Pretty Pink Country Cricket & Horse Inspired Wedding

What happens when an ex professional cricket player and horse rider tie the knot? This of course.

Amie and Joel are childhood sweethearts and met when Joel was 16 and Amie was 17. They married 10 years to the day they met and hosted a day which completely and utterly reflected themselves. There were the nods to their love of cricket and horse riding in the décor, but they also included delicious food and a country setting too.

The day was a real labour of love, with them sourcing everything from the bar to the tables. There was a pretty pale pink and white theme complete with lace and hessian. It looked stunning.

Amie wore a romantic lace gown, Joel donned a tweed grey suit and DIY buttonhole, while the maids were in long elegant frocks.

Thanks so much to Andrew Brannan Photography for sharing these wonderful shots today.

ABOUT US | Joel an ex-professional cricketer now working as a Sports Media Editor and Amie loves horses and has owned her New Forest pony Poppy since the age of 11 (Poppy is now 26) and Personal Assistant within the Broadcast industry both living in London.

Joel travelled abroad frequently playing cricket and eventually moved to Leicester in 2008 for 3 years to pursue his career. Amie stayed at home in London and went to university and worked in Boston through Camp America for the summer after graduating. It was a hard few years and lots of travelling for the both of us to see each other but we made it work.

We think the key is to always supporting each other’s ambitions and dreams, and if it’s meant to be it will work out – we always had that mentality and here we are today!

After working abroad separately we then got the travelling bug and decided to do it together. We travelled and lived in Australia together for just over a year in total, this is where we made some of our most cherished memories and met some of our closest friends.

We bought our little flat just about a year ago in Middlesex and tied the knot on August 7^th 2015 – 10 years to the day we met! Childhood sweethearts do still exist! Here’s our wedding story;

THE PROPOSAL | We went to our favourite French restaurant, where we go every year for our anniversary. It’s a family run restaurant with the grandmother playing the accordion on a Friday and Saturday night, the mother and daughter as waitresses and the dad as the chef. Full of fairy lights in a quaint little restaurant in Hampton court, it is a beautiful and hidden little gem. We went for dinner on our anniversary in 2013 as usual; it fell on a Wednesday, but to my delight the lady on the accordion was there (didn’t even think anything of it just thought we were super lucky that she must be doing weekdays now). We walked in and sat at the back in the same seat where we had our first meal. When our starters came out the lady on the accordion played a song we had our first ever dance to when we were 16 ‘ you look wonderful tonight’ by Eric Clapton, and it was then that Joel pulled out a ring from an oyster shell on his plate and got down on one knee. It was perfect! It was after that I realised Joel had organised for the accordion lady to come in especially for us knowing how much I loved her music.

We then walked to a little pub down the road where he had organised all of our family to surprise us as we walked in. We had balloons, cake, party poppers the lot it was so lovely. He then booked me the day off work the next day (which I had no idea about) and we went to Richmond Hill Hotel followed by a weekend up town – I couldn’t have planned it better myself!

THE VISION |   ‘US’ – ‘This is just so Amie & Joel’

We wanted to create something where our friends and family would say ‘this is just so Amie and Joel’ ‘of course their wedding would be like this’ – and this is exactly what happened! The main thing was we wanted it to be laid back, relaxed, easy and fun and I think we did exactly that.

Amie being a horse rider and a country girl at heart and Joel being an ex-professional cricket player both love the outdoors and long warm summer nights. What better way to hold the wedding at a barn and tie in both our passions in life. In the photos you will see my own ponies (poppy) shoes dotted around on the tables and around the barn along with cricket bats as our table plans resting on a hay bale with an old fashioned grass roller.

Our table decorations included mini wickets for menu holders, a horse shoe on each table and wine bottles which we got for free from a local pub and then decorated with lace and hessian and popped a few wild flowers in. We then chopped an old tree trunk from poppy’s stable and used the wooden stumps to place our decorations on.

As we lived in Australia we wanted to tie it in somehow so we had personalised stubby holders made up (as stubby holders seem to be a very Australian thing) and also a little map of where we lived in Australia.

We wanted our wedding to look pretty, intricate and personal. We had fairy lights and small hanging glass candles (like little rain drops) from the trees and dotted around outside, along with Polaroid style photos of us through the years, and tiny wooden hearts scattered around the barn.

