We’ve got a treat for you in this week’s intimate natural Real Wedding.  This couple decided to do things their way and it turned out to be all about friends and food.

They dug up their garden the day before the wedding to fill rusted tins with sweet peas, rosemary and lavender, saved the partying for the weekend after their big day, and ceremoniously cut into a berry-topped wedding pavlova at their reception. Intrigued? You should be.

Luckily it was all captured beautifully by TNWC recommended Oxana Mazur of Oxi Photography, who is renowned for her natural and intimate documentary style. So let’s delve into the rosy-hued pictures and learn more from bride Alex…

An intimate natural wedding

“When planning our wedding we didn’t want anything over the top and we really thought about what our wedding meant to us. This helped us to prioritise what we wanted: we both have a mutual love of food, and being half French, food plays a huge role. We agreed that we wanted it to be relaxed and about our friends and family; we wanted to spend time with our guests and for them not to have to follow a strict order of the day’s events.

“We wanted local, homegrown and homemade with a touch of class and timelessness. As our main struggle was finance as neither of us wanted to spend a fortune on a wedding, we had to be savvy and frugal.”

Gin-infused hair and make up transformations

“On the morning of the wedding, with a lot of gin (to calm us after a scary rehearsal the night before), the amazing Jess from Le Petit Salon turned my haystack of hair into a Geisha inspired masterpiece and then Leanne Biggs, a highly skilled make-up whizz turned me into a presentable bride, before transforming me into a beautiful bride, with natural-look make-up yet slightly heavier on the eyes.

“My bridesmaids looked even more beautiful than they usually do thanks to Ruth’s sister Kate. They helped do up the millions of buttons on the back of my dress and then with a little more gin we were ready to go.”

A Jessica Charleston wedding dress

“As was a running theme with our wedding, I wanted to support local shops and designers and I came across Jessica Charleston. I had fallen in love with one of her dresses at a boutique in Bradford on Avon.

“On her website, I saw that she made bespoke wedding dresses and asked if she was able to help me with a dress on a budget. We arranged to meet and discuss ideas and she listened and suggested things that showed me her insight into reading people and understanding what they wanted as well as knowing what would suit and enhance my figure.

“The sketches she produced, along with the samples of lace, were of things I could have only dreamed. It was simple yet elegant with enough detail for it to be eye-catching and it moved beautifully when I walked, making the colours of the different types of fabric dance.”

Fromage-frais pink undertones and French vintage lace

“The dress had fromage-frais pink undertones, with French vintage lace on the top and a cathedral veil to go in my hair below a jewelled clip. They had also embroidered my initials in blue on the inside of the dress and my mother gave me a silver sixpence to wear in my shoe.”

Many hands make light work

“My family and bridesmaids were a lifeline: I delegated; they helped, although as we had done so much in advance and it was a small wedding there was not too much left to do. The main worry was who and how we were getting to the church as most of the guests were at the house and we had to usher them out!”

Small, intimate ceremony

“We got married at St Michael’s Church in Monkton Combe, the most gorgeous little church down the road from my parents’ house. Our 35 guests and two swallows that had taken residence the day before all fit comfortably in the church.

“My sister put millions of candles in each of the stained glass windows creating warm soft lighting and encouraging the colours in the glass to glow. We had decorated the ends of the pews with gypsophilia and pale pink ribbons to match the bridesmaid’s dresses.”

A perfectly happy moment

“When I saw him, it’s going to sound clichéd, but I felt at peace. I had Canon in D by Pachelbel as my entry music which is very calming and then as it was such a small church I could see everyone I loved and in that moment I felt so happy and that this was the right thing; it made all the panic from the night before disappear as if it had never been there.”

Loose-tied local flowers 

“My bouquet and the men’s boutonnières, were made by the fabulous ladies from the Walled Garden in Mells. They were done in whites and greens. I originally wanted really bold, bright and colourful flowers but as my dress had hues of pink I needed the flowers to compliment it rather than overpower it and the bouquet they created was spectacular!”

Locally-sourced food and a warm happy atmosphere

“After the ceremony we drove to The Talbot in Mells for our wedding breakfast. As we left the church and pulled up outside, no word of a lie, the clouds parted and the summer sun made an appearance.

“Sophie Bodey and her team had turned our vision into a reality and then more. The Talbot was spectacular! It is one of our favourite places to eat and as our wedding was based on Mells, locally sourced food and a warm and happy atmosphere we knew that The Talbot delivered all of this. Our guests spent most of the day in the beautiful gardens.”

