Colourful & Modern Barn Wedding

I have SO much love for this relaxed, colourful and fun loving barn wedding. Our couple Sarah and Chris really had a glorious day which oozes love, personality and happy moments, the whole affair was photographed so wonderfully too by Alexa Penberthy Photography. We are just thrilled to be sharing these images and accompanying story today, thanks Alexa.

The wedding date was set for the 19th August 2017 at Vaulty Manor in Essex, which gave the pair around 9 months to plan the whole celebration. Not a short amount of time, but given that their date was in peak season, it meant that they needed to make decisions quickly. I think you will agree the whole day came together so perfectly.

One of the things I really love about their wedding is the modern feel. You don’t often get a contemporary style when holding a wedding in a barn, but the space was light, bright and colourfully decorated. The lanterns were so striking and I am also head over heels for all the gorgeous blooms, not to mention the outfits too.

THE PROPOSAL | Whilst travelling in Thailand we were able to take part in the very special Yi Peng festival in Chang Mai, the festival involves everyone releasing lanterns into the nights sky, as our lanterns floated away to join the hundreds that already filled the sky, Chris proposed, it was an absolutely breathtaking moment and a total surprise.

THE VISION | We wanted a relaxed and fun day spent with our family and friends enjoying good food and drink. The thought of spending the day very formal is something that didn’t appeal to us.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We were engaged in the November and married in August, everyone kept telling us that it didn’t leave much time but actually it made us make decisions and stick to a plan – not that we knew what the plan was but happily made it up as we went along.

THE VENUE | It was important that family and friends who were travelling to be with us were able to stay at the venue, somewhere that was fabulous if it was sunny but equally as stunning if it rained (we are in the UK after all).

Vaulty Manor in Maldon Essex was the perfect choice, situated in beautiful countryside with a restored barn for the reception, it even had a beautiful manor house to get ready in, which family then stayed in, a gorgeous cottage for us to stay in and even a hot tub, which went down well with the guests!

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was by Justin Alexander, I always knew I wanted something heavily embellished, I studied textile design at uni and have always loved embroidery and beading so I was really happy to finally find this one!

I had a change of dress in the evening to a colourful Frock and Frill embroidered maxi dress so I was able bust some serious dance moves.

My shoes were silver open toe block heels from New look – comfort is key!

I had an art deco inspired hair piece which I bought from Ebay.

My Mum surprised me on the day with letting me wear a beautiful heart bracelet that my Dad had given her, which was very special.

FINDING THE DRESS | I found choosing a dress very difficult, I didn’t enjoy the bridal shop experience, I even went to a sample sale which was pretty full on!

I then came across Precious Moments bridal wear in Rayleigh Essex, they were absolutely lovely and I was really glad to have found my dress there.

Due to time constraints I was able to buy the sample from them and have the wonderful Zoe from ‘Zoe Saves The Day’ alter the length to fit – she is amazing.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | The 3 piece suit was DKNY with Alfred Dunhill tie and tie clip, brown brogues from Next and a simple white pocket square, with a Dahlia Karma pink flower.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | Entrance – Elbow – ‘One day like this’.

Ceremony – Kim Weston and Marvin Gaye ‘Lets do it, let’s fall in love’ and The Temper Trap ‘Sweet Disposition’.

Walking out – Stevie Wonder ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’.

Readings – A lovely love story by Edward Monkton, this was read by our now brother in law Matt, who was more than happy to have a captive audience for a while!

Throughout the wedding meal we had put together a playlist of our favourite songs everything from The Smiths to the Spice Girls.

In the evening we had a DJ, Sean, who was fantastic, he was happy to play some club and garage classics which was a must for us!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My bridesmaids were my 2 sisters and 2 of my oldest friends, they wore cerise pink pleated dresses, deco inspired capes, both from ASOS and the same shoes as me from New Look – they looked fantastic and were so amazing on the day running around sorting last minutes things out! – thank you ladies.

THE FLOWERS | Oooooh the flowers…. absolutely loved doing the flowers. We were able to buy directly from a fabulous wholesalers D. Byford & Sons in Essex, it was a joint effort of my Mum, Chris’ Mum, my 2 sisters and Chris all helping to create the bouquets, filling jars upon jars for the tables and making the fiddly buttonholes together. I will always remember our bathroom being completely taken over by flowers in the run up to the wedding – preparing the flowers is one of my most cherished memories from the planning.

THE CAKE | My wonderful sister Hannah made the cake – thank you Hannah!! Chris and I couldn’t decide on a flavour so Hannah made it it both chocolate and vanilla, it was decorated with edible flowers and on top sat 2 little elephants all the way from Chang Mai, we had the cake as dessert and it went down a treat.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | We were very lucky to have Alexa Penberthy as our photographer, Alexa had photographed my sisters wedding the year before and we just love her and her style, she makes you feel so relaxed and the way she captures such wonderful moments is amazing, she really was fantastic.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | We didn’t have a colour theme, just as many colours as possible, we always knew we wanted to celebrate key moments in our relationship, lanterns and sparklers as a link to the proposal, our tables were postcards of places we have visited together, we had a vintage caravan photo booth, supplied by ‘Winnie the Vintage Caravan’ as nod to where we first met, which was camping in Dorset, even photos of our pet Persian cat Bojo was sneakily featured onto each table centrepiece.

The décor was a real joint effort, My sister Emma made the ‘Where in the world are you sitting’ seating plan – thank you Emma! Family and friends were collecting jam jars for months for us so we could spray them gold and fill them with flowers for the tables.

Chris took a trip to France and bought the alcohol, our favours were miniature spirit bottles and a mixer.

We had light boxes for the gift and cake table which featured ‘Treat yo self’ as we love Parks and Recreation.

We had lanterns hang from the barn ceiling, which were put up by Lacey Event Services, they were gorgeous with lights in them for the evening.

It was just a lovely mixture of colour, lights and flowers and to be honest I could have kept going!

THE HONEYMOON | The weekend after the wedding we headed to Brighton for the weekend to chill in the sun.

3 months later we were able to take 3 weeks off work to travel to Australia, making the trip from Sydney all the way up to Cairns and then back down to Melbourne, looking back it was nice to have that time after the wedding to plan the honeymoon as such a big trip required quite a lot of planning.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Taking the time to step back and take it all in with Chris, we were adamant that we would do this on the day and I am so glad we did.

Being on the crowded dance floor glow sticks were handed out, then the DJ dropped the lights and played Faithless Insomnia, it was completely unplanned and was amazing to be dancing around like fools with our friends and family.

When getting ready the excitement of watching the guests start to arrive whilst getting my hair done by the wizard that is Brad Allen and the fabulous Georgie Harris who did my make up.

Just being so happy and thankful that we had everyone we loved in one room, the effort and lengths people had gone to be there was so overwhelming and just seeing everyone happy and together was really amazing.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Take the time to enjoy the planning, I didn’t really get what people meant when they would advise me on this but it’s true.

Be confident in making decisions, there will always be a reason not to do something but if it’s right for you both, do it!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photography | Alexa Penberthy Photography

Venue | Vaulty Manor

Wedding dress | Precious Moments Bridalwear

Hair | @_brad_allen

Make Up | georgieharris190@googlemail.com

DJ | www.seanlsmyth@icloud.com

Flowers |Byfords

Photo booth |Winnie The Vintage Caravan

Lanterns | Laceys Event Services

Caterers | Prem Crew

Alterations | Zoe Saves The Say

Ah just magic! I love the sparklers to end the day too.

Thanks ever so much to Sarah and Chris for sharing their dreamy nuptials with us xo Lou