I cannot believe it has been 1 year. 1 whole year since I married my best friend and I cannot wait to share all the images with you. I’ve shared a few snippets here and there but until now, I think I just wanted to keep the day private and close for a little while longer. Now that a year has passed and we’re coming up to our anniversary I feel like I could burst with excitement at finally sharing our beautiful pictures.
Before we get into the actual flow of the day, I first wanted to start off this post with two of my favourite images. The first one, I just absolutely love how my dress and veil look and the second is one of both mine and Tristan’s favourite image of the two of us.
Okay let’s get into it!
I absolutely loved the morning and getting ready. I was pretty stressed on the run in to the wedding and as I didn’t have a wedding planner I wanted to make sure that every last detail was perfect. So by the time the day finally came around I was so happy that I was able to just live in the moment and enjoy every part of the day.
On the morning I was surrounded by the best glam team, which consisted of my amazing hairdresser Jamie from Muse of London and the absolutely incredible MUA Ashley from Bobbi Brown. I was also with my beautiful four bridesmaids and Mum, which made for the perfect start to our wedding.
If I could give one piece of advice for brides to be, it would be try and find a team you trust and love, because it will make the morning of your wedding so relaxed.
We spent the whole morning getting ready, listening to music, chatting and laughing and it was just the best start to the day.
Whilst we were having a girlie pamper season on the other side of the venue Tristan was getting ready with his best man.
To start, Ashley got to work on the make up look that we had practiced, which was a natural smokey eye, bronzed look with all the glow. I know everyone knows that Bobbi Brown are amazing for their bridal looks but they were honestly so incredible from start to finish. I was lucky enough to work with them on my bridal look and they were just so accommodating at trying lots of different make up looks and tweaking here and there until we had something that I felt was perfect for me.
Whilst Ashely was working on my face, Jamie who is my usual hairdresser worked on my hair. I was always pretty set on how I wanted my hair, I knew I wanted loose curls, half up with a bit of a poof back comb on top and Jamie created exactly what I envisaged. The diamond and pearl hair piece was from Debenhams and I absolutely adored how it looked both under my veil and on it’s own. Then to add a bit of extra volume we put in a few hair pieces, because if you can’t have big hair on your wedding day when can you?!
Along with my lovely hair accessory the other finishing touch that I knew I absolutely wanted for the day were my silver classic Jimmy Choo’s. I felt they complimented my dress perfectly and looked so pretty peeping out of the bottom.
I can’t remember what time we started getting ready, but all I would say is just give yourself way more time that you think you need. This is the advice every bride I know would give as you just want to make sure you can make the most of the morning with the ladies you love most.
Let’s talk about the other aspect of my beauty regime of the day, my fragrance. You all know how much I adore Jo Malone London so I couldn’t imagine wearing any other brand on my wedding day.
On the day I wore Tuberose & Angelica body cream and combined it with the Blackberry & Bay fragrance which made the most divine, deep and complex fragrance and lasted all day.
After hours of being preened, brushed and pampered I was almost ready to meet my groom… after a few more sprays of perfume for good measure, of course.
We got married at a lovely venue just outside of Henley, which had huge gardens, a beautiful oak library room and a gorgeous traditional barn.
We knew that we wanted to have the day in one venue and this was perfect for us. We’re not particularly religious so knew that a church ceremony wouldn’t feel quite right so getting married in the stunning oak room was perfect.
The vibe I wanted for the wedding was what I would describe as ‘rustic, woodland luxe’. We loved the style of rustic and wild flowers with a lot of greenery so wanted to try and incorporate that vibe into the wedding mixed with a little bit of luxe and gold.
I spent hours and hours pouring through Pinterest looking for floral inspiration and I’ve always loved weddings that have a huge foliage element to them so that was a big part of the brief that I gave our florist. Then for the flowers, I knew I wanted roses and we had a mix of normal garden roses combined with wild roses, which looked so beautiful.
The picture below is one of my favourite images ever, it’s of me and one my my bridesmaid and best friends, Tara, and we’re watching some of our guests arriving. It reminds me of two nosey old ladies peeping through the curtains and maybe a little snapshot into our future selves.
And then, it was go time!
We headed down towards to main part of the venue where I could hear all of our guests chit chatting and awaiting our entrance.
My stunning bridesmaids led the way down the aisle through a collection of our closest friends and family.
