Festival Style Teal Rustic Barn Wedding

WWW readers Holly and John tied the knot on the 6th August 2015 and held their reception at Rivington Hall Barn in Lancashire. They envisioned a wedding with a festival vibe, think lanyards, ticket stationery and a VW campervan. I so love the countryside setting, the portraits of the newly-weds are out of this world. The barn itself looked magical draped in fairy lights, garlands (Holly used the WWW tutorials) and one simply scrumptious cake fed the guests.

Natural seasonal blooms were used throughout and worked really well with the Teal colour scheme. The bridesmaids wore elegant Mark Lesley dresses and the boys wore coordinating ties, so lovely. Holly’s gown was Mori Lee 1960 which looked sensational teamed with her pretty up do. This is one very emotional and beautiful wedding folks.

Fairclough Photography, many thanks for sharing your incredible photographs with us.

THE PROPOSAL | It was on our 4 year anniversary, we were on a four day city break in Gdansk, Poland. John had made breakfast on the balcony and called me out to see the view. As I came out he was on one knee, I think my exact words were ‘this is a dream, I’m dreaming aren’t I’ (plus a few swear words) Then I rang every single number in my phone contact list! We spent the day drinking champagne, eating and looking at each other and saying ‘I can’t believe we are engaged’ I didn’t want the day to end.

THE VISION | Me and John are huge festival /music fans so I knew from the start I wanted something that was unique and personal to us. So the theme was WedFest! Our main colour was teal, with hints of pink, purple and gold throughout. My mum was slightly scared when we informed her that we would like a vw campervan and for all the guests to be wearing festival lanyards.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | The planning started as soon as we returned from our trip to Poland (roughly 15 months before wedding) I was a slight bridezilla, as I knew exactly how I wanted the wedding to look from day 1. I had spreadsheets upon spreadsheets and when the priest told me I was the most organised bride he’d ever met I could of squeezed him with joy.

THE VENUE | Church: St Mary Magdalen’s – Penwortham, Preston. John is catholic so it was important to him that we had a nuptial mass.

Reception: Rivington Hall Barn – Rivington, Bolton.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was a Mori Lee 1960 ivory lace dress. My dress was one of the only parts of the wedding that I wanted traditional, full length and ivory. I had a veil with small diamanté on the end. My shoes were summer sandals from Kurt Geiger, as the wedding was in August and had a summer theme I didn’t think heels would fit with this.

FINDING THE DRESS | I bought it from ‘Amelias’ in Clitheroe. It was the second dress I tried on and I immediately knew it was the one. The fact that my mum and auntie both cried while I jumped up and down clarified this.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | John and his Groomsmen wore blue Ted Baker 3 piece suits which we hired from Moss Bros. They had teal ties to match the bridesmaids and were accessorised with brown brogues and belts. The suits were modern, which we liked and light enough to wear in summer.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We had two readings in church, the most popular catholic reading of – The Corinthians ‘love is patient, love is kind’ and personalised bidding prayers written by a family member.

As I walked down the aisle ‘Eva Cassidy – Songbird’ was sang live by 16 year old family friend, Corinne Campbell, she also sang Ava Maria during our signing of the register.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My stunning bridesmaids were my three best friends, Rachel, Leonie and Anita and John’s sister Katherine. They were absolutely fantastic bridesmaids and surprised me non stop throughout with personalised bags, games and surprise gifts on my hen party as well as customised dressing gowns and gifts on my wedding day. They even put together a ‘welcome home’ hamper for mine and John’s return home after our week in Majorca after the wedding.

The bridesmaids wore teal floor length Mark Lesley dresses with waterfall backs. They had simple swept back hair with gypsophila flowers placed in the bun.

THE FLOWERS | We had wild British summer flowers put together by florist and family friend Catharine Baines who owns Garden Party Floral Designs. I wanted the flowers to fit with my festival theme so wanted the bouquet messy rather than neatly round. I had hessian and yarn keeping my bouquets together with matching flowers on the button holes for the men’s suits.

THE CAKE | We had a ‘bare’ Victoria sponge cake filled with home made jam and strawberry buttercream. It had fruit scattered around the outside and gypsophila flowers and white roses on top.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | We were so, so lucky to have the extremely talented ‘Fairclough Photography’ as our photographers. They are a husband and wife duo, James and Katie. A work colleague of John’s had recently been married and as soon as I saw their photos I had to find out who their photographer was. I found their website and I knew from that point they were exactly what I was looking for. The photos were so natural and fun. They showed the happiness of all the guests in a way I hadn’t seen before. We met up with Katie and James to discuss ideas and tell them our plans. They were so lovely and had so many great ideas, the perfect choice for us.

Its been 7 months since our wedding and I still look at our photos and find new things I love about them. So glad I happened to come across those friend’s photos!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Our reception was a barn, and I wanted as many of the original features showing to stay with the festival theme. So the beams were decorated with simple fairy lights. All the wedding stationery was festival related, festival tickets for invitations, VIP lanyards for name cards, stage names for the tables and a ‘line up’ board for the seating plan. Our table decorations were simple and rustic; Ikea vases filled with the same flowers from our bouquets, teal and purple tea light holders and hessian/lace table runners. A very close family friend made home made limoncello, which we gave to guests in individual bottles as a thank you.

In the evening we also had a vintage ice cream bike, serving four different flavours of ice cream.

THE HONEYMOON | Straight after the wedding we escaped to my Auntie’s villa in Cala Dor, Majorca for a week. It was great to have some time to just be together and take in the fact we were now married! In April this year we are hiring a car and travelling for 2 weeks from New York to Miami. John lived in North Carolina for a year while at University so he’s hoping to show me the sights along the way.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | We had the most fantastic DJ Des Grant, who had all guests dancing from the second the food was taken away. The highlight moment was as a surprise for when me and John entered the room, Des had all our guests form a bridge, locking hands together, this started at the entrance and led right through the room to the dance floor. We had to run through while our photographers crept through the guests to take photos (everyone kissed me, John didn’t quite get the same treatment) I know this probably sounds so cheesy, but I couldn’t stop smiling, everyone we love, together, holding hands, it was perfect.

Another memorable moment was, we had a new priest and he very nearly accidentally married John to himself instead of to me. He said the wrong line at the wrong time! Luckily the church erupted in laughter.

The speeches – my Dad has never spoken in public and was terrified but his speech was so funny and from the heart, I was so proud of him. In the six years I’ve been with John I’ve never seen him cry (or be sentimental!) but it turns out he was saving it all for his speech. The stand out line for me was ‘This whole day has been surreal, but when we made those vows to love each other till death do us part, that was so real’.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Make time for each other on the day. The day is so busy and you become so wrapped up in seeing everyone and making sure all the guests are okay that you almost forget this is your day! Take the time to make sure you enjoy it together and look around and take it all in.

Also – make sure you have all your stress/worries/teary moments done with the day before. The wedding day should be a day of constantly smiling!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photography | Fairclough Photography

Venue | Rivington Hall Barn

Flowers | Garden Party Floral Design

Dress | Amelia’s Bridal Boutique

Car | Broughton Car Hire

Entertainment | Des Grant

Venue Styling | Creative Cover Hire

Stationery | Emma Baines

Cake | Janet Westhead

Wow wee. So stunning.

Many thanks to Holly and John for sharing their really wonderful wedding story today xo Lou