Blog: country wedding
Charlie Charlie

Tamara and Ed’s elegant country wedding in Dorset on a friend’s farm with buckets of sunflowers and live music

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Tamara and Ed’s elegant country wedding – photography http://www.taylorandporter.co.uk/

Elegant country wedding

It’s been all about farm receptions in recent real weddings, and today’s beautiful wedding is another stunning example of a simple but elegant way to hold a party in a barn. Tamara and Ed’s wedding was sent to me by their photographers Louise and Teo, who run Taylor & Porter Photographs, one of our recommended suppliers on the directory, who only use film cameras and do so capturing exquisite images.

Over to Tamara to share their wedding day with you…

Tamara and Ed’s elegant country wedding – photography http://www.taylorandporter.co.uk/

Elegant vintage wedding tables with wild flowers and grasses – photography http://www.taylorandporter.co.uk/

Tamara and Ed’s elegant country wedding – photography http://www.taylorandporter.co.uk/

Elegant rustic barn wedding – photography http://www.taylorandporter.co.uk/

Tamara and Ed got married on the last day of August, one what looks like an incredibly bright sunny day in the Dorset countryside. “We got married at Powerstock Church in Dorset. I wanted it here because my mother and father were married there.”

Tamara and Ed’s elegant country wedding – photography http://www.taylorandporter.co.uk/

Wild and natural country church wedding flowers – photography http://www.taylorandporter.co.uk/

Tamara and Ed’s elegant country wedding – photography http://www.taylorandporter.co.uk/

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Charlie Charlie

Nik and Chris’ chilled out rustic coastal farm wedding with woodland ceremony, chickens and countryside flowers

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Nik and Chris’ chilled out rustic coastal farm wedding – photography http://www.petecranston.com/

Rustic coastal farm wedding

In the past few years of running my business I have been lucky enough to meet and make some lovely friends, many of whom I know will be lifelong friends. I met Nik, today’s bride, two years ago, when she won a place on a cut flower course via the blog and we spent a day together learning how to grow and arrange homegrown flowers.

Since then I’ve followed Nik’s adventures as she has moved to Wales and set up her own business, and last summer when I was heavily pregnant I saw her again when we holidayed in Cardigan. It is an absolute pleasure to share Nik and Chris’ wedding with you all, it is utterly beautiful but completely down-to-earth and full of love and laughter – which seems to me a true reflection of this sweet and kind couple.

Chalkboard wedding sign – photography http://www.petecranston.com/

Nik and Chris’ chilled out rustic coastal farm wedding – photography http://www.petecranston.com/

Rustic bride with chicken – photography http://www.petecranston.com/

Nik and Chris got married last July on the farm where they live in Wales, with a beautiful outdoor ceremony, champagne on the beach, and a chilled out barn reception. If you are having any wobbles about staying true to yourselves when planning your wedding, or whether it’s possible to have a beautiful wedding on a budget, then this is the wedding for you.

By now, if you’re a regular blog reader you’ll have also probably recognised Nik as she was one of our TNWC Real Brides – you can read all about her wedding planning and handmade details here.

White lace bridesmaid dresses – photography http://www.petecranston.com/

This wedding was captured by Pete Cranston, who is one of our recommended photographers on the directory.  Do pop back to the blog tomorrow as I have Nik and Chris’ wedding video to share, which brings to life their wedding day

Over to Nik to…

Rustic barn wedding venue – photography http://www.petecranston.com/

Rustic barn wedding tables – photography http://www.petecranston.com/

Bride on a horse – photography http://www.petecranston.com/

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Charlie Charlie

Jo and Dom’s natural and relaxed Scottish wedding with a ceremony in a ruined chapel, picnic on the beach, and foraged flowers

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Taylor & Porter Photographs

Relaxed Scottish wedding with a beach picnic

A real wedding feature has been long overdue, and what nicer way to kick off 2014 than with the exquisite wedding of Jo and Dom. They got married last July in Scotland with a ceremony in a ruin chapel amongst the dunes, a beach picnic for all their guests, swimming in the sea, foraged and wild flowers for the bouquets and table arrangements, and a beautifully decorated tent – phew!

