If you haven't stumbled across wedding venue Fforest before, then allow me to introduce you...set on the rugged coastline of West Wales, it's essentially a campsite and farm set in 200 acres of beautiful countryside that can be exclusively yours for your wedding weekend.

Rachelle & Matt literally scoured the country to find a venue that would encapsulate the relaxed vibe of the music festivals they love to attend. And eventually they found Fforest.

And I'm SO pleased they did. This is a wedding that's not overly fussy on details, decor and DIY - but is brimming with love, family and artistic, almost dramatic, photography. Enjoy the simplicity lovely ones.

The Dress

Rachelle The Bride: I didn't start looking for a dress until February. Of 2014. Opps! Eventually my best friend Mel booked appointments in five shops, made me take the day off and off we went! It was clear I didn't want anything big or froofy and probably did want something vintage or retro and eventually found my dress in the last shop we went to. I did a second round of the shortlist dresses to make final decision a week later, and on Valentines Day bought my dress and celebrated with a meal for two with my best friend surrounded by a packed restaurant of dreamy couples!!

I wore Anoushka G from The Wedding Dress Shop. Special metion to Mariola - a gifted dressmaker who made all the alterations to make the dress what I wanted it to be. She was incredibly patient, added in additional appointments to get the dress perfect and even advised on hair styles and shoes!

The Accessories

My engagement and our wedding rings were made by Daniel Krumhorn. I also wore a silver & pearl bracelet and butterfly brooch (on my posy) - passed down from my paternal Grandma Jean.

I wore L.K. Bennett shoes. I looked high and low for these shoes in my size to no avail. Out of stock nationally and no info on when they would be back in. Last ditch attempt, I thought I'd try the concession in Bentalls in Kingston. A fabulous sales lady in there took it upon herself to call round all the London stores and when I went back an hour later, she had located a pair in Selfridges.

The Groom

Matt wanted an outfit that fit with the syle of wedding we wanted. He knew he definitely did not want any 'formal' wedding attire! We decided that we would keep both outfits a secret - not just the bride's outfit a surprise at this wedding! He found the waitcoat first and then built up the rest of the outfit around that - with the bow tie arriving on the morning of the wedding!

Matt wore a jacket by Austin Reed, with trousers and waistcoat from Ted Baker. He wore shoes from Kurt Geiger, a bowtie from Topman and had an engraved pocket watch.

The Wedding Party

The Groomsmen - our very own Mumford and Sons! Matt chose the waistcoat, had the neckties made and his gift to each of them was an engraved pocket watch. They then chose the rest of their outfits themselves (under close supervision and plenty of shopping trips - who says men don't like shopping?!).

Bridesmaids - this was very difficult as one lives in london, one in Barnsley and one in Loughborough! Eventually (after months of searching, buying, posting out, trying on and returning of dresses) we narrowed it down to 2 and picked the winner a week (arrgghhh) before the wedding. Finally chose these as they suited all my girls, the style of the wedding and they were just a lot more fun than the other option especailly after we added 50's underskirts.

The Decor

Matt was adamant that there woudn't be a colour scheme!! Instead, we knew the style/vibe of the wedding we wanted and decorated the venue to that style i.e. Folk, country, festival, vintage = all rolled into one! It seemed daft not to expoit our surname so we bought hundreds of Kilner jars - we served celebration mojitos in them, had sweets & chocolates in them and used them for favours. (Half filled with the best Lemon curd we have ever tased handmade by our friend Tom and the other half filled with Yorkshire mixture - paying homage to our birthplace and my love of sweets!)

Yorkshire tea pots - we live in London, got married in Wales but are very proud that we are from Yorkshire so it was important to us to bring some Yorkshire to the wedding. Taylors of Harrogate (my brother works for them) very kindly supplied the tea pots and we had enough tea to last a year nevermind a weekend!

We sourced our bunting from Ebay, found
wood and glass candle holders at TK Maxx and the wall art came from Source Lifestyle and Yumpti. The kilner jars were from Sima Warehouse, the hessian came from Whaleys Bradford and the
vintage table cloths, china and original milk urns and pewter pots were all provided by our venue.

