Pretty Spring DIY Picnic Village Fete Feel Wedding

Good morning, I hope you had a wonderful weekend full of fun and frolics. We are getting started this week with a relaxed and really rather pretty Spring celebration.

WWW readers Sarah and Tom tied the knot on the 25th April at Higher Melcombe Manor in Dorset. They wanted to create a picnic in the park feel with a touch of village fete.

There were scrummy picnic hampers (look out for the salad jars), yellow blooms and a bake off. The bridesmaids looked so gorgeous in their mismatched dresses while beautiful bride Sarah donned lace and groom Tom wore dashing tweed.

Huge thanks to Peppermint Love Photography for sending over these utterly lovely images.

THE PROPOSAL

The world’s first “frisbeetrothal.” The first time Tom saw Sarah was at our annual St George’s Day celebration of Pimms and croquet in the park; she was playing frisbee. 2 years later at the same event, Tom penned his proposal on a frisbee and threw it at Sarah’s head, surrounded by friends, family and Chewie, our cockapoo.

THE VISION

Pimms, croquet and picnic in the park, with a relaxed and informal village fete feel.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES

Essence of Australia dress from Bliss Bridal in Christchurch. Accessories were borrowed from close friends who recently got married! Earrings were a gift from Tom, left for Sarah to find on the morning of the wedding.

Went to shops within walking distance of home with bridesmaids, Issy and Martha. I didn’t think I knew what I wanted until I saw it in the 3rd shop and knew immediately it was the one.

THE PLANNING PROCESS

Arduous! It was a very DIY wedding and we pulled in a lot of favours. We used local suppliers as much as we could.

THE VENUE

Higher Melcombe Manor

THE READINGS & MUSIC

Aisle song – Bright Eyes- First Day of My Life.

Walk out – The Skatalites version of Baby Elephant Walk.

Readings – Douglas Adams – Excerpt from So long and thanks for all the fish and Taylor Mali – Falling in love is like owning a dog.

THE FLOWERS

Arranged by Margaret and Helen, Tom’s Mum and sister. A selection of Sarah’s favourite – Ranunculus in orange and yellow, leucanthemum, gypsophila, tanacetum, craspedia and roses.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS

Issy, Gemma, Martha and Spoon. No matching dresses as Sarah wanted them to look like themselves and not like a matching singing troupe!

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER

Kasia Nowak, Peppermint Love. Incredibly talented!! Kasia was so creative and even made photos standing in the rain fun!

GROOM’S ATTIRE

Panic bought 3 weeks before the wedding. Magee tweed 3 piece suit, bought from Ireland and tailored.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR

Almost everything was home made, from the signs to the table centre pieces. Tom got handy with a chainsaw for the tree trunk discs for the tables!

Our guest was a bucket which people filled with ideas for our bucket list, written on vintage postcards.

Grooms men’s gifts were vintage tankards with images of their own faces engraved on to them.

Instead of flip flops for dancing shoes, we had large baskets filled with unicorn slippers for guests to help themselves to. These went down a storm!

Croquet games going on alongside Sarah’s favourite, Splat The Rat, even after the rain started.

Picnic hampers for the wedding breakfast, provided by our local deli, Little Pickle Deli, Boscombe.

Music was very important to us so we had Black Water County – a local folk-punk band who got our guests swinging each other around the dance floor, back to back with Still Moving DJs who played an eclectic selection of vintage tunes with live percussion. They totally fitted the style of the wedding with gramophones, toy dinosaurs on the turntables and other vintage decorations. The two acts set the scene perfectly for the evening party and kept people dancing til the very end!

Favours were loose tea (our local blend- Southbourne Breakfast Tea) in heart shaped tins preprepared by &tea.

THE CAKE

Main cake was chocolate with white chocolate covering, baked by Margaret, Tom’s mum. A selection of cakes were also made by our cakiest guests for the cake competition. There was a vote for the best cake, won by Becky.

THE HONEYMOON

Borrowed Tom’s parents camper van and drove through Europe from Spain to Italy.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS

Tom’s nephews zoomed the rings up the aisle around the neck of an inflatable, 4 foot, robot dinosaur that Tom had bought them for Christmas (Sarah planned this as a surprise for Tom.)

Bridesmaid, Spoon’s speech where she catalogued Sarah’s previous loves (with photo evidence) – Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man and Wolf from Gladiators.

Black Water County playing Tom’s favourite Mad Dog McCrea songs as a surprise.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES

Start early – the details take a lot of time when going DIY.

Decide on the overall look and stick to it. Don’t get swayed by every beautiful pinterest post you see.

Choose suppliers who you trust and can see yourself being friends with as they are the ones who will pull it together on the day.

This will need to be rephrased and apologies for my language – there has to be a point when you just say fuck it to all the little details. No one will notice if things are not exactly perfect and how you had it planned on the day and there is no point stressing about it!!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photography | Peppermint Love Photography

Dress | Bliss Bridal

Food | Little Pickle Deli

Drinks | The Jolly Vinter Too

Tom’s suit | Magee

Favours | Loose tea in heart shaped tins – &tea

Band | Black Water County

DJs | Still Movin’ DJs

Marquee | Oakleaf

Hair and Make Up | Rehana Quinn Beauty

Amazing. Those unicorn slippers were such a great touch and I love the dinosaur ring bearer.

Thanks so much to Sarah and Tom for sharing their brilliant story with us xo Lou