Old Fashioned Feel Pink Country Wedding

Old Fashioned Feel Pink Country Wedding

via

WWW readers Luke and Lucy married on Saturday the 17 th of May 2014, holding their reception at Dauntsey Park House in Wiltshire. They had an old fashioned feel to their day with a lot of fun too.

There were antiques and charity shop finds decorating their venue, a stunning cascading peony bouquet and their venue was full of character.

Lucy looked amazing in her lace Kenneth Wilson gown with cathedral length veil, Glitzy Secrets tiara and Chez Bec earrings. While Luke looked super cool in a Topman dark blue tweed suit. Look out for the brilliant sunset portraits too :-)

Thanks so very much to Kevin Belson for sharing his wonderful photographs with us.

THE PROPOSAL | We've been together since we were both 15 and went through school, college and university together. We had always spoken about getting married and when we had both finished university, we decided that it was the right time to get engaged and start planning our wedding! We took a trip to London and went to Grays Antique Market next to Bond Street tube station where we chose a beautiful 1920s engagement ring. I wasn't allowed to see the ring again until Luke had officially proposed. He planned a trip for us to go away in a few months time but didn't tell me where we were going until the night before. We spent a wonderful few days in Edinburgh and on the very last day, Luke took me up Calton Hill for a lovely picnic overlooking Arthur's Seat. It was during the picnic that Luke got down on one knee and popped the question.

THE VISION | We wanted our wedding to have a vintage, country feel and to have a relaxed, rather than formal, atmosphere. We didn't initially have a colour scheme but we ended up with lilacs, pinks and ivory.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We gave ourselves two years, from our engagement, to prepare for the wedding. This was mainly to give us enough time to save, as weddings are expensive! We didn't actually do much planning until around 18 months prior to the wedding. We really enjoyed the planning process and I spent many hours looking at wedding ideas on Pinterest, wedding magazines, and wedding blogs, including WWW! Even though we were well organised, I still found the last couple of weeks stressful; we were so busy!

BUDGET | We set ourselves a strict budget of £15,000 and aimed to stick to this by making many of the decorations etc. ourselves. We had a couple of spreadsheets to keep track of our savings and outgoings and, thankfully, we only overspent by a small amount.

THE VENUE | Our reception was held at the fantastic Dauntsey Park House, which is a privately owned house in Wiltshire. We struggled for some time to find a venue that felt right but then I stumbled across this stunning house on Pinterest. The house is surrounded by the most beautiful grounds; the fields are full of wild flowers and there is a river that flows just in front of the house. The owners, who were very friendly and accommodating, only do around three to four weddings a year and because it's their home, it doesn't have the corporate feeling that many other venues have. To top it all off, there is the most beautiful village church next to the house. One of the doors of St James the Great Church leads right onto the garden of the house meaning that when we walked out of the church, we were already at our reception!

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was Private Label by Kenneth Wilson. It had a high neck and covered my shoulders so I decided not to wear too much jewellery. I wore a 1920s style tiara from Glizty Secrets and some 1920s style earring by Chez Bec. My something borrowed was a bracelet my sister wore on her wedding day.

FINDING THE DRESS | I was so excited to start looking for my dress that I started looking quite early! I went to three shops before I found 'the one' in a bridal shop called Harmony Brides in Swindon. I had an idea of what I wanted before I started looking. I knew I wanted it to have lace, for it to cover my shoulders and I wanted it to have a fishtail shape. However, when I started trying on fishtail dresses, I found that the shape didn't look quite right on me. In the end, after trying on about six dresses, the lady in the shop said she knew of a dress that she thought was perfect for me. When I tried it on and looked in the mirror, I knew I had found my dress! I also chose a cathedral length veil with lace floral details on the edges - just perfect!