For our ceremony we wanted it to be super intimate so decided it would just be a tiny group of those closest to us, and this worked perfectly. It meant that we had a really intimate reception where everyone could join in and laugh along and it was honestly one of the best things we did and I’d do it all over again.
We got to say our I do’s in front of everyone we loved and started life as husband and wife in the most intimate setting.
After the ceremony we all poured out into the music room, where we were greeted with champagne and music from our pianist. We loved this part because we could really mingle with our guests before heading out into the stunning gardens.
Another reason why we loved our smaller ceremony so much was that after we got married we could really spend some quality time with those closest to us before the rest of the guests arrived.
After chatting and drinking we then got to my favourite bit, the confetti throwing, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open but I think the images are so much fun!
With all the formal bits out of the way, we then got to celebrate, eat and be merry and that’s when all of the other guests joined us.
The canapes and alcohol were flowing and thank goodness for the lovely September weather as we spent the whole drinks reception out in the gardens.
With the drinks in full swing we took our moment to sneak away and take some pictures just behind the venue in the beautiful woodland area.
Balloons from the amazing BonBon Balloons.
Our photographer was the absolutely incredible Kat Hill, who I would recommend to anyone. She was an absolute dream to shoot with, all the guests said they barely noticed her there and she made the awkward couple shots much less staged.
By the time we were done with the photos it was time to head over to the barn for the evening reception.
Our one requirement when we started to plan our wedding was that we wanted a barn. We knew that was the exact style of wedding we wanted and so when we saw our barn we knew that’s where our wedding needed to be.
We wanted the vibe of a wild woodland wedding where our guests could eat under a canopy of a million fairy lights and on the day all the prep was worth it because it honestly looked exactly how we envisaged it.
The seating plan was an idea I found from Pinterest and was so easy to make but so effective. I adore how beautiful the fairy lights look twinkling in the mirror. My incredible mum did all the printing for the wedding, which included the table plan, menus, signs and all the place cards! I honestly couldn’t have done the day without her.
After finding their seats guests were then greeted by a Prosecco display table on the left hand side with draping foliage and roses covering crates of carefully displayed bottles, which was another Pinterest idea.
And then to the right side we made a Pick ‘n’ Mix stand, because I’ve never met an adult that doesn’t enjoy sweets after a few drinks at a wedding.
For mine and Tristan’s chairs, I loved the idea of doing something special and found these stunning signs online which we mixed with more foliage to tie in with the theme.
For the table numbers I loved the idea of trying to incorporate foliage with a touch of gold, so I found these beautiful frames from Debenhams and then pressed a single piece of fern in the middle and transferred gold numbering for each table.
We also had Jo Malone candles on each table and for the scent we went for a mix between Nectar Blossom & Honey and Orange Blossom, which created the most stunning smell that engulfed the barn.
For our wedding favours we gave everyone a mini Sipsmith London Cup, which is kind of like a gin based Pimms and to say these went down exceptionally well with our guests would be an understatement! They also looked stunning on the tables.
Then it was time for the speeches, which were a mixture of heart-felt, funny, loving and only ever so slightly embarrassing. My Dad, Tristan and his brother (best man) did such an incredible job and were all so relieved when they were over and they could really relax.
After dinner everyone was lead out into a separate part of the barn where they were greeted by a G&T gin bar (see what we did there). This was a mixture of different gins,, strawberries, blueberries, lemons and limes.
Then later in the evening our guests helped themselves to as many Krispy Kreme doughnuts as they could eat. We had a mixture of classic with the hole in the middles and then an assortment of the filled variety.
Another one of our main considerations for the wedding was the make sure that everyone had enough (or more than enough) to eat and drink, so we had so many different areas for food and alcohol, which seemed to keep everyone happy and hopefully catered for everyone.
After that, it was time to cut the cake, cheese cake that is. Being HUGE cheese lovers there was really never any question about the fact that we wanted our wedding cake to be made entirely out of cheese.
We ordered our custom cake from the amazing Liverpool Cheese Company, which was so much cheaper than ordering from a London company and they delivered it straight to our venue the day before the wedding. Also the process of picking the layers was so fun as you get to try so many different cheeses.
Then it was time for the first dance. I absolutely love this photo below, because it was just before the music started when everyone was still getting into position and we look like we’re in our own little world.
And then the party really started and didn’t stop until the early hours.
We ended the evening dancing the night away surrounded by all of our favourite people in the whole world before saying our goodbyes and leaving as Mr and Mrs.
I’m sorry it took me a whole year to post this, but hopefully it was worth the wait!
