensed for weddings we did the legal part in a registry office a couple of days before, which meant we could have free reign over the ceremony. We wrote our own vows, my brother in law took the ceremony, friends and family did a reading, poem and prayer, and at the end we all sang ‘Cant take my eyes off you’! It worked so well – personal, emotional and lots of fun.
For our wedding transport we managed to persuade a very kind local farmer to lend us an old vintage tractor that pulled a trailer, which we decorated and put an old sofa and a load of beanbags in. On the way back to the reception we had about fifteen of us all piled in! It was great to have something that all the young bridesmaids and ushers could enjoy together with us.
Back at the reception we had set up lots of different areas around the garden; we had a calypso bar with a rum punch bowl, an orchard with lots of games like giant jenga, a chill out area and a photobooth with costumes.
Together with friends and family we did lots of DIY decorations, which obviously saved money, but meant we had really unique and personal things. We made bunting, ribbon decorations, signs, hung hearts and ribbons from all the trees and did our own flowers. Instead of a wedding cake some of the family made over a hundred cupcakes and on the day everyone decorated one. The effect when they were all done was brilliant!
For entertainment, a friend played the piano in the afternoon (we’re lucky enough to have very talented friends!) and after dinner we had a 50’s rockabilly band ‘The Hound Dogs’. These were absolutely fantastic, playing so many classics that appealed to all the generations.
After the speeches we gave everyone a pair of these amazing glasses that turn every light into a heart. With them on we watched fireworks with Buble’s ‘Feeling Good’ blasting out! Definitely a highlight!
We are so lucky to have so many fabulous people in our lives that helped make the day amazing. We definitely couldn’t have done it without them! Thanks also to the caterers and to the brilliant photographer Michael from ‘My Beautiful Bride’ whose photos speak for themselves.
Marquee - County Marquees
Photobooth - www.uberbooths.co.uk
The post a rustic summer festival wedding in the countryside | uk wedding blog appeared first on So You're Getting Married.