Good afternoon lovelies, it’s real wedding time again [Yay!]. I have a lovely country barn wedding to share with you all today. Amy & Gavin wanted a shabby chic, vintage style wedding day and chose a pretty colour palette of dusky pink, lilac and peach.
Family and friends came together to organise all the beautiful flowers and bunting. There were also many handmade and absolutley gorgeous details, in particular, I love the lace covered vintage dressmakers bust they used for their table seating plan. So pretty!
Amy wore an incredible Maggie Sottero gown with STUNNING back detailing, I just know you are going to fall in love with with this pretty real wedding!
Words by Amy. Images by Cotton Candy Weddings.
Gavin and I met at school when we were just 15 years old and have been together ever since. Gavin organised a trip to St Ives, [one of my favourite places] for our 11 year anniversary.
Unbeknown to me, he had created a photo memory book of our lives together which he had turned in to a love story. He gave this to me whilst we were sat overlooking the beach, the final page of the book had a photo of my engagement ring [that he had made for me] asking me to marry him.
It was an extremely emotional and special moment that Gavinn had put so much time and effort in to. As we’ve been together so long, we wanted our wedding day to be really personal and represent our personalities.
We wanted a vintage style theme to the wedding day, and along with the old country style barn we really felt that we got exactly what we wanted. We tried not to overdo it as the overall look of the barn is so beautiful we didn’t need too.
We knew we wanted a real natural wild feel to the flowers, nothing too ‘done’ so that it fitted in with the venue and our general style of the day. The colours were dusky pinks, soft lilacs and peaches.
I chose my dress mainly because of the front and back detail, I fell in love with it the moment I put it on and felt it was perfect in every way.
The way the fabric draped and pleated on the sides and back reminded me of a 1920’s dress, which is a style I have always loved. The dress fitted perfectly and I loved how the pearl and diamante detail cascaded down my back, something that I had not seen before.
I knew I wanted a vintage style dress and felt that this dress had an art deco, old Hollywood glamour feel.
The bridemaids dresses were from Debenhams, they were very plain when purchased so to jazz them up and make them look more unique I managed to find some vintage beaded crystal appliqué in a old fabric shop in Bristol.
With the help of my Mum we attached the detail on the shoulders and waist of the dresses. It transformed them and helped to match in with my dress.
I didn’t have a veil as it wasn’t something I wanted due to all the detail on the back of my dress. I didn’t want to distract away from that in any way. I wore a vintage style hair comb and attached an old pearl and dimante earring of my mothers to add some more detail and movement as it dangled down slightly.
Gavin wanted to wear something a little different to most grooms and wanted to be different from the groomsmen too! His suit was tailor made for him at Territo Tailors in Bristol. It was a grey three piece, vintage style Italian suit, Gavin was especially happy about the red silk lining.
Gavin matched his suit with a burgundy bow tie (which he spent weeks learning to tie) and matching pocket square, and red brogues, along with a pocket watch that I gave to him as a surprise on the day.
The pocket watch was engraved with lyrics from our first dance song (Al Green, Lets Stay Together).
We knew we wanted to get married in a barn, as we wanted to get married in a rural setting with character. Priston Mill ticked all the boxes for us, the grounds are beautiful and the barn itself is stunning with many of the original features and is largely untouched.
This meant that we did not have to do too much to the venue to make it unique.
All the flowers were done by my mum Diane along with some help from the Bridesmaids and family. We used my Nan’s tea cups and filled them with hydrangeas and roses from the garden these were dotted around the venue along with some jugs filled with wild flowers.
We knew we wanted a real natural wild feel to the flowers, nothing too ‘done’ so that it fitted in with the venue and our general style of the day. The colours were dusky pinks, soft lilacs and peaches.
We had a basket filled with cones made from doilies filled with dried rose petals to give out to the guests for the confetti throw.
