Casual Summer Outdoor Beach Wedding

There is a reason why the majority of UK weddings are held in the Summer. The hope of glorious sun shining days such as these and this lovely bride and groom were super lucky that the weather held out for their outdoor nuptials.

WWW readers Ben and Gemma chose to hold their wedding on the 8^th August 2015 at the Princess Pavilions in Falmouth, Cornwall. There was a delightfully rustic feel throughout with the gents in tweed and bow ties and Friend’s inspired scrabble, hessian and lace décor.

Gemma fell for her gown ‘1901’ by Mori Lee when she spotted it in a magazine and the lace gown suited her perfectly. I adore the coral orange tones used throughout and the sparkler exit in the evening.

Thanks goes to Life Photographic for providing the lovely imagery today.

 

 

THE PROPOSAL | Ben: We had had discussions before and Gem had said that she liked unusual rings and she loves pearls. I ended up having her ring made as I couldn’t find what I was looking for anywhere. I got to design the whole thing and being part of the design process was great fun. I carried the ring around with me for a couple of weeks, waiting for the right moment and nothing seemed quite right. It was a Sunday evening at home, we got into bed and watched Friends (we are both massive fans) and just as Gem drifted off to sleep, I whispered in her ear asking her to marry me.

We decided to keep it a secret on the Monday as we wanted our parents to be the first to know. It was so hard not telling anyone and not wearing the ring, but it felt so special that for one day, we were the only two people in the whole world that knew we were engaged.

THE VISION | We both knew we wanted to get married outside, living in Cornwall, we are so lucky to have the scenery and beaches that we both wanted to use this. We wanted our day to be very casual, chilled and for everyone to have fun. We both were very keen on bringing in the small personal touches that would instantly make everyone think of us both when they saw our venue.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We had 10 months from getting engaged to planning the wedding. We knew the venue we wanted, the food we wanted and the colours. We booked the big things first; venue, photographer and band and the rest kind of fell in to place. Both of us are very organised people so I don’t think anyone had any doubt on the fact it would be organised down to a tee. I had a wedding planner book, which fast became my bible and I would recommend these to every bride! They are so helpful and remind you to think about the little things that you may not have done.

THE VENUE | We got married in a Registry Office on Thursday 6^th August 2015, with our family and close friends. We then had a blessing on the 8^th August 2015 at the Princess Pavilions, Falmouth as this isn’t a licensed venue.

This venue is beautiful, with the gardens, the sea views and of course the vintage bandstand. When we knew we could have our blessing in the band stand, we knew it was the perfect venue for us.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Dress was Mori Lee 1901- Amanda K Bridal, shoes were Irregular Choice, veil and hairpiece were Amanda K Bridal (with the pearls on the hairpiece being added by the brilliant staff at Amanda K Bridal) and earrings were a wedding day present from Ben.

FINDING THE DRESS | Everyone always says you go for something completely different to what you think you will – not me. I saw a picture of the Mori Lee 1901 dress in a bridal magazine, I loved how beautiful the dress looked. I phoned around and found that a local bridal shop had this dress in stock and so booked an appointment. I arrived with my Mum, Ben’s mum and my two bridesmaids to try it on. I loved it but I began to doubt myself – can I really choose the first dress I have ever tried on?!

I decided it wasn’t the dress for me and continued my search, I went to four different shops and tried on countless beautiful dresses and still couldn’t find one I was 100% sure on. I then decided to go back and try the first dress again a couple of weeks later, Mum welled up and I knew it was the right dress.

I didn’t decide on a veil until two weeks before, I had tried a couple on and was pretty adamant I didn’t want one. I began to think that my wedding day is the only day I will ever be able to wear one and thought it would be nice for walking down the aisle and for the pictures.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | Ben is a lawyer and wears a suit everyday so wanted something completely different for his wedding day. We decided early on that we wanted to go for tweed, we found the jackets in Moss. We loved how vintage these looked and with all the men in these, we knew it would look amazing. Ben decided on a brown bowties and he chose an orange Harris Tweed bowtie which set the colour for the day.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We chose a piece of music by Alan Silvestri to walk down the aisle, it sounded so magical with everyone sat in the gardens and it also from one of our favourite films; Forrest Gump. We had The Turtles, Happy Together as our song during the ceremony. It was so much fun having everyone singing a song that means something to us. We then had Bob Marley, One Love as we walked back down the aisle as man and wife. We went to Jamaica last year and it was again something that meant something to us.

