Quirky & Stylish Home Made Woodland Wedding

A truly memorable day for a couple just too cool for school. Yes it’s time for WWW readers Rachael and Mike’s nuptials held on the 11th July 2015. Yippee.

The vision was simple, a relaxed and enjoyable day with their loved ones. But wow did they pull of a real celebration, complete with picnic on the lawn, woodland ceremony and hand crafted personal touches.

Let’s begin with those out of this world gorgeous blooms, they looked just amazing and Rachael’s ribboned adorned bouquet certainly had wow factor. There were two dresses, sparkly gold heels, bow ties, braces and flat caps. I’ll let you enjoy the whole affair for yourself.

Many thanks to Bloom Weddings for providing these stunning shots.

THE PROPOSAL | Rachael proposed to Mike on a wet evening. Wine may or may not have been involved. Mike double checked and re-confirmed the next morning before going out to choose a ring together.

THE VISION | We both wanted a relaxed and enjoyable day with all of our family and closest friends.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We knew we wanted to get married the following summer so we started looking at venues immediately. We used an online planning tool called Trello which was invaluable for keeping track of all the nitty-gritty tasks and Mike used a Google Docs spreadsheet to keep on top of the budget.

BUDGET | 17k ish excluding engagement ring and honeymoon.

THE VENUE | We hunted through a lot of venues back in Yorkshire where Rachael is from, we wanted a single venue for both the ceremony and reception. We also both wanted an outdoor ceremony. It was important that our venue was also relaxed about us designing and booking all of our own suppliers and doing quite a bit of it ourselves. Saltmarshe Hall was perfect for us as it was a very stylish venue to our tastes and had a beautiful aisle of trees for our ceremony as well as a registered legal ceremony room allowing us to get married legally on the same day. The owner Kate and her planner Katie were both super helpful and flexible and allowed us to do whatever we wanted (within reason!) and giving sage advice during the process.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Rachael: I actually had 2 dresses! The first one for the legal ceremony before the main celebratory ceremony and reception was a pretty lace dress from Chi Chi London that I couldn’t resist. I wanted to have a different dress for both so I could experience the reaction and the walking down the aisle even after we had seen each other for the legal ceremony earlier in the day.

My main dress was Mori Lee style 2690. I always thought I would have a vintage colourful / sparkly frock and most people did say that they had also expected a fifties knee length confection. I fell head over heels with the Cinderella dress and knew as soon as I put it on that it was the one. I bought some gorgeous earrings from Etsy – but in the excitement of the morning I completely forgot to put them on. However my mum had given me her grandma’s suffragette brooch which I was proud to wear in my hair on the day. I wore sparkly gold heels from Kurt Geiger that were surprisingly comfortable ☺

FINDING THE DRESS | Rachael: I had been to a couple of bespoke bridal and vintage shops to search for my ideal colourful and unusual dress. My mum had seen the Factory Outlet Store in Northallerton and insisted I should try it as an alternative. I wasn’t convinced as I didn’t think I would find anything but boring and traditional gowns – but I’m super glad I did as they were so wonderful, when I spotted a fishtail gown (not flattering to my figure) but in the same champagne / pinky colour that I loved – the assistant immediately remembered the other in the same colour different style and whipped it out of the hundreds of dresses they had. I cried when I put it on and bought it on the spot. Well done mum!

GROOM’S ATTIRE | Mike: I knew that I didn’t want traditional hired in top hat and tails / cravat type of thing and we used Pinterest to help us focus on styles that I liked. I initially bought a Ted Baker blazer, but while I was shopping for the Groomsmen I found the perfect 3 piece suit off the peg from River Island. Cufflinks from eBay and a bow tie from Mrs Bow Tie completed the look. As it was a Yorkshire wedding, we had to have flat caps, I picked mine up not in Yorkshire but from a market stall in Brighton!

THE READINGS & MUSIC | It was super hard for us to find the right readings (nothing traditional, nothing overly sugary) for Mike’s mum Moira and our friend Brooke to read. Both Moira and Brooke trawled through their considerable literary collections to find something and we ended up deciding on ‘One Must Learn to Love’ by Friedrich Nietzsche and ‘Love Is Not All’ by Millay – both of these really hit the right note for us.

Rachael wanted Nick Cave’s ‘Into My Arms’ to walk down the aisle to and we chose Johnny Cash’s version of ‘First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ to sign the register before cheering back up the aisle to the Wannadies’ ‘You and Me Song’. Our first ‘dance’ was fun and different: we both love Devo so chose ‘Girl You Want’ which is a difficult song to dance romantically to.

In the evening we hired Scott, a DJ friend of Jen’s (handy to have well connected bridesmaids) and he played a mix of Northern Soul and classics.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | Rachael: My best friends Lynsey, Tiz, Jen and Holly alongside Mike’s sister Frances made up my gaggle of five gorgeous girls. I wanted them in shades of mint, sage or pink but was happy to let them choose their own dresses so they felt comfy on the day and they all looked amazing. I gifted them all with little handmade necklaces from a lovely Etsy seller.

THE FLOWERS | These were designed by Anna at Swallows and Damsons in Sheffield. She was the only florist we ever considered because she is super amazing and is a friend of Jen one of my bridesmaids. We allowed her almost total creative freedom and Rachael was so excited to see them when they were delivered by Jen and her husband Mark on the day – they were just incredible – she had even hand dyed the ribbons with blackberries!

