Nature Inspired Jewel Tone Autumnal Feasting Wedding

Over the past few years we’ve certainly seen a rise in Autumn weddings and I just love them. The change in the season brings beautiful colours and golden light, so perfect for cosy, rich and stylish nuptials such as this one today. Poppy and Eddie were married on Saturday 6^th October 2018 and chose Barford Park Barn in Hampshire to host their barn reception. The space is just divine, full of character and beautiful beams, which our pair enhanced with their creative lighting choices. They also added an abundance of flowers and foliage alongside stationery and hand crafted touches. The result is just magical.

Their nature inspired day also focused on a real feast for their guests and the trio of ‘stick, swap or share’ desserts sounds just brilliant! I also love the outfit choices, Poppy discovered her stunning lace strapless gown in Oxfam Bridal, which was a complete bargain. Then Eddie and the groomsmen donned navy suits and burgundy ties, which complimented the pretty bridesmaid dresses perfectly.

In the evening the party was super fun with a live band karaoke, silent disco, sparklers and confetti bombs too. Wow! Huge thanks goes to Faye Green Photography for sharing these simply gorgeous captures with us.

The Proposal

Eddie proposed on a secluded park bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, on a crisp but beautiful January afternoon back in 2017.

The Vision

We had initially wanted a summer wedding, but a lack of availability at our chosen venue meant a change of plan and we quickly got on board with the idea of an autumnal celebration: jewelled tones; wild, foraged foliage; twinkly lights and warm, cosy vibes – what’s not to love?! We’re pretty chilled-out people and don’t like to take ourselves too seriously, so we wanted our day to reflect that, with warmth, feasting, fun and togetherness being our main priorities.

The Planning Process

We both had a pretty good idea of what we wanted our wedding to be like, so sourcing our main suppliers was fairly straightforward. Once we’d got the big stuff sorted (venue, food, flowers, band), it was really just a case of filling in the detail by working through our trusty Excel spreadsheet to make sure everything was covered / suppliers paid on time etc. Eddie was pretty calm throughout, but I’m a real perfectionist, which made things a little more stressful!

Your Outfits & Accessories

At just £200 from Oxfam Bridal in Southampton, my dress was without doubt the biggest steal of the day! I was recommended Oxfam by a friend and I’m so glad I checked it out. The larger bridal shops (of which Southampton is one) have a great selection of brand new and pre-loved dresses: (mine was brand new).

I paired it with Kurt Geiger heels and a gorgeous hair comb with freshwater pearls from Mignonne Handmade, who are based in France (also available via Etsy).

Eddie chose a bright blue French Connection 3-piece suit, which he rented from Moss Bros, along with a burgundy and white polka dot Charles Tyrwhitt tie and Moss Bros pocket square. Shoes: suede brogues from Dune.

The Readings & Music

Ceremony readings:

• On Marriage by Kahlil Gibran
• An extract from ‘To Love is Not to Possess’ by James Kavanaugh
• Song of Solomon

Ceremony music:

• Processional: Prince of Denmark’s March (Jeremiah Clarke)
• Hymns: Lord of all Hopefulness, Angel Voices Ever Singing and I Vow to Thee My Country
• Recessional: Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (G F Handel)
• During the signing of the register, our friend (and bridesmaid), Jen, sang ‘Home’ by Wallis Bird, a cappella, and our friend Dan (Best Man) played an acoustic version of ‘Just like Heaven’ by The Cure on guitar

Reception music:

Music is one of our great passions, which we wanted to incorporate into our celebrations. Eddie is in a rock band with his Best Man, Dan, and groomsman, Danny, so they were able to double up as our wedding band, along with Dan’s wife (and our friend) Selina, which was brilliant! We poached the bandeoke* idea from Dan and Selina’s own wedding last year, as it was just so much fun and really got everyone involved. We included a list of songs on our wedding website (which I made through Wix) and asked our guests to ‘sign up’ if they wanted to sing with the band on the night. We ended the party with a silent disco, for which we’d both spent weeks curating our own personal playlists to go head to head in a ‘Mr v Mrs’. It was a real hit with all our guests!

*live band karaoke

Beauty

My friend Sadie is a fantastic make-up artist, so it was wonderful to have her doing my bridal make-up, and she’s known me for years, so really understood my style. I opted for a very autumnal look with a smoky eye and berry lip.

My hair was styled by Steph Horrill, who’s a freelance stylist in the Salisbury area.

The Flowers

I’m a big nature-lover and adore flowers, so I found this part of the process really enjoyable! We chose the wonderful Bramble and Wild in Frome to do our flowers, as we wanted a wild, bountiful, free-form look with lots of seasonal foliage and they specialise in rustic, artisanal floristry, which fit the brief perfectly. For my bridal bouquet, I went for a beautifully organic, loose structure, full of texture and seasonal blooms, and I opted to have it hand-tied with gorgeous autumnal silk ribbons, which was definitely a luxury, but, for me, well worth it! Eddie and the groomsmen’s button-holes featured textural details, such as rosemary and crocosmia pods etc.

Due to budget limitations, we arranged for Bramble and Wild to supply the bouquets and all the floral arrangements for the reception, and my mother and godmother (who are both great with flowers) did all the church arrangements themselves, which was a really special touch. We had a lovely mother-daughter hedgerow foraging session two days before the wedding, where we gathered masses of gorgeous local foliage, including guelder rose, flame-red hawthorn, rose hips, ivy and blackberries, which looked beautiful in the natural candlelight of the church.

The Venue

As soon as we stepped inside Barford Park Barn (a restored 17^th century barn in the Avon Valley), we were 100% sold. The location was perfect – less than 20 minutes’ drive from St Mary’s Church in Odstock, where our ceremony would be held – and we couldn’t not fall for the beautiful beams and countryside views. The fact that it was available in a venue-only capacity simply added to its appeal, as it meant there would be no restrictions on suppliers etc. and we could put our own stamp on things.

