Halterneck Maggie Sottero Dress and Garden Games at Gate Street Barn

Peonies. Pastels. Pineapples. Oh my. This Gate Street Barn wedding is prettiness personified. As is our blushing bride, Natalie, whose halterneck Maggie Sottero dress - with beautiful beaded detailing, a swishy full skirt and spaghetti straps over the shoulders - completes this stunning spring wedding day. Captured by RMW recommended photographer, Story + Colour, this is a tale replete with love, laughter - and lawn games. There's nothing like a bride doing the limbo!

Beaded Halterneck Maggie Sottero Dress, Lisette

Natalie & Steve: Finding the dress was one of the most special parts of wedding planning for me. When people hear that I tried on more than 50 dresses, they think I must have had a nightmare – I was actually just making the absolute most out of the dress shopping experience! I did worry that I wouldn’t know which dress to choose, but the second I put my Maggie Sottero Lisette gown on I knew it was the dress I’d get married in. I was - and still am - utterly obsessed with the sparkly, beaded halterneck and full swishy skirt of Lisette, and some of my favourite pictures from the day are the girls helping me into my dress; those photos instantly take me back to how I felt that morning. In fact, our wonderful photographer, Dan from Story + Colour, did the most amazing job; he has such a sharp eye for detail, as well as being so quick to catch the best reactions and emotions. We can’t recommend him highly enough.

Perfect Pastels

I was the ultimate indecisive bride but knew that pastels were going to play a big role in the theme of our wedding and the flowers needed to bring this to life. For my bouquet, I wanted pretty, delicate flowers with a fun pop of colour; peonies were an absolute must because they’re just so beautiful. I originally wanted simple gypsophila bouquets for my bridesmaids, but I’m so pleased we ended up doing smaller versions of my bouquet – they tied in so nicely and the colours went really well with their gorgeous ASOS dresses. Bex from Blush Floral Design really did the most fantastic job. We complimented the pastel décor by dotting gold pineapples around the tables and venue as a nod to the fact we got engaged in Hawaii. We also spray painted our hula hoops and limbo set gold, put together a pretty gold and pastel backdrop for our DIY photo booth, and our semi-naked wedding cake by Andi Freeman Cakes was meticulously adorned with gold painted blackberries to look like mini pineapples; the obsession was real! And RMW favourite supplier, Emmy Designs, created beautiful bespoke stationery which completed the vision perfectly.

Garden Games at Gate Street Barn

Finding the perfect venue wasn’t something that we found easy. It took hours of research and a fair few weekends spent wandering around beautiful venues before we decided on the incredible Gate Street Barn in Bramley, Surrey. We loved the relaxed vibe and felt the layout lent itself perfectly to our fun, summer vibe – plus it has a gorgeous house on site which could accommodate our full wedding party for the night of the wedding, something which can be very hard to come across. We also hired a stunning house, Tor Hatch, for the full weekend, to act as the bridal prep house and a base for the post-wedding hangover BBQ.

Picture perfect weddings like this take meticulous planning and attention to detail, so it's little wonder that Natalie has now retrained as a wedding planner - she clearly has an eye for all things pretty. If you need a hand with your own wedding planning, be sure to check out the RMW podcast, which is packed full of advice for brides-to-be (with episode five focusing solely on the wedding planning timeline).