WWW readers Jennifer and Damien had one of the coolest weddings i have laid my eyes on. They wanted a colourful vibrant day with a focus on orange, not to mention a fair amount of DIY.

Jennifer has a love of blooms and so created the most beautiful DIY bouquets with Ranuculus taking centre stage. They also popped pretty blooms in tin cans, had a home made wedding cake, balloons and bunting galore.

The bridesmaid look oh so sweet, in vintage style orange print frocks with peter pan collars and red lips. Jennifer looked a vision in David Fielden with flowers in her hair, while Damien wore a kilt in the family tartan. A truly gorgeous day.

Thanks so much to ifocus Photography for sharing their lovely images with us this morning.

 

The Proposal… It was that quiet period between Christmas and New Year and we were at my parent’s house packing our bags ready to head back to Brighton. We were both muttering about how we weren’t ready to get back to normality after the Christmas festivities and the mood was pretty low…until Damo delved into his bag and presented me with the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen. It’s fair to say I burst into tears with happiness! We spent the evening having an impromptu gathering in our favourite pub in Marlow with all our friends and family present. The last thing I remember from the night was of a crowd of us singing love songs round Damo’s mum’s piano!

The Vision for the Day… We wanted a fun, relaxed feel for the day. With bright colours and a laid back feel.  Metres and metres of bunting, brightly coloured runners, lots of home-made decorations and brightly coloured flowers.

The Planning Process… We spent 18 months or so writing lists and ticking things off. I dread to think how many hours were lost browsing blog after blog after blog.

The Venue… We currently live in Brighton but are from Maidenhead and Marlow. I have a strong tie to my church in Maidenhead, which was connected to the school I went to and taught at before moving to Brighton. There was nowhere else I could imagine having our service. It was our wonderful priest’s last weekend in the parish- we were very lucky to have him. It was lovely to see some past pupils in the congregation, four of whom were recruited to be altar servers. Following the service we headed to Monk’s barn in Hurley- a perfect setting for our big day. We were given keys for the empty barn 3 days before the wedding- so we enjoyed getting everything in place with all hands on deck!

The Dress + Accessories… David Fielden 705 dress…suede orange wedges from Urban Outfitters (SALE!), lace head piece from Leonie Claire bridal shop in Brighton. I also had some love in the mist flowers in my hair.

Finding the Dress… I’m not really much of a shopper-and certainly not used to looking so glamorous, so I wasn’t actually looking forward to the dress shopping. I was excited about having a beautiful dress but wanted the process of finding it to be as quick as possible!  Mum and I went to a few shops in Brighton with varying emotions and experiences. We were both torn between two VERY different dresses. We trawled round several shops in Berkshire (just to be sure) before returning to Leonie Claire bridal boutique in Brighton where we sealed the deal on the one I never thought I would have gone for. It was more glamorous than I had ever imagined- I had always envisaged I’d be in lace with long sleeves but ended up with something quite different. After a few second opinions from Damien’s family members we decided it was perfect.

Groom’s Attire… Kilt – ‘Boyle’ Family tartan designed and officially registered by Damien and his Dad for Damien’s 21st birthday. Jacket and vest – bespoke design by Howie at 21st Century Kilts in Edinburgh.

We had a fun trip up to Edinburgh where we spent a few hours with Howie deciding on the colour combinations. With just weeks to go before the wedding Damien and his Mum collected the pieces. All was perfect.

The Readings + Music… We  chose some lovely 1st and 2nd readings online with some help from our priest and these were read by two of Damien’s sisters. The bidding prayers were written by my 5 year old nephew and 10 year old niece. I was so proud to see them up on the altar and it meant so much. My cousin provided support for them on the altar and read one too. Damien’s third sister led Damien’s nephews, 6, 4 and 6months for the offertory procession which was very cute.

Beautiful Bridesmaids… I had three lovely bridesmaids, Gemma, Pip and Karen who were all wonderfully open to any decisions made. My two beautiful nieces Grace and Hannah were perfect flower girls and we managed to buy dresses and boleros in one morning in Windsor!