The Details & Décor

We wanted to create a relaxed, natural vibe, so we chose Bath Vintage Hire to provide our dining furniture – we opted for trestle tables made from reclaimed wooden doors, along with vintage folding wooden chairs, which complimented the barn really well. Alongside the floral table arrangements, we bought a selection of clear glass jars online from Ampulla, which we clustered together and filled with tea lights to give off a really warm, cosy light.

The wonderfully friendly and professional team at Pashley Events provided our lighting, which included strings of festoon lights in the eaves, up-lighting for the columns, and an incredible ‘feature wall’ of fairy lights behind the top table, which they designed for us on request. They also supplied our disco lighting. We couldn’t believe the difference it made to the overall look of the barn and would absolutely recommend setting aside a decent potion of the budget for this.

We decorated our bar with swathes of hops, which my parents had foraged from the hedgerows and dried, and we displayed this along with an assortment of old glass apothecary bottles, hired from Bramble and Wild, which we filled with sprigs of rosemary. The real crowd-pleaser on the bar was the cask of Werrrd! American Pale Ale, which Eddie had picked up from the Electric Bear Brewery, who are a local craft brewery down the road from us in Bath.

We commissioned our friend, the talented illustrator Mia Hague, to create a fabulous ‘order of the day’ for us, which we displayed on a table-top easel, alongside a lantern and a selection of colourful gourds near the entrance.

I’m quite a creative person, so enjoyed hand-making lots of the stationery for the wedding. I hand-calligraphed our save the dates, using gold ink on Khadi paper, and included a real leaf with each, which we’d preserved in glycerine the previous autumn, and then painted with a gold ink wash.

We’d agreed on a leaf theme, so our table names were maple, oak, elder, yew, willow, chestnut and beech. To make the table ‘names’, I hand-designed and cut my own lino leaf stamps and printed these on Khadi paper, which I tucked into gold geometric photo-holders from Oliver Bonas. I then created a line drawing for our seating plan, which my sister’s colleague – the talented Jack Slater – was able to enhance with my leaf designs and print onto board. He also used the same designs to create gorgeous printed menus both for our wedding meal and our cheese boards, which pulled the whole concept together.

I made my own favours by buying plain white seed envelopes from The Pumpkin Paper Co on Etsy, which I hand-calligraphed with the words ‘let love grow’ and filled with flower seeds harvested from my parents’ garden.

My mother had also been busy all summer (along with my auntie), harvesting masses of fragrant rose petals from the garden and drying them on tea towels draped all over the house to make confetti, which was another special touch. I think she got a little carried away, as we got quite a barrage coming out of the church!

The Food

We’re both big foodies and, for us, food and drink are at the heart of all good celebrations, so creating a memorable feast was always a top priority. Our caterers, the incredible Bread and Flowers, stood out immediately, as they specialise in progressive, social cooking, which suited our relaxed style perfectly. We loved the menu planning process and ended up with a mouth-watering Middle-Eastern-inspired feast, including a traditional Persian wedding dish, with plenty of colourful sharing salads, and a trio of delicious ‘stick, swap or share’ desserts!

Groomsmen

The groomsmen wore blue French Connection suits with burgundy ties, also rented from Moss Bros, to match Eddie’s.

Bridesmaids

The bridesmaids wore full-length burgundy dresses from For Her and For Him.

I wanted my bridesmaids to have an element of choice, so that they could be themselves and feel as comfortable as possible, whilst still looking coordinated, so this site worked perfectly, offering a huge range of styles.

Bridesmaids’ make-up by Sadie Slade-Smith and hair by Steph Horrill.

The Cake

Eddie isn’t a big cake fan, but we’re both really into cheese, so we opted for a cheese-cake from The Bath Fine Cheese Co.

The sampling process was an absolute dream! We used rosemary, figs and physalis to decorate it, along with 3 little mice with leather tails, which my father hand-sculpted for us out of limestone. We bought catering packs of cheese biscuits and strawberry crisps, along with the Fine Cheese Co’s amazing own-brand ‘toast for cheese’, which we served alongside chilli jam and fruit chutneys handmade by Eddie’s step-father. Serious foodie heaven!

Your Photographer

Faye Green was recommended to us by my cousin and her partner, who are also alternative wedding photographers, and we instantly fell for her relaxed, cinematic style. Her photography package included a couples’ session – shot back in the summer at the beautiful Crickley Hill near Cheltenham – which was a lovely touch and a great opportunity for us all to get to know each other. We were delighted with the results and knew then that we had made the right choice. Not a stuffy formal portrait in sight! Faye totally nailed it – her documentary style gets right to the heart of things and she brilliantly captured all the joy, fun, and emotion of our special day.

The Honeymoon

We had a glorious mini-moon at the wonderful Careys Manor Hotel in the New Forest, where we were able to relax in the award-winning SenSpa, indulge in a full-body massage and enjoy good food and autumnal forest walks. We are still planning our ‘full-moon’, for which we hope to visit Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast in Italy next summer.

Memorable Moments

• Gadding about in the drizzle, not caring about my dress getting muddy
• Belting out Don’t Look Back in Anger’ together with the band
• Silent disco
• Sparkler send-off to end the night

Advice For Other Couples

Don’t get too fixated on Pinterest – it’s a wonderful source of inspiration, but it can also make you lose touch with reality!

Also, make sure you leave some room in the budget for lighting – we didn’t initially, but it completely transformed our venue!

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Poppy and Eddie, I cannot thank you both enough for sharing your super fun and very beautiful wedding story with us xo Lou