Yellow Local & DIY Budget Barn Wedding

WWW readers Cat and Danny chose to marry on the 4^th July 2015 and held their reception at The Earth Trust at Little Wittenham in Oxfordshire. I really love their ethos of crafting a local day which supported the community and the environment.

They made their small budget work for them by incorporating many DIY touches. Guests brought along the food, a friend made the cake, pom poms and paper flowers replaced real blooms and 1000 origami cranes were hand made. Whoa.

Cat looked gorgeous in a pre-loved gown, while Danny went for a check suit and bow tie combo. What’s not to love about this colourful happy celebration?

Thanks so much to Brett Symes Photography for sharing these gorgeous photographs with us.

THE PROPOSAL | It was our four year anniversary and Danny had the day planned. It was the first time we’d been out together since we’d had our son four months previously, so we didn’t want to be too long! Danny had planned a beautiful picnic with my favourite foods, and we went down to the Thames. We hired a rowing boat and started making our way down the river. All was going well until we realised we were not alone – it was the day of the Reading regatta. There were boats everywhere and our rowing skills left much to desire – after being sworn at by several boats full of racing athletes and told to ‘get off the river if you don’t know what you’re doing’ we made it through the crowds to a quiet spot and began lunch. I decided that now would be a good time to call and check how our son was doing. Needless to say he was crying and I demanded that we go home immediately. Poor Danny, fearing the opportunity was going to be missed, began to read me a beautiful poem that he’d written, and that ended with him getting down on one knee and proposing. Obviously I said yes and after that nothing could bring me down from my high – not even the stressful ride back through the regatta.

THE VISION | We wanted a day that could include everyone that we love, and would revolve around the things that make us us – family, friends, community, the environment, food and dancing! With Cat being a student and having all the usual financial commitments that life brings we were on a tight budget, and knew we would have to choose what our priorities were – having everyone we loved there, there being plenty of food, entertainment that would get everyone involved, and to have a ceremony outside.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We got the main things booked first – the venue, the photographer and the church. Then, realising that having the wedding we wanted on a budget would involve many hours of crafting, we made a start on the decorations – namely the origami birds that we made. Other than that we left most things until about two months before the big day.

BUDGET | Small.

THE VENUE | The exchange of vows was at our local church, where we take our son to a toddler group, and feel that we are a part of their community. We then had a blessing and the reception at The Earth Trust at Little Wittenham, which has a converted barn and sits in front of the Wittenham Clumps – one of which we had our blessing upon. The Earth Trust is an environmental learning charity, and the profit from the barn hire goes to supporting their work. We felt this was really important, as we tried to support local companies or charitable causes wherever possible when buying and spending for our wedding.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | The dress was Jemima by Kate Sherford, and was from a shop in Caversham which sells beautiful second hand dresses. The shoes were Monsoon, and the bird cage veil with bow was made to order by Adrienne Henry Millinery, an independent shop in Reading. All my jewellery was borrowed from my sister and my mother.

FINDING THE DRESS | It was a long and painful search for my dress. In total I bought three dresses – the first was from a local flea market, the second was a second hand Etsy dress, but none of them felt quite right. I’d been into the shop I finally got ‘the one’ from so many times that the lovely shop owner told me I was a contestant for the bride who’d been in the most times ‘just trying’. There were two I loved but they were not in my price range. Then there was a New Years sale and both of the dresses were in a flash sale – so I finally got my beautiful dress.

GROOM’S ATTIRE | Danny got his suit from Moss Bros and his bow tie from Lochcarron. The bow tie is in the MacLeod tartan, and Danny was to become a MacLeod as he took on my name.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | I walked down the aisle to Aloe Blaac – You Make Me Smile, and we left the church to The Beatles – All You Need is Love. In the evening we had a ceilidh, with the people from the Scottish dancing classes Cat went to as a child running it, complete with bag pipes. After that we just had a spotify playlist on.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | We had three adult bridesmaids and two children. The younger ones wore white Monsoon dresses, and the older ones all wore pale yellow. They all wore different ones as I wanted them to all have a dress that they would wear again and felt comfortable in, plus one of the bridesmaids was pregnant. The best bargain was one we found at Topshop which was reduced from £90 to £10! I gave them all necklaces with a tiny origami bird on it, which tied in with our origami bird theme.

