Carly and Joel’s Informal Rustic Village Hall Wedding. By Sarah Wayte Photography

Happy Wednesday to you all I hope you are all well and happy at this mid-point of the week? It must be the week for village hall weddings here on the blog as I shared the lovely wedding of Tracey and Jimmy with you yesterday which took place in the most gorgeous of village halls and today I have another little beauty for you. This time it’s the  wedding of Carly and Jonny in South Wooton Village Hall. The lovely couple took  a no nonsense view of their budget and set themselves  limits to each area of their wedding, clever and very sensible! They then went about creating a pretty, rustic inspired, fun and informal day with pretty handmade details and lots of bunting and hassium. Thanks to Sarah Wayte Photography for the images.

‘An intimate, fun and informal rustic country village wedding.’

Carly and Joel were married on Saturday 23rd August 2014 at King’s Lynn Town Hall, The Swan pub and South Wootton Village Hall. ‘We really wanted a relaxed, informal day surrounded by our closest friends and family so it made sense to get married in our home town. We both loved the architecture of the Town Hall; it’s such a stunning venue. We had the ceremony in the medieval Stone Hall which had a beautiful stone floor and oak beamed ceiling. South Wotton Village Hall was the perfect choice for our reception as it provided a blank canvas for us in terms of decoration so it gave us total creative freedom (and it was 5 minutes from our house!) We had 60 guests for the day and about another 60 for the evening and it took about a year to plan.’

How they met
We met through work, we were both Fitness Instructors at a local gym. We’ve been together 8 years.

The Proposal
Joel proposed to me when we were on holiday in Rome. It was the day after my birthday – he got down on one knee with a gorgeous diamond ring and proposed in our hotel room over breakfast. It was perfect and a complete surprise! I later found out that my whole family knew he was going to ask me to marry him and my sister even went ring shopping with him

How did you allocate your budget
We knew that we wanted to spend most of the budget on our honeymoon so we set that aside straight away. We then allocated a certain amount of money to each part of the wedding, for example we set a limit for the flowers, the catering, my dress etc. and we stuck to it. We didn’t want to start our married life together in debt so we were sensible with our spending and made compromises where we had to. We had a wonderfully luxurious 5 star honeymoon in Cyprus!

How did you choose your photographer
We met our photographer Sarah through my best friend Kim as they both worked together. Kim mentioned that Sarah did photography and when we looked at her portfolio we knew she’d be perfect for us. Sarah captured the emotion of the day as well as all the small details that we’d slaved over for months! We wanted natural, unposed, spontaneous photos documenting the natural flow of the day and Sarah told our story perfectly. We couldn’t be more pleased.

The Dress
My dress was by Aidan Mattox for Coast, shoes from Dune and my jewellery was from Thomas Sabo.

The Suit and Bridesmaids
The Groom and Best man suits and my sister’s bridesmaid dress were all from Ted Baker. The flower girl dresses were from Monsoon.

Theme or Colour Scheme
I knew I wanted my bridesmaid and flower girls in blush pink with hints of gold as that went really well with my dress. Other than that, we didn’t really have a colour scheme. The theme we were going for was pretty and rustic, just simple and not over the top.

Flowers
I didn’t have a clue what I liked when it came to the flowers or what we could afford. So, I took pictures to the florists of the colours that I wanted and the kind of look we were going for and gave them the budget. They then put the flowers arrangements together for us in the jars that we had decorated. We were really happy with them, they were so pretty. I had a bouquet of blush pink roses. The flower girls wanted to hold wands instead of flowers!

Food
We had a BBQ with our day time guests – we didn’t want the formality of having a 3 course meal with a seating plan, we wanted it to be like a BBQ that you would have in your garden. For the evening, we had a rustic cheese buffet with crackers and French bread.

Wedding Cake
Our cake was 3 tiers of sponge (Victoria sponge with cream and jam, chocolate sponge with chocolate icing and lemon sponge with lemon icing) all covered in butter cream icing.

Entertainment
We had a band playing background music while we were having the BBQ and a DJ in the evening.

Buy or DIY your Stationery
We bought our wedding invitations from Suzy Hardy at Paper Fudge.

Personal or Handmade Touches
We were really lucky as both our families played a huge part in helping us to decorate the village hall. The bunting was handmade by our mums; they met regularly to have sewing sessions! The hessian table runners were also handmade by Joel’s mum and my friends and I decorated the glass jars in lace and ribbon for the centrepiece flowers. I picked lavender from our garden the day before the wedding to dot around the hall, the smell was gorgeous. We also displayed pictures of our parents and grandparents on their wedding days.

Special Moments
For me, the speeches were my favourite part of the day. I also enjoyed the readings during the ceremony; my sister read a Bob Marley poem and Joel’s dad read an extract from Louis de Bernières’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. I walked down the aisle to Ellie Goulding’s How Long Will I Love You; it brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it.

Advice to other couples
Our advice would be to delegate! People will want to be involved and help you with the planning so if you can give them jobs to do or areas of responsibility, it relieves some pressure. Also, don’t scrimp on your photography budget. The photos are lasting memories of the day and a good photographer will capture the important moments and make you look fabulous!

Biggest surprise
How calm we both felt!

Supplier Shout Outs

• Photographer – www.sarahwaytephotography.co.uk
• Flowers – www.flowers-on-the-green.co.uk
• Wedding Invitations – www.paperfudge.co.uk/wedding-stationery

For more information on Mark’s work please go to:

www.sarahwaytephotography.co.uk
www.swaytephotography.wordpress.com
[email protected]
07717 533962
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My name is Sarah and I am an offbeat and alternative wedding and portrait photographer based in Essex. I guess I would describe my style as quite natural and relaxed and my intention is to give you honest and beautiful photography that you will treasure for a lifetime. If my work evokes memories, thoughts and feelings when you view them, then I have achieved what I set out to do!