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24
Feb
2020
By Boho
Hello Monday and how are you all? I hope you had a good weekend and that you haven’t been affected too much by the terrible weather?! Roll on Summer is all I can say. If you are planning a wedding, I can imagine organising your honeymoon or applying for a honeymoon fund will be high on your agenda at the moment, something amazing to look forward to once all the planning is over and an end to the terrible winter weather. Today we head to Sussex as it’s the turn of Lucy and Lewis and their gorgeous barn wedding, filled with copper details and lots of homemade projects. They created most of the decoration themselves, the whole day is filled with personal elements. Lewis is a plumber, so they had a fun take on this and created the copper pipe candelabras that adorned each table, as well as the copper pipe bar sign. So clever! Anna Marie Stepney was there to capture the day in all it’s glory.
Our wedding encapsulated both our personalities and us as a couple exactly how we wanted it to! It was fun, relaxed and the decorations looked so beautiful all together.
Lucy and Lewis were married on 31st August 2019 at The Yoghurt Rooms, East Grinstead in Sussex. ‘It was so unique and only holds a maximum of 15 weddings a year, we also knew we wouldn’t find another venue where all out friends would be able to stay with us and there was a rave room for the after party! There was lots of accommodation on sight including yurts and all the animals too! Wwe had 90 guests and it took 15 months to plan.’
How they met
We met in a bar, through friends…nothing exciting, but more traditional than swiping right. We were engaged after 15 months! We have now been together just over 3 years.
The proposal
Lewis arranged a trip to Galway in Ireland, he told me to bring a fancy outfit for a special day out. So he wore a suit and a fancy dress and we drove an out to remote location to Ashford castle. It was beautiful and he proposed in a secret garden on the grounds and we celebrated after in the castle with dinner and champagne.
How did you allocate your budget?
We funded the wedding entirely ourselves. We allocated most of our budget on entertainment (band, music, food and venue).
Where did you splurge and where did you save?
We splurged on the venue but we knew we didn’t want to sacrifice that as getting married at a hotel venue, golf club just wasn’t us and we wanted something unique with a blank canvas to incorporate handmade decorations. We also allocated money to the band/pianist, catering and an open bar! All our suppliers were really reasonable and we were very lucky.
We saved money on bridesmaids dresses (on sale in topshop), groomsman’s suits (next), and we made all our own decorations!
How did you choose your photographer?
I originally chose a photographer through Instagram by looking through photos of what I really wanted. I wanted them to be candid and natural and grab those special unforced moments. Unfortunately, our photographer cancelled in February 19 of our wedding due to falling pregnant, but we were lucky to find Annamarie who was also exactly what we wanted, and a bonus being that she lived much more locally to our venue. We love that our images capture the natural special moments with our friends and family of hugging, dancing and having fun. What we liked about Annamarie is that she captured everything naturally, and without interrupting the flow of our day.
We also had a videographer who was amazing and would highly recommend!
The dress
My dress was by Stella York I bought this at Helena Fortley in Caterham. The veil was also from the same shop. My shoes were Dune. My hair piece was handmade by Eden B studios. I wore Monica Vinader earrings and no other jewellery. My make up was by Helen Lee. Hair by Hero Hair stylist – Kate Beaumont, Highly recommend both!
The suit and bridesmaids
The grooms suit Jacket was tailor made by Hackett (London) He picked up a pair of plain tuxedo trousers from Next to go with it.
Theme or colour scheme
Lewis is a plumber and I love all the copper pipe bits and bobs for the household at the moment . So I showed Lewis a few pictures and together we came up with the idea to have copper candelabras as our centre pieces on the tables. He also made a copper bar sign which was amazing. We had copper wire around the buttonholes to incorporate this. We then went for neutral colours everywhere else, champagne bridesmaids dresses, black suits for the boys and Lewis had an emerald green blazer. There were pops of coral and pink in the flowers and the ribbons.
Flowers
Ivy Florence was our supplier – she is close to the venue. I had a white/neutral bouquet with pops of coral/ pink and sprigs of lavender. She sprayed some barley in copper to match our copper theme. We had two big milk urns of flowers and the bridesmaids had a smaller version of my bouquet. We made copper barley and lavender sprigs to sit on the napkins on peoples plates to match. The venue filled more milk urns with weeping willow branches which you can see in some of the pictures!