GROOM'S ATTIRE | Luke went to London with a couple of friends to look for suits. He and the best man opted for a suit from Topman's premium range. The suits were three piece and were a dark blue tweed. Luke's brown brogues, which he's a little bit obsessed with, were Church's which are handmade in Northampton. The groomsmen wore light grey tweed jackets from Topman and dark grey tweed trousers from Next. They also wore brown brogues and purple ties to match Luke and the best man.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | For our first reading, we chose a great poem called 'I wanna be yours' by John Cooper Clarke. For us, it had just the right mix of humour and sentiment. For our religious reading we chose '1 Corinthians 13.'

We opted for our three favourite hymns: Jerusalem, I Vow to Thee my Country and Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer. At the church we had a fantastic choir, called The Village Singers. They sang the three hymns and during the signing of the register, they sang: Abendlied by Rheinberger, God Only Knows by The Beach Boys and Happy Together by The Turtles. It's hard finding songs that are suitable for a wedding service but we were very happy with our choices. We'd definitely recommend getting a choir for your wedding; they sound great and they get more of your guests singing!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I had 4 bridesmaids: My sister Rachel, Luke's little sister Daisy and my two friends Gemma and Lauren. We got their dresses form the same bridal shop as my dress. They wore floor length dresses from Alfred Angelo's modern vintage collection in a colour called wisteria. Daisy looked so cute in her matching dress! We had the seamstress add wide straps to her dress so that it was more comfortable for her. The girls wore matching pearl jewellery and had fresh flowers in their hair.

THE FLOWERS | I wanted country-looking flowers in a range of lilac, pink and ivory colours. We chose a florist in Swindon called the Flower Factory. They did an amazing job! I had a shower bouquet, which included peonies, stocks, daisies and lilacs. The bridesmaids had matching hand-held bouquets and on each of the wedding breakfast tables, we had mason jars filled with cut flowers.

THE CAKE | We really didn't want to spend too much on the cake so we chose a nice one from Marks and Spencer. Each layer was a different flavour - fruit, vanilla sponge and chocolate.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Our photographer, Kevin Belson, was recommended to us by the wedding venue, who had worked with him before. We loved his creative style of photography and his unobtrusive approach really appealed to us. The photos are like no other wedding photos we've seen; we highly recommend him!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | We spent a long time scouring charity and antique shops for vintage cups and saucers as well as embroidered tablecloths. We used a vintage suitcase for the table plan and another for the post box. We also had a selection of old family wedding photos on display. The house already had a lot of character with wonderful art and antique taxidermy; they even had a taxidermy hare lamp, which was fitting, as our married name is Hare! Instead of having the traditional guest book, we bought a 1930s typewriter and some felt tips and asked our guests to get creative. We ended up with some beautiful drawings, hilarious poems and some good words of advice. We've since framed a couple of the messages and are planning to make an album with the others.

THE HONEYMOON | We spent 5 nights in a beautiful thatched cottage in North Devon. We visited Ilfracoombe, Woolacombe and Exmoor. It was a great way to relax and couldn't have been more romantic.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | One of our favourite moments was when a large section of the party raided the house's dressing-up box, crossed the river and climbed a mound in the field opposite the house while the sun was setting. It was completely spontaneous but some of our favourite photos were of this moment. Other than that I would definitely say walking down the aisle, seeing Luke standing at the front of the church and realising that we were finally getting married! The choir singing during the signing the register was another great moment. There were so many other memorable moments throughout the day.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | We would definitely recommend that you both think about taking the week before the wedding off work. We'd have been a lot more stressed had we not done this.

Also, we made a conscious effort to spend as much time as we could together on the day. This may sound like an obvious thing to do, but there are so many guests to see and so many little things to do that you have to make this effort.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Venue | Dauntsey Park House

Church | St James the Great Church

Photographer | Kevin Belson

Caterers | Berry Blue Catering - delicious food and wonderful staff

DJ | Disco Wed - not your stereotypical wedding DJ - superb!

Dresses | Harmony Brides

Flowers | The Flower Factory

Loos | The Royal Flush

How beautiful?!

Thank you so so much to Luke and Lucy for sharing their gorgeous wedding story with us XOXO Lou

Connectez-vous pour laisser un commentaire

Follow us on