Farming Wedding with Rustic Woodland Green Styling

Golly, what a treat I have in store for you today. We are joined by WWW followers 
Michael and Megan with their
 Castletown Woodland Weddings in Cumbria. Their day had a fantastic farming theme to reflect their love of farming. Think cow table names, farm boxes for the centrepieces, tractor transport, fork church exit and even milk churns for flowers. It was all brilliant!

Then there was the fresh green colour scheme, sensational outfits, extremely pretty flowers and tipi reception. So many lovely little details were crafted and handmade, with so much love and attention to detail.

Amy Lou Photography I can’t thank you enough for sharing these utterly gorgeous images with us.

Megan on WWW


I decided to follow WWW due to the beautiful stories that were told. I stumbled across WWW on Instagram while searching. A blog full of ideas, inspiration and love. It was also a great way to find different suppliers and ideas you wouldn’t necessarily think of. And who doesn’t love a good love story?!

Castletown Woodland Wedding

The Proposal

We were holidaying in our most favourite place, the Algarve. We always stay in a little place just outside of Sao Rafael. We love the beautiful golden sand here, and the food is just beautiful.

We had been to our favourite fish restaurant. Anyone who knows my Michael knows he can eat…. a lot! God help us on the weekly shop. This night he couldn’t fit in a pudding, which was strange but instead finished off our bottle of wine. Haha I was oblivious.

We got a taxi back to our hotel, and he asked if we could go for a walk, to walk off supper and to look at the stars. We headed up to the hotel’s viewing point of the beach where the hotel married other couples. Michael began to start setting up his phone video…  at this point I had added the clues together!

It was the most perfect proposal, and I had no idea. After 8 years of waiting, I had given up hope! 
The video was my lovely dad’s instruction… he advised Michael there was only one condition, that he videoed it! I wondered why in the airport on the way to Portugal why he went through a different security lane to me haha!

The Vision

Farming has always been a huge part of both our lives. We met at Aspatria Young Farmers club almost 10 years ago, since then it’s been love story from the start.

Imagine someone you can’t live without and times it by the biggest number you can think of. 
With Michael being a dairy farmer and milking his lovely 80 Ayrshire Dairy Cows morning and night 7 days a week, they are a big part of our lives. We set this as our vision for the wedding. Even from the farm’s calving index… the bull had to be pulled from the field to ensure there were no calving’s on the wedding week!

We wanted to portray our love of farming through our wedding. If you look out on the photos, we have the table names as the farm cow names, the table centre boxes as the farm’s potato business, milk churns at our entrances and even some little potatoes in our flower arrangements!

Budget

We had estimated approximately in our heads of around £15,000 which we thought was more than achievable. With being in young farmers, and the skills it had taught us we were more than capable of designing and creating something special on a budget, with the help of our very talented friends.

The Venue

Castletown Woodland Weddings was our venue. This was a new venture in 2019 to the beautiful Castletown Estate, Rockcliffe. It made our photographs the most beautiful backdrop in the grounds. The tipis were set in the woodland area of the estate. It was everything we could have wanted and more, such a laid back, fun vibe.

The Ceremony & Music

Our ceremony was held in my village church, Rockcliffe. We decorated the church ourselves with flower wellies in the windows, milk churns at the doors, floral rings on the end of pews and floral arrangements at the front.

We didn’t want traditional music, and even though a traditional church, we wanted a modern feel. Our entrance song was Elton John ‘Can you feel the love tonight’, walking back up the aisle was ‘Mr Blue Sky’ by ELO. It’s our favourite song, and we thought it felt happy and joyful.

Your Outfits

Rebecca Ingram was the designer of my dress. A new range to 2019 (our wedding should have been 2019, due to Covid we postponed 2 years), this was ‘Wanda‘.

When I walked into Carol’s Bridal Boutique, I went with a very open mind as a lot of people tell you – ‘what you think you may want may not be’ therefore I tried on 12 different styles of dress, and boy they were right. This one had just came into the boutique and was awaiting to be steamed before going onto the shop floor. The girls asked me if I would like to see it… I knew when I tried the dress on it was everything I wanted. A-line, sweetheart neckline, chic, classy and the most beautiful lace.

