Beautifully Rustic Spring Barn Wedding in Sage Green

What a way to start the week! Chloe and James’ Berkshire barn wedding was an utter delight, just you wait and see. I’m also super happy to see Supplier Love members The Fiction provided their wedding entertainment, hooray!

Chloe and James were married in May 2019 in a church ceremony followed by a reception at Templars Barn. Their vision was for a natural, local and laid back day with sage green hues. I really love the effortlessly beautiful vibe to their day, what with the stylish outfit choices, greenery everywhere and calligraphy signs. It all looked so amazing. The barn really looked magical too, with festoon lighting, disco balls and an antique door table plan. Wow.

Richard Skins Photography, thank you so much for sharing these joy-filled, gorgeous images with us.

Berkshire Barn Wedding

The Proposal

20/08/2017 – Putsborough Beach, North Devon

The Vision

Natural, green, laid back, local.

The Planning Process

I had been planning my wedding since before I met James! Prices of wedding suppliers meant we did a lot of the wedding ourselves. I made sure I had the photographer, florist and makeup artist booked as soon as I had set the wedding date with the venue.

Be sure to take a look at our ultimate wedding planning checklist!

Budget

Budget was around £30,000 which we went slightly over.

The Venue

Templars Barn, Hungerford, Berkshire, RG17 7AH.

We chose this venue as it is beautiful and had a lovely feel. They are very laid back and we were able to start decorating the venue two days prior to the wedding which helped reduce stress levels.

Your Outfits & Accessories

The dress was Corella from Willowby by Watters which had beautiful lace and was lovely to wear on the day. It was great for dancing in!

The earrings were from Grace Loves Lace, they were quite a statement piece, but I did not wear any other jewellery.

I wore a veil from the same shop I bought my dress from Ava Louise Bridal in Southampton, the lady who owns the shop was great.

The shoes I wore were by Jane Shilton, the bridesmaids had the same shoes but different colour.

Beauty

Make-up artist was Phoebe Hayter, she had done my make up before for another friend’s wedding, so I knew how good she was. She won TWIA 2020 Make up artist of the year, she did an incredible job and was lovely to have around getting ready in the morning. She did my mum and bridesmaids makeup too.

My wedding hair was done by Cimone she usually cuts my and my mum’s hair so I knew her well. She styled all the bridesmaid’s hair and mum’s hair too.

Groomsmen

Suits were from John Lewis – linen grey

Shirts – Marks and Spencer’s white linen shirt

Shoes were their own just specified they needed to be brown

Bridesmaids

Bridesmaid dresses are from H&M

Shoes – Jane Shilton

Earrings – Etsy

The Readings & Music

Bride entrance: Jesu joy of man’s desiring

Hymn 1: Come to a wedding

Reading: Song of solomon, chapter 2, verses 10-13

Hymn 2: We pledge to one another

Exit music: Wedding march – incidental music no.9 from Midsummer Night’s Dream, mendelssohn

Why not check out our first dance songs and father-daughter dance song inspiration too?

Your Photographer

Richard Skins – he takes stunning photographs. A great photographer was really important to me because those images I will treasure for a lifetime.

Your Filmmaker

I decided to spend more on a photographer therefore did not have a filmmaker. Unfortunately budget could not stretch to both so I prioritised the photographs.

The Details & Décor

We hired the tables and chairs from Classic Crockery they were very easy to deal with and let me edit my order right up to the week before.

My husband is a qualified electrician (it’s not his full-time job) so we were able to do all the lighting ourselves. It has inspired us to set up our own little wedding lighting company called Ginger Fox and Co.

I did a calligraphy course in London by Alice Gabb which inspired me to do all the name cards, signs and table plan myself.

Luckily, the venue does not charge corkage therefore we decided to build the bar ourselves, we used Majestic Wine to order all the wine which was great as any unopened bottles you can take back. Also, they help you decide on the quantity, we had more than enough! We also bought three barrels of beer from the local brewery which we put on the bar and guests could help themselves. It was so nice our guests did not have to worry about paying for drinks, I would definitely recommend this as it actually wasn’t that expensive but we were lucky with the venue. The caterer also provided staff to man the bar for us.

We bought the mirror balls on eBay and my husband installed them above the dancefloor which looked brilliant.

The Flowers

Wessex Flower Company – Alicia was amazing and knew the venue really well, I love her style wild and whimsical!

The Cake

My friend kindly made the cake, it was soo big! I did not realise the size it was going to be; we were eating cake for months after.

The Honeymoon

We are keen surfers so we had an AirBnB in Polzeath, Cornwall for the week straight after. We managed to surf and recover from all the hard work we had put into the wedding.

Memorable Moments

Unplanned photoshoot with all the bridesmaids and family in the cornfields – the photos were amazing and funny.

Spent the whole evening dancing, the band were so good and I really recommend them, they had everyone dancing all night. They are called The Fiction.

The speeches were great. My dad was nervous and was not eating his food so I asked the caterer if we could pause between courses so they could do the speeches, the caterers were understanding (quintin_catering) and allowed this. This meant everyone let the main course go down, we had the speeches and pudding was after. My brother’s speech was amazing – he wrote a poem for us spelling out James and my name – he had made cards with the letters on too for visual effect.

Advice For Other Couples

I would decide what you want to prioritise, weddings are expensive and quickly it can add up. We decided to spend more on the photographer, florist and caterer as they were important to us.

Truly try not to stress on the day, one of my bridesmaids got dirt on her dress the morning of the wedding, so we had to wash it first thing, then my dad decided to iron it an hour before the church and got a water stain on it. So back in the wash it went! This was so funny but could have been stressful, what will be will be. She ended up walking down the aisle in a dry dress (after drying it with two hairdryers) and we were only 15 minutes late. It’s a good story to tell too.

Trust your wedding suppliers know what they are doing (it’s their job!). I think it’s good to use suppliers that know the venue well too as they can advise you on what has worked previously.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Such a special day, it all looked so wonderful.

Chloe and James, thank you so much for sharing your wonderful barn wedding in the Berkshire countryside.