19

Mar

2015

Laura and Lee’s Outside In Woodland Wedding By Lucabella Photography

There are a lot fof wedding themes out there at the moment, The Woodland theme is one that I just adore and I am always drawn to any wedding that have this as a theme. It is always lovely to hold an outdoor wedding and a woodland is such a fabulous location to do this. However what do you do when you can’t trust the British weather to let you hold an outdoor wedding? You bring the outdoors inside of course and that is just what Laura and Lee have done with todays wedding and the results are truly magnificent! They have taken this barn venue and made it completely their own by incorporating blackout material and then huge aray of foliage, greenery and lots of woodland based decorations. The results are outstanding and really make this wedding stand out from others I have seen. Great work from the couple and great images from Kate of Lucabella Photography.

‘Our wedding day was a very personal and meaningful day. Everything was about us and our cherished family and friends who have helped us grow into who we are, supported us through tough times and kept us laughing every day.’

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Laura and Lee were married on Saturday 5th July 2014 at St Peter and Pauls, Glentham and The Barn, Stainton Manor Farm, Stainton-by-Langworth, Lincolnshire. ‘First and foremost we wanted a venue that would allow us to dress it exactly how we wanted. Our passion for the British countryside lead us to want a woodland theme. We both enjoy being outdoors so ideally wanted an outdoor wedding but we just felt we couldn’t rely on the good old British weather, that’s when we decided to find somewhere we could bring the outdoors inside. I was looking at tipis and marquees, when I stumbled on Stainton Manor barn, I realized it was the blank canvas and the size I needed to fulfill my vision. We were so pleased with how it turned out. We had 100 guests to both the ceremony and reception, everyone came to the full day. We arranged a coach to transport guests from the church to the farm. Planning the wedding took a steady eleven months.’

Copyright Lucabella. www.lucabella.co.uk

Copyright Lucabella. www.lucabella.co.uk

How they met
We met at a mutual friends house and have been together for four years.

The Proposal
I have always wanted to see the Northern Lights. I came home from work one day to a sign post in the front garden reading “Aurora Borealis this way”. Upon opening the door I was met by our dog ‘Baggy’ with a roll of paper tied to his collar. The paper instructions directed me into the living room which was completely covered in snow (cotton wool balls). The walls were decorated like a Scandinavian winter night scene, the ceiling adorned in fluorescent fabric reminiscent of the Northern Lights. There was a tent in the middle of the room housing Lee holding forward a laptop with an instruction to press ‘play’. The video that played featured my friends and family holding up cards in a sequence that read “I love you, will you marry me?”. At the end of the video Lee was on his knees then he moved the laptop to reveal a ring.

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How did you allocate your budget
We saved money on by doing ‘Save The Dates’, invitations and ‘Order of Services’ ourselves. We worked out how much we would need from an early stage then saved (hard) accordingly. The majority of the budget was spent on decorating the venue, with the most expensive expenditure being the real trees and furnishing the barn.

How did you choose your photographer
Lucabella Photography was recommended to us by a friend. We had an informal meet up and were delighted to proceed when we all got on so well.

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The Dress
My wedding dress was from Jdezire Bridal Boutique in Lincoln and shoes were from BHS. I decided on very basic shoes and wasn’t going to spend a fortune on them as I knew they would be covered in mud by the end of the day! All accessories were my own or family heirlooms.

The Suit and Bridesmaids
The mens’ suits were bought from Andrew J Musson in Lincoln. The four younger bridesmaids/flowergirls dresses were from Monsoon and the two adult bridesmaids’ were from Coast.

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Theme or Colour Scheme
Our theme was a rustic, woodland theme so we wanted to keep the colours of the day faithful to natural hues. The suits were a cream colour with forest green ties. The younger bridesmaids’ dresses were cream and the older bridesmaids’ were forest green. I had natural foliage (mainly ivy) woven into my hair.

Flowers
We had all natural garden greenery and woodland foliage including ferns and ivy on tables and chairs. They were arranged by a close friend who grew some himself in his garden. He made them look authentic, natural and more beautiful than I could have imagined. The bridesmaids had gypsophila in their hairs and I had a long ivy garland woven through.
For the oversized bouquet I wanted a huge array of ferns and ivy again, I wanted something different to the normal and it was just perfect!

Decoration
The whole inside of the barn was draped in black star-cloth with a natural carpet underfoot. We had twelve real 8 metre birch trees and two beech trees adorning the main room around and between the tables to give the forest feel.
The table decorations were comprised of foraged fallen bark, natural ferns and wildflower vases filled myself with a variety of natural greenery. We had made a large batch of foraged sloe gin which we decanted into small kilner bottles for everyone to drink during the toasts instead of champagne.

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Food
We had a wild hog roast with a variety of different puddings including a selection of seasonal English countryside summer fruits.
The wedding cake was a three-tiered naked sponge cake covered in fresh seasonal summer fruits. We also had a gluten free mini version made for Lee’s mum.

Entertainment
We had looked at live bands but decided to have a disco as we wanted to make our own playlist of songs that meant something to us or our friends and family. We had a ‘Kids Cave’ for the girls outside (a cosy tent with girly bunting and cushions inside) and a pop-up gazebo on the farm full of garden games.

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Buy or DIY your Stationery
I made all the stationary myself. For ‘save the dates’ and the wedding invites we just took goofy photos of ourselves and had them printed locally.

Personal or Handmade Touches
Table place cards were made to be individual to each person. On them we wrote our favourite memory, funny story or things we loved about each guest on their place card. Each table had at at least two photos of each guest sat there of times we had spent together, when we were younger, at school, at events, etc.
We put a lot of thought into the table plan so that all Laura’s old school friends, all family friends, family, Lee’s golf friends etc were together and then we wrote a poem relevant to those on the table.

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Special Moments
Our most special moments of the day were being able to see the finished venue before anyone else by getting there early before guests. Then being able to watch everyone read their placecards. There were lots of tears and laughter! Similarly watching guests look through the photos and reliving some fun times.

Advice to other couples
Take your time in the early days and enjoy spending lots of time looking through wedding blogs and websites, pin lots of ideas on a wedding mood board. Do exactly what you want to do – It’s your day.
Ask for help! I did everything myself as I wanted to keep the special touches secret but then I ended up running around in the run up and even being at the venue late the night before finishing off by myself instead of meeting up with all the rest of my family in the pub!
Budget wisely. There were lots more things I would have loved to do but I had to keep my ‘realistic’ head on and remember it was only one day after all so to not be too extravagant in areas we could compromise or do ourselves

Biggest surprise
That everything went so well after months of planning!!!
The look of surprise on guests faces as they walked into the barn.

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Lucabella specialises in romantic and natural storytelling wedding photography with a hands-off approach. It’s about capturing the bond between two people surrounded by the people they love the most in the World. Based in the East Midlands but travelling throughout the UK and beyond.

 

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Comments

    Sarah

    Amazing day – absolute privilege to be there and asked to be part of it. Photos are gorgeous! Love you both! :) xx

    Reply

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