Inspiration

Oooh this rustic pastel wedding is simply delicious. From the blooms, to the vintage tea cups and all the DIY decor in between you're definitely going to be spoilt with inspiration. Natasha & Jacob live in Devon and met at work as Veterinary Nurses. They are absolutely mad about animals and simply had to bring along their two Dalmatian cross Collie dogs to the church for some pics. You can even spot them and their cat on the wedding cake! Jacob Proposed on Crantock Beach in Cornwall on New Year’s Eve 2014, so they just had to marry there too. Naming all the tables after local beaches, the top table being Crantock Beach where they got engaged. Which is such a lovely sentimental touch. You can tell family is everything to this gorgeous couple as they invited all their siblings to be part of the wedding party. And what a fabulously dressed wedding party they are. The girls looking absolutely stunning in pale blue ASOS gowns, with the boys looking dapper in grey suits from Next and complimenting blue ties. Obviously nobody outshines the groom Jacob in his wool blend suit or Bride Natasha in her strapless Benjamin Roberts gown. What absolute beauts. This is the first wedding we've featured from the lovely Holly Collings Photography, but I'm certain with her eye to capture detail and emotion it won't be the last. Enjoy everyone.

The Wedding

Natasha the Bride: We are both Veterinary Nurses and we met whilst working together. We regularly go down to Cornwall for day trips and mini breaks and it was down in Cornwall, on the beach at Crantock where Jacob proposed. We decided that we wanted to get married down in Cornwall, with all our family and close friends. We fell in love with St Just in Roseland Church and after being told we would be able to have our marriage ceremony there, the wedding planning got into full swing and we decided on a pastel themed/rustic wedding. As we were on a very tight budget, we tried to keep costs down by hand making our wedding decorations.

The Dress

After trying on lots of dresses, I found my perfect wedding dress, a strapless ivory and lace Benjamin Roberts’ wedding dress, bought from Truly Delightful, a lovely little bridal boutique in my hometown, Totnes. I also bought a two tiered veil with subtle diamantes scattered across it. My bridal shoes were Pink Paradox London in Bon Bon ivory lace bought online from Debenhams. I had a light blue lace garter which I had a little blue heart charm attached to it, given to me by my cousin Emily as she was unable to make my hen do. I wore an Ernest Jones necklace with diamonds and sapphires, which matched my engagement ring. The bride’s family stayed in and got ready at the Old Village Hall, a holiday cottage very close to the Vean.

Beauty

My hair and make up was done by Jennifer Hill. I decided to have a natural look with minimal make up and a half up half down hair style, with the lower layers curled. I had 5 bridesmaids; Gabrielle and Katie (my two sisters), Emily my cousin and Joanna and Susie (Jacob’s two sisters). Jennifer also did the bridesmaids hair and they all did each others make up.

Bridesmaids

The bridesmaids dresses were from ASOS. I also had George, Susie’s son as a paige boy and Abigail, Emily’s daughter as a flower girl, along with Jacob’s goddaughter Hope.

Florist

The flowers were done by Wendy Sylvester Sliwinski a local friend from Loddiswell - Vintage Finds - Blue Raku. We provided her with lots of ideas, milk churns and colour schemes and she did an amazing job. Wendy filled all the wedding centrepiece jugs, milk churns and pedestals with beautiful pastel coloured flowers including some wild flowers. Wendy also created all the mens button holes, my bridal bouquet, bridesmaid bouquets, flower girl bouquets and flower wreaths. We had to transport all our flowers down to Cornwall from Loddiswell on the Friday morning prior to the wedding and Wendy even delivered all the bouquets and button holes down to us the morning of the wedding, so they were as fresh as possible.

Groomsmen

Jacob wore a wool blend grey suit from Next along with black Oxford shoes. Jacob had a pastel blue tie and pocket square, along with a pastel pink rose with gypsophila for a button hole. Jacob had his four brothers as best men, Joe, Sam, David and Peter. Jacob had 6 ushers, all close friends, who were all dressed in black suits, each with pastel blue ties and pocket squares and pastel pink roses and gypsophila for their button holes. They were all very helpful and ensured the wedding went smoothly.

Stationery

Wendy Sylvester Sliwinski cut out the design for our wedding invites and my sister Gabby Prior altered the design slightly and designed the front and back cover for the order of service. Tracey Smale, (Jacob's mum) put the order of service together for us.

Transport

The bridesmaids arrived to the church in two classic minis, a Tahiti blue one, owned by Jacob and a red one, owned by Joanna’s partner Lex. Me & my father Mark, arrived at the church in a Black Daimler, owned and driven by Jacob’s Dad, John.

Photographer

Our photographer was the lovely Holly Collings Photography who put us at complete ease from the word go and took beautiful photographs that have captured every aspect of our wedding in a natural and colourful way.

Videography

A family friend Rob Amey also brought his drone along to the wedding and took a few videos throughout the day and put together a lovely wedding video for us, which can be seen on Youtube.

