DIY Yellow & Grey Rustic Farm Wedding

WWW readers Hywel and Helen were married on the 24^th July 2015 and opted for a farm wedding which was a real DIY effort. With a budget of £9000 to spend on their rustic barn celebration they put so much love and care into everything they arranged. From the hand-crafted tables to the hand made stationery and the home-grown blooms and potatoes too. The barns looked amazing!

Helen chose a decadent Ian Stuart gown teamed with yellow blooms, while the bridesmaids chose their own grey frocks. The boys were suited and booted in waistcoats and chinos for a relaxed country look. Such an inspiring day.

Thanks so much to Assassynation for providing these wonderful images this morning.

THE PROPOSAL | Hywel mentioned to my Dad he would like to ask me to marry him 18 months before he proposed – my parents thought I had said no as nothing was ever said after that! But apparently he never found the right time or place to ask so on New Years Day 2015 walking in our farm scruffs (when we are at our happiest) on his family farm in wales he asked – and of course I said yes. My engagement ring was a rubber washer (I didn’t want an actual engagement ring so it was perfect – I opted for a wedding band with a bit of sparkle instead).

THE VISION | We wanted our wedding to be reflective of us and as we both grew up on farms and currently live on my parents farm with our Jack Russells and my Dorset Horn sheep – we knew we wanted it to be rustic with no fuss.

We choose grey and yellow as the theme colours as they are my favourite and because they are representative of Wales (did you guess Hywel is Welsh?) – grey slate and yellow daffodils (except they were out of season!)

THE PLANNING PROCESS | Having decided to get married we just wanted to get on and do it. We decided the date should be planned around when the lovely and incredibly talented Sassy from Assassynation who we wanted to be our photographer was available and our friend Sarah who lives in Zambia was going to be in the country.

After we decided on the venue and date we booked the bar, dance floor, toilets, crockery and organised the catering (family friends offered to take us to and from Church in a horse and trap – although this didn’t happen because of the rain – and DJ for the night). Where to get married was easy, we wanted to get married in our village Church where my parents and grandparents were married.

We knew who we wanted to cater for the wedding and were so happy when they agreed – my amazing bridesmaid Kate and her Aunt Alison who both work in the catering industry. I told them my ideas and we came up with a plan – the food was incredible.

The canapés were the starters (the crackling was my favourite) and then we had table picnics with home made quiches and sausage rolls and locally sourced cold beef and ham (as well as over 300 new potatoes my parents grew and Granddad scraped for the day). Pudding was so much fun, me, my Mum, Hywel’s Mum and our sisters and friends (and their Mum’s) made all different sorts of cakes which I co-ordinated (over 20 in the end) and we had a cake buffet with a tea and coffee station (one of Hywel’s favourite past times). The evening food was a BBQ with the same lovely salads as earlier, needless to say everyone had far too much to eat!

We went to Eclectic Wedding Extravaganza to see Sassy and met Sarah Russell of SR Hair and Make up and Sharelle of Apple Tree Events and so more details fell into place. That was the full extent of our wedding planning, I think we were lucky that we knew what we wanted and so there were no more wedding fairs, just a bit of googling rustic wedding ideas that we could steal and make our own.

Our major dilemma was the tables and chairs because the floor in the venue was not level and we liked some very expensive tables to hire (they did not fit within our budget). And so instead Hywel said he could make them himself out of scaffold boards (and we could resell the boards to the local scaffolding company afterwards so they would be cost neutral) which is what we did. We also decided that to go with the rustic theme we would ask Hywel’s Dad to make special sized bales for everyone to sit on that fitted perfectly in the venue (and my Mum made covers for them) – we were so pleased with the result.

As it got closer to the day and I talked through the photos with Sassy’s she gave me some wise advice, to have wellies and umbrellas on standby in case of the rain – it rained! And so we had to change a few plans on the day but it didn’t matter at all. AND the photos look all the better for it!

The main thing that saved me was my lists and our friends and family. My spreadsheet ended up having 18 tabs but by writing things down it meant I didn’t have to remember anything – it was just my coping mechanism and although it worked for me everyone is different. Our friends and family were also incredible from helping to decorate the venue, laying out the tables, picking up flowers to all pitching in and making the bouquets the night before to finishing off decorating the cakes the morning of the wedding for the cake buffet. We could not have done it without them.

