{"id":159426,"date":"2016-02-01T08:00:59","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T08:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whimsicalwonderlandweddings.com\/?p=159426"},"modified":"2024-10-02T11:53:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T10:53:11","slug":"natural-eco-friendly-gold-pink-sparkle-barn-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/natural-eco-friendly-gold-pink-sparkle-barn-wedding\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural & Eco Friendly Gold Pink & Sparkle Barn Wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Natural<\/p>\n

Where to begin? It has to be with that<\/em> dress doesn’t it? Today’s stylish bride Emily went for a sequin Alice and Olivia<\/a> gown which was a real show stopper. I do love a touch of glam. Plus she teamed her frock with an flower icing bouquet, which was just amazing.<\/p>\n

WWW readers Emily and Tom tied the knot on the 29th August 2015 in beautiful Pembrokeshire. They had a ceremony conducted by their dads in a rustic barn with standing room only. A big party followed in a stunning stretch tent in the pretty gardens. I love the DIY pink and gold d\u00e9cor which included lanterns, recycled slate, pinwheels and a striking cake.<\/p>\n

I also really respect their eco friendly ethos, with reclaimed pallets and home grown flowers as sustainable choices. Bow ties, fire pits and a lot of love all round.<\/p>\n

Thanks so much to Jack Ladenburg<\/a> for sharing these exquisite images today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Natural \"Slate \"Natural \"Bridesmaid \"Photo \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Lanterns \"Natural \"Gold \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Confetti \"Icing \"Natural \"Natural \"Photo \"Natural \"Natural \"Stretch \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Sequin \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Glitter \"Hydrangea \"Slate \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural \"Natural<\/p>\n

THE PROPOSAL | A complete shock! Being a lover of Christmas, Tom had surprised me with our first real Christmas tree for our first Christmas living together on 5th<\/sup> December 2014. He then set out a series of presents, each one with a different handmade Christmas decoration from our favourite designer and he had them all personalised with things\/places important to us. The final decoration was two silhouetted reindeer with the words \u2018Marry me?\u2019 on the log and presented a beautiful unique Alex Monroe ring. I\u2019m still not sure I have even said yes to date, I was totally not expecting it!<\/p>\n

THE VISION | We wanted something that truly represented us, we didn\u2019t want a traditional wedding, we wanted something casual and relaxed where everyone could just have fun, together. Primarily we wanted to be sharing the most important and special event of our lives thus far with the ones we love. Having the wedding in Pembrokeshire, 6 hours away from London, gave people an opportunity to have a weekend away and really spend time with each other. We also wanted to keep the wedding as natural and environmentally friendly as we could, reusing and recycling where possible.<\/p>\n

THE PLANNING PROCESS | The planning happened more by chance because we found our perfect venue, Pentre Ifan. Being somewhat last minute people, we actually booked the venue 5 months before the wedding, getting most things organised within a day of securing it. The rest of the organising was a joint effort, heavily weighted towards the groom, with a lot of thanks going to my Mum and Dad for keeping us on track and preventing us from leaving everything else until the week before. For two \u201cnon-weddingy people\u201d we had a surprising amount of fun planning and I think we both would happily do it all again tomorrow! It also helps to be marrying a man who clearly has more of a penchant for wedding planning than I ever imagined.<\/p>\n

BUDGET | We didn\u2019t keep a running total in the end, but had made a promise at the start that so long as there was enough food, booze, dancing and fun, we did not want to spend a fortune on the rest. We feel we successfully had the wedding of our dreams without going overboard financially.<\/p>\n

THE VENUE | We were actually on holiday in St Dogmaels, Pembrokeshire where Tom\u2019s mum\u2019s family are from, an area we both love. We weren\u2019t actually officially wedding venue hunting, but mentioned to his Uncle Pete and his wife Ellie that we weren\u2019t a fan of the \u2018set-up wedding venues\u2019. They suggested going for a walk around Tycanol Woods, the ancient woodland behind Pentre Ifan education centre where they got married. On arriving, we just fell in love with it and the decision was made. Really natural and unassuming, with a beautiful clearing and small stone barn. We ended up putting a stretch tent complete with beautiful fire burners on the clearing, just in case we fell victim to the unpredictable west Wales weather. But as luck would have, it rained every day that week with beautiful sunshine on the wedding day! In the spirit of being a relaxed, non-formal wedding, the guests were perfectly happy to be standing during the ceremony in the small barn with a capacity far smaller than the number of guests, oops. We also felt privileged to be able to introduce a lot of the guests to such a wonderful place and our favourite part of Pembrokeshire.<\/p>\n

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was from Alice & Olivia and was amazingly the last one in my size available. We had it shipped over from the US and luckily it fitted like a glove when it arrived. An important part of the wedding for me was being able to dance all night so I opted for some comfortable gold flat sandals and boy am I glad I did! I borrowed some diamond earrings from my mum and a gold diamond bracelet from my sister. My hairdresser Jo Ludlow, based in Worcestershire, was the hairdresser at my bridesmaid Emma\u2019s wedding and did such a good job curling my uncurl-able hair that I had to have her back to my own wedding too. Not only did she do an amazing job making everyone look beautiful, she was great fun to have around on the morning of the wedding<\/p>\n

