Whimsical Outside-Inside Wedding with a Floral Gown

Oh, what a pleasure it is to be sharing Clementine and Nicolas’ outside-inside wedding day! Settle in as you are going to adore their whimsical and natural nuptials in Hampshire.

First up, let’s talk about THE dress. Lisa Lyons made Clementine’s dress dreams a reality with her sensational bespoke floral wedding dress. Wow! Then there was Nicolas’ dashing suit and matching waistcoat too.

The marquee reception was a dream, which really brought the outside in with real trees. Plus there were handmade napkins, twinkling fairy lights and what sounded like an epic feast. Not to mention dancing until 4 am. This is one wedding you’ll wish you were at!

Kevin Fern Photography, thank you ever so much for sharing with us these totally dreamy images. Enjoy it all!

Outside Inside Wedding

The Proposal

Every year, Nicolas takes me on a romantic weekend gateway. He promised he wouldn’t propose on this particular weekend as he hasn’t been able to see my father and ask my hand properly due to Covid!

Therefore, I wasn’t expecting anything…He took me to the Pennyhill Park Hotel & Spa, it was magical. He organised a beautiful proposal with a planner in the gardens, in the white pergola, with candles, rose petals, photos, champagne, and a giant Marry Me sign!

I was crying like a baby, couldn’t believe it and how beautiful it was!

The Vision

We are very similar people with very similar tastes, so we quickly knew what the vision of the wedding would look like.

We went for an intimate wedding, surrounded by people we absolutely love, in a very rustic chic and natural setting. We fell in love with the Old House, a beautiful property owned by the Sladen’s, where we’ve been lucky enough to create this whimsical/natural wedding in the gardens.

Your Outfits

Clementine: I had a very good idea of what my rustic chic gown would look like. I met Lisa Lyons and shared with her my vision, she was very excited by the project and we started this bespoke wedding dress together.

I wanted to create a mix of my mother and my mother-in-law’s wedding gowns and add my personal style and touch. We went for a printed dress, I had a very particular pattern/colour scheme I wanted to follow so the entire colour scheme/decoration of the wedding would make sense.

Lisa helped me with creating my dream gown, Charlotte Hogg designed the pattern for us. My husband and I are huge nerds, we love the Lord of the Rings, and I always dreamed of being a Queen of Elves; when designing the wedding we were really looking for this whimsical, magical and natural vibe and the dress really tied the concept together. It was the most beautiful dress in the world.

Nicolas: I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted, but knew I wanted a bespoke 3-piece suit with the waistcoat in a different colour. From this, I went to Waterers in St Albans where I looked at different fabrics, and patterns and slowly built the perfect suit.

I of course validated everything with Clem, as I didn’t want it to clash with her dress. I ended up with a beautiful navy blue suit with a sandstone waistcoat, but the cherry on the cake was that Clem saved some fabric from her dress and ended up asking a tailor to put it on the back of my waistcoat, which on the day looked fantastic.

The Venue

The venue was a private property called the Old House, in Hampshire, owned by the Sladens.

We rented two white pole marquees, one for one side of the garden for the champagne reception, one for the other side of the garden for the dinner. We wanted to bring the “outside inside” so we decided to install trees up to the ceiling with fairy lights around each pole. It was magical.

The Ceremony & Music

We had such a lovely ceremony, it was in a Catholic Church, St Joseph’s in Newbury and it was a bi-confession ceremony, which means it was both a catholic and protestant ceremony. We walked to the altar on “Love’s Divine all Loves Excelling” it was beautiful.

From the reception after the ceremony on, we had DJ Paula Frost who did an amazing job from 5PM till 4AM! Juggling between ambience, dinner music and then the dance party, also incorporating french classics which couldn’t have been easy.

We chose her from the Alive Network and everything was as smooth as can be. Everyone had so much fun.

The Styling & Decor

It was definitely a DIY wedding, my mom and I did a lot of the decor ourselves, we sewed the 125 blue gingham napkins ourselves, painted the candlesticks holders, and I designed the entire “brand identity” of the wedding on Canva.

We got many signs, little candles and baubles from Etsy! It was even more special to curate each detail ourselves and get to keep it after.

Your Photographer

We had our amazing photographer Kevin Fern who covered the wedding in pictures, we loved his photography style straight away. We wanted to go for a spontaneous, colourful and premium feel and we knew Kevin was the perfect photographer to achieve our goal.

The Honeymoon

We are very excited about our Honeymoon! We’re leaving for 20 days in Costa Rica on the 22nd of December! We’re going to 3 locations, 3 different parts of the country to chill, travel, see animals, hike and dive.

Memorable Moments

Clementine: There are so many memorable moments for me… I loved seeing all the happy faces looking at me coming down the aisle, I couldn’t believe all of these people coming in the church, for us, to support our love. It was very special.

The other memorable moment for me was my parent’s speech. It was just incredible, they worked hard on it, so many internal jokes and puns, sweet, emotional and loving moments. And it’s special to see how happy, proud and supportive my parents were.

Nicolas: The dress reveal has to be the one for me. Just this perfect moment stuck in time where I turned around to see my bride and how beautiful it all turned out.

In second was the dinner where seeing my vision in the plate (I’m quite the amateur chef) was fantastic. I chose Elizabeth Caton Food and Wine and she has been fantastic. Finally, the party was just this ecstatic thing where everybody danced the night away and the cocktail bar was quite popular.

Advice For Other Couples

We would suggest getting help from a planner on the day of the wedding, it’s always useful. We didn’t have any major problems but I was so thankful Stacy could manage the last bits on the morning of the wedding and deal with last-minute issues for us. It’s important to enjoy the day fully as it passes by SO quickly.

For the dinner, we went for something quite light as we wanted people to dance after it and not be in full food coma afterwards, but we had a crepes truck coming later for a midnight snack. And it was a big success as we had no issue getting people on their feet and the party took virtually no time to begin.