Blog: country wedding
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Holly and Dean’s village fete wedding with a coconut shy and Morris Men

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country wedding flowers village fete

Village fete wedding with Morris Men

This beautiful wedding photographed by Dawn Potter was inspired by the nostalgia of village fetes, and is full of fun and games for the many children who came – something I think too often gets over-looked.  Holly crafted such a colorful and fun wedding that really went that extra mile for her guests.

village fete wedding flowergirl

Holly and Dean got married in the picturesque village of Loders in Dorset, with the ceremony in the village church and the reception just down the road.

country church wedding

The church was decorated with pretty country style flowers and the order of service is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen – isn’t it stunning, like a page out of a fairytale…

hand made illustrated order of service

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Allie and Tom’s handmade 1930’s inspired country wedding ~ part two

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1930s inspired country wedding

1930s inspired country wedding (part two)

If you missed yesterday’s part one of Allie and Tom’s handmade 1930’s inspired country wedding be sure to read it first – it’s full of beautiful details and photos of their ceremony and how they got Allie’s parents field ready for their wedding.  So without further ado, after their ceremony, Allie and Tom had some photos taken whilst dodging the rain showers – what a beautiful vintage car.

>> View Allie and Tom’s 1930s inspired country wedding (part one) here <<

vintage wedding car

Then everyone headed back to Allie’s parents field where they had Pimms in the marquee, followed by an afternoon tea of cakes, scones and sandwiches, all made by her mum’s friends.

country flowers and afternoon tea wedding

Afternoon tea was served on vintage crockery collected over the year by Allie and her mum.  I spent a lot of time the day before the wedding selecting all the crockery and it really did look as I imagined it.

vintage crockery afternoon tea wedding

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Allie and Tom’s handmade 1930’s inspired country wedding ~ part one

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Handmade 1930s country wedding

1930s inspired country wedding (part one)

It is another of those exciting days where I get to share a wedding from one of my readers with you all.  I’ve been in touch with the lovely Allie for a while now and I was even lucky enough to make her wedding guestbook!

It was lovely to hear that The Natural Wedding Company blog was a source of daily inspiration for Allie when she was planning her wedding, and she found a number of suppliers via the directory. Don’t forget to check back tomorrow for part two and a full list of suppliers.

>> View Allie and Tom’s 1930s inspired country wedding (part two) here <<

1930s country wedding dress inspiration

Allie and Tom got married on a very rainy Saturday in September at her parent’s home in Somerset.

handmade country wedding signs

Allie told me that her parents was the only place for their wedding.  Getting married in the village I grew up in, surrounded by people who watched me grow up just felt really right.  We wanted a wedding where all our friends and family and village people could help out.  I think we could only have done that at my parent’s home. 

country bride wedding inspiration

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Emma and Gianni’s rustic country wedding ~ part two

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Andy Rapkins Photography

Rustic country wedding (part two)

If you missed Emma and Gianni’s rustic country wedding part one from yesterday, do take a read first.  After their beautiful outdoor wedding ceremony, Emma and Gianni continued their wedding festivities at the beautiful Cripps Barn in Gloucestershire.

The countryside around Cripps Barn is beautiful and provides the most gorgeous natural setting for photographs.

>> Read part one of Emma and Gianni’s rustic country wedding here <<

Rustic country wedding

Don’t you think that Emma’s colour palette of pale dusty pinks and peaches are beautifully reflected in the soft golden colour of this wheat field…

Emma & Gianni rustic country wedding

I love this series of photos – photographer Andy Rapkins has captured such a sweet and intimate moment between Emma and Gianni.

Andy Rapkins Photography

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Emma and Gianni’s rustic country wedding ~ part one

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Emma & Gianni rustic country wedding

Rustic country wedding (part one)

Today is pretty exciting on two counts – the new website has been launched and I get to share with you my first exclusive wedding.  This wedding has not been featured on any other blogs so I am utterly honoured that Emma chose The Natural Wedding Company to be the first place to share her beautiful wedding.

Emma told me that The Natural Wedding Company “was my bible during the planning of the wedding and I used many tips and links that you posted.”  So without further ado, here is part one of Emma and Gianni’s rustic country wedding photographed by the talented Andy Rapkins.

>> Read part two of Emma and Gianni’s rustic country wedding here <<

rustic natural country wedding

Emma and Gianni were married in July 2011 at Cripps Barn in Gloucestershire.  They planned a simple, relaxed and rustic wedding full of handmade pieces, charity shop finds, and meaningful details crafted by family and friends.