Finding dresses for the bridesmaids wasn’t so straightforward. Due to logistics and geography- we never all got together to search for dresses. Instead we browsed online and I came across the perfect dresses from Plumo, the online fashion and homeware shop. The colour was perfect and I loved the peter-pan collar detail. I got the thumbs up from the three lovely ladies and orders were placed. Each bridesmaid then found their own shoes to match, which luckily wasn’t too difficult as the colour orange seemed to be everywhere at the time. It was such a treat to see them all together on the big day- they looked amazing.

The Flowers… I LOVE FLOWERS. My favourite flower is a ranunculus. I used to live round the corner from the fruit market in Bourne End and would visit every Saturday to buy some ranunculus/ranunculi(?!) to decorate my flat with. So when it came to wedding flowers, I knew exactly which flower would be the main feature. It was from the orange ranunculus that the whole orange theme developed. I come from a horticultural family, my mum and (one of my) brothers are both landscape garden designers. Karen, one of my bridesmaids works for them both as well. We went to a cutting garden (Green and Gorgeous) and chose which flowers we would like. We were told we would be lucky to have ranunculus in flower at that time of year which was heartbreaking  (we had them in the end due to the long winter…my mum even grew her own which was fantastic!). Mum has done flowers for several weddings over the years and it was so exciting to have the utility room full of flowers for MY wedding after all these years!  Mum, Karen and I spent a lovely few hours arranging all the flowers into old baked bean cans, as well as making the button holes. Another friend made our beautiful bouquets. Flowers included florists’ dill, wax flowers, ranunculus (hurray!), yellow and orange roses, tanecetum, quaking grass, apple mint, Solomon seal and ammi majus.

The Cake… Another family affair- my mum made the cakes, three round, two rectangular and my sister-in-law Sarah decorated them perfectly. We found two plain wooden pegs as toppers and had ribbon round each tier. We also added a few fresh flowers to the top tier. The cake stood on an Irish drum (bodhran) emblazoned with a ‘B’ for Boyle, from Damien’s family.

Your Photographer… We met Phil from ifocus photography at a wedding fair. We were drawn to his ‘instagram’ type filters and non-pushy sales pitch! We knew we’d made the right choice when he came to Brighton for our engagement shoot. We now run the huge task of choosing our favourite photos from the day itself!

The Details + Decor… We were so happy with everything on the day. The décor was bright and zesty and we had so much fun putting it all together. Place names were oranges wrapped in ribbon, these also doubled up as favours (although not many people ate them-too sticky!) Damien’s mum whipped up some fantastic banners which hung at one end of the barn. We threw in lots of personal touches and had a lot of help from our talented friends and family.

The Honeymoon… Mini-moon – We went to Hay-on-Wye for 5 days straight after the wedding and stayed in Gabriel’s Yurt, an idyllic place we found on Canopy and Stars website. It rained 80% of the time which gave us the perfect excuse to say in, rest, read, drink red wine and re-live all our memories of the big day. It did stop raining long enough for us to attend a few events at the Hay festival which was fun. We are already planning to go back next year.

Main-moon- We have just returned from a big trip to Canada where we spent three weeks exploring the sights of Toronto and Vancouver. We enjoyed finding out all that the HUGE country has to offer. Highlights include attending a baseball game in Toronto and mountain biking in Whistler.

Memorable Moments… I’ll never forget the overwhelming feeling I got on arrival at the church. I loved looking around and seeing all the people we love there ready to spend our special day with us.

Advice for Other Couples… Make sure you enjoy the planning process- I loved every bit of our day but look back just as fondly on the weeks in the run up, pulling it all together with my closest friends and family.

Credit Where Credit is Due…

Leonie Claire Bridal Boutique, Brighton – http://www.leonieclaire.com/

Green and Gorgeous cutting garden – http://www.greenandgorgeousflowers.co.uk/index.htm

Ifocus photography – http://www.ifocusphotography.co.uk/

21st Century Kilts – http://21stcenturykilts.com/

Save the dates and invites- our wonderful friends Ali and James- http:/hello-dodo.blogspot.com/

 

 

Ekkkk i so love this wedding :-) Thanks so much to Jennifer and Damien for sharing all about their wedding with us today XOXO Lou