Personal touches included – wheel barrows for the boys – let’s face it Champagne reception is more for the ladies 🙂 we had pashminas for the girls and flip-flops for tired feet and Stubby holders for the boys to keep cold hands at bay. Boys & girls emergency kits in the bathrooms full of plasters, paracetamol, hairspray, nail files, hairbrushes, deodorant you name it and it was in there.

We are also right ‘foodie’ people and all our family and friends know that. We didn’t want the typical wedding breakfast and evening buffet. So instead we opted for a vintage high tea for our sit down meal and then once evening guests arrived we had food vans, including a pizza van, paella stall, hog roast and Spanish churros.

We also had our cheese table with wedding cheese cake, pork pie cake and lots of pickles, pate, olives, breads & crackers etc. if anyone was to say ‘what’s Amie’s one food she could not live without’ – its cheese! So this table was no surprise to our guests and they loved it.

Needless to say there was lots of food – and a huge variety at that!

THE PLANNING PROCESS | Greens barn is a bare hire barn so apart from the fairy lights nothing else is included.

We had to hire everything from tables and chairs to sourcing our food / bar / DJ / decorations / etc. But this is what planning a wedding is about – Planning and planning It yourselves, getting well and truly stuck in . We feel we could plan anything now!

It was so much fun – we had no wedding planner to do it for us or go to person for advice / recommended suppliers etc. so we just researched and googled away and we found so many cool things and great suppliers.

It’s the most amazing feeling having everyone say how great it was with all the details and touches but knowing that every single bit was done by us made it so special. We would totally say to other couples do not let a bare hire put you off – it’s what it’s all about making something your own and creating this amazing day for everyone to enjoy all just the two of you!

The owners of the barn were great and let us pretty much do anything we wanted which was amazing there was nothing that we wanted to have that we couldn’t.

We booked the barn and church first followed by all of the food then everything else followed.

BUDGET | We did a lot ourselves which I think you can do these days and it’s not as hard as you think, it really does keep costs down plus you can get a little bit back by selling it after the wedding!

THE VENUE | Greens Barn, Newdigate, Surrey.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Dress from Wedding Frox in Guildford, Dress by Stella York. Shoes from ASOS. Veil was made by a friend I bought some tulle from a fabric shop and then had her personalise the veil with my new married name on it – pretty cool I do say so myself 🙂 Jewellery I wore some beautiful yellow sapphire earrings which was a wedding present from my dad. Accessory wise I think less is more.

FINDING THE DRESS | It was easy I went with my Maid of Honour and my mum and I kind of knew what I wanted – lace was a must and some sort of back detail. I wanted something simple and fitted but not strapless as I felt I would be pulling it up all the time! I didn’t show anyone else the dress until the day as I wanted it to be a surprise to all my other bridesmaids as they knew everything else so this was the one surprise for them too!

GROOM’S ATTIRE | Handmade tweed suits and handmade button holes made by Joel using hessian, lavender, corn and gyp. We opted against having a fresh flower as they can wilt and not last very long.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We had a friend of Joel’s younger sister, Jason Darling sing as we walked in to the church along with guitarist Harrison Peck. He sang ‘Tenerife Sea’ which the opening verse starts ‘you look wonderful in your dress, I love your hair like that’ and we just thought it was the perfect song!

We also had Joel’s cousins Naomi and Josh Scott perform two acoustic songs in the church whilst we signed the register. We thought this can sometimes be a bit boring for guests so we wanted to keep them entertained whilst we disappeared for 20 mins. And everyone loved it!

We had readings and some personal poems read by; Joel’s mum – Tania, Amie’s Uncle – David, Our brother in law – Matthew.

Music at the venue; We had Jason and Harrison sing as our guests arrived and whilst canopies and Champagne was being served. They performed up until we sat down for afternoon tea.

We then had a swing singer Carl Buckley. Who sang live our first song which we had outside and entertained for 3 hours until our DJ started later in the evening.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | Dresses and shoes from ASOS and altered by a family friend Lorna Bavington-Hall. She did a great job as I had some tall and some shorter bridesmaids so she has to take them all up and also sewed in some lace at the front just to tie in with my dress and add that little extra detail. Earrings and bracelets from Accessories. Flower girl dresses from H&M with added little flowers sew on.

