Charlie here writing from my maternity leave, I couldn’t not be here today to share with you this exciting blog post – it’s the first blog post from a now married TNWC Real Bride!  Eeek!  

So far, three of our TNWC Real Brides have got married – Caroline, Nik and Emma – and all have been busy ladies since their weddings over the summer, both honeymooning with their new husbands (!) and running their businesses.  I’m utterly delighted to have Emma with us today sharing how her wedding went, and we’ve even got some of the beautiful official photographs from Rebecca Roundhill Photography of the day.

In the coming week’s we are going to be lucky enough to share with you all of the stunning photos from Emma and Chris’ Cornish outdoor festival wedding along with many more details.  So do stay tuned for those!

For today though, over to Emma…

Getting married is officially the best thing ever!

Our wedding day was just perfect; it really was all we had hoped for and I can tell you it is better on the ‘other side.’

My bridesmaid and I left Plymouth on the Thursday prior to the big day with a car full of wedding regalia and hand made prettiness. We stopped off on the way to see Susanne at The Blue Carrot to collect our flowers for the table decorations. It was so lovely to see her again and she kindly showed us around her magical garden.  She had chosen a wonderful array of wild and beautiful flowers for us to use to fill the collection of glass bottles.

I had chosen The Copper House in Portreath as a base for the preparations, which was a wonderful choice. On arrival we were greeted with a cream tea! I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting a complete getaway with serene and peaceful surroundings.

We spent the next 36 hours meeting friends, drinking sparkling wine, having our nails painted and gathering supplies of rescue remedy and Kalms as my excited nerves kicked in! Friday evening we decorated the barn and it was amazing to see all the planning come to life! It was also brilliant that so many of my friends had decided to make a holiday of it and both Thursday and Friday evening was full of catching up, chatting and watching a couple of beautiful sunsets all together at The Blue Bar on Porthtowan Beach.

I awoke on the day of the wedding at 4am – something that had become the norm in the lead up to the wedding, I was suffering from a serious case of butterflies which meant that sleeping was not on the agenda. The best way to beat it was to run. We were so lucky with the glorious sunny weather and dawn running down to the sea and back was beautiful.

At 10am everyone started to arrive and we had a brilliant time all getting ready together, it was amazing to have everyone around me beaming with happiness! When the flowers arrived I was blown away by how well Susanne had understood my ideas, they were so stunning.

The morning flew by, then, suddenly it was quiet. It was just my Step Dad and I waiting for the campervan to drop off the girls and come back for us. We both did a lot of pacing.

The ride to the Eco Park was great, everyone waved and I have never seen so many strangers smiling, it was a great feeling! Before I knew it we had all walked up the aisle of flags and through the archway, where all our nearest and dearest looked on as I saw Chris beaming at me. All my nerves melted away and we made our promises to one another in the sunshine.

Our ceremony was so relaxed and it was easy to just soak it up. We made such a good decision when we chose Mount Pleasant Eco Park as the place to make our vows.

Straight after the ceremony we had a Cornish cream tea in delightful hire vintage china from The Creative Crockery Company.

We left our guest to enjoy the delicious cream tea and headed down to the beach for some photographs.  I got my dress quite wet but it really didn’t matter, it was refreshing and magical to paddle in the sea with my new husband.

When we got back we had the speeches outside and sang happy birthday to Chris’ Dad, who had kindly let us ‘borrow’ his birthday for our wedding day. I had chosen the date as it was the closest Saturday to our anniversary of our first date but also the lucky number 13 – I had a sneak feeling it would be a sunny day.

After the speeches we headed into the barn to eat. The food was delicious and our caterer Shaun had made the food not only taste wonderful but it looked spectacular too – with edible flowers full of colour in all the side dishes and salads. After the wedding breakfast the judging of the bake off commenced!

Prizes were awarded and then the dancing commenced! We surprised our guests with a bit of a swing dace to ‘Little Bitty Pretty One’ by Thurston Harris.

All our suppliers were so wonderful, we chose what we wanted, even if it wasn’t what most would expect for a wedding and we are so glad we did. All the photos have been provided by Rebecca Roundhill, who did a wonderful job of capturing the story of the day and all its quirks. I think you will agree our happiness radiates from them!

It really was such a perfect day; I can honestly say that despite a few hiccups and a few missing guests, nothing could have ruined our day. Something will always go slightly wrong but I can promise you that once it gets to the wedding day itself and your husband or wife to be is stood waiting for you to arrive, everything else pales into insignificance. Your heart fills up with happiness and you will have the best day ever.

A huge congratulations to Emma and Chris on getting married and wishing them a future full of adventures together.  Also many thanks to their wedding photographer Rebecca Roundhill for allowing us to share these images.

Don’t forget, if you’d like to read anymore from our TNWC Real Brides series just click on the link for lots of blog posts and handmade projects from our brides-to-be.

Images: (1) Illustration by Izzy Burton; (2 – 17) Rebecca Roundhill Photography