With having wide feet I really struggled to find a wide fitting bridal shoe. I searched for hours… search no longer! Elegance of Elena was the place to look, amazing service, beautiful stylings and even came with a lucky silver sixpence to pop in my shoe on the day!

The guy’s suits were from the amazing Slaters Menswear in Newcastle. We purchased our navy tweed style suits, shirts and brogues from them. Can I just say the staff in there were AMAZING. They didn’t even need a measure; one look and they knew what size they were. Slaters we found to be extremely reasonably priced and very good quality. 
Our ties were ‘ARMSTRONG’ tartan to match our last name by Ingles Buchan purchased online.

Our bridesmaid dresses I have to say were stunning. We purchased these from a local boutique to us I Do Bridal Boutique in Cockermouth, Cumbria. 
We knew in our heads we wanted our main theme colour to be green to match the outdoor feel and the vibrant bold colour.

After my poor sister Molly had tried on every dress in the shop, we honestly went back to the first one! We felt the one-shoulder styling really worked with a very slight flare at the waist to suit different sizes. We purchased and added onto the dress the pearl and diamante embellishment which we felt finished the dress perfectly.

Your Photographer

Our photographer was the beautiful talented Amy Lou Photography. We picked Amy due to her modern, fun, natural, fresh, clean photographs. We would highly recommend Amy; she was amazing and so kind and knowledgeable throughout the day. Something we didn’t like about other photographers was a dark shadow, Amy’s were exactly what we were looking for.

The Styling & Decor

Decorations

We made a lot of our decorations ourselves. Michael is handy and I love crafting. We got from the woodheap at the farm some old small logs and cut them into small sections, drilled a hole in the middle and placed artificial flicking pillar candles in them to finish the middles of the tables.

Beer barrow. Michael first made a hay barrow nearly 10 years ago to use on the farm to cart hay and straw. We washed it, painted it up, oiled the wood and made it into a beer barrow for the bottles! We stained and oiled an old piece of flat wood, Laura, Michaels’s sister kindly made us a sticker to attach to the front of it. We then decorated it with artificial greenery and added ice and beer to it!

For our guestbook, again we wanted something different. We bought plain Jenga online, which people could write on and stack. Marie from Lakeland Laser then made us a box for this to be placed into. We used a barrel for this to sit on.

We printed and string lined up all of our favourite photos and memories together across the inside of the marquee, as well as Mr & Mrs Armstrong hessian bunting (bought from Etsy).

We again stained and oiled some wood from the farm to make our order of the day sign. We wanted the wording to be different and fun. When the first dance was on, instead of ‘first dance 9pm’, we wrote ‘it’s a 10 from Len!’. Lavelle Lettering wrote this up for us in calligraphy.

We folded 120 napkins into the shape of an envelope with the help of trusty Youtube, and placed the menu choices inside, with the rustic birch placename on top. All laser engraving of the wood was done by our local friend, Lakeland Laser Creations.

Cake

Our cake was made by our lovely friend Gillian Potts. We wanted to keep the colour theme but felt the dark green was too much for the cake. We opted for a traditional fruit tier on the bottom, followed by a vanilla sponge 2nd tier, and a lemon sponge on the 3rd tier. Covered in pale green and white fondant. Finished with hessian ribbons and handmade sugar dusky pink roses to match our bouquets.

Flowers

I knew exactly what I wanted with our bouquets and buttonholes, I was lucky enough to do a lot of flower arranging in YFC, which gave me great insight, Elaine our florist was amazing.

The bridal bouquet was to be loose and with longer stems. It consisted of pale dusky pink quicksand roses, cream avalanche roses, white lisianthus, green thistle, pink astilbe, pink and white waxflower, dusty miller and eucalyptus.

The bridesmaid bouquets were a smaller version of my bridal bouquet without the green thistle and white lisianthus. 
The buttonholes were quicksand roses, green thistle and white waxflower.

All the other venue flowers we did ourselves with the help from amazing friends Vicky and Ann sticking to the white/cream/pink theme. We created milk churn arrangements at the front door of the church (which then went to the tipis) wellies arrangements in the windows of the church and pedestal/register table arrangements.

