Melissa and Nathaniel's Relaxed Countryside Chic Wedding with a Touch of Boho

Hello you lovely people, how are you all? Today I have a super pretty wedding for you sent into me by the lovely Lynette from Boho Bride Boutique in Stratford upon Avon. Lynette runs the most gorgeous bridal boutique where she not only stocks a huge range of beautiful wedding dresses, but a tailor made service too. Brides can work with the in-house designers to design their own dress. Lynette sent me this glorious wedding of Melissa and Nathaniel and I was quick to accept it and feature it today. This gorgeous couple hired Garthmyl Hall so they could host their wedding exclusively and let it run for the whole weekend. They had a relaxed countryside feel to their day with beautiful flowers and rustic touches, alongside accents of Boho. The whole day is super sweet and has a real charming feel to it. Big thanks to Matt Willis Photography for the lovely images.

The weekend that made our hearts burst! The most magical weekend filled with so much love and support from our amazing family, friends and suppliers.

Melissa and Nathaniel were married on 18th May 2019, the ceremony was at St Beuno’s Church, Berriew, with the reception at Garthmyl Hall. ‘Our venue was an exclusive hire wedding venue on the Wales/Shropshire border called Garthmyl Hall. It’s a beautiful Georgian house that is owned and ran by an amazing lady called Julia Pugh. It has a stunning walled garden and beautifully decorated grand rooms including 10 x bedrooms and additional accommodation on site so we could stay there along with close friends and family (and our dogs). We wanted a venue that didn’t feel like they offered a conveyor belt wedding and Garthmyl Hall lets you hire it out for the whole weekend so it felt like a little holiday instead of it all being over in one day. Garthmyl was also perfect as it wasn’t too corporate and the whole vibe there is very relaxed. Julia and the team there are like one big family that make you feel so welcome. You can get married at Garthmly Hall however we were keen to have a church wedding so our ceremony was in a lovely little church just 2 minutes from Garthmyl. We had 97 day guests with 21 evening guests, it took about a year and a half / two years to plan.’

How they met
We are a Tinder success story. Nathaniel was my first and my last Tinder date. We met in November 2014 so have been together nearly 6 years. We have just welcomed our first child Alber James Street in to the world on 13^th June.

The proposal
We got engaged on the beautiful Greek Island Santorini famous for its stunning sunsets. We had a favourite secluded spot on the edge of a cliff that we would go to most evenings to watch the most beautiful sunsets. One evening we drove up on our quad bike and as the sun was setting Nathaniel got down on one knee. He had secretly hidden a bottle of champagne in the quad bike so after he proposed (and I said yes) we sipped champagne and watched the rest of the sun go down. We then went to a little fish restaurant in a quaint Marina to celebrate.

How did you allocate your budget?
We worked out our budget breakdown based on some example budget templates online. However as the planning progressed some of the budget allocations went out of the window as everything tended to be more expensive than first estimated.

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
We tended to splurge more on the venue as we fell in love with Garthmyl so tried to make our budget work around that. However compared to other venues Garthmyl was great as the cost included accommodation that we were then able to charge back to our guests and the corkage cost was quite low compared to most other venues.
There were lots of areas where we tried to save money. We had a lot of help from our talented family and friends such as my Auntie Helen who did all of the calligraphy for our place names and also our friend Lauren designed our wedding invites for us. We also made all of our wedding signage ourselves and designed and made all of the rest of our wedding stationary too. We used our own Defender as the wedding car and tried to save on flowers by sourcing our own additional flowers and foliage from a wholesaler that we used to add the finishing touches to the venue.

How did you choose your photographer?
Our photographer was a great guy called Matt Willis. Matt was recommended to us by Julia at the venue. We loved his relaxed and natural style and how he captured nice little un staged moments throughout the day. He also knew the venue well which was a bonus.

The dress
When I started looking for wedding dresses, I tried quite a few on that I liked but none of them I really loved. I didn’t seem to get that moment when you try a dress on and you know it’s ‘the one’. I had visited quite a few bridal shops and had tried lots and lots of dresses on and was starting to get frustrated as I thought I would never find ‘the one’. I knew what I liked and what I didn’t so when I visited Boho Bride and discovered they had a bespoke Freedom Collection where you could design your own I was so pleased. The Freedom Collection let me choose all of the different parts of dresses that I had liked and merge them all together for my perfect dress.
As it was a bespoke dress and there were lots of stages to the process, it was very hard to envisage how it would actually look on the day so was quite scary. But when I tried the finished dress on I felt like a princess! My dress was everything I had imagined and Lynette, Laura and Lucy made sure that I was 100% happy with it by accommodating some last minute tweaks. On my wedding day I felt like a true Boho Bride and felt like I floated everywhere. It was so comfy too so I felt relaxed the whole day! I just wish I could wear it again!

