Magical & Nostalgic Summer Marquee Wedding

Weddings are the very beginning of a beautiful marriage, the start of new memories and adventures. But I do love how Paul and Bea looked to the past when it came to planning their day, a wedding filled with nostalgia thanks to Bea’s childhood memories with her grandparents in Studland. Harry Warren House located in Studland, Dorset turned out to be the perfect spot for their seaside marquee wedding reception, the beach hut Bea grew up in is below the cliff top of the garden, how wonderful is that? They chose the 16th June 2018 to get married, in a church ceremony before walking to their venue to celebrate their marriage with all of their loved ones. Their day just radiates love and happiness and the photographs by Big Bouquet Photography certainly capture all the joy and emotions (thanks to Emma and Ian for sharing them with us).

The pole tent marquee really looked so stunning adorned with an abundance of greenery, hanging Edison lighting, trees and the prettiest coral charm peonies on the tables. It really is a sight to behold. Bea’s bouquet really was a masterpiece, with coral peonies, dusky pink roses, gypsophila and foliage all making an appearance. That alongside with seriously gorgeous attire and you have a very beautiful wedding style. The touches of coral pink really bring everything together so perfectly. Just one more thing, the flower arch of dreams decorating the church is just incredible. It’s one not to miss folks!

The Proposal

We have travelled a lot together – our tables at the wedding were named after the first 10 countries we went to – and every time we went on holiday in the 14 months we were together before getting engaged, our friends and family would wonder if we would come back engaged.

So of course we didn’t get engaged on a big holiday, but during a pretty normal weekend in Studland. We had been for a long walk to Swanage, back round Old Harry and up to the church yard to visit my granny’s grave – and Paul proposed in the church yard. I wasn’t expecting it at all at that moment but given how personal the area is to me, I was over the moon. We are also quite a private couple, so doing it when people were least expecting was perfect. We took a few weeks to tell everyone, doing it bit by bit and revealing details when we felt like it!

The evening we got engaged we went to the local pub for a pint – it wasn’t a good one, so we threw it away and went back and sat in my granny’s garden watching the sun go down.

The Vision

I wanted to bring in lots of my childhood memories. In Studland growing up, we were always out on fishing boats bringing in nets and lobster pots, we spent most of our time in the beach hut and nothing was ever particularly fancy. I am a real outdoors person, so in our marquee I wanted to feel like we were bringing the outside in with beautiful flowers which didn’t look too ‘done’ – more wild looking. I wanted it to be homely, with great simple food and plenty of it.

The Planning Process

Both Paul and I have full on jobs, and in particular in the 9 months before the wedding I was working on a project which meant I was incredibly busy. I also started a new job 3 weeks before the big day – I wouldn’t recommend this in the run up to your wedding! But we knew it was going to be like that so we planned accordingly.

We instantly knew we wanted to get married in Studland – there was nowhere else we discussed. And we knew we wanted to get married in the church there, where I have been going all my life and they have been getting to know Paul in the time we’ve been together. It’s full of meaning and emotion for my whole family; the last time we were all there was for my granny’s funeral, so there was a huge amount of excitement about the fact that we could get back together (I have a huge family and we are rarely all together) for such a happy occasion.

So, it was a matter of choosing which venue to go after the church. We went to see two venues and instantly knew Harry Warren House was the right one – Andrew and Alex who live there were so warm and welcoming, and also very experienced. I do remember feeling at the start like I didn’t really know what I was doing, of course I’ve never organised a wedding before. Despite having known Studland for my whole life, as I mentioned before we’ve always led such a simple life there, so things like caterers, florists, even getting my hair and make-up done were things I had never considered in that part of the world. I didn’t have any contacts or recommendations – but Alex and Andrew have a section on their website with suppliers’ details, and they were both really happy to talk about their experiences of working with them all from an objective point of view. We went to the venue several times, especially early on, to meet suppliers there and Alex and Andrew were extremely generous in welcoming us in every time – it’s their home, at a wedding you put up a marquee in their beautiful garden but it’s still their private house and I was really conscious that I didn’t want to take advantage of that. On those visits, you can also get a glimpse of suppliers as they’re setting up for weddings or taking things down the day after – I think it’s interesting to see that, you can see how experienced they are and relaxed etc, and what it’s likely to be like working with them on the run up to your own wedding.

