Stylish Rich Plum & Relaxed Bicycle Filled Wedding

Let’s head to beautiful Somerset today, Brympton House in fact, to revel in a super beautiful wedding celebration.

Emma and Guy tied the knot on the 5^th September 2015 and envisioned a relaxed day with a meaningful ceremony and a lot of personality. I really love the rich plum colour scheme throughout complete with whimsical florals. The ribbon bouquets were so very gorgeous, as were the arrangements used in the reception room to striking effect. The playful bicycle theme really added to the vibe, with sweet touches used in the decorations.

Emma chose to wear ‘Petal’ by Belle and Bunty, which looked stunning, while Guy went for a navy suit and crochet tie combo. Amazing.

Many thanks goes to Albert Palmer Photography for providing these exquisite images.

THE PROPOSAL | We were living in Bath when Guy proposed – a city that we had only moved to 3 years before and fell in love. We had often taken walks along the Cotswolds way and loved the views it had over the countryside. It was at the top of Kelston Round Top, overlooking the Somerset countryside that Guy surprised me by getting down on one knee and proposed!

THE VISION | From the beginning we knew that we wanted a relaxed wedding with a special and meaningful ceremony followed by a cracking party! We wanted to keep the ceremony quite fuss-free and intimate to avoid the ceremony getting lost in the décor and details, whilst the rest of the day could be a real expression of our taste whilst keeping a warm and relaxed feeling.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | I admit that this was bit stressful! We were very keen to get married in the South West but no sooner than we had got engaged we knew we had to move to the Midlands for work. Trying to find wedding venues in the countryside alongside moving house and job was somewhat testing! We wanted to get married in and around either Dorset (where Guy grew up) or in Bath itself and focused our search in Somerset and Dorset, looking for somewhere that offered an ‘in house’ service to reduce the need to find individual florists/caterers etc. We also knew that we were going to have a humanist (non-religious) ceremony but wanted somewhere that created a ceremonial-type atmosphere for our service without it being a church. We eventually found Brympton House on the Dorset-Somerset boarder and were really taken by it. In particular we loved Castle House – a beautiful stone chapel-like space to hold our ceremony, and the Orangery which are converted stables designed for parties – perfect! Brympton House had its own catering team, stylist (Tie the Knot) and florist (Emily Jewsbury). We met with each of them two or three times and after numbers of emails later we came up with comprehensive plans for all the elements. They knew the venue inside out and were great at combining things that worked well and pinning down our ideas.

THE VENUE | Brympton House, Somerset.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | I wore the ‘Petal’ dress by Belle and Bunty, with strappy gold shoes I found in the Kurt Geiger, a bespoke floral hair vine (which I wore as a circlet) by Donna Crain and a beautiful single tier Italian tulle veil by Joyce.

FINDING THE DRESS | Finding your wedding dress is an incredibly personal experience which frankly I found terrifying! I never had a clear idea of what I wanted to wear or look like on my wedding day and felt completely overwhelmed with the number of styles and choices out there! There is also a huge pressure to find ‘the one’ which I would argue does not always happen for everyone. I tried on some A-line princess style dresses which were very bridal but just weren’t ‘me’ so I looked for something more simple, aiming to feel beautiful and confident rather than bridal as such. I eventually tried on Belle and Bunty Petal dress which was a lovely combination of classic and quirky with the gorgeous back detail. It was beautiful in its simplicity and with the addition of the accessories I felt truly bridal.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | Guy really wanted a tweed suit and after some searching we settled on a bespoke 3 piece suit from Reiss which was made from a light blue tweed. It had a gold lining with his initials and date embroidered on the inside. He wore Barker’s shoes and a plum crochet tie to pull it altogether.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We had a humanist ceremony and our celebrant – Rosemary – was very relaxed about the types of readings and songs we had. I walked into the instrumental version of Over the Rainbow played on Ukulele and we sung Bread of Heaven (we just had to have a Welsh rugby anthem!) and What a Wonderful World.   Guy’s grandparents have been married for 68 years and we asked his Granddad to say a few words about marriage – he chose to read an adaptation of the poem ‘The Beauty of Love’ talking about old love and new love. My sister also read the ‘I Will be Here’ by Steven Curtis Chapman. We walked out as husband and wife to ‘I Feel Good’ by James Brown!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My bridesmaids (3 friends from University and my sister) wore dresses that I found on ASOS in a gorgeous plum colour with small bouquets of whites and greens. They teamed their dressed with gold accessories which they chose to individualise their looks.

THE FLOWERS | Emily did an incredible job with our flowers which were truly stunning on the day. Our colour palate (after some deliberation) was mainly a rich plum with whites and light greens and we aimed for an English, relaxed style with mixtures of flowers and nothing too structured.

THE CAKE | Our friend, Charlotte Wynn made our wedding cake for us as a gift. Our favourite cake is Dorset Apple Cake and she managed to create a stupendous and delicious 3 tired naked cake for us which we served with cream after the speeches.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Albert Palmer. What a legend! He is like a stealth ninja of photography – you won’t even notice that he is there and wham! you have amazing photos!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | There are so many! The details really came together at the end once we had a clearer idea of the flowers and colours – this was the really fun bit! To keep the ceremony intimate we kept Castle House relatively fuss free but instead used lots of candles. We had a vague bicycling theme running through the day alongside the rustic colour scheme and used Guy’s brother’s old bicycle to hang our table plan on and had wire bicycles made to hold our table names. Our table names were written onto tiny brown tags (the same as our save the dates) and stuck into corks which I had collected over the year. We had an additional bicycle made with our names in for our cake topper. The Orangery was a more rustic feel and we had fire pits outside and an old style popcorn bar with lots of lanterns and hay bales throughout to keep it feeling relaxed.

THE HONEYMOON | We kept a low key honeymoon and decided to go to Mousehole in Cornwall. We hired out a beautiful tiny cottage and spent the time relaxing and reminiscing about the day whilst enjoying beautiful walks and some great seafood. Its simplicity was perfect for us.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Our ceremony was mind blowing. Our celebrant – Rosemary – was incredible and really took the time to get to know us and got the feel of the service just right with a perfect mix of laughter and emotion!

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Don’t underestimate the time that you need to organise a wedding and don’t feel rushed into making any decisions or plans! The fun is in the details so spend time researching this and getting this how you want so it really represents you as a couple.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Venue | Brympton House

Styling | Ellie, chief stylist at Tie the Knot

Flowers | Emily – florist for Brympton house, available through Tie the Knot

Hair & Make Up | Beauty Call – Grace and Nicky did my hair and make up along with the Bridesmaids hair, incredibly professional and so helpful!

Dress | Belle and Bunty

Hair Vine | Donna Crain

Photography | Wedding Photographer Bristol Albert Palmer

How very marvellous.

Emma and Guy, thanks so much for sharing your lovely wedding story with us xo Lou