FINDING THE DRESS | I didn\u2019t want a traditional white dress and had, without even researching online, foolishly decided I wanted a floor length gold-sequined, backless dress. I went to Harrods with my mum, sister and 6 week old niece, expecting to have no luck whatsoever and as luck would have it, the first dress I tried on was exactly what I wanted, albeit in the wrong size. I like to think my decision was made once my little niece Amelie smiled for the first time at all the sparkles.<\/p>\n

GROOM\u2019S ATTIRE | Tom, similar to myself didn\u2019t want a traditional wedding outfit so went for separate suit jacket and trousers for a more casual look from Suit Supply. Tom had two main requests, a blue suit jacket and a bow-tie. Therefore to keep in line with the bridesmaids his closest groomsmen friends all wore pink bowties (Mrs Bowtie) with his having a pink rose pattern.<\/p>\n

THE READINGS & MUSIC | I walked down the aisle to Ed Sheeran, Thinking Out Loud which is particularly special to myself and Tom. Being a slightly unconventional wedding, we decided to have both our Dads conduct the ceremony to the surprise of the guests, making it that bit more personal and meaningful (We had the \u2018legal bit\u2019 the day before with just immediate family). Tom\u2019s sister Emily, a very talented singer and musician, played the guitar and sang Coldplay\u2019s Yellow during the ceremony which was beautiful, there were many tears. We had two of our favourite readings at the wedding, \u201cWe\u2019re all a little weird\u201d by Dr Seuss read by Toms Uncle Pete who also got married at Pentre Ifan and the rather apt \u201cWhat is Real\u201d excerpt from Margery Williams\u2019 Velveteen Rabbit. We then left the ceremony to another favourite, Blue Swede \u201cHooked on a feeling\u201d (the ooga chaka song from Ally McBeal).<\/p>\n

I had not been looking forward to the \u201cfirst dance\u201d aspect of the wedding, however, as it was one of our favourite songs and was going to be sung by Tom\u2019s sister Emily, I agreed. Little did I know that Tom had actually planned for his first public singing appearance to be at our wedding, for our first dance, performing Jason Mraz\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m yours\u201d with his sister playing the guitar. The photos show my complete surprise; In all honesty I think that made my wedding, who knew he had quite such a good voice! The night carried on with the talented band \u201cThe Upbeats\u201d who provided amazing music for the guests to dance the night away.<\/p>\n

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I wanted to have my best friends Sarah, Emma, Katie, Fi, Luisa, Laura and Emily as my bridesmaids, the girls who I know are always there no matter what, getting ready together, true girly style as we always do. I also wanted them to wear exactly what they wanted and gave them a vague colour scheme. The girls all looked stunning on the day and all surprisingly went for pretty much the same dusky pink colour. I was delighted to see them all in dresses they themselves liked and suited their character and dress sense perfectly. They all wore little flower garlands in their hair from Poppy Daisy in Spitalfields market and I had made matching faux flower wrist corsages for each bridesmaid, myself and the Mum\u2019s. The star of the show though, had to be my little 7 month old niece dressed in a gorgeous Mamas and Papas dress complete with pink Van\u2019s trainers and pink fairy wings. The bridesmaids carried individual slate signs down the aisle with the words: Here, comes, your, beautiful, Niece Amelie. A little surprise for Tom.<\/p>\n

THE FLOWERS | We had an ethos that we wanted as much of our wedding to recyclable and environmentally friendly as possible, including the flowers. Therefore, my dad had made flower boxes out of old pallets and we had planted perennial Nemesias which looked amazing and my mum had lovingly nurtured all summer. Disaster struck as terrible weather the week before led to the flowers rotting and dying the day before the wedding! Lisa Godfrey aka superwoman, (Owner of the stunning Seaview & Cwm Connell cottages where we were staying) came to the rescue and kindly pruned her hydrangea bushes at the cottages a few weeks early for us to provide a spectacular last minute alternative that was in keeping with our colour scheme, phew!<\/p>\n

THE CAKE | Our cake was a wedding present from my wonderfully talented friend Huiseung, who runs Koala Cakes. She had previously seen my dress and knew our colour scheme and then went off and created a masterpiece that I couldn\u2019t have even imagined myself. She also created my show-stopping bouquet, handmade from scratch out of sugared icing, complete with all of my favourite flowers…. such a talent! I had always wanted to have a bouquet I could keep forever and what better way than one made so intricately by one of your best friends.<\/p>\n