Rusty tins of homegrown wild looking flowers

“James and I wanted wild looking flowers as we didn’t want them to look formal and stiff. He and I also love the smell of lavender and rosemary as well as the shades of colour they offer.

“My mother and sister grew them for us in giant tins that had been left out to rust that I had acquired from the school kitchen (I’m a teacher) and planted a range of other flowers throughout the garden. The day before the wedding we all went into the garden and picked everything, flowers, herbs, bushes and bits of tree and stood assembling everything in varying size tins, very much handmade with love.”

The venue brought it to life

“I was worried about leaving all the flowers and other decorations with someone else to set up; it’s one thing having the ideas in your head, and it is another trying to explain it to someone to bring it to life for you. But Sophie and her team went above and beyond and made it magnificent.”

Photography that captured the moment

“Oxana Mazur from Oxi Photography was spectacular. I cannot pose, it almost pains me to have my photo taken, and being told to look lovingly at someone and place your hand here and look like this or that didn’t appeal to either of us. Oxana is able to capture the moment; she has a kind of documentary style of photography and tells a story with her photos.”

Oxi Photography was a perfect match

“The photos that she had taken at previous weddings defined what I had envisioned; they captured the moment, the feelings and the ambience. You felt as if you had been there; she had a way of encapsulating the beauty and feelings without it having to be posed or staged.”

Photos on their wedding day of their favourite walk

“Oxana listened and made our day and the photos easy. She talked to us and made us laugh and when I was finding it awkward to do something she made that photo look fabulous and captured the humour of it. James and I went for a walk to our favourite places in Mells. She made us feel so relaxed that the people you see in those photos are true to us, and how we are as people. We asked her to capture the essence of the day and I believe she did that and more. She is truly talented.”

The night they met…

“During my younger brother’s gap year he worked in a costume/joke shop and after my shift I would pick him up. Notoriously, Halloween is a very busy for costume shops and the owners had to bring in extra help. My brother had been regaling us with stories about the new bloke and how he had just split up from his long-term girlfriend as she had been cheating on him and he had returned to Bath to mend his broken heart.

“One particularly cold night, while waiting for them to close, I went in to warm up and started chatting to the other lads in the shop, James came downstairs, not knowing that I was the sister, and stared broodingly at the floor.”

We never looked back

“As the weekends went on, and I kept talking at James, we all went for a pub quiz, where he finally started talking back! We exchanged numbers much to my brother’s dismay as he had not intended me to be the rebound for James. (A couple years later my brother confessed that he had threatened James and warned him not to break my heart). Three weeks later we went on our first date and have never looked back.”

A wedding feast

“The food was almost more important than the wedding itself!  We had canapés of mustard glazed sausages, aubergine and goats curd, bacon wrapped dates, and marinated cod tartar and pickled fennel.

“We had sharing platters for mains and these included healthy servings of spatchcocked Castlemead chicken, grilled lemon, grilled gem lettuce; Harissa grilled leg of lamb, mint and paprika yoghurt and whole roasted rump from Robin Pitkin with béarnaise sauce.”

Wedding cake alternative

“We did not have a wedding cake as neither of us is particularly fond of cake. Both of us, particularly me, LOVE meringue, so we had a pavlova with lashings of cream and seasonal berries. We had one to cut, which the both of us ate and then several going down each table for the guests.”

Save the party

“We didn’t have any entertainment that evening or even a party. Our day for us was about the people we loved and not making anything stressful. What we did do though, is go out with all our friends the following weekend to a bar and went out dancing afterwards.”

It’s your wedding day, don’t be afraid to say ‘no’

Alex and James did their wedding their way, and bride Alex’s best piece of advice is inextricably linked to this fact: “Don’t be afraid to say no, it is your wedding day and you can tell people no, yes they might be cross and upset with you but eventually they will understand.”

Many, many thanks go to Alex and James for giving us such a detailed insight into their beautiful day. Their intimate natural wedding is just perfect and has been unobtrusively documented perfectly by one of our very own listed photographers, so a huge thank you to Oxana at Oxi Photography too.

{ Details }

Photographer: Oxi Photography
Venue: The Talbot
Bride’s Dress: Jessica Charleston
Bride’s Accessories: Jessica Charleston (veil) and Arb Jewellery (clip)
Bridesmaid’s Dresses: Miss Selfridges
Bridesmaids Accessories: WUE (tied the knot earrings) and The White Company (shawls)
Flowers: The Walled Garden at Mells
Wedding Stationery: Lucy Aug