Sophie and David's 'Rustic Boho' Cornish Cowshed Wedding by Jamie Webb Photography

I have a really lovely wedding to share with you today, and it’s even more special as it comes from my home county of Cornwall. Sophie and David chose The Cowshed, as it gave them the rustic backdrop they were looking for, coupled with the fact they could bring in their own suppliers and decorate it just as they wanted. Complete with a wedding bake off, which gave them all manner of amazing cakes and desserts, as well as some super pretty DIY decoration that Sophie spent hours perfecting. This wedding is full of the most lovely details and is full of love from this adoring couple. The day was captured by Jamie Webb Photography.

We had a great, relaxed party with our wonderful friends and family. It was a lovely day in stunning surroundings, with drink flowing and music playing.

Sophie and David were married on 28th April 2018 at The Cowshed, Millbrook in Cornwall. ‘We had our hearts set on a rustic, countryside wedding and knew that we wanted a relaxed wedding day where we could be outside as well as inside. We had been to see a few venues in Cornwall but as soon as we walked through the wooden gate at The Cowshed, we knew this was where we were going to say our ‘I dos’. The excitement of arriving at such a beautiful venue was followed by feelings of comfort as the lovely owner Sarah gave us the grand tour and then sat with us over a pot of tea. We sat and chatted about our vision for the big day, everything she could offer us and we all got to know each other. There is an option to dress the venue for you but I had always wanted to have a DIY wedding so you can have everything exactly as you want it. We wanted the ceremony to be just close friends and family so had 27 people attend. 63 other guests were invited to arrive just half an hour later, straight after the ceremony. We originally started looking at venues in July 2016 but shortly after this we found out we were pregnant so put things on hold for a year. Once we found The Cowshed, planning began and took around 8 months from booking the venue to the big day itself.’

How they met
I love watching live music and used to go to a few open mic nights on the Barbican in Plymouth. David happens to be a talented musician who I met at one of these nights back in 2012. He then formed a band, The Retro Gents, with my housemate at the time and we just started seeing more and more of each other and really hit it off!

The proposal
David and I spent April 2016 in Thailand on a nice long holiday, hopping from place to place, cramming in as much of the country as possible. After a whole day travelling by boat to this island, I was burnt like a lobster and suffering from sunstroke but did not let that stop me from enjoying the island. After a walk down the beach to find the right spot for a dip we were sat on the beach and David was acting suspicious and said he needed to go back to our bungalow. On his return he asked me if I wanted to see a video he had made on the boat journey that morning. He said I had to put earphones in to watch it. The video had the soundtrack of ‘Friendship’ by Tenacious D and started of with photos of us, the adventures we have been on, people we’ve met and then I had to pause the video… David got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! David then told me to put the headphones back in and press play. What followed was congratulations videos from family and friends from Plymouth, Southampton, Cornwall – it was amazing how much work David had put into it and it did set me off crying!

How did you allocate your budget?
We didn’t!

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
I definitely splurged on my dress and getting my hair and make-up done; and we splurged on the venue – but we did save a lot with the help of our friends on food and drink, the flowers, the music and decorations. Having a bake-off also saved us a fair amount.

How did you choose your photographer?
I went through a phase of entering competitions online, and back in 2016 I entered a competition for couples to win an engagement photoshoot with Jamie…and I won!!! Jamie and I both share a love of tea so I’m pretty sure that’s why my application caught his eye. We met Jamie in our favourite woods, went for a walk, chatting about everything from the venue, to what bands we like the best. Jamie took some lovely photos of us with our little girl and we loved Jamie so much we decided to book him for our wedding day.

The dress
My dress was Grace Loves Lace. I was endlessly searching online for a dress I liked, one that was ‘me’, but felt like I was having no luck. That was until I discovered Grace Loves Lace. I fell in love with the whole brand and so knew I had to make the 5 hour drive to visit their London showroom. When I tried on the ‘Rosa’ gown, that was it – I loved how it felt, how I looked and the reactions of my bridesmaids confirmed that this was the dress for me. Whilst at the showroom, my friend bought me some beautiful teardrop shaped baroque pearl earrings to wear with the dress. My shoes were from Office.

The suit and bridesmaids
David and his best men wore blue check suits from Ben Sherman, ties from Debenhams and shoes from Moss Bros. My bridesmaids wore dresses from Asos – one of my bridesmaids was 7 months pregnant on our wedding day and Asos offers some dress styles in both regular and maternity sizes. Our flower girls wore dresses and cardigans from Monsoon and shoes from Debenhams.