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | We chose Jack to be our photographer as he had shot my sister\u2019s wedding 3 years prior; not only were we delighted with their photographs, he also had an amazing ability to make the least photogenic people comfortable and look good! He is extremely talented in capturing the day through the eyes of the bride and groom, allowing you to relive the day every time you look at the photos! We feel he really captured just how happy everyone was; we were thrilled to see so many smiling faces caught unawares.<\/p>\n

THE DETAILS & D\u00c9COR | There weren\u2019t really any set plans or ideas regarding the details and things just sort of came together. The day we booked our venue, we popped into the tourist centre and found retro postcards celebrating the 60th<\/sup> Anniversary of Pembrokeshire Coast National Park which had been used as advertisements on the Underground; very apt we felt as we live in London so decided to use them as our wedding invites.<\/p>\n

Early on, we hit on the idea of hanging lanterns and fans. The gold and white theme worked brilliantly in the hall against the old beams and the home made wedding backdrop came out looking surprisingly good! In the stretch tent we went for a mix of purple and pink lanterns to better match our flowers and attire. Fairy lights and fire are also a great idea, we had festoon lighting on the tent, fairy lights in a number of the tree\u2019s and the two fire pits looked great (they were also a great focal point for people to sit near \u2013 they chucked out a lot of heat!)<\/p>\n

On the benches at dinner we used recycled roof slates with guest\u2019s names written on in chalk as place mats. The rest of the slates doubled as various signs hung on signposts made by my dad from recycled pallets. We were keen to have our favourite scent, Nag Champna wafting throughout the venue so we lit incense sticks throughout the stretch tent. Our table plan was also made by my dad and included a funny photo of each of the guests hung alongside the rest of the guests on their table. We wanted the dinner to be informal, so after hilarious and heartfelt speeches by Tom, his best man Rob and my Dad, everyone went off to choose their food themselves from LouLou\u2019s amazing spread complete with a Hog Roast for the meat eaters, eaten off biodegradable palm leaf plates and birch cutlery.<\/p>\n

THE HONEYMOON | We had a mini-moon in Mykonos for a bit of luxury and relaxation to round off a truly amazing few weeks. A lot of the wedding guests and family came with us to Wales for a fantastic week before the wedding so it was lovely to have some uninterrupted us-time afterwards. Planning has begun for a honeymoon in the new year, location TBC!<\/p>\n

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Everything, and we aren\u2019t exaggerating, every second was amazing. For me, the highlight had to be Tom\u2019s surprise rendition of I\u2019m yours for the first dance. Overall, it was just so amazing to have our nearest and dearest all together to celebrate our special day and dance the night away.<\/p>\n

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | When Essex meet Wales for a wedding, catering 2 bottles of prosecco per head for the reception ( bearing in mind this is excluding the hundreds of other bottle of spirits\/wine\/beer) is simply not enough! We were both of the opinion that no-one should be left wanting for drinks and I think it made a massive difference that people could drink as much as they wanted without watching their wallets; make sure everyone has had a few for the speeches, makes it a lot more fun and interactive!<\/p>\n

Tom\u2019s aunt and uncle gave us some great advice, reminding us that it is our day and that as soon as we felt things were getting away from us we should take a step back and remember what\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

Make sure you enjoy every single second from the moment he pops the question and you say yes, through to the second the wedding night is over. If you are marrying the person of your dreams, the day will be perfect regardless, nothing can ever go wrong.<\/p>\n

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |<\/p>\n

Photographer | Jack Ladenburg <\/a><\/p>\n

Wedding cake and bouquet | Huiseung Atkinson Koala Cakes<\/p>\n

Hair |  Jo Ludlow <\/a><\/p>\n

Venue | Pentre Ifan<\/p>\n

Dress | Alice and Olivia<\/a><\/p>\n

Wedding invites | Pembrokeshire Coast National Park <\/a><\/p>\n

Food | Louise Cook<\/p>\n

Flowers & Accommodation | Lisa Godfrey <\/a><\/p>\n

Band | The Upbeats <\/a><\/p>\n

Stretch Tent | Cariad Canvas <\/a><\/p>\n

Lanterns | Hanging Lantern Company <\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How utterly wonderful?<\/p>\n

Many thanks to Emily and Tom for sharing their delightful wedding celebrations with us xo Lou<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where to begin? It has to be with that dress doesn’t it? Today’s stylish bride Emily went for a sequin Alice and Olivia gown which was a real show stopper. I do love a touch of glam. Plus she teamed her frock with an flower icing bouquet, which was just amazing. WWW readers Emily and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,69,4],"tags":[1225,1781,3683,21,1119],"class_list":["post-159426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diy-wedding","category-modern-wedding","category-real-weddings","tag-eco-friendly-wedding","tag-pembrokeshire-wedding","tag-pentre-ifan-wedding","tag-pink-wedding-ideas","tag-sequin-wedding-dress"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"mv":{"thumbnail_id":159457,"thumbnail_uri":"https:\/\/whimsical-cdn.wedissimo.com\/2016\/01\/Emily-Tom-42-300x450.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wedissimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}