Dress
Katie the Bride: For those who know me, shopping is not really my strong suit unless it involves picking out a new running outfit in the Nike store. I was initially dreading the idea of having to give up whole days twirling in front of mirrors in bridal boutiques to find "the dress." Luckily, a friend told me about
BHLDN which I knew instantly was going to be right up my alley, considering my love for Anthropologie. Luckily I was heading back home to America for Christmas, so I was able to squeeze in an appointment in their Boston shop. By some miracle my Mom and I found "the dress" within 30 minutes of our arrival and had it mailed to me the next day! It was the most low-key, efficient wedding dress shopping ever and I couldn't have been happier with my dress.
For my accessories, I decided to wear the jewellery I wear on a daily basis, which all has meaning to me. My bracelets are from a tiny jewellery shop in Cape Cod, where my parents live and Sam surprised me with some lovely diamond earrings on the morning of our wedding.
The Grooms Fashion & Accessories
Sam is probably most comfortable in a pair of shorts and flip flips but when it comes to dressing up, he really loves a well-fitted suit. He treated himself to a new made-to-measure grey suit from
Edit Suits for the wedding. I was a little concerned about the fact that he came home from his initial appointment and told me that he didn't actually try anything on, so in reality he didn't know what he was buying. But clearly he trusted the process and when we went in for his fitting, the suit turned out great. I especially loved the fact that he had his initials sewn into the jacket liner.
He decided to pick out matching accessories for him and his groomsmen. He went with a knotty navy blue tie from
TM Lewin and fun bright yellow socks from
London Sock Company, because who doesn't love fun socks?
The Venue
The venue was probably the hardest decision we had to make in the whole wedding planning process. Considering I'm American and Sam is British, it took us a few months to even nail down a country let alone a specific venue. When we finally decided that it felt right to get married in the UK, we spent way too many hours on Google scouring every wedding venue known to man. Right as we were reaching our breaking point in the search, we came across
Nancarrow Farm. It ticked all of the boxes for us. We both absolutely love the rugged outdoorsy feel of Cornwall. It was a farm, which meant a more laid-back, rustic vibe that we both like. And the owner, Steve, was just a cool guy, who made both of us want to abandon our jobs and start a wedding venue. Basically Nancarrow gave us all the feels and you just can't fight those.
Colour Scheme/Decor
We decided early on that we didn't want to have a colour scheme. It felt too 'weddingy' for us and we just aren't very weddingy. Instead we were aiming for a natural, 'Kinfolk feel.' This clearly wasn't as easy to articulate to all of our suppliers, but somehow I think we pulled it off. When it came to decor, we didn't want to buy too much stuff that we'd have to throw away afterwards, so instead we took the approach that we'd buy stuff we liked and could use afterwards. My favourite purchase was all of the old bottles we found in a vintage shop that we used as vases for our flowers on the table.
Florist
Our main thought on flowers was that we wanted them to feel very natural and not too perfect. We found
HollyBee Flowers online and had a few phone calls in which we attempted to describe our vision of lots of green, big bushy displays and neutral tones. We were amazed when Holly showed up on the day and dropped off flowers that looked way better than we could have ever described! She put together our big flower displays for outside the barn, but also dropped off a few DIY buckets that our friends amazingly arranged for us while we got ready. I was most excited about my bouquet and flower crown that really delivered on the vision.
The Wedding Party Fashion
I love a bargain and when I saw that
JCrew was having a big sale on their bridesmaid dresses, I jumped at the opportunity! Considering we are all scattered across the globe, it was easiest to go with a matching look. I really liked the neutral grey colour and the one shoulder look made the dresses feel slightly less conventional.
For the groomsmen, we didn't want to force anyone into buying a new suit so we just asked the guys to wear a 'mid-grey' suit of their choosing. Apparently we caused a lot of anxiety in the group because 'mid-grey' is a relatively loose brief! Despite wearing different suits they all looked great together and their matching ties and socks was the perfect finishing touch.