It’s worth pointing out that Alex and Andrew, who live at Harry Warren, go a long way to helping you make the day a success, too. When the marquee is up, Andrew tends to go round it in the evening and make sure lights are working etc – he just does that because he wants you to have a good day. It’s so comforting knowing you’ve got people like that looking out for you and helping you when you’re pulling everything together in those last few days.

We met DP Marquees the first time we went to Harry Warren, and we knew instantly we didn’t need to look any further. The marquee was beautiful – they were taking one down but we saw it while it was still up – and they were friendly and professional. I got in touch the next day and asked for a quote for pretty much exactly what we’d seen. Then you start to add your own personal touches. For example, we had the beautiful fern lining and their new pallet seating for after our meal, where people could sit around a fire pit.

Catering & Decor

Rabbit and Rose were the caterers and also looked after styling and flowers, again highly recommend by Alex and Andrew. We visited Harry Warren to meet Melissa there one Saturday morning when she was setting up a wedding. The food was extremely important to us, and I wanted the main impact in the marquee to be flowers/foliage/styling.

Melissa from R&R filled us with confidence straight away, and we arranged a follow up meeting with her at their offices just outside Wareham that day. At Harry Warren, you bring everything in yourself – eg marquee, catering, decoration, anything else you want. And as before, because I’d never planned anything like a wedding in that part of the world it was tricky to know where to start. Melissa made it feel easy, really coaxed our ideas out of our heads and put structure to it. On the day, the end result was exactly what we wanted, it could not have been more perfect. The flowers were absolutely show stopping and the food delicious – so many of our guests were swooning over it! Melissa really listened to us and got our vision so quickly. She also made useful suggestions and made us feel like anything was possible, and nothing too much trouble.

On the day itself, Melissa ran the timings for us – also invaluable, who wants to be looking at their watch on their wedding day? She got to know our best men straight away and liaised with them about proceedings. We didn’t have to worry about a thing.

We went to a food tasting at Rabbit and Rose in February/March time and my mum came with us. I was so busy at work, and going there was just this lovely afternoon where we tried all the delicious food, made our choices, and talked further about how to decorate the marquee.

What I really liked about R&R was the fact that they were so flexible. I’ve mentioned how busy we were – Melissa was happy to do as much or as little as we wanted for our wedding and that meant that I could completely rely on her to do something exactly as I wanted it, or if I had a moment where I wanted to get creative I could and that would also be fine. We added things into the plan and took other things away, it was all super easy, and Melissa also had lots of contingencies up her sleeve – outdoorsy wedding, English weather etc…!

It’s worth adding that it really suited me that R&R could do flowers as well, this saves cost getting the same supplier to do them, and leaves less room for lack of communication to another supplier. And, Melissa’s partner owns another business (I think? Or there’s a connection to another business) so if we wanted something that R&R didn’t own, she could get it – for example we had a boat full of flowers and beers next to our bar and that was brought over by Melissa’s partner, it was really cool too!

Budget

We were extremely lucky – my parents paid for the majority of the wedding. We bought the wine and paid for bits here and there like the band, and Paul’s mum chipped in a bit too. It’s fair to say I’m not entirely comfortable spending someone else’s money, though my generous father said again and again that all he wanted was for us to have a great day.

As I did the majority of negotiation with suppliers and negotiation on costs, I made sure we counted – and documented – every penny we spent and regularly communicated with my parents about costs.

We have told my parents we will buy them flights to a holiday in Europe in the autumn, their choice – how do you repay your parents for something as huge as that?

The Readings & Music

We had the lovely church choir and organist at St Nicholas Church in Studland. We had a traditional service with three hymns and three readings, read by my two brothers and Paul’s sister.

