Countryside

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Liz moved to America from the UK where she met Blake while he was singing in a bar. After dating for a while he proposed while on holiday in Rome.

Although well-traveled, Liz wanted to have her wedding in her hometown of Brize Norton, in her parent’s back garden. She had to rely on her parents, sister and bridesmaids a lot for help during the planning,

“I arrived in the UK 3 days before the wedding and immediately had to go and meet our vicar, after that we had to fight the jet lag to start decorating the marquee,” Liz told me. “I didn’t realise how much stuff I  had collected over the year and when I saw it all piled up in my parent’s dining room I felt really overwhelmed by it all. Luckily my sister and bridesmaid were on hand to keep everything on track we knuckled down and started hanging and arranging.”

The wedding had a quintessential English feel. “I have always wanted to get married in Mum and Dad’s garden, Blake and I wanted our wedding to be casual, colourful and fun,” the bride continued. “I knew I wanted a vintage garden party feel to the wedding and I started collecting stuff. Mum and Dad were travelling around the UK picking up my eBay purchases. Dad would talk to me on the phone and say that his shed had been over taken with all my ‘junk’….”

“My mum has really green fingers so she started planting flowers to bloom in August. When my Mum and sister came over to NY for my hen party they went home with 2 huge suitcases full of stuff I had collected for the wedding – mason jars, oil lamps, vintage table cloths, vintage napkins, homemade bunting and of course my bird cages…”

“I love everything vintage, especially vintage jewelry, I started collecting vintage brooches initially to use as the escort cards. I found so many amazing enamel flower brooches that they inspired me to use them as my bouquet. It took quite a few attempts to get it to look good, but eventually what worked the best was treating each brooch as an individual flower. I attached florist wire to each brooch by simply twisting it around the pin. I didn’t want to ruin any of the brooches, all of them can be taken off the wire and worn as a brooch.”

“Once I had my bouquet together in a vase I arranged it and gathered them all up and selotaped them together. I then trimmed all the ends of wire so they were straight and bent the brooch flowers until I had an attractive bouquet with no holes. I then folded about a yard of 1” ribbon in a concertina pattern about 3” long and sewed it together at one end. I then attached this to the top of the wire stems, just below the flower heads and fluffed it out. I then took the rest of my ribbon and wound it around the rest of the wire stem attaching it with pearl dress pins. My Dad then put some mastic over the sharp ends of wire.”

Liz wore a vintage dress which she found in a shop in Cornwall. “I found it when I was out with Mum. Had no intention of buying a dress but I fell in love with it. My Mother in  law (Kim) then made me the bolero out of the fabric she cut off the bottom of the dress and shortened it. I turned out perfect, exactly what I wanted.”

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A campsite in Wales played host to Maria & Chris’ fabulous wedding. With the help of their friends & family the couple pulled a lot of the wedding together themselves. The flowers played a huge part in the styling of their day as Maria explained, “For the flowers I wanted it to look as though we had picked them all from the fields that morning and used whatever we had lying around to put them in.  We had been collecting vintage china for some time and used the various jugs, bowls and cups & saucers for the flowers on the tables.  The campsite also had some rustic enamel jugs that we used too.  Some of these Flowers I had ordered from the florist (Peonies, Cornflower, Lavender, Margharites etc) but the rest my Mum, her neighbour and my Auntie’s had brought with them from their gardens!  The Tipi was decorated with ribbon and Ivy from my Parent’s garden too.”

“All the table decorations were put together by my Chris’ Mum and one of my Bridesmaids,” the bride continued. “It was late Friday, the night before the wedding and it was flower chaos! In the end it was all hands on deck and friends and family were all stepping in to help.  Chris’ Mum also made 60+ stunning little bead & wire dragonflies to sit in the table decorations. I also had three silver butterflies that were a pair of earrings and a pin that belonged to Chris’ Grandma. She sadly passed away two years ago and by having the butterflies in my bouquet it was my small way of having her near all day.”

“We also used bay leaves and white roses that my two Granddads (who are no longer with us) had grown, in the table decorations - so the flowers became a very personal thing!”

The relaxed wedding didn’t really have a specific ’theme’, the couple just wanted to pull together all the things they loved for their day. “We have always loved retro, vintage and homemade – long before it became fashionable again! So our inspiration was really always around us – homemade items created by friends and family and secondhand items that had a second lease of life (we left the vintage china at Fforest Farm to be reused at other peoples weddings!) Our inspiration was also the wonderful Fforest Farm and the countryside surrounding it.”

The bride wore a stunning Cymbeline dress which the bought online. “I originally was going to hunt down a vintage dress and after trawling the internet had made a list of specialist shops to visit in London.  Then  was on the internet one evening at my parents when my said ‘try eBay for a dress’ – I said that I had given up looking but my mum was insistent and there waiting for me was my dress to be! So - I purchased my dress from a very lovely girl on eBay! She originally bought the dress from Paris and it was made by Cymbeline, my Mum took the top in slightly but other than that it was perfect in every way!”

Can I also just draw your attention to this cake!? It was made by the bride’s Mum and both she and the bride crocheted the flowers and cake topper. How cute?! “The knitted and crocheted flowers were my idea,” said Maria, “and my Mum added the Mice and the mini version of our dog Poppy! I crocheted a few of the flowers but my Mum knitted & Crocheted the majority – she’s far more talented than me!”