THE FLOWERS | We didn’t have flowers due to the cost, although the church used our colour scheme to decorate the church with their usual flowers for the week! Instead of flowers we made yellow and cream woollen pom poms, which were then glued onto twigs and put in jam jars, mostly made by Cat’s Mum! For mine and the bridesmaids bouquets one of my dear friends made them out of fabric flowers. The corsages were origami birds.

THE CAKE | Our dear friend, Sorsha, made our wedding cake. It was incredible. We showed her a few cakes we liked the look of and then set her free. The only thing we requested was that we wanted a birds nest on top with three birds in it, one each to represent each of us and one to represent our son, and that we wanted some eggs in the nest to represent any children we may be blessed with in the future. We knew Sorsha was good, but we were absolutely blown away by what she managed to create – the detail was stunning and it was absolutely delicious.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | The photographer was one of the key things we’d decided that we wanted to spend money on. Brett Symes had done our friends wedding a couple of years previously, and we loved what he’d done for them, particularly how he had used the natural landscape within his shots. We also wanted a photographer who we could get on with, as we knew that they would be with us a lot throughout the day, and after an initial Skype chat with him we felt that he was someone we’d feel comfortable with.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | As well as the church service we had a ceremony at the clumps behind the reception venue. We combined a pagan blessing with a rock unity ceremony, which was led by one of our bridesmaids, Sarah. All the guests formed a circle around us and Sarah led a blessing. All the guests were given a rock each, and invited to put some positive energy/a wish/a positive intention, into the rock and then add it to a glass bowl we had. We then each added our own rocks whilst making our personal vows, and then added rocks for those people who we’ve lost but who formed part of our foundations. Following this we had Pimms at the top of the hill, overlooking the Oxordshire countryside.

The main décor in the barn was the 1000 origami birds that we’d made together. There is a Japanese proverb which says that if you make 1000 origami birds then the patience required to make these will be brought forward into your marriage and you will have a successful marriage. They were hung as a backdrop behind the top table, and lined the beams in the barn. We also used them as part of our guest book, having guests write a message on them and then hang them from a tree we made of branches. We also had tissue paper pom poms and giant white balloons. On the tables we had some beautiful logs, provided by our friend who is a tree surgeon, and the pom pom flowers. The name places and favours were combined into one, with cacti and succulents in chalk board pots with names written on them.

Outside we decorated with Tibetan Prayer Flags which Cat had got whilst travelling, as well as hand made prayer flags which all the hens made during the hen party, and had written quotes and messages on them.

There were a lot of children present, so we had children packs at the table with colouring in books, raisins and stickers. We had some outdoor games and hula hoops in the courtyard outside as well. As we were having a buffet we held a little quiz about the couple to decide which table got to go up to the food first. It was just silly little questions like ‘How many piercings has Cat had’ and ‘How many hours had Danny spent playing on his favourite computer game’.

As we invited guests to bring a dish instead of a present we had an amazing spread of food. Some of our family friends volunteered to do all the laying out, serving, etc of the food. They worked so so hard doing this for us. We laid all the food out on logs, and used eco friendly, disposable tableware made out of palm leaves. We had bought wine from Sainsbury’s when they had a good deal on to have with the meal and guests brought any other drinks they wanted. One of our friends kindly bought us some wonderful fizz for the toasts.

THE HONEYMOON | We had a couple of days away in Bath staying in a ‘Posh Shed’ which we booked via Air BNB. We’re hoping that one day we will be able to go to Japan for a real honeymoon.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Taking a moment out to connect whilst we had some photos taken at sunset was a really beautiful moment. The ceilidh was also fantastic, as every guest got involved and was loving it. Having all of our loved ones in a circle of energy around us during the blessing was incredible.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Pick what’s important to you as a couple when planning your budget. And if you’re going to DIY then it’s never to early to start!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Dress | Something Old Something New

Veil | Adrienne Henry Millinery

Cake | The Lily Flower Bakery

Origami Jewellery | The Origami Boutique

Our sons’ kilt | Little Legs Baby Kilts

Photographer | Brett Symes Photography

Bow Tie | Lochcarron

Wow wee.

Thanks so very much to Cat and Danny for sharing all about their wedding celebrations xo Lou