rustic Archives - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: rustic

Charlie

Katie and Myles’ garden tipi wedding with rustic decor, a horse riding bride, and a skiing inspired wedding cake

Charlie

A beautiful garden tipi wedding to end the year with, complete with a bride who rode in on her horse. It was my childhood wedding dream, to ride to my wedding on a grey horse, so it seems fitting to finish the year like this.

This year has been a bit all over the place, mainly due to the arrival of my second daughter in the summer. Any mums running their own business will know the challenges a new baby brings. Next year our family has exciting, possibly life changing, plans, which I will share when the time is right. I am looking forward to what the new year will bring, both personally and for The Natural Wedding Company.

I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and all our best wishes for next year. Snuggle up with a festive drink and some chocolate and enjoy this beautiful garden tipi wedding. Over to Katie to tell us all about their wedding…

A garden tipi wedding

Charlie

Nikki and Ben’s rustic Pimhill Barn wedding with a pastel dahlia bouquet, hessian jam jar lanterns and gypsophila buttonholes

Charlie

This week’s Real Wedding is delicately rustic, pretty and full of pastel florals and sprigs of gypsophila. Set on a beautifully sunny July day at Pimhill Barn in the fields of rural Shropshire, Nikki and Ben focused their plans around their extraordinary venue. They chose handmade signage and cut log decor to complement the 16th Century vaulted ceilings of the barn.

Nikki and Ben decided upon Amy Taylor Imaging Photography to capture the best day of their lives, a photographer from our eco wedding directory whose photographs we always enjoy. You can see other weddings from photographer Amy that we’ve featured here.

Bride Nikki caught up with us to give us the inside knowledge on the couple’s planning and ideas for their rustic Pimhill Barn wedding…

Samantha

A Southend Barns autumn wedding inspiration shoot with Minna wedding dress, seasonal foliage and lanterns

Samantha

Please note: Minna is now Indiebride London.

Today’s Southend Barns autumn wedding inspiration shoot is bound to cheer up any ‘January blues’. Think soft glowing lights, trailing foliage in vibrant autumnal hues, jewel-toned seasonal flowers and ethereal bridal style evoking visions of Elven folk from a Tolkien novel.

This beautiful shoot was dreamt up by the rustic farm venue Southend Barns in Chichester and To Have and To Hire wedding stylists. The shoot aimed to showcase local and ethical wedding businesses which of course we always love to see. The styling was a celebration of autumn to reflect the beautiful textures, forms and colours it has to offer. Everything was perfectly captured by award-winning wedding photographer Kelly Hearn.

Samantha

A DIY wedding menu wall hanging and book review of Decorate for a Party

Samantha

The ultimate party season is fast approaching so surely there is not a more perfect time to check out a book solely focused on creating beautifully themed parties. Decorate for a Party by Holly Becker of the fab Decor8, design and lifestyle blog and Leslie Shewring of the charming blog A Creative Mint provides an abundance of ‘stylish and simple ideas for meaningful gatherings.’

With such brilliant creative minds behind the book you can find the sort of inspiration and DIY suggestions you would expect. And you know we are a sucker for a good DIY project especially if it involves re-using or recycling items that you already have around the house. With this in mind we pawed over the lovely pages and selected a simple DIY wedding menu wall hanging to make to find out just how easy the suggestions are for you.

So check out our version of their DIY wedding menu wall hanging followed by our review of the book.

DIY Wedding Menu Wall Hanging

Now we couldn’t just review a DIY book without testing out an idea and giving it a go to see how simple they really are. With a friends winter wedding fast approaching, I selected an idea that I felt would work with the look and theme she is going for – a DIY wedding menu wall hanging.

Charlie

Spring Eco Wedding Festival with a cherry blossom chandelier and rustic tablescapes from Wedding Yurts

Charlie

I have had the pleasure of knowing Lizzie from Wedding Yurts for nearly five years now, and everything she creates is pure magic. When I heard she was putting on an Open Week in Herefordshire, I knew I want to visit, to see what delights she had been dreaming up, and to catch up (as best you can with a two and a half year old in tow).

I wasn’t disappointed. My little girl had a magical time running around this beautiful rural spot at Wye Valley Weddings and I soaked up the atmosphere inside Lizzie’s stunning yurts, with their wooden floors and rustic decorations.

As part of their Open Week, Lizzie had pulled together some incredible teams of suppliers to create so inspirational wedding shoots. One of those shoots was a Spring Eco Wedding Festival with a down-to-earth natural style, and featuring wedding suppliers who all weave an eco-friendly ethos into their business. I particular love the simple but striking table design with terracotta pots of herbs and those tiny chai bowls holding tealights.

Lizzie’s work is the kind of style I’d like to have at my own wedding or party, so I’m sure you’ll be as inspired as I am by today’s Spring Eco Wedding Festival shoot.