Theme or colour scheme
Our theme was quite a relaxed one – a mixture of rustic, boho and garden fete. Whilst searching online for some wedding inspo, I found a flower archway on Instagram which influenced my colour scheme, although this was not strict.

Flowers
My flowers were done by a very close friend of mine and were perfect. I had a natural hand tied bouquet with red ameranthus, vendella roses, wine red piano roses, peach avalanche roses, pale pink astrantia, double soft peach lisianthus, ivory veronica, ivory rice flower, bear grass, cereal eucalyptus, and peach astilbe.

Decoration
The ceremony was held in the Cowshed where guests sat on hay bales covered in cream blankets, where we said our vows under a beautiful ladder archway which had flowers cascading down and at our feet were lanterns and candles. The reception was held in the Milking Parlour; above each of the ceiling lights were flowers and greenery, bottles saved from a local pub ran up the centre of each table holding flowers and candles. We used David’s guitar case as a card box and a jenga tower as our guest book. We presented the order of the day and the menu on chalk boards, which I spent hours doing and redoing, and we also hung some of our favourite photos up in some empty frames already there.

Food
In the afternoon guests could enjoy scones with jam and clotted cream. The scones were baked fresh that morning at Nelly’s Bakery in nearby Lostwithiel and they were to die for.
My best friends mum has a catering company ‘Big Pan Parties’ – their food is sensational so there really was no question of who we would like to feed all of our guests. We chose three dishes which each meant something to us. Firstly, Jamaican Jerk Chicken. On our holiday to Jamaica a few years before the wedding David pretty much lived on the stuff and now loves to cook this at home too! Secondly, we had Moroccan Lamb Tagine. This was my favourite dish from our first holiday together to Marrakech. Finally we had our go to, good mood food which has been our saviour at many festivals over the years – good old Mac’n’Cheese.
Later on in the evening we had a selection of cheeses, crackers and chutneys for people to help themselves to.

Wedding cake
Rather than have a wedding cake, we decided to try and save money and add some more fun to the day by holding ‘The Great Wedding Bake Off’. We included the information to participate in with the wedding invitations and we were delighted that so many of our guests took up the challenge and put their baking hats on. David and I found it really hard to decide on just one winner and ended up crowning two; one on tastiness and one for decoration. Everyone who brought a cake was given an engraved wooden spoon as a thank you.

Entertainment
Music was an important part of our day as music is what brought us together in the first place – David is a talented musician and I love going to watch live music; we first met at a local open mic night and hit it off from there. So we were very fortunate that some of David’s musical friends agreed to play for us throughout the day at our wedding. A duo called Soul stone played outside in the afternoon and Faux Furs played in the evening. David and I also put together a playlist on Spotify which we played in between the live music and at the end of the night.
There was also a DIY photo booth. David and I raided the local charity shops for some bits and bobs our guests could wear and asked a family friend to take photos of our guests.

Who supplied the stationery?
The stationery was from Vistaprint and David chose it. I think he was surprised that I went with his choice, but he did good!

Personal touches
It was really important to me to include something in memory of my mum at the ceremony. We placed a photo of her on her wedding day at the front, where she should have been, with some magnolia from the garden of her old house.

Special moments
The best part of my day was seeing David for the first time. I had been stressing all morning about what it would be like walking down the aisle and had I remembered to do everything, but once we were there and I was holding his hand I felt a huge relief. Another special moment was the way my daughter looked at me on the morning of the wedding – she had stayed with David’s family the night before and when she saw me I felt like the most beautiful person in the world.

Advice for other couples
Firstly, enjoy every minute of it as it goes so quickly! Make sure you remember something to keep yourself warm – I ordered my bridesmaids scarves to cover their shoulders but completely forgot to think of myself so ended up wearing various guests’ jackets throughout the day. Consider hiring somebody to oversee everything on the day of your wedding – I played wedding planner for our wedding day but you do not want to be running around on your big day locating the knife to cut the cake when you should be enjoying yourself. It would have definitely made my day easier if there was somebody else there making sure everything ran smoothly so I could switch off from wedding planner mode.

Biggest surprise
That it didn’t rain!! We were both sure it was going to, and I was worrying that our hopes to have an outdoor reception would be washed away. But we got lucky and although it was a little cloudy and chilly, everybody stayed dry!