The suits and bridesmaids
The grooms and groomsmen suits were from Marc Darcy. We purchased them from Country Master in Broadway.
I had two bridesmaids. My maid of honour was my big sister Hannah and my other bridesmaid Sarah who is a close family friend but also like a sister to me. I got their dresses from Rewritten. The dresses were floaty/relaxed maxi dresses with floaty sleeves in a sage green/marine colour. I also had two flower girls, my god daughter Madison and Nathaniels god daughter Decla. They wore little white dresses which we finished off with pink sashes made by my mum.

Theme or colour scheme
We didn’t have a theme as such but were keen to have a boho/countryside style wedding. Garthmyl allowed us to bring our two dogs along and our wedding car was our Land Rover Defender so there were lots of nods throughout the day to our love of country life. The groomsmen even had shotgun cartridges for their buttonholes.

Flowers
The general style we wanted for the flowers was relaxed and ‘country garden’ like to match the ‘country side’ theme. I love protea, anemones and peonies so these were a key part of the bouquets, flower crowns and arrangements along with lots of foliage. We collected lots of gin bottles for the tables to hold beautiful relaxed blooms and our florist made an amazing hanging plank for the marquee which they dressed with summer foliage: sweet peas, protea, clematis, viburnum and astilbe as a focal point. For the top table, they reused the small foliage aisle garlands from the church to add a bit more impact, creating a full-length garland along the table.
A few days before the wedding Nathaniel and I also went to a flower market and picked up lots of extra foliage and blooms to further decorate the venue and add some finishing touches.

Decoration
We wanted the wedding to feel very rustic and boho so all of our signage and décor followed this theme. We weren’t keen on weddings that felt too perfect and polished so wanted a really relaxed and natural feel to the whole day which was reflected in our wedding décor.

Food
We served canapés and drinks in the walled garden when people returned to the venue. For our wedding breakfast we had…
Starter- Parmesan gnocchi with 18 hour slow braised beef served with a parmesan crisp and beetroot relish
Palette cleanser- Chase gin and tonic sorbet with candied lemon
Main – Rump of Herefordshire lamb served with parmentier potations, braised bib lettuce, butternut square puree and a rich jus
Then tea and coffee and Petit Fours
For the evening food, we had a wood fire pizza company cook fresh pizzas.

Wedding cake
We opted for a semi naked three tier cake with a salted caramel drip. The cake was decorated with beautufil foliage and anemones and placed on top of a large wooden board that Nathaniel made. The flavours we went for were….

Entertainment
When people arrived at Garthmyl from the church for drinks and canapes, we had a very talented musician play in the walled garden. Her name was Esther Turner who I had discovered on a night out and loved the way she remixed songs both old and new and made them her own. One of the highlights of our day was when my dad announced that he had written a song with her which she then went on to play. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house!
For the evening we had a live band called ‘The Perfect Day Party Band’ who got everyone on the dancefloor.

Who supplied the stationery?
Our lovely friend Lauren designed our wedding invites for us. She designed them to match our flower theme with gorgeous protea, anemones and foliage.
I designed our menus and order of service myself as well as all of our signage. Nathaniel then bought the signage to life and made them all himself from scratch including our table plan and welcome sign. He even made the easel for our welcome sign.
For our table place names, we had little brass frames and all of the names were handwritten by my Auntie Helen who is very talented at caligraphy.

Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We went to Kenya on safari for 2 weeks and then ended the trip with a week of relaxation in Zanzibar.

Special moments
It’s hard to choose the most special moments as the whole day/weekend was so magical. From travelling to the church in the back of the Defender with my dad, to walking down the aisle and saying ‘I Do’. To being surprised with a song that my dad wrote for us and then our first dance as husband and wife and partying the night away with our friends and family. It was all so amazing and a day we will never forget.

Advice for other couples
Don’t sweat the small stuff and make sure you enjoy your day. You spend so much money on your wedding so make sure you get the best out of it. And also enjoy the process. When you’re in the midst of it, it can seem pretty stressful but now it’s all over I miss all the planning and shopping!!

Biggest surprise
The biggest surprise was when my dad announced that he had written a song with our wedding singer which she then went on to play during our wedding reception in the walled garden. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house/garden.