We Were Always Meant To Be.

Clare and Thomas had a mid summer wedding in a giant teepee. The location for this mid summer celebration? A field owned by Clare’s parents known locally as ‘Colin’s Field’.

The inspiration behind the whole wedding was for it to be completely personal with a focus on family and friends. All of Clare and Tom’s nearest and dearest chipped in to make this countryside wedding a real team effort with homemade touches. The results are stunning.

I’m particularly loving the cuckoo feather button holes (surely an RMW first there) worn by the groom and his father – look out for them.

Countryside Style

Clare The Bride: We asked friends and family to provide us with something special for the wedding which meant that lots of elements of the day had a personal story to tell. This ranged from our gorgeous homemade cheese wedding cake , chicken eggs for the homemade scotch eggs given by our mums, homemade chutneys from my auntie, lavender and ivy from my mums garden, the list goes on and on and on. It was hard work but it was definitely worth it.

I bought my dress from a little independent shop in Kent where we added some soft delicate shoulder straps and some gorgeous vintage style beadwork on the front. The dress worked perfectly with our countryside style wedding.

I needed to feel really comfortable on the day so my gold gladiator shoes were perfect for running around the field and playing on the coconut shy. Tom wore a pair of Kurk Geiger suede brogues.

For my hair I went for loose curls around my face with a twist at the back into a side bun with gypsophila on the twist. A very relaxed style. Tom shaved his head!

Cuckoo Feathers & Gyp

My bouquet was made the morning of the wedding by myself and my good mate Frannie. White roses in the centre and gyposolphlia around the roses in a circle. Tom and his Dad wore button holes made from some cuckoo feathers his dad found whilst walking the dogs, with a little touch of gypsophila to match myself.

The table flowers were all lavender potted in terracotta pots. All of them lovingly home grown by my gorgeous mum. For the church Amy, Mum and I handpicked wheat from the field and mixed it with gypsophila and lavender from my own garden in London and hung them from the end of the pews. We also hung them at the end of the reception tables and cake tables in the teepees.

We also mixed the wheat, gypsophila and lavender and placed them in old glass milk bottles and cool glass jars with beautiful labelling that I collected over time.

No Dress Code

We had a relaxed affair with no matching suits or official bridesmaid. Tom wore a three piece suit from the summer collection at Reiss. He was keen on something formal, but not too much, which was also nice and light on a summer’s day.

Snapped Up

Choosing the photographer was one of the first things we did when organising our wedding, as we knew the best ones get snapped up so far in advance. We had also heard a few stories from friends regretting their choice, so we were dead set on getting it right.

As soon as we met Owen and Charis from O&C Photogrpahy on skype we knew they were perfect for us. So relaxed, down to earth and a very talented couple. They captured moments and details of the day beautifully. Even my Nan was raving about Charis and how lovely she was on the day! Brilliant! We love them and we are definitely going to knock on their door if we are ever visiting Wales.

Charis was even on hand to help Tom when he had a slight trouser malfunction!

Mousetrap

Our cake was a four tier cheese cake (savoury) made by my very dear friend Audra or as I like to call her (Frannie) She works in a cheesery called Mousetrap cheesein Hereford and made all the cheese with her own very fair hands. It was beautifully decorated with ivy from my folks trees and was sitting on a piece of oak from my folks wood.

Welly Wanging

We wanted a very relaxed, personal, countryside style wedding. So with the help of the best man Fraser we made a Coconut shy, photobooth and welly wanging for all the guests.

Tom and I put together an eclectic mix of old favourites, a little bit of folk, blues and some 1930’s gospel. We played this during the day while people enjoyed the home made food and sloegasms (a champagne cocktail made from a slug of Tom’s own home made sloe gin and with a generous mix of champers).

During the evening we went for a DJ who was happy to take suggestions and to work off a playlist of blasts from the past. This kept us all dancing well into the wee hours.

Zorbing

For our first dance we choose Stornoway’s song “Zorbing.” It is a personal favourite of ours (Tom and I went to see Stornaway live and loved the song so we knew we had to have it as our first dance). For favours we enlisted the help of my very good mate Julie who now lives in Amsterdam and makes cakes for a living. She made some beautiful rose and lavender biscuits with ‘Clare and Tom 04.08.12 ‘and also ’Just married, 04.08.12” stamped into them. Her website is called Queen Of Tarts.

Handmade & Homegrown

It was very important to us that elements from the wedding were handmade, homegrown – unique and personal to us. A story to tell.

Mum and I handmade all the napkins with a printed woodblock flower and we stamped Clare & Tom and the date on them and my nan and mum visited charity shops for all the vintage plates. My friend Gemma, made by hand all the bunting for inside the teepees and we wrapped ivy from my folks garden around the poles. We put hay bales with material over them for outside seating and huge oak trunks as tables, we also made an old fashioned road sign introducing the venue to guests.

Clare & Tom

We had cool external feston lighting, all supplied by our best man Fraser which gave such a fab atmosphere to the evening. When we arrived at the reception after the church service, tom and I were greeted by a huge “Clare and Tom” sign along the tree line. Our best man Fraser organised it for us and he lit the letters and the trees up for the evening. It looked fab.

Our wedding car was my mum and dads white convertible Morris Minor which took centre stage beautifully in our photos.

Food & Fun

All of the food we arranged had a story to tell using local ingredients and products grown by our folks. My sister in law’s sister, hand made all the food including:

Scotch eggs. (eggs from clares mums chickens Florence and Freda and the sausage meat was speldhurst sausage (our local village)
Homemade game pie which had duck and pheasant all supplied by tom and our two dads
All the bread came from our local bakers-delivered that morning to us.
The chutneys were all handmade from my Auntie Sue and smuggled over from France. She made a variety of choices that complimented the pig, game pie and the cheese.

The Hog roast was from my brothers mate from the next village and all of the desserts were homemade by family and friends

Sit Back & Relax

My advice to any future bride and groom is to make sure you sit back relax and enjoy every second of the day because it certainly flies.

Take little moments throughout the day with your new hubbie to take it all in. You hear it all the time but it really is one of the best days of your lives.

Oh, and ask a friend to take some photos and print them out before you go on honeymoon because when you are away you’ll be desperate to see snippets of the day.

Click here & view all images from this wedding

Venue: Colins Field
Groom: Reiss
Photography: O&C Photography
Cheese: Mousetrap cheese
Favours: Queen Of Tarts

I hope we see a lot more welly wangin weddings in 2013. I love the style of this wedding from the choice of Stornaway for the first dance, right through to the stationery, the village fête feel and the relaxed fashion.

The photography from O&C Photography has left me desperately wanting more. If you are feeling the same way then make sure you check out the gallery which contains every single image from this wedding. There are some couple shots of Clare and Tom in there that are just stunning.

Adam.