Charming Floral Filled Wedding

This sweet celebration is just so very lovely. Why? Let me tell you…

WWW readers Heather and David were married on the 4^th September 2015 at Kent Life, which provided the perfect rural backdrop to their day. They envisioned a laid back wedding and the relaxed vibes really shine through these images.

One of my favourite elements of this wedding has to be the florals. Especially those delightful blue blooms lining the aisle, which they would walk back down as husband and wife.

Heather found her intricate gown in Monsoon and she paired it with a pretty hair do complete with flowers and David went for a gorgeous navy and red combo for his look.

Thanks so much to Frances Sales for providing these wonderful shots today.

THE PROPOSAL | We were on holiday in Lisbon and had climbed a huge hill and queued to get into Castelo de São Jorge. I was wittering on about how I might eat the sandwich I had made as a snack when David got down on one knee whilst we looked out over the city and asked me to marry him. I forgot about that sandwich pretty quickly once I clocked him and I kept asking if he was joking, I was convinced there was going to be a watch or something in the box instead of a ring. It was a big surprise, and a lovely surprise!

THE VISION | There wasn’t really much of a vision! We are both pretty laid back and knew we didn’t want anything too formal.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | It all fell into place pretty easily as we purposely chose a venue where everything happened in one place. I researched a lot on the internet, on Pinterest and wedding blogs and forums.

BUDGET | £10,000

THE VENUE | Museum of Kent Life. This was the first and only venue we visited in person in the end, it just fit everything we were looking for

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was Breya from Monsoon. My shoes were from Agnes and Norman, I found them in a sale and dyed them silver.

I wore my Mum’s pearl necklace and my granny’s charm bracelet that my grandpa gave to her when they first got together.

My floral crown was from the Artisan Dried Flower Company.

FINDING THE DRESS | I pinned a lot of pictures of dresses I liked the look of and had some sort of plan to go to a bridal shop but kept putting it off. I kept coming back to the Breya dress and finally bought it online in a panic when I saw it was low in stock. I tried it on in Wales on holiday with my bridesmaids along with another dress I had bought online for comparison. It fitted so well and was exactly what I pictured myself in so that was that! Most importantly (for me) it was very comfortable.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | David and his Best Man both hired Ted Baker suits from Moss Bros.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | Choosing the music was probably the most painful part of planning, I think we finally decided on it about a week before the wedding and only then as the venue needed to know. We came to realise that a lot of the music we enjoy together is actually really depressing and not suitable for a wedding!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My bridesmaids were my closest friend from school and my three closest friends from university. I probably didn’t help them as much as they hoped with what I wanted them to wear as I just told them I wanted them to be happy and comfortable and wear something they liked. Everybody agreed on navy blue and we found the perfect dress on Asos. It suited them all so well and they all looked beautiful.

THE FLOWERS | Flowers provided the main part of our decoration, I figured if we had flowers everywhere we wouldn’t need to do much else.

The bridal flowers were all done by a professional florist, Kim from Floral Elements. Kim was great and interpreted my very vague ideas really well, the bouquets were so beautiful.

My parents live in Kenya and my Mum brought over masses of orange roses and then two days before the wedding we took a 5am trip to Covent Garden Flower Market and bought delphiniums and purple and white asters to add a bit more colour. I collected a bunch of milk bottles and demi-johns over the year and my mum, granny, aunt and cousin spent the morning of the wedding filling them with the flowers.

THE CAKE | One of my bridesmaid’s mums very kindly made our cake and a whole load of brownies and cupcakes.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Frances Sales. I actually found Frances through a friend of one of my bridesmaids and was so pleased as her style was exactly what I had been looking for. Like a lot of people David and I are pretty awkward in front of the camera so didn’t want too many posed shots and we loved Frances’ reportage style but also the look of her shots. Frances is really lovely and very relaxed.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Bunting, flowers, origami heart place names. We weren’t going to do favours but David decided two weeks before the wedding that he wanted to do Lego men so cue frantic eBay searching and buying of Lego bits! They went down really well.

THE HONEYMOON | New York for a week after the wedding.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Dancing the night away and starting a mosh pit! We asked our guests to choose a few songs for the DJ and I think this helped keep the dance floor full all night.

My dad did a “fertility chant” involving everybody which went down really well.

Just having all our family and friends in one place was amazing.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Leave plenty of time for socialising, it all goes so quickly.

Setting up a separate wedding account was really useful, but do it right at the start and use it for everything.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photographer | Frances Sales

Hair and Makeup | Gina from Bambi

Dress | Monsoon

Groom | Moss Bros

Bridesmaids | ASOS

Flowers | Floral Elements

Venue | Kent Life

Catering | Zest Creative Catering

DJ | Disco Fever

Bunting | Blue Sky Bunting

Rings | Huiyitan (Etsy)

What a gorgeous start to the week.

Thanks so much to Heather and David for sharing their nuptials with us xo Lou