In the tipi we had tattie boxes full of flowers on the tables. And bark pot arrangements on the outside tables. Ann and Vicky wove through beautiful artificial wisteria and a handmade heart wreath onto the church and tipi entrance. We lined the narrow tables as well as with artificial greenery.

The heads of wheat which accompanied the place names were ‘borrowed’ from the farm. We took some from the field before it was combined and dried upside down in our shed until the day before the wedding.

Colour

GREEN – We LOVE the colour green; we have a lot in our house which is green. It went well with the farming theme and the rustic theme. So much so, we picked the colour for our bridesmaid dresses as ‘Hunter Green’, in our pre-shoot photos we put on our feet ‘Hunter Green Wellies’, to see if anyone guessed!

The Honeymoon

Due to COVID, we were unable to book anything abroad without the worry. On the Monday after the wedding, we had nothing booked. We decided to pack some things up, start the car and drive to see where it took us!

On the way we decided Scotland, we booked everything last minute. We ended up in the Isle of Skye, the most amazing honeymoon place ever. We stayed in Hotel Marmalade, what a treat. 
We then did our official honeymoon in Whitsand Bay, Cornwall a month later, again beautiful.

Memorable Moments

All our lovely family and friends in the most beautiful woodland setting with the sunshine beaming all day.

Our best man and maid of honour Mr & Mrs Quiz before our meal!

Reception canapes and drinks – we wanted to be ‘ordinary’ and not too fancy! We asked our caterer to create mini pies and sticky sausages. Then beer for the men and Pimms for the ladies, nice and simple and everyone loved them. We had a hay barrow we used on the farm Michael made when we first met. We washed it, painted it up, oiled the wood and made it into a beer barrow for the bottles!

Bucket Lids! We recycled some feed bucket lids from the farm, that were our exact wedding colour and made them into signposts! Michael’s sister Laura kindly cut out the vinyl lettering on her Cricut machine, we then cable tied them to lampposts and signposts to direct people to the village! Then we could say follow the green bucket lids! Some are still up, we are waiting to see if they will last until our 1st anniversary!

Our photographer Amy advised we would do some portrait shots after our meal, it was the most perfect time for the sunlight for the photographs and also was an amazing time for us to reflect on what felt like a whirlwind of a day.

GAMES
. We purchased a giant Jenga from Amazon at very little money, and we borrowed a Cornhole game from one of our ushers. We made DIY signs for them. It was lovely to see the children playing with them.

After our Honeymoon…. It was a Cumbrian farming tradition when the married couple come back from their honeymoon, to come home to chaos. And by God did we! Michael’s mum, the top instigator, decided to clear the shelves in the local shop of jelly. Accompanied by Michaels’s sisters they filled everything you can think of with jelly! Every glass, mug, pan, bowl, bathroom sink, socks. You can imagine getting it all off, hilarious!

Advice For Other Couples

Plan and stick to budget. We used an excel spreadsheet which really helped us keep track of deposits and budgets. A smashable pot also works with £1 coins!

Search for different suppliers and ideas! I wouldn’t like to think about the amount of Instagram hashtags I have searched. But it was well worth it as it gave fun, different, original suppliers and décor ideas.

I designed my own wedding ring to fit around my beautiful engagement ring. Due to mine being yellow gold, and my lovely grandma always wearing yellow gold, she kindly donated her eternity ring my grandad gave to her when they first met to melt down to make mine. This added huge sentimental love and value to my wedding ring but also made the making of the ring much more cost-effective.

Be cheeky! Typical farmers, we bargained a lot of our suppliers, its amazing how much money we saved.

Don’t get hung up on a great big list of required group photographs. By the time your day is here it’s over in a flash. They are lovely to keep as memories but condense your list! You won’t regret it.

Invitations. We stayed traditional and sent the most beautiful rustic invitations made by one of our friends, Sue. We felt making and wording the invitations gave them that handmade feel with a modern twist. We also added wood to our invites. Keep the tradition and don’t opt for a wedding website!

Talk to other friends/couples that have married and ask for local recommendations.

So very special.

Michael and Megan thank you both so much for sharing your Castletown Woodland Weddings story.

Further Reading

• Groom Suit Ideas
• Budget Wedding Ideas
• How To Plan A DIY Wedding