A Farm & Festival Wedding: Roisin & Paul

December 12, 2011

Roisin & Paul’s Somerset wedding makes me ache for those long Summer days again. The Apple Orchard at Brook Farm played host to their August nuptials – a celebration of love, life and all things good. The couple opted for a humanist ceremony led by Alison Orchard, “She was so crucial to the success of the ceremony, which was such an emotional and wonderful experience,” the bride told me. “I think lots of people thought it might have a been a hippy-dippy, tree-hugging, fingers down-your-throat service, but instead found it was a lovely and romantic experience. We wrote our vows and kept them quite similar to the traditional ones. We sang, ‘A little Help from My Freinds’ by the Beatles and I cried all the way through it.”

After the moving ceremony, came cocktails and games on the lawn and in the marquees hired from Abbas Marquees, “This was very much a DIY wedding,” Roisin continued. “All of my friends and family got involved which made it a lovely and personal wedding, along with being quite a lot cheaper. We picked stones from the beach for name places and brought ‘Brighton rock’ as favours. I also made lots of little clay hearts.”

“Our theme was, ‘Festival’ which was fitting as the site of the farm is less than a mile from the Glastonbury Festival site. My bridesmaids and the Best Man were incredible. It was quite an organizational feat and they took it totally on board. In fact we had a ‘hand-over’ on the Thursday evening. They then became in-charge and only came to me if they really needed to. This made me be able to really enjoy the day and not worry about all the details that had been prepared.”

“My sister organsied games in the field of ‘Welly Wanging’ and ‘scissors, paper stone’. It was one of the highlights of the wedding! It was a really relaxed affair, full of love, romance and fun. People dressed how they wanted to and children were very much allowed to run around and have loads of fun. At my hen-do, the girls hired a hoola hooping instructor and we learnt a routine that we performed at the wedding. Everyone loved playing with the hoola hoops and it added to the festival feel.”

“My favourite ‘home-made’ bits were the clay hearts that we made and put in the orchard. We just bought heart shaped biscuit cutters, rolled out the clay and hung them from the trees using ribbon. It made the ceremony feel so magical.”

Thank you to Roisin & Paul and their wonderful photographer Aneta for sharing this fabulous wedding on the blog today.

Supporting Cast:

Photography Credit: Aneta MAK Photography
Venue: Brook Farm, Somerset
Bride’s Dress: Custom made by Nathalia Eyres (nataliaeyres@yahoo.co.uk)
Bride’s Shoes: Kurt Geiger
Bride’s Headpiece: BellaPacella
Groom’s Outfit: Gresham Blake
Bridesmaid’s Dresses: Get Cutie
Cake: DIY (made by a friend: fga@clara.co.uk)
Flowers: Noelle Eyres (noelle.eyres@yahoo.com)
Hair: Bev Hemmings (bev.hemmings@virginmedia.com)
Band: Fingers in the JamLos Albertos
Stationery: DIY & Glo
Caterers: ‘The Good Earth’, Wells
Reception Decor/Props: Georgia Eyres (georgiaeyres@hotmail.com) & Wendy Caules (wendy@wendycaules.co.uk)
Transport: Borrowed a local tractor!
Marquees: Abbas Marquees
Officiant: Alison Orchard (alison@kjo.globalnet.co.uk)