Monday 17 March 2014

A Rustic Garden Wedding with a Festival Feel & Tonnes of DIY Details

Everything about this wedding is enchanting - it's like something from a traditional Welsh faery story! Loveday and Nathan celebrated their big day with a church service, followed by their wedding reception in Loveday's parent's garden. From the handmade yurts {created by the bride's brother!}, to the traditional wedding cake, pretty floral favours and jam jar vases, everything was DIY'd by Loveday and Nathan's friends and family. It just goes to show what an amazing effect you can create yourself! The wedding had a festival vibe, with a warming fire-pit, boho decorations {by Verdigris Venue Dressing}, deckchairs, and floral arches. I'm also super-impressed that Loveday bought her wedding dress from a charity shop, and had it re-modelled with the help of a local dressmaker. No detail was too small - she even changed the buttons to pastel pretties, to fit in with their colour scheme. Enjoy these lovely pictures by Adam Cove, and Loveday's inspirational answers to the Before the Big Day Bride's Questionnaire!


We celebrated our wedding on Saturday 31st August 2013 in the chapel of St David at the University of Wales in Lampeter, where Nathan and I first met as students.Our reception was lovingly created at my parent's home, on a hill above the town. My brother, Morgan, made us two beautiful yurts, and all our friends and family worked hard helping to get the place ready, from mowing the lawns and tending the flower garden. We even spent our wedding night in another little yurt, tucked away amongst some willows near the stream. 


I wanted a simple quite classic wedding dress, but with a personal touch. After a lot of looking I finally bought my dress second hand from a charity shop in Cardiff. It was then re-modelled by a local dress maker called Rhiannon J Limited. We worked together on the design and I was able to add unique buttons and decorations. It was a simple silk gown with a modest puddle train, individual colourful buttons down the back, ruching across the waste and a small flower decoration on the left hip. Rhiannon also made my veil for me.





I bought my shoes from Irregular Choice and I wore my grandmother's pearl necklace and earrings to match. My husband wore a light grey three-piece Ted Baker suit, which he had tailored to fit. He wore yellow light weight leather boots from Schuh, and a matching grey silk tie with hints of yellow.


We wanted a rustic and relaxed atmosphere and I really loved the idea of using wild flowers, fairy lights and jam jar vases to compliment the decorations. Pastel pinks, cream, pale yellow, lilac, peach and blue were our theme colours. It also needed to have a festival feel as our guests were invited to camp the night in a nearby field, and we wanted a big bonfire for everyone to sit around as the night grew cooler.


Most of our wedding was DIY! We put up our own yurts, dug fire pits, and grew sweet peas and vegetables in the garden for the caterers. I sewed little pink hearts with my mother-in law-to decorate the trees in the awning, and we even changed the buttons on my dress, to pastel beads. My mum bakes for a local market stall, so she made our delicious traditional three-tiered fruit wedding cake, using her famous Christmas cake recipe. It was iced by a neighbour and decorated by my sister in law using silk rose petals, colourful ribbon and sweet peas from the garden.




We visited lots of local florists and even considered doing a day course, to learn how to make our own flower arrangements, but in the end we found this wonderful and helpful company called Flora and Herb who grow seasonal country flowers and herbs near Newport. The owner, Heather Brenan, designed and made my bouquet and all the button holes.

We had all the flowers and vases for the tables and church service delivered to the house in buckets. Sami from Verdigris Venue Dressing, styled mini bridesmaids bouquets and created the vases for the church, and filled the jam jars and vases for the tables. She brilliantly mixed the flowers with a selection of wild foliage, grass and sweet peas harvested from around the gardens and surrounding fields.

For wedding favours, we gave everyone a tiny posy of dried lavender tied with a little coloured hand-crocheted flower, which I made myself. Each one had an old fashioned luggage style tag, written beautifully by my wonderful friend Hannah, who also played music in the church and sorted the guest book.


All our other wedding decorations were supplied and placed by Verdigris Venue Dressing. Sami created a gorgeous look brought lilac drapes, a fairy light canopy, a floral chandelier, voile bunting and paper lanterns. Our table centres were an eclectic mix of crystal vases and jam jars - some covered in sleeves of country style fabrics in our colour scheme, surrounded by dried flower petal confetti. We fashioned wooden candle blocks to hold church candles for the centre piece of each table


I really enjoyed planning our wedding, although there were some slightly stressful moments along the way, but only to be expected! We were extremely lucky to have so much help and support from our close friends and family. Holding the reception at home had its benefits as everyone felt so relaxed and there was no pressure with timings.


Our wedding photographer was Adam Cove. He's an old friend from Herefordshire, and we were very glad to have someone that knew us so well, to catch our special moments as they happened and be a part of our day.



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