Decoration
I have listed this mostly above. But we also put bunting up around the venue. We also made a wooden Instagram frame to hang from the tree and I just ordered some stickers from etsy to customise it, saying ‘The Parkers – 31st August 2019’
We cleaned up a pallet and put our order of service on it with the stickers from etsy too.
On our tables as above we had the candelabras, and my bridesmaid printed each guests name on pebbles we collected from Brighton with my bridesmaids children. The florist provided leaf vines to run through the tables.
Instead of confetti we had ribbon wands, and had ribbon hoops hanging from the ceiling which me and my bridesmaid made.
We had an American mailbox for our guests’ cards.
A big cinema sign saying ‘I bet that you look good on the dance floor’
Food
Supplier – EpiCatering. We had canapes (lots of them)
For mains we had sharing platters which had – salmon, jerk chicken and minted lamb. These were propped up on the tables with sprayed copper cans and the platter laid on top so that it didn’t take up too much room.
We then had chocolate cups filled with different desserts – cheesecake, eton mess and a lime mouse.
Hog roast in the evening!
Wedding cake
I didn’t want a wedding cake, but my husband’s nan ordered us one which was lovely. It is in a cage in the pictures by a lady local ‘Heavenlea cakes’ We just wanted a ‘cheese cake’ with lots of crackers and chutney which our guests demolished. So we had both! I ordered this from Costco and out caterers decorated it.
Entertainment
We had a pianist through the ceremony, our guests sang songs through our ceremony, we had ‘Praise you – fat boy slim’ and ‘is this love – Bob Marley’. She then sang and played through the drinks reception. My cousin also sang and played the guitar during the drinks reception.
We then had an acoustic set by our band (Season) during the meal then they performed in the evening, they were amazing and let me crowd surf. We also had a Photo booth!
Who supplied the stationery?
Me! I designed the invitations myself on vista print and we had a wedding website instead to save paper and the hassle of RSVP’s, we used Prezola as a gift list so it was all linked on one site! The order of service matched and I did these too…the other stationary was all handmade by us.
Special moments
One of my favourite parts of the wedding was the ceremony and seeing all our friends and family singing the songs we chose. I did a speech with a limoncello toast. We also loved the band and the evening reception.
Advice for other couples?
Stay calm – don’t lose sight of what it’s all really about – marrying the love of your life!
Don’t rush into choosing suppliers, shop around and don’t feel afraid of asking for exactly of what you really want.
What was your biggest surprise of the day?
Lewis booked me a trip to New York as my wedding gift.
Supplier Shout Outs
- Venue: The Yoghurt Rooms
- Hair: Hero Hairstylist
- Make up: Helen Lee
- Videographer: Meros Productions – Harvey White
- Photographer: Anna Marie Stepney
- Catering: EpiCatering
- Large Cinema Sign: Locke and Busby
- Pianist / singer: Emily
- Guitarist /singer: Marcus Coyne
- Band: Season
- Flowers: Ivy Florence
For more information on Anna Marie Stepney go to
www.annamariestepney.co.uk / www.annamariestepney.co.uk/photography-blog / [email protected] / 07515 806542 / FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / TWITTER
I’m Annamarie. A wedding photographer who lives in West Sussex, but travels anywhere I’m asked to capture wonderful weddings. I love to work with chilled out couples, who don’t take themselves too seriously, and want their wedding day to be one big happy celebration with all their favourite people having just the best time. In terms of photographic style, I’d describe myself as largely documentary capturing things as they happen without interruption or direction, with a sprinkle of creative portraiture whereby I lightly direct to still keep things natural and unposed.
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I appreciate this article – thank you so much for writing it! I like that you went both chronologically and in detail about the logistics of the wedding as well as some of the motives that went behind it. I also like that you added some tips at the end to alleviate any stresses that people may have about planning a wedding. My aunt is getting married soon, so I believe that this article will be very helpful to her!
Beautiful ceremony! Beautiful couple!
What a wonderful story and beautiful photos! I was supposed to attend a wedding in May, but in light of the pandemic, the couple is moving it. I appreciate all of the detail you went into, maybe this article will be helpful to them!