Morning Peeps,

Hope you all all had a lovely weekend.

Jake and Bryony said I do on the 12th September 2015 at the beautiful Fixby Hall in Yorkshire. After a proposal in Marrakech, they planned their wedding in just 6 months and did pretty much everything you see themselves. From the flowers to the stationery to the cake and handmade cushions. They got creative and used the skills they had, as well as those of others, to help put together a beautiful wedding that was personal, relaxed and fun.

We wanted the wedding to be fun for everyone. We're not a fan of stuffy weddings where there is a strict timeline and you feel like you can't act normally. Essentially we wanted a giant garden party, we both love being outdoors. So that's what we aimed for - A chilled out, country garden party.

With lots of cool ideas such as sparklers and bubbles as wedding favours (which resulted in some fantastic photos) and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for their desert (which led to happy sugar coated faces) there is a lot to be learned from this chilled out country wedding.

Jake and Bryony talk us through their day....

We have been together for seven years. We met when a mutual friend brought Jake along to my 17 ^th birthday party at pizza hut. We became best friends pretty quickly and at some point one thing led to another and now here we are! We went travelling in 2012 and were away for 18 months, after being back home for a year our first holiday away was to Marrakech in March this year. We arrived at night in the pouring rain and when we finally got to the hotel and were shown to our room it wasn't what we had been promised on the website and I was really disappointed and angry! It wasn't that we minded 'slumming it', we'd done plenty of that when we were travelling, but this was our first holiday for ages and it was supposed to be perfect! We were in our room, I was sat on the bed in a foul mood, mouthing off about how frustrated and angry I was about the hotel and Jake said "Well this should cheer you up." He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. He had planned to do it on the roof but the weather wouldn't allow it! I didn't mind though, it was perfect. We were engaged for a very short and quick six months before we got married. It was a struggle to get everything done but we pulled it off!

All the best men and groomsman had mismatched tweed suits and they looked so handsome and cool. There were quite a few beards going round too which always helps.

My Bridesmaids had all the same one shoulder style dresses, but I wanted them all to be unique, so they all had a different pastel colours. I knew I wanted lavender in my bouquet and on the tables, so I tried to reflect the colours of lavender in their dresses. Our littlest bridesmaid wore a blue dress from Monsoon, she looked so pretty, they all did in fact!

We got married at Fixby Hall in Huddersfield. We originally wanted to do the entire thing ourselves and because we live in such a beautiful part of Yorkshire, we spent ages searching for the perfect field to hire. We found the dream field in the end and started the process in motion to have it for our wedding, unfortunately it didn't work out and we decided we need something with a little bit of structure. Despite Fixby Hall only being 20 minutes away from our house, we had never even heard of it before, but the first time we went to visit we fell in love and everything just fell into place from there.

The ceremony was performed by a celebrant who had sent us each questionnaires about our relationship which we had to fill in without showing each other. She then put together a story about us from what we had written. It was beautiful, there were lots of laughs and tears and it was just so unique and special. We didn't write our own vows, but through our words in the story I think we said enough.

I walked down the aisle to Old Pine by Ben Howard being played on the guitar by Jake's Dad and one of the best men. It was really beautiful.

My Mum did the most beautiful reading of the Dr Seuss poem ' Oh the places you'll go '. Because we love to travel and have adventures and have so many big plans for the future, it was just so perfect. She managed to hold out through the whole reading, until the tears arrived just on the last line. We're both very close to our families, so to have them all so involved in everything was so special. These are the last few lines of the poem - "Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So get on your way!"

Our ring bearer was Jake's youngest brother, we got his three piece suit from Monsoon. We bought him a little blue bow tie to match Jake's tie too, but on the evening before the wedding I realised I'd lost it, so I quickly made him one out of an old pocket square on the morning of the wedding.

Our Marquee which was provided by the truly lovely people at Wills Marquees and it already looked stunning by itself but we did add some extras. The guys from Wills provided the fairy lights and bunting (the bunting was amazing! All different colours and patterns!) My Dad and Jake hung up all the lanterns which we got from ebay. The table arrangements were made up of little rounds of wood, all stacked and arranged with jars, bottles, candles and flowers. The wood we got from an online seller, the bottles and jars we collected over the last few months. We also had lots of hay bales which left a lot of 'rustic charm' everywhere when they started to shed! But we didn't mind. We had an old suitcase open on the floor with blankets and cushions in for people to 'keep cosy', the blankets we bought online and I hand dyed and made all the cushions myself.

I made all the stationary myself as well on good old photoshop. We had our invites made into a stamp and bought paper with rounded edges (Jake was very insistent on the rounded edges!) The table plans and order of the day, again, were done on photoshop. My Mum wrote out all the name cards with a calligraphy pen.

Our photographer was Ryan Learoyd from Shutter Go Click Photography. I actually can't sing Ryan's praises enough. We always knew we wanted a documentary style photographer, someone who could just blend in with the guests and take photos without making anyone self-conscious. From the day we met up with Ryan in Leeds, we just knew he was the right fit. At the wedding he was just like another one of the guests, he got on with everyone so well and made us all feel so comfortable. We hadn't wanted to do staged photographs but we're glad Ryan encouraged us to! They've come out looking like a fairy tale and we're both in love with them.

I did all the flowers myself. We had a big 'J & B' which I made out of cardboard, spray painted, stuffed with oasis and then filled with artificial flowers from Country Baskets and Dunelm Mill. For the real flowers, Jake and I drove 40 minutes at 6am on Friday morning to a flower market and bought a box full of whatever they had that we liked the look of. We spent the rest of that day at Fixby Hall laying out the tables, I filled little vases and bottles with all different flowers and spread them out around the room. I made the bouquets and buttonholes that night when I got home, the bridesmaids had simple gypsophila bouquets, and I had a lavender based bouquet.

Because we both hate the white icing that you traditionally get on a wedding cake, we opted for a naked wedding cake. Originally I was going to make the whole thing, but as the wedding drew closer I realised I really didn't want to spend the days running up to the wedding trying to bake three tiers. So we bought the sponge from Nude Cakes and then I sliced and iced them the day before. We always wanted chocolate because...well, who doesn't like chocolate? So the filling was butter icing and blackberry compote and then it was drizzled with chocolate ganache and decorated with berries. We had an awesome cake topper of two foxes and a rainbow from Etsy.

We had a selection of garden games for our guests to enjoy, including tin can alley, boules, skittles and horseshoes. We had little chalkboard signs introducing the games, excellently styled but Jakes uncle.

The wedding favours were sparklers and bubbles. We wanted them to be something fun that people could use there and then. It was so nice to see bubbles floating around in the tent while we were eating and then later Ryan got some killer photos with the sparklers! We bought them all on ebay.

For our music we made a playlist for during the day when people were just milling around, socialising and having a drink. It included music from all our favourite artists and resulted in many questions of 'Ooohhh, who's this? I love this song!' A friend of Jake's Dad very, very kindly supplied all the music equipment and his DJ services in the evening.

I loved the speeches because everyone was laughing and it meant so much to see all the faces of our friends and families there to support us, having a drink and enjoying themselves.

Remember why you're there, remember what it's all about. Sure, the food, the dress, the music, the hair - it's all important, but at the end of the day, everyone is there to see you marry the person you love. They're there because they love you, and care for you, and they won't see the little imperfections that you do. It'll go so fast, and when you look back, you won't remember the things that went wrong, you'll remember the hugs and kisses, the tears and the laughter. So remember why you're there and enjoy every moment.

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