Inspiration

You can instantly feel the love and warmth radiating from this Crete wedding. The images by Paulina Weddings perfectly capture the light and emotion, documenting every detail of this pastel pretty celebration. Bride Clara has literally had me gasping with delight when I saw her in her exquisite Catherine Deane gown. The intricate beaded back detail is absolutely heavenly, as is her bridal braided up do, complimenting and showing it off beautifully. The rest of the wedding party look just as fabulous, mirroring the colour scheme of the breathtaking Greek Agreco farm wedding venue, with the groomsmen in beige suits and the bridesmaids in mint green gowns with blush pink posies. Did I mention the adorable herb table plan and centrepieces too - you'll need your pinning fingers ready for those bad boys, they are delicious! Definitely hats off to Moments for planning our gorgeous couple the wedding of their dreams.

Our Story

Clara the Bride: I wore a Catherine Dean gown "Tallulah" bought in Blackburn Bridal sample sale 6 months before the wedding because I had run out of time looking for a wedding dress. It was stained, ripped and dirty from the amount of people who had been trying it on with fake tan! BUT perfect for what I wanted. I was sure the stains would come out, and the rips I knew would be cut off anyway as the length would have to be adjusted for me. Ed was horrified when I came home and told him my wedding dress was a sample dress which was ripped and dirty!! I'm not a fashion forward person really. I knew I wanted something with sleeves as I'm quite broad so wanted something to break it up. I also wanted something really light and floaty as getting married on the farm I didn't want anything cumbersome. The back on the Tallulah is devine and thought it was something a bit special! When I went shopping with one of my bridesmaids for 'the dress' she was the one who made me get it and was like "you HAVE to buy it Clara!" So I did! I did my own makeup and got one of my bridesmaids to do my hair. We had been looking on pinterest and found the flower braid which we practiced the day before the wedding! I was so thrilled and thought she did a wonderful job. Removing the pins at night when going to bed was interesting…

Jewellery

My necklace was my something blue which Ed bought me as a birthday present 6 years ago. Its an aquamarine bought in Hatton Garden. My earrings were my something borrowed from my oldest sister (as I gave her my something borrowed when she got married) They are just drop pearls. My wedding band was my Granny's which she left to me in her will because its an octagon and my birthday is in August, and was my something old. My engagement ring is from Diamond Palace on Hatton Garden which was my something new.

Shoes

Sandals I bought from Marks and Spencer a week before the wedding because I knew I only wanted some sandals and saw them and thought they would match my dress perfectly were quite Grecian. They had the added bonus of me being able to wear them for the rest of the summer too!

Headpiece

I got it from Etsy from a shop called SarasBoutique. I spent a lot of time looking on Etsy (not only because I love Etsy!) but because I wanted to support independent sellers. This came from America and I knew I wanted silver Laurel as I had bought my bridesmaids a gold laurel hairpiece.

Bridesmaids Dresses

They are from For Her and For Him in pale green. Each bridesmaid chose the style of their dress they wanted.

Groom

Ed was worse than me in terms of chosing his outfit. MONTHS he was looking at suits. He finally decided on a stone Austin Reed UK linen suit. The ushers had the trousers of the suit, and the bestman worse the waistcoat. Shirts from Charles Tyrwhitt.

Stationery

Ed's dad is an amazing, talented artist, so once we had decided on our theme of herbs, we asked whether he would be happy to draw each herb we had decided on for our tables. We then asked the wedding planner to find someone who could print rustically on brown paper to match the tags of our favours we were doing. Each name place was written in Greek on one side (took Ed hours finding out the Greek spelling for all our guests) and English the other. We also wanted a snippet of the herb of the table they were on in the corner of their name. For example if they were on Thyme, a twig of time above their name. Our wedding invitations were drawn by Ed's dad also. The Order of service we designed at home. Ed actually desgined them I can't really take any credit for them. I just wanted a fan! But I did spent hours cutting them out…

Venue

We found Agreco online and loved what we saw! We wanted to get married in a rustic setting and Agreco is the most perfect setting. It's traditional Greece, with beautiful lush scenery. The bloke in charge (sadly don't know his name) is wonderful.

Colour Scheme

I had always wanted to have bridesmaids in green as I loved the idea of green, pink and gold as the colour scheme. The scheme was just herbs , romantic and rustic!

Florist

I LOVE flowers. I wanted to have the British rose grower David Austin, but did not know it was possible to get them in Crete! I sent a bouquet I loved to my wonderful wedding planning Annika Pappa who said it would be possible.! I wanted olive leaves to match with the olive trees on the farm, (which was also our confetti), myrtle (which was our top table name) because it was Aphrodite's flower. I made the cones for the confetti myself from sheet music using the song 'Silent Noon' by Vaughn Williams which is a song Ed loves. We knew we wanted to include it but didn't fit with the theme so it was a nice way to have it featured. had said I wanted my flowers to be really rustic ad not tight, and just full of herbs as well. I was so thrilled with the flowers. The tables had pots of the herb the table was names after along with the David Austin rose 'Carey',Lisianthus and other foliage. We bought our wedding favours from a little stall in Rethymno where we got everyone a flavoured tsikoudia. I bought brown tages and stamped cheers in English, Welsh (because Ed is welsh) and Greek. I was desperate for the lemonade bar so went ahead and booked it but it was SO WORTH IT.

Ceremony

I wanted all of my sisters to have a role in the wedding, so my younger sister was a bridesmaid, my oldest sister's daughters were my flower girls and I asked my other sister to do our reading at the wedding. We chose 'I Like You' by Sandol Stoddard Warburg as it summed up mine and Ed's relationship perfectly. Our friend from music college played me down the aisle to the song 'Real Love' by John Lennon, which people will remember as the John Lewis advert! It was a wonderful personal touch having him play me down the aisle and we were both so grateful he agreed without hesitation. The tears started as soon as I heard him start to play!

Entertainment

Ed and I met at The Royal College of Music and our wedding was our 10 year anniversary. Because of our musical background, it was one of the most of important things of our wedding. We wanted our wedding to feel like a Greek wedding rather than a British wedding in Greece. We wanted a traditional Bouzouki band for the reception and we had look into having western songs translated into Greek and done in the Greek style. We walked out to 'Love is in the Air' done in Greek and walked in to 'Hotel California' by the Eagles . We also wanted to provide entertainment for everyone who had paid to fly out to our wedding so had traditional Cretan dancers with live Lyra and Lauoto musicians. We then had the DJ in the evening who played some total classic tunes and great mash-ups! We had had 3 days previously of apocalyptic thunderstorms so were wondering whether any entertainment would be possible at all considering it was an outside wedding...

Food

The food at the farm was/is AMAZING. Traditional, Cretan deliciousness. I asked if they would do Ed his own plate of saganaki (his favourite) and they were so accommodating. We had Baklava as our wedding cake with a top layer of chocolate orange cake! (my fave). Our cake topper we got personalised and I spray painted it gold and sprinkled edible glitter on it to make it sparkle! I bought Loukoumi from Rethymno for a sweet treat for people to have over the night!

Photographer

Paulina you was amazing! We chose her for her beautiful candid shots. We didn't even notice her during the ceremony! She was so discreet and wonderful. Thank you, we love our photographs.
Lorna Shaw

Written by Lorna Shaw

Wedding Planner: Moments Wedding Planners | Dress Designer: Catherine Deane | Bridal Shoes: Marks and Spencer | Headpiece: SarasBoutique - Etsy | Bridesmaids: For Her and For Him | Grooms Suit: Austin Reed | Shirts: Charles Tyrwhitt | Venue: Agreco | Florist: Oneiranthi

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