Ceremony

Our wedding ceremony was at St Just in Roseland Church, we had visited the church numerous times prior to the wedding to establish a qualifying connection, we had a lovely vicar, who conducted our wedding service, put us at ease and made the whole experience a very enjoyable one. We had Martin Davies on the organ and he played Pachelbel’s Canon in D for the bridal entrance and even played “Can you feel the love tonight” from The Lion King for the signing of the register, which suited us very well as we are both Vet Nurses. Jacob’s two ushers Josh and Mike were in charge of playing the departure music from the church on a CD player, “Send me on my way” by Rusted Root from the film Matilda. We had three wedding readings in the ceremony; “Guess how much I love you” read by Natasha’s Godmother Sue Baker. 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 read by Charlotte Gobel, Jacob’s cousin and then The Apache wedding blessing read by Tracey Smale, Jacob’s mother. The lovely ladies at the church decorated the church beautifully with flower bouquets on the windows and a pedestal and a flower arch over the main church entrance, all the flowers were pastel coloured to match our bouquets and the reception flowers. The flower arch was one of my favourite aspects of the church and it provided a lovely backdrop for photos. The location of the church was incredible, with a botanical garden overlooking water. As we got married in may, all the spring flowers were out, which made the whole area look very pretty. I hand dried all our confetti out of homegrown rose petals and these were placed into brown pastel coloured cones for the guests to throw as we left the church. We had our two Dalmatian x Border collies, Jasper and Marley with us after the ceremony for photos outside of the church, as it meant so much to us both that our boys were there on our special day, they both had matching pastel blue collars, leads and bow ties to continue the colour theme.

Reception

We had our wedding reception at The Vean on the Caerhays Castle Estate. It is a beautiful venue with a terrace and we had a marquee on the lawn from Coast to Coast who also provided the tables and chairs, linen dinnerware and cutlery. We also had use of the house, including the kitchen and bar and lounge areas. The staff at The Vean, especially Luke and Nicola were so helpful from day one and they made sure everything went smoothly on the day.

Food

We decided to do a vintage tea style wedding breakfast with cake stands with scones and jam, lemon drizzle cakes and chocolate brownies. We then had a crepe stand in the evening, serving savoury and sweet crepes. All the catering was provided by Pencoose Pantry a family run business. William and Nicola did a fabulous job of catering for our guests and were so helpful in helping us to decide on our wedding menu.

Entertainment

When we arrived back at The Vean for the wedding breakfast, we had Sam Fearon playing live acoustic music on the terrace. We also had canapés, prosecco and pimms. We had little glass milk bottles with stripy pastel coloured straws with cloudy lemonade or elderflower presse for the children, which they could serve themselves from vintage glass drinks dispensers.

Decor

We had tree stumps up the pathway to the marquee with bottles filled with flowers and our two big light blue coloured milk churns filled with pastel coloured flowers at the entrance of the marquee. The milk churns, which were given to us by Mr Turner a client at the vets, were very rusty and Jacob sanded then down and painted them. Jacob and his brother David created a candy cart, which was painted white with bunting and stripy light blue material roof. We filled lots of pastel coloured sweet jars, with various sweets.

Cake

Jacob’s mother Tracey made our wedding cake, which was 3 tiered and pastel pink, blue and yellow, featuring us along with all our animals and had our two Dalmatians hiding in the different icing layers. It was amazing.

DIY

The tables were decorated with log rings, which were cut by Jacob, pastel blue jugs, vintage teacups which were collected from markets, ebay and car boot sales with homemade pastel coloured candles in each along with glass jam jars which Jacob decorated with pastel coloured ribbon and lace. We also had vintage sugar bowls with tongs and pastel heart shaped sugar cubes. Table name pebbles were collected and painted by me from our local beaches. The Tables names were our favourite beaches. Crantock was were Jacob proposed to me. We used hanging lanterns in white, light blue and pale pink on the roof of the marquee, along with lots of pastel coloured bunting, which was handmade by my mother Gerry. My father, Mark, the Groom Jacob and Joe, one of the best men, did their speeches whilst the wedding breakfast was taking place, with champagne to toast, supplied by my grandparents, all the way from France.

Special Moments

We decided to have a DJ for our evening reception and he did such a great job getting everyone dancing, all evening!! We had the song “The One by Kodaline” for our first dance. WE left just before midnight and were waved off in the Daimler, where they were taken to our little holiday cottage by the sea, about a 5 minute drive from The Vean. We had such an amazing day, the only downside was that it couldn’t have lasted longer!
Lorna Shaw

Written by Lorna Shaw

Dress Designer: Benjamin Roberts | Bridal Boutique: Truly Delightful | Bridal Shoes: Pink Paradox - Bon Bon | Necklace: Ernest Jones | Hair & Makeup: Jennifer Hill | Bridesmaid Dresses: ASOS | Grooms Suit: Next | Venue: The Vean | Florist: Vintage Finds Blue Raku | Catering: Pencoose Pantry | Entertainment: Sam Fearon | John Green Dynamic Entertainments | Videographer: Rob Amey

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