Our service was extremely emotional, so happy but lots of little touches – there was a candle on the organ to remember my grandparents and Paul’s father who has sadly died, and some flowers which the vicar brought from a rose bush that my granny gave him years ago. The whole choir has known me since I was knee high to a grass hopper and we had friends from the village who waited outside the church to see me go in.

Bridesmaids

This was trickier than buying my own dress…! I only had two bridesmaids but they have very different styles and what suits them really differs too. They also live far away from each other, and not that close to me, so shopping excursions weren’t easy. I also knew that one might have wanted to be pregnant on the day, and one had recently been pregnant, so changing sizes!

On the one shopping day we had, we went to Davids Bridal in Westfield Stratford. Nothing there was right and nothing looked like it did online – just not right on them. We also went around John Lewis, Coast and other high street shops, but they all had winter things in stock which would have looked out of place at a June wedding. Because I knew my work life was getting so busy, I really wanted to sort it out rather than wait for the next season’s stuff to come out so I ended up ordering loads of clothes online, sending them to the girls and getting them to take photos of them trying stuff on. Then we picked a dress – it was a really simple but sweet teal dress from Jolie Moi. The girls wore their own shoes etc.

The Venue

Harry Warren House, Studland, Dorset. Absolutely beautiful. It’s a Dorset stone house with a big garden overlooking South Beach in Studland and Old Harry Rocks. The beach hut I grew up in is below the cliff top of their garden, though it’s very secluded and we didn’t know the place well before we started planning our wedding. Of course, once planning begins I looked on Instagram at photographers’ photos of other weddings there – I got a lot out of looking at other people’s photos because it makes you realise how creative you can be with a wedding. Ours was our life in a snapshot – absolutely amazing.

The Cake

My aunty made the cake – as my dad said in his speech, she has been making us cakes for 35 years so there was no one and nowhere else we wanted to get one from really! We were just so pleased she said yes because it’s a big undertaking – she made a delicious 3-tier fruit cake, and Paul made a lego bride and groom for the top.

Your Outfits & Accessories

Mine was a Pronovias dress which I got from Teokath in Wimbledon. Lots of people say they ended up with a wedding dress they never thought they’d buy, but I always knew I wanted it to be lacy. I am not a big shopper and didn’t want to go to loads of shops, so I went to two in the end – the first one, then another and then back to the first.

Funnily enough, I hadn’t seen my dress on my first visit to the shop because it was out of budget. When I went back to try on another one for a second time, they hadn’t got that dress in the shop, it was in the tailor’s. A bit of a mistake on their part, for which they were extremely apologetic. As I was wondering around the shop wondering what to do, I spied my dress hanging up and asked about it. They happened to have ordered it for someone else, but they had this spare one (in my size!) which they were looking to sell cut price because they’d by mistake ordered two. I tried it on and fell in love with it straight away, my mum and bridesmaid had tears when they saw me in it – and they sold it to me for the same price as the other dress. Amazing!

I didn’t have many accessories, some diamond stud earrings which Paul had given me and a little pearl bracelet that my bridesmaid had given me when I was her bridesmaid. And of course my diamond engagement ring.

Paul got a suit made at Hawes and Curtis in Jermyn Street. We had coral pinks in the flowers so he and the best men and ushers wore coral pink paisley ties. I bought Paul some cufflinks which he wore. Importantly, it was a lightweight suit – thankfully the weather wasn’t in the late 20 degrees but being mid-summer it could have been boiling hot, and had been just a week earlier.

The Flowers

As above, Rabbit and Rose did this. I really wanted the flowers to have a wild look, not look too done and formal. The arch of the church was an absolute show stopper and when I arrived I was totally overwhelmed by how beautiful it was. That church is so pretty anyway – but wow.

Your Photographer

The lovely Emma and Ian from Big Bouquet, who made us feel so at ease in front of the camera (we’re quite shy when it comes to things like that) and offered lots of good advice too. Also, when I have looked at wedding photos previously I have never been interested in looking at pics of the marquee or the dress, the shoes etc – but Emma did say to me that you only get to see those things on one day, so you’ll want the memories and the photos of them. And she’s so right, it’s so nice to look back now and see it all again and again.