THE FLOWERS | We did ourselves. We went to Columbia Road flower market in east London and kept them in our bath for a few days as they are only open on a Sunday, then the day before the wedding we went to Kempton park market to buy the remainder of our flowers. My mum’s kitchen looked like a florist the night before as we took all the flowers there to make our bouquets – yes we are crazy and made them ourselves the night before. Everyone thought I was mad for wanting to do my own flowers but I just knew we could pull it out the bag and save a fair bit of money – and we did they turned out great. With thanks to my bridesmaids we did it and were actually amazed at how good they looked!

THE CAKE | A gift from one of our dearest friends who lucky for us has her own cake business. I wanted a little top cake with fairy cakes to accompany as we thought this would be more popular (we didn’t want to end up with a big wedding cake at the end of the night that no one ate). We didn’t give her a spec at all, we just said ‘make something pretty’ and she did way beyond that – it was beautiful and exactly what we wanted.

We also love cheese so we had a cheese wedding cake too – this we just sourced the wheels ourselves and bought pickles / breads / crackers etc to accompany.

Pork pie cake – we also had a pork pie 4 tier cake – I think this went so quickly so not even sure if everyone saw it! We had a lot of ‘foodie’ people at our wedding!

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Andrew Brannan – who we could not recommend enough he was amazing. We were very adamant that we didn’t want to do that ‘2 hour photoshoot where you have a photo with every single guest and it takes up about 2 hours of you day’. We just wanted a photo with mums/dads, nans / grandads/ bridesmaids/groomsmen and everyone else can grab us if they want a photo later. We did them in about 20 mins and then just left the rest up to Andrew to capture naturally. We are so happy with the images. We just wanted to get back to the party and enjoy our day – posing for lots of photos wasn’t for us and lucky for us Andrew was more than happy to accommodate what we wanted – we left him to it and well you can see what great photos we have.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Simple, White, Clean, Crisp, Vintage and Pretty.

Around the barn; Bunting – using hessian and lace and also some using floral fabrics. We also had a ‘Mr & Mrs Pope’ bunting made. Pottery. Old leather suitcase – we used to collect our cards from our guests. Flip flop box – made out of an old bed. All made by Lorna Bavington-Hall she is a family friend but also runs a vintage business so she has an amazing eye for detail and so clever in making all sorts of things. We also made some signs on eBay which we scattered around the venue along with some photo bunting.

Tables; Hessian runner. Log stump – from Poppy’s stable. Candle holder – bought. Wine bottle table number – we made. Jars decorated with hessian and lace – we made just collected pasta jars and jam cars and decorated. Horse shoe – Poppy. Mini wicket stump’s to hold the menu.

THE HONEYMOON | New York – St Lucia – Miami. Need we saw more! Recommend all three without hesitation. Book direct though not through an agent you get stung by saying it’s a honeymoon.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | The whole day could not have gone more to plan if we tried. Memorable moments – all of it it’s too hard to pick one but probably seeing each other for the first time at the end of the aisle.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Enjoy it and don’t stress. The day goes way too quick to not love it whilst it lasts!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Hair and Make-up | Louise Walsh

Vintage Decorations | Lorna Bavington-Hall – Bunting / pottery / anything vintage / dress alterations – thatcurtaintouch@aol.com

Videographer | Connor Guyler

Photographer | Andrew Brannan Photography

Singer & Guitarist | Jason Darling & Harrison Peck – Jason_darling1@hotmail.com

Swing Singer | Carl Buckley – cjbuckers@aol.com

Afternoon Tea | Vintage High Tea

Pizza Van | MYO Pizza

Paella | Flaming Great

Hog Roast | The Flying Pig

Churros | Jane & Mark– janedoveton@icloud.com

Wedding cake | Ali Palmer – Hashtag Cupcakes – hashtagcupcakes@hotmail.com

Table & chair hire | Chair Hire

DJ | Sue Busch – A1 Discos Ltd

Venue | Greens Barn, Newdigate , Surrey – Laura Ingleson – info@newdigatefarms.co.uk

Beautiful.

Thank you so much Amie and Joel for sharing your wonderful wedding story today xo Lou