BUDGET | Originally we wanted to spend £5-6,000 (a little ambitious I think) but in the end it was nearly £9,000 – but there isn’t anything we would have done differently so we do not regret a penny of what we spent but it’s crazy how it all adds up. We were so lucky to have had the resources of our friends and family who helped us save so much money and could do a lot of it ourselves otherwise I do not know how much it would have cost.

THE VENUE | Our neighbours had hired their barns out for parties but never a wedding before (I think people who saw it beforehand or saw the photos thought we were mad). I had seen them before but when we went and looked at them with the wedding in mind – my imagination went to work and we knew it would be perfect (it did however, take 3 days to clean and 4 days to make ramps, doors, connect up lights and create a kitchen whilst decorating etc which we were lucky we could do ourselves).

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was by Ian Stuart but was second hand off eBay and cost £750 instead of £2,500 – I love it beyond words but could not have ever justified paying the full price. My shoes were from TK Maxx (my favourite shop) and matched the colour of the dress perfectly – bargain. There were no other accessories – the dress was enough and I didn’t want a veil.

FINDING THE DRESS | I went to try on dresses with my Mum and bridesmaid Jen because I had found a shop which stocked House of Mooshki dresses (I liked the tea length simple white stripe dress) as well as Ian Stuart dresses which had bodices with big scruffy skirts – I liked them both. But it was the coloured Ian Stuart dresses I looked the best in – I found I looked ill in white and ivory dresses. However, the Ian Stuart dresses were out of my price range and so it was back to the internet. I was so lucky to find a dress I loved even more than the ones in the shop, on eBay and in my size and so I travelled to Manchester to try it on and buy it –I had my dress by the end of January which was such a relief.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | The grooms attire was easy because the two ushers had got married in tweed/wool style waistcoats and jackets with cords/chinos which is the style we loved (and probably stole from them) and so that became the theme, non-matching suits and trousers. The ushers wore their wedding outfits and the groom and our Dad’s bought their outfits from Next (the best man got his from Primark!) They were all told to buy what they felt comfortable in and to spend as little as possible! We then provided light grey wool ties we bought off Etsy for them all.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | I walked down the aisle to Birdy’s Wings song, Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole played whilst we signed the register and we (pretended as it was raining) to walk out to Now We Are Free by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard. Our reading was Song by Mary Stewart.

Our first dance was to Happy by Pharrell Williams and everyone was invited to join us on the dance floor – it was great fun.

We had a DJ rather than a band as a family friend offered and I spent time picking songs we liked.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I had 8 bridesmaids in grey and 3 in yellow because I love all my best friends and cousins and didn’t want to leave anyone out, however, I didn’t want to be ridiculous and so only 5 walked down the aisle in front of me, 3 were ushers (sorry boys you proved I needed the girls – the reverend had to come and get you from the pub 10mins before I arrived) and the 3 in yellow with my male cousin in a yellow tie were to be dog handlers when everyone left the church – unfortunately this had to change due to the rain but we found an alternative.

I was probably a bit mean when it came to my bridesmaids as I asked them to buy their own dresses (they were instructed to try and find them off eBay for less than £20 and most did, many were only £5 each – no one spent a fortune on their dress which was what it was all about). I wanted them to all be different just in a shade of grey or yellow and be comfortable in whatever they were wearing. They all looked amazing!

Instead of providing the dresses I asked Sarah Russell of SR Hair and Make-up (who did my hair and make up) to do all their hair and help with their make-up. We also had a trial run for us all as part of my hen do – she was fantastic and we all looked just as we wanted.

THE FLOWERS | I didn’t want many flowers as we wanted to keep it simple but as my Mum is a fantastic flower arranger we had some at the church (in milk churns etc) and a few at the venue (as well as the bouquets). The theme was white, yellow with lavender and wheat, oats and poppies from the fields. We also had sweet peas my parents grew in the garden for us. In total we spent £107 on flowers.

THE CAKE | Because we didn’t want to cut the cake we had a polystyrene one (in grey) and then had a fruit cake to go on the cake buffet table.

We decorated the cake with sheep pompoms made by Sharelle from Apple Tree Events and our Jack Russells Nelly and Nora made by Atop the Tier (another idea we stole from our friends Matt & Jen’s wedding).