Diane used pale pink hydrangeas from her garden for the bridesmaid’s bouquets and put some diamante pins in to give some sparkle. She created the bridal bouquet using a mixture of flowers from the flower market in Bristol, with an antique rose as the main flower, which was also in the button holes.
The bouquet stems were wrapped in vintage lace which was secured with pearl pins. It was so special that she could make my bouquets, they were exactly what I wanted.
We tied small bunches of wild flowers with raffia on the beautiful white washed wooden chairs along the stretch of the aisle, these were then left on the chairs for the wedding breakfast which looked beautiful throughout the day.
My Father walked me down the aisle to Eric Clapton ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. It’s my dad’s favourite song and is so beautiful, it just felt right to chose that.
The song was played by one of our best men on his acoustic guitar and accompanied by a saxophonist, which made it very special. We chose a sax due to my grandfather playing one when he was alive, it was a surprise for My Mum, Nan and Uncle as a tribute to him.
For decoration we draped fairy lights wherever possible as we wanted lots of twinkling lights when the sun finally went down.
One of our bridesmaids had some personalised Mr & Mrs Simpson bunting made as a surprise, this was hung up on the balcony in the barn along with the lights and some raffia hearts.
Our table plan was an old dressmaking bust that we covered in lace, then using vintage hat pins we attached large luggage labels that I handwrote, one for each table.
Our save the dates were vintage style postcards sent from St Ives as we got engaged there the previous year. The postcards then featured again as our RSVPs that we gave our guests in our handmade vintage invitations to fill out and return to us.
To carry this on we made large postcards one for each table. Each postcard representing a special place that meant something to us over the 13 years of our relationship. The top table was St Ives!!
Our wedding favours were strawberry bonbons, we wanted vintage style sweets that fitted in with our theme and they seemed to be perfect. We purchased little bags and had personalised stickers with the date, location and our names.
These also doubled up as name tags for our guests, we used the vintage luggage labels and attached them with ribbon and ‘Amy & Gav’ stickers.
The table’s decorations were vintage birdcages, along with dried petals and pearls scattered all over. The top table had smaller birdcages and tea cups, along with the bridesmaid’s bouquets in pretty little vases.
We knew wanted a simple and classic wedding cake with white icing and pearl details that complemented our dusky pink theme. Neither of us are a big fan of fruit cake so we went for a chocolate and orange tier and a maderia tier.
Zoe was so helpful and did such an amazing job at designing our cake. It was so beautiful and she topped it off with some little bunting that I found online which was perfect as I made bunting that was around the venue on the day.
Our wedding photographers were Cotton Candy Photography. We wanted elegant natural photos with a vintage style and that is exactly what they provided. Gemma felt like a friend and we could not recommend Cotton Candy highly enough.
They captured everything we wanted, and gave us a very high standard of service. We will treasure our photos forever and its all thanks to them.
If you could impart any words of wisdom to future brides, what would they be?
Enjoy every minute of your day, it goes by so fast, so make sure you both take a moment for just the two of you to take it all in. Do as much as you can yourself, it not only saves you money but it makes it more personal.
What was your most memorable moment of the day?
There wasn’t one particular memory, there were so many we couldn’t just pick one!
Isn’t this such a pretty shabby chic, vintage styled wedding? I adore the barn setting and the use of romantic shades of dusky pink, pale peach and lovely lilac. Amy & Gavin looked like they had such a fun day and very personalised wedding day.
Massive thanks go out to Cotton Candy Weddings for sharing this gorgeous wedding with the WTW blog and a huge congrats to our lovely couple, please do leave them some la la love!
Lots of Love
XxX Sonia
and remember… keep wanting!
wedding credits / photography: cotton candy / venue: priston mill / dress: maggie sottero via allison jayne / shoes: / groomsmen suits: menshire / grooms suit: territo tailors / cake: zoe ford / hair: laura hill and liza durrant, tomlinson / make-up: sister in law / bridesmaid dresses: debenhams / entertainment: wedding band, zuzu men