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Dave & Clare were married at East Riddlesden Hall in West Yorkshire. The bride wore a Tara Keely dress and Irregular Choice shoes.

“The theme I was going for was simple country vintage,” Clare told me. “Throughout the whole wedding process from getting engaged to the honeymoon (which was only 5 months!) we just stayed true to ourselves, we invited who we wanted (no relatives we haven’t seen for 10 years) no kids, only the people who mattered.”

“As for the style, again we stayed true to what we liked and what we felt comfortable with. I don’t particularly see us as Rock n Roll but I guess with our tattoos and such I can see why people might think that. We’re just us and there’s nothing we like more than cuddling up in front of a film with a cuppa and our cats and dog!”

The couple used their own camper van as their wedding day transport, and after the wedding travelled around the Lake District in it for their honeymoon. The couple also added DIY touches throughout their day including all the stationery and paper goods. “We hired bunting from a company called Beautiful Bunting,” continue Clare. “I bought antique bottles, wrapped them in a bit of lace and used them as little vases for the tables along with some parafin lanterns we had bought.”

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There’s something about film photography. Something magical. Our wedding was shot on film in fact, and while at the time this wasn’t even a conscious decision (digital wedding photography wasn’t as popular then – wow I sound like we got married in the dark ages!) it’s a choice I’m pretty happy we made. There’s just a certain quality with this format, that no matter how hard it tries, digital images simply can’t compete with.

So when photographer Ashton Jean-Pierre sent me Sophie & Robert’s wedding last week, shot 100% with film, I jumped at the chance to share it with you.

“I grew up wanting to be different and loving quirky & unusual things,” newlywed Sophie told me. “I just don’t have a thing for traditional weddings and get excited whenever I see an alternative wedding on the internet. I knew that was what I wanted after getting engaged.”

“Robert and I knew we didn’t want to look traditional. Although I initially wanted to wear a vintage dress, I ended up falling in love with the quirky David Fielden dress! It was, in fact, the first dress I tried on and only took me 8 more dresses to decide it was the one for me. The back of the dress was initially short and I asked the dressmaker to make it longer as I wanted it to look a bit dramatic. Robert absolutely loves vintage-looking suits, so he got a beautiful bespoke brown suit made at Dress2Kill and it suited him perfectly! He also got this fabulous pink & cream striped bow-tie from Hackett.”

The couple wanted to put their personal stamp on their wedding, and so took it upon themselves to DIY wherever they could. “Due to my creativity, I wasn’t frightened to make my wedding ideas come real,” Sophie continued. “The unusual table plan display and the confetti cones were among the things Robert and I made. I also ordered favour badges, which went down well with our guests!”

“My lovely Mum made the pink/cream/light brown bunting and and the confetti cones were made by myself and Rob. We got the vintage vases & containers from charity shops and family members.”

“The other decorations came from Etsy – Pom Queen, FunOnAStick, Victorianstation – and Folksy – The Lime Garden.  I got the paper mache table numbers off Lainesworld.co.uk and sprayed them with gold paint! The invite, RSVP postcard,  menu and order of service were designed by myself, and Rob and I created the unusual table planner!”

And as I imagined from seeing Ashton‘s incredible images, the photography was also very important to this stylish pair. ”As I am a photographer myself, choosing a wedding photographer was going to be a very easy task! Actually, Ashton was the only wedding photographer I considered hiring as we are friends and I absolutely love his style. We both have a thing for vintage things & alternative weddings and prefer to use film, so he knew exactly what I wanted. He was fabulous on our wedding day!”

Beautiful! I’m laying my blogging claim to all of Ashton’s weddings from here on in. I love his photography SO MUCH. Who’s with me?

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Elizabeth & Simon’s crafty vintage tea party wedding was a DIY effort and the beautiful touches and attention to detail really shows. The couple put a lot of themselves into their day and the bride especially homemade a lot of their wedding details. ”Over several months I purchased vintage china and glass wear from various charity shops and Pannier Markets,” she told me. “This was used as the crockery for the tea party and because we’ve managed to collect some really nice pieces and a substantial amount, we’re keen to start a small vintage crockery hire service after our wedding.”

Elizabeth continued, “We made our own wedding favours (traditional sweets in jam jars which we collected). Simon and I made our own colourful sugar heart cubes to go with the tea. My mum made some of the bunting. We had a lot of friends and family with different skills who were able to provide various things for the wedding.”

To plan their day, the couple scoured various wedding magazines and cut out pictures of things they liked to stick in a wedding scrap book. This is a really great idea for collecting all your ideas and keeping your theme on track. “I’m also a fan of all things vintage and often visit lots of little antique/craft/home shops – particularly in Devon,” the bride explained. “From there, the theme of the vintage tea party grew. It’s not necessarily Rock n Roll, but it reflects us and is how we wanted our day to be. It was also made personal to us by friends and family being involved in the day and being able to run the day as we wanted and not being restricted to a hotel regime.”

To keep their theme unique, the couple bought mismatched items from various different sources such as the signage from Cox & Cox, reception décor from notonthehighstreet.com and silver lanterns from a local boutique store. They even had a bicycle ice cream cart to serve guests ice creams as they arrived at the marquee after the ceremony.”

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