Quaint & Home Made Big Party Farm Wedding - Whimsical Wonderland...

Quaint & Home Made Big Party Farm Wedding - Whimsical Wonderland...

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It's always so exciting to share a WWW real bride's wedding day. We have followed Kate through her wedding planning and she even joined in with the WWW editorial shoot last year. So I am over the moon to be featuring the big celebration today.

Tim and Kate tied the knot on the 20 th September 2014 in a Church ceremony followed by a marquee reception at Tim's Gran's farm. With 142 guests to host during the day, there was a lot of planning and thought that went on behind the scenes. In fact most of the wedding and the gorgeous décor were home made by their family and friends.

It was a triumph. From the gorgeous blooms to the star light and the colourful bunting, I love it all. Kate looked so very beautiful in her dreamy gown and Lila flower crown whilst Tim donned a Liberty print bow tie and the maids wore emerald dresses. It doesn't get much prettier than this lovelies.

Many thanks to the amazing Emma Case Photography for sharing these lovely images with us today.

THE PROPOSAL | On the farm (where we had the wedding), with the ring on top of an old Rolleiflex camera.

THE VISION | The most important thing was to us was to have a big, relaxed party, surrounded by everyone we love. That totalled quite a few people (we had 142 guests for the day) so we needed a way that we could afford to have that many people, whilst also having lots of lovely food, drink, décor, etc.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | Tim and I had always said that if we were to get married it would be lovely to have it on his Gran's farm - somewhere that means a lot to him as he spent a lot of time there as a child. After Tim proposed he asked his Gran if it would be OK, and luckily, she said yes!

This was great, but it did mean that we had to plan for EVERYTHING. The farm is really just a few lovely fields (they have a barn and stable but we weren't going to use those), so we had to think of everything that we could possibly need and arrange for it to be there. This ranged from generators, to toilets, to salt and pepper shakers! It took us a good year to plan everything, we booked our photographers straight away, but everything else was gradual through the year.

BUDGET | As well as saving hard ourselves, we were very lucky to have a lot of financial help from our families. We had a rough budget when we started planning and, although I've never dared work out exactly how much we spent (there were a few last minute internet orders!), we didn't go too far over. The one thing we kept saying when discussing keeping the costs down was 'well, we could cut the fireworks', but I can't tell you how glad we are that we didn't. They were absolutely fantastic! In hindsight I do wish we'd had a bit of extra money for a videographer though.

THE VENUE | We used Sandhurst Marquees for our marquee. They were local and Glenn was excellent - putting up with my many questions and plan changes. They also provided our generator and back-up generator, all the tables, tablecloths, and a bar. We had a catering tent on the back and a small entrance tent on the front.

We planned the layout of the fields so people could park, then easily walk to the marquee. The windows of the marquee faced out across the field and all of the supplies were hidden behind the tent. Tim's Dad and Uncle built us a rope walkway from the car park field to the tent, which they wrapped in fairy lights. It looked amazing and was obviously particularly special at night (and helped guide the way to the tent in the dark!). Tim's Dad also plumbed us up a water tap, and we hired a nice toilet block.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | The wedding dress was 1352 from Blush by Hayley Paige.

The flower crown was made to order from Lila, who I met at a wedding fair. She was great - I visited her studio to try on some examples and discuss the colours and flowers for our wedding, and she made the headband based on that. The flowers are mainly made of clay and so beautiful, I loved it.

I'm not a jewellery person at all, but in the end my now sister-in-law Clare lent me her simple silver and pearl bracelet to wear on the day, which was lovely and my 'something borrowed'.

My shoes were from Office in the sale.

FINDING THE DRESS | Buying the wedding dress was not a particularly easy process! I must have tried on about 80. I had the problem that I quite liked a few of them, but not enough to spend such a huge amount of money on. I kept hoping I'd find one and know it was 'the one'. I didn't!

Eventually, I wanted to try on a specific dress, and found Les Trois Soeurs as they had it in the store to try on. I ended up trying on a few others while there and narrowed it down to the one I had wanted to try on, and the one I eventually bought. After going back 3 times to try them on, I finally decided - and was so relived once I had it ordered! In the end I thought about how I wanted to feel on the day (comfortable) and the sort of wedding we were having (farm!) and I was so happy with my choice.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | After trying on a few high street suits, Tim decided he'd rather spend a bit more and get a suit tailor made. We went to Cad & the Dandy on Saville Row and, faced with a wall of fabric books, he managed to choose a fabric he liked and that was in our price range - but he splashed out on having the suit fully hand finished.

It was a great service and his suit fitted beautifully, definitely recommended!

His bow tie was made by his Mum with a Liberty print fabric we chose, and she also made a pocket square for all members of the wedding party in the same fabric. Brilliant, and something I could never have done myself! His braces were from Albert Thurston.

The ushers suits were from Marks & Spencer, the ties and bow ties came from DQT, and the braces were from eBay.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | I walked in to 'Married Life' from the movie Up.

Then for readings we had Song of Solomon, Chapter 2 verses 10-13, and the lyrics to the song All I Want is You by Barry Louis Polisar.

While we were signing the register my amazing cousin and aunt played the violin and keyboard. They played 'Falling Slowly' from the movie Once, 'Blackbird' by the Beatles and 'Someone Who'll Watch Over Me' by Gershwin.