I could go on and on and on about everything that I love about this wedding, but it’s better than I just let you immerse yourself. Go get lost in Jo and Dom’s wonderful day…

Taylor & Porter Photographs

“We wanted our wedding to be as natural and relaxed as possible. We wanted to be able to enjoy it, and for everyone else to have a good time too! We had a humanist wedding in a tiny ruined chapel on the east coast of Scotland, just down the coast from Edinburgh followed by a picnic on the beach.”

“I grew up there and every Christmas my family walk down the beach to the ruin with some friends and hold an informal Christmas ceremony where we sing carols and have readings and generally acknowledge that its Christmas.”

Country bride with foraged flower bouquet and flower crown - Taylor & Porter Photographs

Taylor & Porter Photographs

“Dom proposed on boxing day 2012 on a rock just beside the chapel and there was never any question that we would marry anywhere else. It’s a very important place to me. Our wedding guests had to walk over the dunes for half an hour to reach the chapel so the weather was definitely a concern! But no, we didn’t have a wet weather plan!”

Taylor & Porter Photographs

Taylor & Porter Photographs

Taylor & Porter Photographs

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Izzy Izzy

Hayley and Iain’s rustic and romantic wedding in the country with hessian, lace and daisies for an intimate feel to the day

Izzy

Christopher Ian Photography

Romantic wedding in the country

I took a look back through the Real Weddings we’ve featured on the blog, and it’s been months and months since we last featured one. In other words, it’s been too long – I know how much wonderful inspiration and ideas that other couples’ weddings provide, and we have lots of pretty ones lined up for you.

Today we have the romantic, rustic country wedding of Hayley and Iain who got married in Cheshire this past September which was sent to me by Christopher Ian Photography, one of the great photographers on our directory.  Over to Hayley to share with you the details of their beautiful day…

Milk churn with wedding flowers - Christopher Ian Photography

Flower crown - Christopher Ian Photography

Vintage bike wedding sign - Christopher Ian Photography

Groom with vintage pocket watch - Christopher Ian Photography

'Just Married' wedding sign - Christopher Ian Photography

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Charlie Charlie

TNWC South West Roadtrip Day 1: Huntstile Organic Farm and Clavelshay Barn

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Clavelshay Barn wedding venue

Wow – what a start to my trip!  I’m writing this on Sunday evening, so I’ll be sharing with you this morning what I got up to on the first day of my TNWC South West Roadtrip yesterday.  Hope that makes sense!

I set off from home at lunchtime with a three hour drive ahead of me to Somerset.  My first stop on the TNWC South West Roadtrip was Huntstile Organic Farm – a beautiful wedding venue set in the rolling Somerset countryside.  This wasn’t my first visit to Huntstile, so I’m mainly just going to share with you some pictures I took today – if you’d like to read more about what I think of Huntstile check out my previous visit.

This was Huntstile yesterday, looking super pretty in the sunshine, flowers blooming everywhere, and buzzing with people.

Huntstile Organic Farm wedding venue

Huntstile Organic Farm wedding venue

Huntstile Organic Farm wedding venue

Huntstile Organic Farm wedding venue

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Izzy Izzy

Sarah and Sam’s old fashioned country village wedding with a pretty garden party reception on a shoestring

Izzy

Sarah and Sam's old fashioned country village wedding

Old fashioned country village wedding

I’m thrilled to be sharing another exclusive real wedding with you on the blog today – a gorgeous June wedding set amongst stunning North Yorkshire countryside.  The bride Sarah, was one of the lovely girls who joined me for my TNWC 5th Birthday Party last April, so it’s especially lovely to share her wedding after hearing about their plans last spring.

For anyone planning a wedding on a ‘shoestring’ then this wedding is for you – as Sarah mentions later on, they took ideas they saw and worked out how they make it themselves.  It’s a real DIY wedding on a budget, but a totally beautiful one.

Over to Sarah to tell you all about her beautiful wedding to Sam…

Country bride and groom

Bouquet toss

Sarah and her husband Sam chose the 23rd June 2012 to get married, “because it was the Saturday closest to the midsummer solstice and there’s an old English tradition of weddings on that day.  We wanted an old-fashioned country wedding with an informal feel, and we tried to make everything homemade if it possibly could be.”

“The week before the wedding was a crazy whirl of preparations because it was such a DIY affair.  Luckily we had a fantastic team of family, friends and neighbours who worked tirelessly to finish preparing the food and decorations.”

