29

May

2014

Vanessa & Andy’s Country Chic, Festival Wedding. By Courtney Louise Photography

Todays wedding is super pretty and full of country charm and I just love it! Vanessa and  Andy chose a Festival themed wedding with a relaxed, laid back vibe and the end result is just lovely. Starting off with their pet dogs waiting for them at the church this wedding just keeps on giving, with amazing flowers  and a beautifully decorated venue, cider station, homemade details, great food and a silent disco to finish everything off, the wedding is the kind of wedding I’d want to be a guest at! Big thanks to  Courtney Louise for capturing it for us all to share.

It was as perfect as we had ever dared to dream!

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Vanessa and Andy were married on 19th April at St Mary’s Church in Carlton le Moorland, Lincolnshire. Their reception, share with 120 guests, was at Kelham Country Manor House, near Newark. “St Mary’s is our village church. The church has a real community feel to it and with it being small and quaint, it was ideal for us. We held the reception at Kelham Country Manor House as when we were looking around venues, Kelham really allowed us the freedom to include all of the personal touches that we wanted. We went to so many venues where you are restricted to wedding package A, B or C but Kelham were the complete opposite – they wanted our wedding to be different! Not only that but the staff were excellent at all times, they went above and beyond to make our day special.”

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How they met
We met over the fax machine at work and have been together for 8 years.

The proposal
It was Christmas morning and Santa had left a small sparkly package at the end of my stocking next to the clementine!

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How did you allocate your budget?
I (Vanessa) became a big fan of excel spreadsheets and divided up the budget in terms of priority. I very much took Monica from Friends as my inspiration! I have such a love of flowers and so they were key to the theme and therefore took priority.

How did you choose your photographer?
We went with Courtney as she just ‘got us’ and what our wedding was all about! We wanted to avoid the hanging around associated with hours of endless formal photos and instead, we wanted spontaneous photos that captured the mood of the day. Courtney also shared our love of our furry friends (Ted, Ralph and Barney) and how important it was for our animals to be part of our day.

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The dress and accessories
The first time I went wedding dress shopping was not a great experience I have to say – everything I tried on was boring, formal and uncomfortable and I was told that the boho dress I was looking for was ‘very American’! So, I searched high and low and came across Caroline Chamberlain. Caroline was amazing right from word go. After 15 minutes of verbal diarrhoea from me, Caroline went away for 2 minutes and came back with the most amazing sketch which depicted the exact image of the dress in my head! Caroline is an absolute expert in what she does – she knew exactly what fabrics would work well and what wouldn’t work so well. I felt totally comfortable in my dress and really felt that it captured that boho feel.  My shoes were from Ted Baker – they very much replicated the Manolo Blahnik shoes worn by one of my idols – Carrie Bradshaw!

The suit and bridesmaids
Suits – I was very surprised to find these country chic suits in Next – the colour and twill fabric were just perfect! Adult bridesmaids – the dresses were from Monsoon. Flower girls – the dresses were from Monsoon

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The theme
The theme was country chic meets Darling Buds of May

The flowers
The flowers were by Mrs Umbels. We very much wanted to avoid the perfectly pruned look and instead wanted the kind of wild flowers that you would find in the countryside. Sarah and Lucy at Mrs Umbels were absolutely wonderful – they understood our vision from the very beginning. They went above and beyond throughout the process and on the day even added extra little touches here and there that we hadn’t planned for – they just knew what would work well and I totally trusted them. I cannot recommend them enough. Everyone who went to the wedding commented on how amazing the flowers were.

The decoration
The decoration was very much shabby chic with an eclectic mix of bunting, hessian, gingham and hay bales! We even had a cider station where guests could grab a bottle of Rekorderlig cider from one of the wooden barrels.

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The food and wedding cake
For the wedding breakfast we had goats cheese stack (inspired by our favourite local pub – the Five Bells at Bassingham) for starters, spring lamb for main and a trio of Eton mess, lemon tart and brownie for dessert. In the evening we had an amazing hog roast by Little John’s Hog Roast and a croque en bouche for dessert made by my friend Kathy Joyce at Food for Thought. The croque en bouche was a work of art and tasted out of this world! Andy’s sister-in-law made an amazing bird-cage cake and cupcakes. Everyone commented on how delicious they were!

The entertainment
We had The Joe Strange band from Nottingham play in the evening – they had everyone up on the dance floor! They were incredible! We very much wanted a ‘wedding fest’ vibe to the evening celebration and so took inspiration from Glastonbury with a silent disco to finish off the evening with boys vs girls battling it out over the DJ decks – it went down an absolute storm!!

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Buy or DIY your stationery?
We had our stationary made and personalised by an eBay company. The invites very much reflected the shabby chic feel of the wedding.

Personal or handmade touches
– We made the favours ourselves which were little glass jars of mini eggs topped with gingham material and tied with jute and a name tag. The favours doubled up as place names and tied in with the Easter feel (as it was Easter Saturday).
– We created an Easter Egg hunt around the grounds to keep the little ones entertained.
– We created a unique table plan consisting of names stamped onto wooden pegs and placed into a flower-pot for each table – I took inspiration from a picture I found on Pinterest. Pinterest was so useful for providing inspiration!

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Special moments
– The silent disco – seeing everyone enjoying both the music and the experience
– Turning up to church to see our animals (two Labradors named Ted and Ralph and a horse called Barney) behaving impeccably (it was touch and go as to whether they would behave!)
– Our private moment in Gladys the Morris Minor on our way from the church to the reception

Advice for other couples
Don’t be afraid to be different and trust your own vision!

Biggest surprise
The weather! We were expecting rain, hail and snow but instead we got beautiful blue sunshine – a perfect Spring day!

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Supplier Shout Outs:

 

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

www.courtneylouisephotography.co.uk
FACEBOOK
@courtneylphoto
[email protected]
07823 440536

I am a Cotswold based female wedding photographer, covering the UK and beyond, with a relaxed and un-obtrusive approach.

 

 

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Comments

    Emily

    Beautiful bride, I can never get enough of a floral crown! Got to say I love the grooms tie as well and how beautiful are the photos under the cherry Blossom tree, wonderful idea!

    Reply

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