Beautifully Relaxed & Sentimental Barn Wedding

Liam and Emily’s wedding was so relaxed and very sentimental, you are going to adore it. Their South Downs barn wedding was held at Upwaltham Barns in Sussex, with minimal decor, natural flowers and beautiful signage.

They let go of worrying about the little things and instead focused on their loved ones. They considered how their guests could have “fun, dance, eat, chat and be relaxed“. All ingredients for a really lovely and very fun party if you ask me. One of the loveliest moments has to be the first touch, it’s such a wonderful idea pre-wedding.

I’ll leave you to soak up the gorgeous attire, the sensational summer light and the incredible images kindly sent over by Emily & Steve Photography (thanks so much for sharing guys!).

South Downs Barn Wedding

The Proposal

Liam actually proposed to me after we’d only been together 7 months and we were in Oregon at the time, as we had gone to America and Canada for a family/mountain biking trip.

When I returned back to our beach house we were staying at, Liam had left a note on the bed saying meet me outside and he had left a miniature spade on the bed. As I walked down to the beach, I realised Liam had covered all the surrounding drift wood in fairy lights and that’s when it started to click what might be happening.

As I reached Liam with my miniature spade, he asked me to dig in a little part of the beach which were covered in petals. As I found the ring box, I turned around and Liam was on one knee.

The Vision

The vision for us was more about how it would run and feel rather than how it would look. We didn’t want our day to feel to rigid, we didn’t want guests to feel like they were just being moved through the motions of the wedding and that it was all about watching us.

Every single person there was very important to us and had played a part in our relationship, so we wanted the day to be about that. We wanted our guests to have fun, dance, eat, chat and be relaxed. The only aesthetic vision we had was ‘rustic’, as we wanted the theme to represent our hobbies and lifestyle.

Budget

Not including the dress, we set a budget of 25,000.

The Venue

Upwaltham Barns, Petworth

The Ceremony & Music

For the ceremony we chose to write our own vows about what our friendship and love meant to us. Throughout the ceremony we also had a violinist and pianist playing, it had been my Dad’s dream to walk me down the aisle to Canon in D, so we walked down the aisle to a live version of this (we practised this about 15 times to the music at home the day before so that my dad could practice ‘keeping it together’ as he says).

For the evening we had a band playing, who played a live version of ‘One man band’ by Old Dominion for our first dance, a country song that we had listened to whilst travelling in a van across Europe the first year we met.

The Styling & Decor

The flowers at our wedding were done by the wonderful Rococo Florist. Both Liam and I weren’t strict with our wedding theme, we weren’t concerned about perfection, we just wanted it to be natural. Whilst this made the process very stress-free for us, I appreciate that for other people, we probably weren’t the easiest couple to help plan a wedding for because we were so relaxed.

And Rococo was amazing, all we gave her for inspiration was ‘rustic’ and ‘foliage’ and from that she created the most incredible floral displays, which were beyond anything we could have expected.

Your Outfits

Emily: I knew it was the perfect wedding dress for me when I first walked into the London Wedding Club, by sheer chance there was a guest wedding designer in that day called J Andreatta, who is an Australian designer.

My dad picked up the dress first and turned to me and said ‘This dress was made for you’, when I looked at the dress closer I realised that the dress had hand embroidery of birds all the way up from the train of the dress to the corset, and delicate white flowers stitched into the skirt of the dress. It encompassed everything I love about being outdoors and being ‘free’, so it was a pretty easy decision for me.

Liam: My suit and the suits for his groomsmen were from Moss Bros. I wanted something modern that would contrast with the bridesmaid dresses, which Emily and I had already chosen together. I went suit shopping with my friend Rich, and it was the first suit we tried on!

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

Liam chose our photographer, he saw a post of theirs shared on instagram by a friend and loved their candid style, which was a big thing for us. We wanted some posed big family shots but it was more important to us that we had candid shots. On the day, Emily was amazing. We felt like we had a friend at the wedding which made us feel very relaxed.

On receiving the photos they were everything we wanted and more. Not only did we love the photos Emily captured of us when we went up on the Southdown’s, but it was all the precious photos Emily had captured, which we were unaware about, dancing with family, laughing with friends and hugging grandparents.

I found our videographer through Instagram. I had seen a work colleague share a video as they had also used The Wedding Guys for their wedding. I messaged them to check availability and not only were they fantastic wedding videographers but they were also avid mountain bikers who rode at the same places as us, which was great and again made us feel more like we had an extra friend at our wedding.

The Honeymoon

For our honeymoon we went to Greece, our lives at home are full of adventure and extreme sports, so we chose a holiday where we could lay and talk for hours, walk to beautiful cafes and relax. We chose to stay at a boutique hotel in Crete called the Island Concept, and it exceeded all our expectations. The hotel only holds 20 people at one time so it really does feel like you’re on an island.

Memorable Moments

First Touch – Liam and I had heard from other couples how hectic the day can feel and how quickly it goes. We wanted a moment just between the two of us, before the ceremony and before things got busy between greeting guests and having the wedding photos taken but we also didn’t want to see each other before the ceremony.

So we decided to do a ‘first touch’ which was set up amazingly by our photographer Emily and videographer, Luis. We each stood either side of the wall outside the cottage at Upwaltham Barns, so that we couldn’t see each other but could just hold hands for a moment and chat, just us, just like normal.

Other memorable moments included sharing our first dance with my parents, my parents were expecting it but halfway through our first dance, Liam went and grabbed my mum for a dance and I grabbed my dad, it also helped to get everyone else up and dancing, which is what we wanted, this continued for most the night and ended with having both sides of the family and all our friends dancing in a circle, whilst Liam and I were having a dance-off in the centre (side note – neither Liam or I can dance).

Advice For Other Couples

Don’t sweat the little things. I think a lot of people don’t enjoy wedding planning and find it stressful because they overthink the little things, will all the food be right, the placement of every flower and decoration but ultimately it won’t matter.

All that will matter on the day is that you are marrying your best friend with all your friends and family around, you won’t even remember what colour flowers you chose once you’re there because all you will see is your partner. So enjoy the process, it’s all part of the wedding experience.

Well wasn’t that just so pretty?

Liam and Emily thanks so much for sharing your special South Downs barn wedding story with us.