When I was looking for a photographer, I looked loads on Instagram and other sites (of course) and I absolutely loved the photos that Big Bouquet had done of a particular wedding in Studland a year before ours. They were so cheerful and natural, really colourful and beautiful – that was exactly what I wanted. Our photos are so full of life and really bring back that feeling we had on the day. They’re really natural and capture moments so perfectly, and even reveal little things I never got to see (like guests arriving at the church).

I think this sums it up – when we went to see Paul’s mum after the honeymoon and she was asking how we knew our photographers, she thought they were old friends of ours.

Beauty

I had wondered about doing my hair and make-up myself, but as my hair rarely behaves – and especially doesn’t in windy seaside locations like Studland – I decided to get my hair done professionally and do my make-up myself. My brother gave me a voucher to have a makeover at Space NK which was brilliant – I took photos I’d found on Pinterest of makeup that I liked, and asked to be made up like that. Then I bought some products, and the cost of the voucher goes towards buying the make-up. It was so good my mum did the same thing and we were both really happy with the result.

Hair – in my inexperience I was going around searching for hair dressers in Swanage. Then I spoke to our photographer, Emma at Big Bouquet, and she really strongly recommended that I get a hair dresser to come to the house instead of going out on the morning of the wedding. I am so glad she suggested this. I knew I’d be getting nervous on the day and the time does suddenly start to move pretty quickly – if I’d had to get back home from the hair dresser and then get my make-up going I would have been frazzled. We sat around in dressing gowns chatting, taking it easy, and the lovely Laura McKenzie who came to do my hair also helped me to get into my dress, she put my veil in and told the bridesmaids how to take it out without messing up my hair, and helped my mum with her hat. A great result!

Groomsmen

We wanted to make it as simple as possible for people so we told the two best men and four ushers to wear a grey suit and brown shoes. We supplied the same ties and they all had button holes. They’re all busy people, they live all over the place and they were never all going to get together to go and buy a suit so it seemed like by far the simplest option – and cheaper for them too as most of them had a suit already, or the shoes, or borrowed them.

The Honeymoon

We went to Sri Lanka for two weeks. We left on the Sunday lunch time and were in the air by the evening – exhausted after an amazing few days. After all the excitement it was really nice to be together, just the two of us.

We booked the honeymoon through Trailfinders which we’d never done before, but they were fab. Everything was organised for us – we didn’t even have to think for ourselves. For busy people who hadn’t had a holiday for 9 months it was perfect – and our guide was super lovely too. And Sri Lanka – wow, it’s beautiful, and it’s got everything. Culture, beach, tea plantations, walking, relaxing, wildlife for days, drinks at the pool and beach bars… etc etc etc. Really stunning – amazing food too!

Memorable Moments

All of it, but a few are… My brother’s reading, the first one and it was so brilliantly done, it set the tone for the whole service.

Melissa came to get me and Paul when we got to the venue so we could sneak in and see the marquee for the first time, before anyone else had come in and just to sit down for 10 minutes. We had a little plate of our canapés and drinks – so lovely. We also took a moment to ourselves to go to the other side of the garden late in the evening, no one knew we’d gone over there, it was just us.

Paul’s speech – absolutely beautiful, I hope everyone gets to listen to words as beautiful as those about them, truly amazing.

The next morning – we stayed in the Pig on the Beach, and both happened to wake up early. We got up and had breakfast before most other guests had got up – it’s typical of us to be early risers, and see the best part of the day. We then walked to the church to see the flowers again and put my flowers and Paul’s button hole on my granny’s grave.

Advice For Other Couples

Relax into it – I definitely thought this wouldn’t really be my thing but I thought, I’m only doing this once so enjoy it, and I really did. I had a great team around me, the suppliers I’ve mentioned were absolutely fab and I felt totally comfortable with them.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Just so special, what a beautiful celebration.

Paul and Bea, thank you so very much for sharing your stunning wedding story with us xo Lou