We walked out to 'Home' by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My bridesmaids were my 3 best friends and Tim's 2 sisters, plus one of my bridesmaids' daughter was the cutest flower girl. They all looked amazing.

The dresses were from ASOS, the lace vest tops were from M&S and they all wore nude shoes of their own choice. The flower girl dress was borrowed and the shoes were from Mothercare.

The florist kept some clippings of gypsophila for their hair, and made the crown for our flower girl.

THE FLOWERS | Sarah Barrett from Flower Field Hampshire took my confused brief and non-existent knowledge of flower names and did the most fantastic job. The flowers looked beautiful, we loved them. And she even grew a lot of them herself!

Tim's great Aunt did the flowers in the church and over the lych-gate, and even put some in the campervan - they also looked beautiful.

THE CAKE | My fabulous Mum made our cake. I wanted a naked cake, and after a lot of resistance she eventually came round. She was worried about putting it together on the day and that it would go dry. We got a friend to set it up in the morning and it didn't go dry at all! It looked fantastic. The only thing was we didn't get round to eating it on the day! Instead it was a great dessert at our bbq the next day.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | The very special Emma (Case) and Pete. I wanted them to shoot our wedding as soon as Tim proposed, and they were the first people we contacted when we had a rough date in mind. They are the sort of people who you meet and immediately want to spend more time with. We loved them and all of the wonderful photos.

We also hired a photobooth for the evening - something I'd always wanted to do! We went for an old booth but with digital photos, which was great as it meant we got them all on a disc at the end of the night.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Catering was tricky - we wanted to have nice food that wasn't expensive for so many people, but we didn't want a buffet. In the end we found Fat Hog & Big Pan who did us canapés, and then a hog roast with sides but served at the table, and it worked perfectly.

I love cake so we decided to have tea and cake for dessert - we asked some of our friends who are talented bakers to make cakes and bring them along and we ended up with a superb selection. One of my regrets is that I did not eat enough cake!
In the evening we had a wood fired pizza van.

I don't really know where to start with decorating!

We (and everyone we know!) collected jars and tins - we sprayed the tins white and copper and then decorated them all for flowers. We collected old books (lots with relevance eg. 'old wives', 'love and marriage', etc), vases, cake stands, fabric, tea cups and saucers and lots of other odd bits and pieces from charity shops and car boot sales.

We made our own favours - sloe gin for the boys and rhubarb and ginger jam for the girls.

I designed the invites so the order of services, table names and seating plan were kept simple and matched that style - we named the tables after our favourite places and then did a quiz with a question and photo for each place.

We had pick and mix bags that were also the name labels on the tables, and bags of popcorn for the evening.

My Grandma and my brothers girlfriend made metres of bunting with fabric we'd collected.

One of my bridesmaids' stepdad is a carpenter and made the light up star. I'd brought the string lights back from America (annoying the only affordable option I could find) and bought a transformer for the plug. I think the star took over their house for a week while he made it - it was huge. But it was the focal point of the room and looked brilliant! We just need to buy a bigger house now to have enough room to display it.

Tim's aunt lent us a lot - teacups and saucers, microphones and speakers for the speeches and festoon lighting.

Tim's uncle drove us to and from the church in his VW campervan.

We set up cricket and croquet outside - though this got used more at the bbq the day after the wedding when the weather was better.

And lastly, we raided everything we could from the farm to use around the marquee. Hay bales for seating, old pallet tables made by Tim's cousins were the bar area, old cupboards and wheels were used for decoration, an old gate became the seating plan.

We also had a short firework display towards the end of the night, at about 10pm (there are rules about how late you can have fireworks when it's not bonfire night). They choreographed the fireworks to music we chose and it was AMAZING.

THE HONEYMOON | 4 nights on safari in Kenya at Ol Seki followed by 8 nights relaxing in Zanzibar at The Residence. Ol Seki was one of the best places we've ever stayed and the whole trip was just what we needed after the busy few weeks before the wedding.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS |

Kate | The speeches, I absolutely loved them all, and the fireworks, such a fantastic way to round off the day. But more than anything I just remember standing back in the marquee and being overwhelmed by how much help and support we'd had to put the day together - we will be thanking everyone forever more!

Image by Wedding Guest

Tim | For me the whole day was brilliant. It was great to have it all come together as we had planned with all the people we love there too. But, the one moment I will remember more than anything else was seeing Kate walking down the aisle for the first time. I will never forget that.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Everyone says the same thing, but the day absolutely flies by - make sure you take a minute to stand back and take it all in.

Video the speeches! We didn't and I am so gutted not to have them on video to watch back.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Marquee & Generator | Sandhurst Marquees

Chairs | County Marquees

Wedding dress | Les Trois Soeurs

Flower Crown | Lila

Hair & Make Up | Anneke Irving

Groom's Suit | Cad and the Dandy

Flowers | Flower Field Hampshire

Photographers | Emma Case Photography

Photobooth | Retro Me

Caterers | The Fat Hog

Pizza Van | Boyceys

Band | Warble Entertainment

Fireworks | Alchemy Fireworks

Honeymoon | Hemingways Mara The Residence

Wow! Such a fantastic day.

Many many thanks to Kate for firstly blogging here at WWW as a part of The Bride Diaries series and for sharing your gorgeous nuptials to Tim. It's been amazing :-) Congratulations guys xo Lou

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