THE CAKE | What can we say? Rachael’s sister in law Christine made the cakes – layers of chocolate, ginger, coffee AND lemon (they’re our favourite cakes, we’re quite indecisive and we like cake!) it looked amazing and it tasted even better. I think Rachael’s brother had quite a lot of test cake in the run up to the wedding too ☺

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | We found Chris and Anii at Bloom Weddings through googling Yorkshire wedding photographers and we were drawn to the style of their images. When we had a Skype chat with them before we hired them we knew we had found the right folks to photograph our day. We had an engagement shoot at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway which gave us an opportunity to meet them before the wedding day and get used to having lenses in our faces. On the morning of the wedding they were both completely great, really getting stuck in helping out with the myriad of things that needed to be ready. Between them they captured some great moments and we were delighted with the photos. They also surprised us by bringing along a drone for some aerial shots, and captured some startled guest reactions. They also let one of our younger guests fly the drone which made his year!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | As mentioned earlier we wanted an outdoor ceremony and thankfully the weather didn’t let us down. We set up the aisle in the idyllic tree- lined avenue behind the house, just by the river with the sun dappling through the leaves. We made or bought most of the decorations ourselves and it was fun finding all the little details. The aisle was decorated simply with two giant peach balloons on ribbons anchored by some vintage train lights (a nod to Mike’s love of trains) and confetti displayed in cones made by Rachael and her mum.

Being in one venue we didn’t really need a car, but Mike’s dad Rob owns a vintage Riley which had been festering in a barn for several years. He had been restoring it especially for the wedding and it was a fabulous feature of the day.

Wedding breakfast was a picnic lunch served on vintage plates from hampers on trestle tables on the lawn, with Fentiman’s bottled drinks with stripy straws and a cask of local Yorkshire Ale for to drink. The informal sharing and communal aspect was appreciated by our guests. The food was supplied by Drewton’s farm shop in South Cave, and we gave our guests home-made jars of chutney and sticks of Brighton Rock as favours.

The tables were covered with dusky pink table linen and then we bought net curtains from Ikea as a cheap alternative to lace! Table numbers were made by Mike in the style of Thomas the Tank Engine. Down the centre of the table we placed glass bottles collected by us and our families with single flowers in them as well as dotted around some playful vintage ceramic cats collected for the wedding in honour of Scrabble and Cinders, our pusscats who couldn’t be there. Labels and menus were hand drawn or designed as well as our invitations and save the dates. Gold frames were bought at auction by Rachael’s folks and we inserted painted blackboards for the signage.

We thought it would be fun to hire in a pinball table and some classic arcade games – which it was but sadly we never had time to have a go on them ourselves! We also bought a few space hoppers for the lawn. For dessert we had hired in Betsy, a gorgeous vintage ice cream van and Cyril, an equally gorgeous vintage Citroen van with super tasty burgers from KerbEdge for the evening food.

THE HONEYMOON | Our first idea was touring Italy in a classic car. When we did some research and discovered how impractical (not to mention expensive) this would be, we changed tack. In the end we came up with quite an extensive itinerary taking in many of the parts of Europe we had both wanted to see. We started off with four days in Copenhagen. After that we flew to Zurich from which we travelled by panoramic train through the Swiss Alps and Italian Lakes, then on to Milan and ending up in Florence where we spent another four days. Then we hired a car and headed out into the Tuscan countryside for the remainder of our trip.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | We gave our guest paper cones of lavender for confetti, and although it looked gorgeous, it wasn’t the best idea we’ve ever had. As we walked back up the aisle after the ceremony they took great delight in completely covering us. We spent the rest of the day finding bits of lavender in our hair and our clothes. Rachael’s mum having a space hopper race or two was also a pretty memorable highlight! We also really enjoyed our pre wedding dinner at the local pub on the Friday night with friends and family who had come to join us.

One of the best ideas we stole from the internet was the photo guestbook: we bought an instant camera and set it up on a tripod in a corner with a wooden pew and an old picture frame. We encouraged guests to take a photo of themselves, write a message on the photo and put it in the album. Everybody got involved and at the end we had a hilarious record of the day, the photos getting sillier as the night went on.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Everyone says the same, but it’s so true, take some time in the middle of the day to just go off and watch from afar, enjoy some time together and drink it all in – it’s over so fast.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photography | Chris & Anii at Bloom Weddings

Venue | Saltmarshe Hall

Ceremony Dress | Chi Chi London

Dress | Bridal Factory Outlet

Earrings (never worn!) | LuxeDeluxe on Etsy

Shoes | Miss KG by Kurt Geiger

Groom’s suit | River Island

Cufflinks | cuffs&co (eBay)

Groom’s and Groomsmen’s bow ties | Mrs Bow Tie

Bridesmaids’ dresses | various suppliers

Bridesmaids’ necklaces | Tilly & Floss on Etsy

Bridal hair and make up | Le Keux

Groom’s hair | Lord’s Barbering, Leeds

Flowers | Swallows & Damsons, Sheffield

Pinball & arcade machine hire | Amusement Caterers, Sheffield

Wedding breakfast catering | Drewtons, South Cave

Ice cream van | Classic Ices

Burger Van | KerbEdge

Vintage crockery and cutlery hire | Rose Pink Vintage

Table linen hire | Coloured Linen Hire Ltd.

Table Decorations collected by the bridge and groom.

Decorations sourced on eBay, vintage shops, Ikea, auction houses or handmade. Stationery designed and made by us.

Smiles all round for an amazing day.

Rachael and Mike, thanks so much to the both of you for sharing your story with us today xo Lou