The theme was eclectic vintage meets ‘Darling Buds of May’ – we did a lot of the details ourselves and what we didn’t do we worked with friends and local suppliers.

darling buds of may wedding ideas

We chose Cripps Barn because we wanted somewhere relaxed, informal and peaceful.  The owners of Cripps Barn have a really relaxed yet organised approach, also all the food was locally sourced and we’d heard how amazing it was.  Gianni has a large family with lots of children so we wanted somewhere they could be free to play.

cripps barn gloucestershire wedding venue

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Our rustic country wedding – an outing with Carrots the pony

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Today’s photos are some of my favourite from our wedding and I’m really excited to be sharing them with you all.  After the church ceremony and ice cream outside, Nick and I left across the field on a simple pony and carriage, which took us down the country lanes for a short while just the two of us.

My mom is solely responsible for organising this – as a teacher in the village primary school she knows a lot of local people, and John who took us out in his pony and carriage is one of them.

I’ve had a love of horses and riding since before I can remember, as a little girl growing up in London I used to dream of moving to the country and having riding lessons.  That finally happened when I was six, and I think for my 7th birthday I got my first lessons.

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Our rustic country wedding – ice cream in the church yard

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It is terrible to toot your own trumpet, but this is one of the ideas that we had for our wedding that I was so pleased with.  Nick and I love our food and love supporting local producers, so we always knew this was going to be woven throughout our wedding.  There were moments we worried we might be overfeeding people!


We have a wonderful local farm to where we live in Cheshire that makes its own ice cream – we practically live off the stuff.  Somehow we wanted to incorporate this into our wedding day, and the only place we could think of when people might need something to eat and break up any standing around was after the ceremony.

So we set about creating our own ice cream stall that would greet our family and friends as they exited the church.  We commandeered a nice old trestle table from my parents, which meant we didn’t need to cover it.

Nick built a wooden cone holder by drilling holes into a plank of wood and attaching legs to it.  Then I painted it with leftover paints (tester pots are great for small projects).


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Our rustic country wedding – the ceremony

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I’m excited to be back on track with sharing the full details of our wedding day – it is so lovely to hear that people are enjoying hearing the trials and tribulations of how it all came to be.

So with church decked out with frothy cow parsley, slender young hornbeams, country roses and lit only by candlelight, the only thing missing was me.  The bride.  It’s been mentioned before, but I was 20 minutes late to my wedding.


Image: Mark Tattersall

By now, Nick was getting pretty antsy, Alex the best man was playing his role and winding Nick up (do you remember the photo at the bottom of this post?), and every time the church door opened everyone would look up in anticipation.  This I’ve all heard.   First my mom and little brother Freddie entered.

Then the music started.  We (meaning me) had fallen in love with a piece of harp music from Rebecca Joy Sharp called ‘Scattered Lad’.  The first time I heard I knew that this was what I wanted to walk into the church to.  It encompassed the feeling of how I wanted my wedding to be – it felt celebratory, it was twinged with an old fashioned country tune, and just utterly beautiful.


Image: Mark Tattersall

Of course, we’d rehearsed a couple of times at what point I wanted to start walking in, but standing outside the church with my dad as Izzy and the flowergirls filed in, I completely forgot it all.  Emily and Isla the two flowergirls were so sweet, I was just sad not to see them myself, as they walked in scattering dried petals.


Image: Mark Tattersall

Izzy my gorgeous sister disappeared in – I swear I got tunnel vision, I don’t remember seeing anything inside that church.


Image: Mark Tattersall

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Cake love: an English country flowers wedding cake

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For me this cake is quintessentially English country wedding all over.  If I was going to have a tiered wedding cake it would look like this, simple white layers (I love the tiny dots of icing) stuffed with seasonal English flowers.

From my limited knowledge of flowers I can spot Peonies, Cow Parsley, Blue ‘Love in a Mist’, Roses, and Lady’s Mantle.  I also think the addition of those tendrils of Honeysuckle really add an extra prettiness to this already beautifully decorated cake.

This gorgeous wedding cake with its English garden flowers has been decorated by Rachel from Catkin FlowersCatkin Flowers is one of the wonderful businesses on the directory who grows their own flowers for brides looking for seasonal wedding flowers.

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A Devon wedding in a tiny windswept church

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I feel very lucky to be able to share today’s wedding with you all – the wedding took place at St Michael De Rupe Church on the top of Brentor in Devon.  Not only is this tiny, windswept church one of the highest and smallest in England but it’s also very close to my heart.

My granny grew up on a farm in Brentor village that sits beneath this ancient hill.  A large part of my family come from this part of Devon, I have ridden across Blackdown (the surrounding moors) throughout my childhood, and my great granny had her 90th birthday on Brentor.

So before I get carried away with my family history, this is a special place to me – so a big thank you to photographer Sarah Falugo of Green Photographic for letting me feature this wedding.

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