We had two of Gemma’s school friends do a reading; Sonja and Steph wrote a beautiful poem about us and our relationship. It really was special.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | Tess and Amy. I have known Tess since we were 12. I always knew she would be my bridesmaid. We have been through so much together and it really meant a lot having her share our special day with us. Amy is my brother’s fiancée, she is the closest thing I have to a sister and I knew she would make an amazing bridesmaid. I looked online and found Dessy dresses, which also come in long length – perfect for Tess. I gave them the colour and they chose the dress, it was amazing and they both looked beautiful.

We also had two of Ben’s nieces as flower girls; Maddie and Lacey. Their dresses were found on Ebay, I loved how cute they were.

THE FLOWERS | I didn’t really want anything too fancy for flowers and even considered not having any at all. The venue is so beautiful and full of flowers that we knew we didn’t need anything for the outside area of the venue.

We were at a local wedding fair when we met Anna, she understood what we wanted instantly and came up with so many beautiful ideas; she suggested the flowers in the hair for the bridesmaid and the circlets for the flower girls – which looked adorable. We met at her gorgeous flower barn and finalised our ideas. When they arrived on the morning of the wedding, I was blown away. It was exactly what we wanted and my bouquet really picked up the orange that we had chosen. Anna is such a lovely lady, I cannot recommend her more.

THE CAKE | Neither one of us are fans of traditional wedding cake, so we decided to go for something that suited us more. We chose 7 tiers of cheese. We picked all of our favourite cheeses and had some of our favourite local chutneys. It seemed to be a real hit and everyone loved it.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | We didn’t know where to start with photographers. I searched the internet high and low and then we came across Life Photographic; a married couple that both do photography. We really liked this idea as it meant we could both have shots of us before the ceremony and also it would be two angles of each picture.

When we met with Joanne and Sam, we knew instantly that they were our photographers, they were so chilled out and fun.

We are really pleased with how beautiful our wedding pictures are.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Something that we couldn’t have planned for but wished for on many occasions; the weather. An August wedding, you would assume it would be nice and sunny, however this does not always happen. We woke up to a clear blue sky, there was not a cloud in the sky and it turned out to be one of the nicest days of the summer – we were very lucky.

I used Pinterest a lot for ideas, like the pom poms we had and the jam jars for the centre pieces but we put our own individual spin on them. We spent hours decorating them ourselves and Ben’s dad made each of the copper decorations for the jars. We chose the paper hearts to come from books as I am quite a book worm, we also did this with the B & G letters.

As I have mentioned, we are both huge fans of Friends so we chose to have a few little bits from this; each table was named after an important event in our lives but with the “The One With…” We also had our wedding rings engraved with “I’ll be there for you” on the inside.

We decided to go against the grain with our food choices. On our first date we went for an Indian curry – so we wanted this to be our first meal together as man and wife. We had plastic aprons on each of the chairs to protect everyone’s outfits, which was a great ice-breaker for people and some funny pictures.

We had a fantastic band in the evening – they had everyone up dancing. We also had a vintage photobooth which was great for getting more pictures of everyone.

We had our first dance (Aerosmith – I don’t wanna miss a thing) in the bandstand and everyone had a sparkler. It was really romantic and magical and we also got some great night shots with the sparklers and the bandstand all lit up with fairy lights.

My dad and I had a father daughter dance, it was really special moment and the song was perfect (Heartlands – I loved her first)

THE HONEYMOON | We had a week in Cyprus. It was a great week full of exploring, reading, eating and drinking. It was perfect.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Gem: My Dad seeing me in my dress for the first time. Seeing Ben standing at the end of the aisle. The speeches (always my fav). Our first dance, it felt like it was just us two and we could have been anywhere.

Ben: Seeing Gem. The meal – the food was amazing! Dancing to the band with my new wife and friends.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Don’t stress about the small things. Listen to people’s advice and opinions (everyone will have them!) but stick to what you both want and make sure it’s the day you want.

Make time to see each other, we managed to stay together for most of the day which was hard but I am so pleased we did.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Dress | Amanda K Bridal

Bridesmaid Dresses | The Bridal House of Cornwall

Hair | Emma Westgarth

Make up | Sarah Pearce

Men’s Jackets | Moss

Flowers | Anna’s Flower Barn

Photographers | Life Photographic

Band | Happy Daze

 

Oh my, so gorgeous!

Thanks so very much to Ben and Gemma for sharing their wonderful wedding on WWW today xo Lou