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Sassy from Assassynation was our only choice. After we saw the photographs she took for our friend’s Matt and Lauren’s wedding I followed her on Facebook – there was no way anyone else was going to take our photos – I was just so please to have a reason to ask Sassy to take some. When we went to meet Sassy at Eclectic Wedding Extravaganza she greeted us as friends and was really excited about all our plans, that’s how she made us feel from the very beginning and throughout the wedding. Sassy and Katie (our second shooter) were so lovely and totally took the chaos before Church in their stride as well as putting up with my Granddad who sang to them…. You didn’t even know they were taking most of the photos during the day and that’s what we wanted, relaxed photos with not too many group shots. We looked forward to the sneak peeks straight after the wedding because we knew each and every photo would be a piece of artwork – Sassy is soo talented we are so lucky that she loves weddings and photographs them and that she was available to shoot ours – she really is the best!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | We made our stationery ourselves and this is where the simple rustic theme began, we used brown card and I designed the save the date, wedding invitation and order of service. We simply printed them at home and used ink stamps I bought from Not On The Highstreet.

When we met Sharelle from Apple Tree Events we saw her sheep pompoms and we just had to have some made like my rare breed sheep – they are amazing. Sharelle is another of Sassy’s brides and has a wedding planning business – if you want some help with yours you should definitely contact Sharelle.

Our friends lent us all their tea lights and hurricane lamps and so candles and glass helped finish off the simple rustic style we were going for. I then wrapped bottles in sisal string, we used glass wine bottles and kilner jars we had lying around as vases, my Mum made the hessian table cloths, cushion covers and bows for the church pew ends, she helped me make the hessian bunting, we found an old suitcase for cards in the loft and an easel for the table plan and music requests in my Dad’s shed. The napkins were farm themed in the sale from Laura Ashley which added a bit of fun and colour to the tables.

Hywel’s Dad made fire pits we used for toasting marshmallows and his Mam made the welsh cakes for church. I made shortbread biscuits as the favours and stamped them with our initials, the date and the guests name which also helped as name places.

My Dad made the sign boards out of old pallets and I painted the messages/ directions on them. My Dad and I also spent a few evenings collecting sofas (for the bar area) and fridges (for our makeshift kitchen) off eBay and Gum Tree which in total cost £55 (I am now reselling them on eBay and have made the money back) to fill the space we had. I then accessorised the sofa with all my sister’s cushions (which were luckily grey!)

I stole the idea of writing on glass using liquid chalk pens from demijohns liquid deli and to save money I used them in yellow and grey to write on the wine bottles that we uses as vases for the table names, I wrote everyone’s name on the base of their champagne flute for the name places and on a mirror I borrowed from my sister for the table plan. I used the same liquid chalk pens to write on large black boards in the barn (which I painted with blackboard paint) to explain to people what was happening when, to give credit for ideas we had borrowed for the wedding and so people could leave messages for us.

The finishing touches included our games table and giant games. Most of the games we already had but we bought a giant second hand connect four game off eBay and noughts and crosses, we then borrowed the other games. And the yellow and white lanterns that hung in the roof space of the dutch barns were sourced from eBay.

THE HONEYMOON | Unfortunately I have got to have an operation which means our next adventure is delayed until next year when we hope to go to Exmouth in Western Australia to dive with one of my bridesmaids Kirsten who has opened a dive school there called Dive Nigaloo.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | We loved the whole week getting the venue ready as much as the day itself. I loved travelling to church in the farm truck with my Dad, Sister and Jack Russell’s and the having photos taken in the rain with Hywel including trying to get my sheep to come close enough for a photo. My most memorable memory was checking on my sheep at 7am on the morning of the wedding and taking some time to myself to think about how lucky I was, plus our first dance with our family and friends which was so much fun. Hywel’s memorable moments were when I came walking down the aisle and seeing my dress for the first time plus Nora (one of our JRs) barking in Church when everyone said Amen – everyone laughed and was very impressed.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Have a backup plan in case it rains, it was such a shame that we could not travel in the horse and trap but the welsh cakes in church worked really well (I was so grateful for our workshop heaters and blankets as it was colder than planned for July!) Decide what details are most important to you for the day and focus on those, if you have a budget you might not be able to have everything – don’t worry if things do not go to plan it really doesn’t matter. Take time to take it all in, let you trusted friends take care of the tasks on the day so you don’t have to worry. Have faith in your ideas and make them happen.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photographer | Sassy Lafford of Assassynation

Hair and make up | Sarah Russell

Our Jack Russells for the cake | Atop of the Tier

Our sheep pompoms | Apple Tree Events

Crockery hire | Gill Judd

Dance floor hire | Green Claws

Toilet hire | Sweet Pee

2^nd shooter | Katie Wisdom at Summertown Pictures

Mmm, the food looked and sounded scrumptious.

Thanks so much to Hywel and Helen for sharing their fabulous nuptials with us xo Lou