You know when a bouquet makes you go "Wow"...? that. The flowers at Ed and Laura's wedding were seriously special, country garden meets rustic whimsy. Laura's gown suits her perfectly and I couldn't have picked more beautiful bridesmaids dresses to compliment, her best girls were VERY lucky indeed. Peachy lace perfection that they can wear time and time again.

The account of the ceremony details is particularly worth a read, so much time and effort is spent on choosing fashion, florals and decor yet I often hear how this was most couples favourite part of the day.

PIN THE GALLERY

Laura The Bride:Since getting married and chatting all things dresses and so forth with many ladies, I have realised I am not alone in finding choosing a wedding dress rather tricky! I had visions of finding a dress, putting it on, stepping out and seeing my bridemaids and mum swooning and dabbing the tears away...but no. Choosing my dress was really hard work! I looked everywhere. When I did find 'the one' I did LOVE it immediately. And my sister, Hannah, did cry! It was a Maggie Sottero number called Bronwyn from the friendliest wedding shop in Norwich, Pure Bridal. The girls in there were lovely and so patient, I took it to a recommended seamstress and she customised the dress, moving the satin ribbon to under the waist to give me an empire line (which looked a lot better because I'm only 5"3!).

I had so many compliments on the dress and even had several girls come and ask me if my dress could be their 'something borrowed' on their wedding day! I didn't want to take the dress off, ever! My shoes were a much easier choice and I bought them the same afternoon as I chose the dress! My mum pointed them out in Schuh and I loved them. They were Irregular Choice with peacocks on the soles. So much fun and super comfy! I teamed them with a lace edged veil and pearl hair comb from Glitzy Secrets.

I also wore a gorgeous pair of pearl drop earrings from Aurum Jewellers in Norwich (a surprise gift from Ed!) and my Nan's beautiful sapphire and diamond ring. My makeup was by the lovely and super talented Emily at Love Moi Makeup and my hair was by Charlotte from Colour hair salon in Norwich (extra personal because I used to teach Charlotte!!!!) Both lasted beautifully ALL day. They made me feel more beautiful than I have ever felt before.

Ed (the groom!) and the four ushers wore traditional morning suits from Young's Suit Hire at Debenhams. We wanted to have a rustic wedding but with a little bit of sophistication and tradition. The suits really worked for this! They all looked super handsome, especially Ed! For my girls we chose beautiful light peach lace and chiffon dresses from Coast and they all chose their own coral shoes. They looked gorgeous! I gave each of them a hair comb from Coast as a thank you gift. The girls loved their dresses and the got loads of compliments on our tasteful choice! Success!

The ceremony was so special; our favourite part of the day. I was beaming from ear to ear as I came into the church on my dad's arm and saw Ed gazing down the aisle over his shoulder at me! It was a very visceral experience coming into the church. It felt so full and abundant. It can still feel the warmth of all those faces turning towards me as I came in, as students and staff from my school's Folk Club played their version of Pachabel's Canon in D. It was such an uplifting feeling. Two of our friends, Annika and Tash read during the ceremony and brought a tear to the eye! We chose Colossians 12-17 and the poem 'Love' by Roy Croft. We also had a good hearty sing to the hymns! The children and babies in the service were fab and our vicar, Rev. David Mills made everyone welcome, he even told our friend Rosco to 'sit down love!' when she got up to take little Ruby out who'd begun to babble a little!

Choosing the reception venue was lots of fun but again quite difficult! We knew we wanted somewhere big enough for a proper barn dance! We viewed several barns but they were all a bit too small. Because our beautiful little church was in the middle of nowhere, in my parent's parish, there was a definite shortage of nearby venues! So we started googling village halls, working farms and then suddenly I came across Crows Hall in Suffolk. We emailed the owner, Caroline, immediately and went to view it. As soon as we drove up the beautiful tree lined private road and were met with a stunning Tudor red brick moated manor house with a huge range of beautiful barns, we knew it was the one. On the day, we enjoyed canapés, Prosecco and mum's homemade elderflower presse in the formal walled gardens, before the main event in the barns to the side of the house.

I love a bit of craft and knew I wanted to create some very personal touches for the wedding. I sourced craft materials from Ebay to create handmade personal invitations, orders of service and table names. I also found material on Ebay and between myself, Ed and bridesmaid Hannah, we stitched up over 100 metres of bunting for the barn. Ed also stamped out all the places names on luggage labels! Making things by hand was time consuming and full on, I'm not going to lie. If I can offer any advice, I would say if you are planning to make anything for the wedding yourself, start early! But, when it was all done, despite the hardwork, we felt very proud of the results. We stitched a bit of us into the wedding and it helped create that personal, 'rustic with a dash of magic' feel we wanted.

The food for the wedding was deliciously amazing and supplied by the brilliant Brasted's. I have been friends with Nick (the MD of Brasted's) and his girlfriend, Anna (one of my bridesmaids) since we were at high school an they were the perfect and obvious choice to do our catering. We enjoyed the best canapés ever (quote from many a wedding guest!), followed by a 'posh' ploughman's served on sharing platters on each table and finished with a trio of individual desserts: Chocolate torte, Lemon Cheescake and Jumbleberry Eaton mess! It was so tasty and really fitted with the whole feel of the wedding. Our cake was made by our mums and iced by our very talented friend Helen Terry. It was yet another super personal touch that made our wedding feel very grounded and a real shared effort between friends and family.

We were absolutely thrilled with the flowers! They were by the amazing Sarah at Bramble and Berry. Ed, mum and I visited her to chat colours, styles etc and she really listened and the results were superb. They were exactly the natural, rustic, magical look I hoped for. I cried when Sarah dropped by bouquet off in the morning and the bridesmaids were in love with their bouquets, which were smaller versions of mine. We didn't have a set colour scheme, we just wanted spring pastels but the flowers just really tied together the bridesmaid's dresses, groomsmen outfits, bunting in the barn and the cake. Perfect!

The entertainment in the barn was played by Ed's friends 'The Keel Band', another personal touch. They organised our guests perfectly (not an easy task after everyone's had a few too many prosecco's!) and we all enjoyed some proper barn dancing in Caroline's working barn. It felt so real, rustic and romantic. Just as we'd hoped! We then moved onto a disco for the next couple of hours. We put together the playlist ourselves and were so thrilled that it kept so many people on the dance floor all night, especially our unique finale of Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds' to finish the night off!

Our photography was by RMW love lust list member Katherine Ashdown. She was the first aspect of the wedding we actually booked and boy are we glad we did! Katherine is amazing! She is so artistically talented, so patient, so organised and so versatile. She loves her job and you can really feel that coming through in everything she does. You don't just feel like a client, you know feel like she genuinely cares about you, your love for each other as a couple and she is set on capturing the very essence of your day for you. It really feels like Katherine has given us a magic box of memories and we are so grateful to her.

We would love to do the whole day again and again! We both loved it so much and now are loving being married, which is of course, the whole point of the day!

Photography by
Katherine Ashdown
Makeup Love Moi | Gown Maggie Sottero at Pure Bridal | Accessories Glitzy Secrets | Bridesmaids Dresses Coast | Florist Bramble and Berry | Catering Brasted's

Vote RMW as Best Wedding Blog 2014

We are so pleased to be shortlisted for Best Wedding Blog in the Perfect Wedding Awards 2014! Please click the link below and vote for us! It literally only takes 10 seconds...