Bride with bouquet of country flowers

Wooden wedding sign

Garden party wedding

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Izzy Izzy

Holly and Laurie’s English picnic wedding in Shropshire with country garden flowers and handmade details

Izzy

Holly and Laurie's English picnic wedding

English picnic wedding

I have got some truly lovely exclusive real weddings coming up for you on the blog, so I do hope you’ll check back over the coming weeks to soak up all the wonderful inspiration these brides and grooms have to share.

Today’s real wedding is beautiful.  I feel like I’ve got to know bride Holly over the past year or so as she emailed me a couple of times in the lead up to her wedding – not only was she inspired by my own wedding stationery, but she also won her wedding photography via a competition that I’d promoted on the blog!

Holly and Laurie got married in Shropshire on the 15th of September 2012 with a wedding ceremony held at Ludlow Castle, and followed up by a picnic wedding reception at Henley Farmhouse on the Acton Scott Estate.

Over to Holly to tell us all about their wonderful day…

Seasonal September country wedding flowers

Rustic place names

Picnic wedding wrapped with greaseproof paper and twine

“We both just wanted a really relaxed wedding where all our guests could just have fun.  We wanted a day that was personal to us – we didn’t have a huge budget so we knew from the start that we would probably be doing lots of the work ourselves – with the help of our friends and family.”

“We actually found searching for a venue one of the most stressful parts of planning, we were looking for a blank canvas without lists of suppliers we had to use and we didn’t have lots of money to spend so we struggled to find somewhere.  I grew up in Shropshire and loved the idea of a Shropshire country wedding.”

Photo frame table plan

Country garden flowers

Blackboards

Wedding picnic and menu

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Charlie Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Sarah has been hunting down an affordable country tweed suit for her groom-to-be

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Izzy Burton illustration

On Tuesday we had the lovely Myfanwy telling us all about the fab tea towel wedding invitations she’d been making, and how her Mr-to-be Tom had recruited their cute daschund Arthur to help punch out confetti.  Today we have TNWC Real Bride Sarah back with us, and she’s been helping her fiancé Lee look for a country style tweed suit at an affordable price.

Over to Sarah to tell you more…

Hi everyone!  Hope you all had a lovely Easter, this month I will be writing about my struggles to find the perfect suit for my groom.

When we first began organising the wedding Lee began researching the type of suit he’d like for the wedding, and quickly decided he’d like a tweed, country looking suit to fit in with our relaxed, vintage theme.  He showed me a photo he’d found on Google and so we began to try and find something similar.

Country groom in tweed suit

Initially we wanted to hire the suits and so we began to research local hire shops, but soon found none of them hired anything other than plain, or over the top suits which wasn’t really us.  And so we made the choice to buy the suits.

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Jen and Chris’ pretty village fete wedding – happy anniversary guys!

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Boho country bride

This time last year my sweet friend Jen was getting married to her Mr, Chris, as it happens in the lovely village church that we both go to sometimes.  It’s in a gorgeous little village called Dunham Massey in the countryside south of Manchester.  Most of the cottages are owned by the National Trust so it still has this old fashioned feel to it, and the vicar is just the best ever.

Homemade wedding cake with rose petals

Soft pink jasmine flower crown

Village fete wedding marquee

I was lucky enough to meet Jen a couple of days after her wedding for my TNWC 5th Birthday Party and we had previously met up for a cup of tea when Jen emailed me and we suddenly realised for a few months we’d been sat in church together whilst she was busy reading my blog – she created some beautiful paper details for her wedding based on our own wedding stationery.

Ice cream wedding van

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Charlie Charlie

Jodie and James’ epic weekend wedding full of feasting, festivities and handmade details

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Jodie and James' epic weekend wedding

Epic weekend wedding with handmade details

Today I have an incredible real wedding.  It is utterly epic (I don’t use words like that often) and it’s not short on beautiful ideas and inspiration if that’s what you’re looking for.  I’ve even broken it down into headings because there is so much to share with you!

Richard Rayner Photography

Richard Rayner Photography

Jodie and James got married on 15th September 2012 and spent the whole weekend celebrating with their family and friends.  Jodie has kindly told me so much about their incredible weekend celebration, and I am sure that many of you brides-to-be will find lots of helpful snippets throughout from Jodie and James’ experience.

Tiered sponge wedding cake with berries

Jodie and James' wedding

Without further ado, I’ll hand you over to the lovely Jodie to tell you all about their epic wedding weekend…

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