The Flowers

We wanted very simple and natural flowers. Fforest provided in season home grown 'wild' flower arrangements for all the communal areas, and each tent/dwelling. In addition our florist created simple white and green arrangements for milk jugs for the ceremony and my bouquet and added some soft pink roses last minute (day before!!) for the Bridesmaids posies. We decorated hand made wicker hearts with gypsophilia and ivy for the barn and garden pavillion.

Jill at Designer Blooms was our superb florist who came on board only 6 weeks before the wedding. She already had a huge booking for a wedding on the same day but still managed to do our flowers also. Jill gave great advice, delivered beautiful arrangements and even lent us her handmade wickers hearts. Such a great, talented lady.

The Venue

We are both big fans of live music and have had great times with friends and family at numerous music festivals over the years. We wanted a wedding like a festival in as much that it was informal, relaxed, great music, food and company and that we just happened to be getting married in the middle of it!! We wanted to get married as close to outdoors as legally possible in the UK and also where all our friends and family could stay on site. This made the venue search easier in that it narrowed down our options but more difficult in terms of limited venues with limited availability! We went on a tour from London to Cornwall to Wales and as we walked down the path at Fforest towards the barn we both looked at each other and knew we'd found the right place.

Although the West coast of Wales was a fair distance away from most, it didn't matter so much as we wanted it to be a weekend away with our closest family and friends, not just one day of celebration. Therefore guests arrived Friday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. This gave us plenty of time to socialise and experience the time with everyone without feeling like we were rushing around to greet each guest and not enjoying our own wedding. The vast majority of guests 'Glamped' (posh camping) in domes, tipis, bell tents and campshacks and every one of them loved the experience.

The Ceremony

There was significant debate about the song I would arrive to. The final decision was made on the night before the wedding!! It made sense once we were there to go with Annie's song, John Denver. A special song to me from my childhood and the lyrics rang true.

Readings - one of my dear friends was married in December and had a reading that we both loved so we asked her if we could use it which she was delighted to say yes to - On Marriage By Kahlil Gibran. The other one just made us both laugh! - I Do, I Will, I Have - by Ogden Nash.

The Entertainment

Having live music was a must for us. Matt had seen The Mac Bros at the Liverpool International Music Festival on a friend's stag in 2013 and convinced me I would love them. He wasn't wrong - they were amazing. They played from before the ceremony right up till midnight when we had to stop amplified music. Everyone loved them, including friends who then tried to book them for their wedding next year. If you've never seen someone beatbox through a flute you need to see these boys play.

One of Matt's best men, Jon,spent days compliling amazing playlists on Spotify that we used throughout the day and for the silent disco. On the Friday evening - best man (Matt's middle brother) Ben hosted a fab game show.

The Food

Aside from an amazing venue, Fforest's menus were a huge plus for us. We wanted informal and inclusive and the weekend menu delivered this. On Friday night we had homemade soup and pizza (made to order in the wood fired pizza oven) served ouside around the fire pits.

For the Wedding day we had an Afternoon Tea - delicious homemade sandwiches & cakes, pots of Yorkshire Tea and processco in the barn, followed by an evening Hog Roast with crumble & custard. It was perfect. Sunday morning everyone joined together for a BBQ brunch - probably the best bacon I've ever eaten, followed by wedding cake for dessert

The Photography

We chose Matt from Lucius Fox after looking at photographers who had worked at Fforest before and who's work fitted what we wanted. He was really flexible and worked with us to agree a tailored package that suited us. He integrated really well ino the wedding and was like having another guest - many of our guests commented on how friendly and unobtrusive he was. We loved that he got involved and had a good time himself - throwing some decent shapes at the silent disco!

Advice

The beauty of Fforest is that you can style it to what you want, add bespoke decor etc. This is also quite challenging as there's a lot to do yourself!!

We have amazing friends and family who helped us from driving miles to collect Kilner jars, sawing and painting signs, tieing string round 100 jars, stapling metres of hessian to walls, forraging for piles of ivy and then wrapping this around the Giant tipi etc etc.