Pretty & Floral Rustic Pink The Cherry Barn Wedding

Hooray for Lorna and Matt who are here to share their stunning The Cherry Barn wedding in Sussex held in the summer sunshine. From their rustic barn vision to the pretty pink colour scheme, you’ll fall hook, line and sinker for their lovely day.

I absolutely love the pretty styling, which included the most stylish outfits, blooming gorgeous flowers and book-inspired decor at their barn reception. From the romantic portraits in the sun to the fun first dance moment, be sure to soak up every moment.

Thanks ever so much to Shelby Ellis Photography for sharing with us these totally special images of one very happy day.

Cherry Barn Wedding

The Proposal

For Lorna’s 30th birthday, Matt booked a long weekend in Venice – somewhere we’d both dreamt of going. And on the way back from dinner on the Friday night, while crossing a quiet bridge with pretty string lights up in anticipation for the carnival which would be starting the following week, Matt got down on one knee and it was one of the best moments ever!

The Vision

Our vision was pretty much aligned, wanting a rustic barn vibe ideally in beautiful countryside for a summery wedding. Pretty, floral, and romantic was how we saw it, and, as book lovers (with Lorna working in publishing), we knew books would be an important feature of the day too.

The Venue

We knew we wanted a venue which we could have over a full weekend, to do plenty of set up ourselves, and wanted to be a fairly blank canvas to put our own stamp on it (although nice toilets were a must, hiring portable loos didn’t quite fit into the dream wedding planning!). Having a church nearby for the ceremony was a factor, and ideally within 2 hours of London.

The Cherry Barn was the first venue we went to see, and really did fall in love at first sight. In fact, it was the only venue we ended up seeing, as it ticked every single box and more! It is a beautiful barn with stunning views over the surrounding orchards and beautiful Sussex countryside.

It felt really important to us to be able to make the weekend feel our own, which we could totally do here. Mel and Steve, who own The Cherry Barn are honestly angels, and genuinely love what they do. They were on hand to help with everything, and are so much fun! The best in the business!

St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Peasmarsh is pretty much at the end of The Cherry Barn’s driveway and is the perfect Norman church. It’s bright, unfussy and exactly what we hoped for. The community of the church made us feel very welcome in the months before our wedding too, and we couldn’t have been happier with the venues we had for our day!

The Ceremony & Music

The church ceremony was such a joy. We loved the readings our friends and family did, and while we signed the marriage certificate, we also had an absolutely beautiful rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’ from a friend who happens to be the most beautiful vocalist.

For the rest of the day, we’d created a Spotify playlist of string music and then our favourite acoustic songs over dinner to keep a relaxed atmosphere. The band in the evening was incredible. Vintage Roots, booked through Tailored Entertainment. The dancefloor was totally filled from moments after the first dance until the very end of the night.

Your Outfits

My wedding dress came from the lovely Victoria Grace Bridal boutique in Canterbury. I didn’t have a firm idea of what I wanted in advance, but was so happy to find my dress (and that it turned out to be in the sample sale!).

My outfit was made up of the something old (my necklace), something new (earrings which were a present on the day from Matt), something borrowed (my school friends and I have the same bracelet, engraved with our initials, so my bridesmaid and I swapped our bracelets for the wedding) and something blue (simple blue ribbon tied on my shoes). I also bought decals for the sole of my shoes. I don’t think anyone saw them with the train, but I knew I had the date and new married name with me all day!

The groom’s suit was made by Edit Suits in London. We had no idea there are so many aspects to choosing a suit, but they made it easy. The bow ties turned out to be trickier to tie than anticipated, so the best man did an excellent job of becoming chief tie-er!

The bridesmaids’ dresses of dusty pink were also perfectly matched by my (6-month-old) nephew’s bow tie and pocket square. My sister made these from the material swatch sent with a try on bridesmaid dress, which I was SO impressed with!

Your Photographer

Shelby did an incredible job capturing the whole day. We decided against a videographer, and actually felt so pleased to keep it relatively straightforward and simple. Shelby was great at being present to capture so many amazing moments, yet never felt in the way or obstructive. We have no idea how she did it! The pictures say a 1,000 words, so we have many thousands of beautiful memories to keep forever!

The Styling & Decor

Everything was kept to a rustic-feel theme, with pink accents throughout. The barn itself lent itself to this, as did the LocatetoCreate tables and chairs we hired. For the table decorations, we combined décor with our favours and everyone received a carefully selected Penguin Modern Classic as their handwritten place name, complete with ribbon and a parcel tag. Some guests were given challenges on the back of their card. We wanted as much mixing and fun conversation as possible all along the long tables!

The flowers were an absolute highlight. Alex did such an incredible job of bringing our vision (and our limited flower knowledge) so perfectly to life. Jam jars were spaced down the tables, and the bouquets were simply stunning with antique roses, blush peonies, eucalyptus, jasmine, and astilbe. We had two milk churns of flowers, and pedestals too. All of these could be moved from the church across to the venue, so doubly handy!

The cake was as beautiful as it was delicious! We opted for a strawberry and champagne flavour, decorated in a semi-naked style with beautiful flowers. Rose was such a pro, she even set up the cake with a spirit level while the bride was having her make-up done!

We did all of our own signs and stationery. Lorna painted a watercolour cherry blossom which was the basis for invites, church order of service, menus and photo booth prints. For the tables, we chose our favourite books to name each table and had a copy which we encouraged guests to write messages in.

For the order of the day, we salvaged a pallet and applied a decal to note the events going on, and similarly made the table plan from a pallet, chalkboards, and a bridesmaid’s very neat handwriting!

The hair and make-up was INCREDIBLE. Lauren and Emma were totally amazing, created such a relaxed atmosphere and worked absolute wonders on the bride, two bridesmaids and mother of the bride and mother of the groom. Lauren totally understood the look we were going for (romantic, non-fussy with floral details in my hair), and we all had a lovely, unstressed time getting ready (and listened to Taylor Swift all morning!).

The Honeymoon

The week after the wedding, we spent a super peaceful week in beautiful Sardinia. We stayed on an Airbnb on a couple’s smallholding, with donkeys and chickens around, and spent time on the many beautiful beaches nearby.

We are also doing a big trip to Tanzania and Zanzibar later this summer (nearly 3 months after the wedding) which we cannot wait for! It’s been so nice to come back to reality, knowing we still have something incredible to look forward to after the wedding.

Memorable Moments

Too many to mention! I’ll never forget walking into the church and seeing all our friends and family beaming, with my soon-to-be husband waiting at the end of the altar. That’s a moment of total happiness.

The speeches were memorable for all the best reasons. We had speeches from the groom, two bridesmaids, bride and best man, all of which featured a few tears and plenty of laughter. And not to forget about the food. Steph and her team did an amazing job with the wedding breakfast, canapes and every aspect to make sure every guest was perfectly catered to. Everything was totally delicious too!

The best man’s 2-year-old daughter and the bride’s cousin’s 4-year-old daughter became firm besties, which was absolutely lovely to see. And the stampede for cocktails was something to behold! The cutting of the cake was a lovely moment. In the party, we had moments from toasting marshmallows on the fire to the bride and groom on the shoulders of the wedding guests.

The photo booth captured loads of fun moments and was so fun to see different guests interacting together.

Advice For Other Couples

Our lovely venue owner, Mel, gave us the best advice: have fun! If you’re having fun, so will everyone else. That turned out to be so true!

And we would definitely say get ahead with organising wherever you can! We were fortunate to have a (relatively) stress-free build-up to the wedding, in large part due to our wonderful suppliers, but also because we’d already made all the decisions we could think of, so last-minute panics were fairly few!