Charlie

Bree and Mitch’s rustic backyard wedding on the coast of Australia with a blush pink wedding dress by Grace Loves Lace

Charlie

Today’s beautiful rustic backyard wedding comes to us all the way from sunny Australia and is a lovely example of how to have a laid back and affordable wedding. Bree and Mitch were high school sweethearts and planned a wedding around their memories of warm evenings sat together in Bree’s parents back garden.

From Bree’s unconventional blush pink Grace Loves Lace wedding dress to rustic handmade details and makeshift bar, this wedding is both beautiful and full of love, but without a huge financial cost. They even had some weather issues, but not – if you’re planning a summer wedding in England – in the way that you’d imagine!

Over to Bree to tell us more about their wedding…

Charlie

A spring wedding shoot with flower crowns of spring blossom and rustic bouquets of tulips and bluebells

Charlie

Back in the spring I attended a spring blossom flower crown workshop run by my friend Rachel of Catkin Flowers. It was held in the beautiful surroundings of Doddington Hall in Lincolnshire, which is where Rachel has her base growing flowers in the old walled garden – it truly is as beautiful as it sounds.

A group of us had great fun creating our own unique flower crowns with spring flowers that Rachel had gathered for us, in particular a variety of blossoms from the spectacular cherry and crab apples that were blooming outside.

After the workshop Rachel put together a mini shoot in the gardens of Doddington Hall and I was invited to go along, and even got roped in for a few pictures – who could say no beneath that stunning tree dripping with pink blossom?

Charlie

Zoe and Alex’s rustic hippy outdoor wedding with a barefoot bride in a boho wedding dress

Charlie

Oh what a beauty of a wedding this is, with this effortlessly stylish barefoot bride in her boho two-piece wedding “dress” and the outdoor ceremony beneath an archway of weathered branches. I have literally spent hours attempting to whittle down the photos I received for Zoe and Alex’s stunning wedding, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me for not doing great at cutting them down, because they are pretty awesome.

A special thanks goes out to Alice at Forage and Blossom, one of our fab recommended suppliers and the florist for Zoe and Alex. All those gorgeous white, pale cream and green bouquets, flower crowns and arrangements – those are her work. Alice is also the one who helped get this beautiful wedding to grace our pages.

Put on some music and find somewhere to get comfy, because Zoe and Alex’s wedding deserves all the time you can give it to soak up a truly special celebration. If you are worrying about all the details you need to “have” to create the wedding of your dreams, I hope that Zoe and Alex will show you that you only need a few carefully selected elements and lots of laughter. Over to Zoe…

Charlie

A rustic wedding bouquet of fragrant herbs and a wedding cake decorated with flowering rosemary

Charlie

I absolutely love it when rosemary is in flower, with those tiny pale blue flowers it takes on a new dimension to its very green version that we mainly see and associate with it here in England. We have featured rosemary and other herbs in abundance here on the blog because they have so many lovely qualities – their fragrance being number one in my opinion.

This simple white wedding cake decorated with flowering rosemary is a wonderful example of how you can achieve a pretty and less conventional look without spending lots of money or time. Invest in a great quality wedding cake, made from organic and fair trade ingredients, and then just decorate it simply with naturally grown herbs.

Samantha

Rustic autumnal wedding decor inspiration with pumpkins, dried flowers and leaves from ‘The Crafted Garden’ by Louise Curley

Samantha

Rustic autumnal wedding decor inspiration from The Crafted Garden

You know how fond we are of a crafted, hand-made project here at The Natural Wedding Company, and a crafted project made with natural, seasonal materials either foraged or homegrown, well that ticks every box in our eyes. It is wonderful projects such as these that you will find in The Crafted Garden: stylish projects inspired by nature a beautiful book by Louise Curley that we are sharing with you today.

We also have a special reader offer for those who’d like to buy the book – you’ll find all the details at the bottom of the post.

Book review of The Crafted Garden

I was a excited to receive this book based on the brief synopsis and beautiful cover alone, and although I will admit I was a tiny bit sceptical that it wouldn’t offer anything more than what I could find scouring Pinterest, I will say straight away now that my scepticism was unfounded!

The book has been cleverly put together and Louise clearly has a passion for the great outdoors and how you can incorporate it in your home, for a celebration or as a unique gift idea.

I approached the book from a wedding point of view (whilst also already planning how I was going to use each one some how in my home) and excitedly flicked through the pages thinking how each craft could be used or adapted for wedding décor, accessories, gifts and so on and how all the ideas could be adapted through the seasons.

Although some of the projects may seem simple or obvious, I was surprised at how I hadn’t ever thought of doing them before and it really makes you look around and consider the natural resources you have around you.

The book offers 50 crafting projects all inspired by nature and whether you are a crafting amateur or gardening pro it contains a plethora of information beautifully presented to make it easy to read and follow. Broken down into seasons, not only does it provide instructions on craft ideas but really useful tips such as guidelines for foraging ethically, how best to dry flowers (great for after your wedding if you wish to preserve yours) and the best seasonal flowers.

Autumnal wedding craft projects

To give you a little insight into a few of the fab craft ideas in the book we tested a few of the autumnal projects out to hopefully offer a bit of seasonal wedding decor inspiration.

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