Lauren & Joe

Feel good festival vibes and fabulous fashion aplenty define this fun filled wedding at The Fire Pit Camp, Norfolk. Lauren looks every inch the bohemian bride in Rue De Seine, and naturally we're loving the bridesmaids in all white dresses. (Missed our bridesmaids fashion podcast? You can listen in full here!) Images come from the lovely Honey & The Moon Photography, who Lauren and Joe found right here on RMW and decided to fly them over from Ireland especially to shoot their big day. As well as these ladies, there's a whole host of our favourite wedding suppliers involved, so enjoy! It's a good one...

The Bride

Lauren the Bride: All I knew when looking for a dress is that I didn’t want something traditional. Pinterest was my main source of inspiration and I soon realised I kept pinning dresses by Rue De Seine. I found that Leonie Claire Bridal in Brighton were the only shop in the country to stock this designer. They were so lovely and let me try on pretty much the whole collection! I decided on the ‘Cleo’ gown as I liked that it wasn’t full length and that it was a kimono and slip as opposed to a traditional dress. I didn’t want a veil and luckily Leonie Claire also stocked some amazing Hushed Commotion accessories – one being the ‘Paloma’ belt, which I decided to wear as a headband. My hair was done by the very talented Flamingo Amy and my make up by the lovely Michelle Bennett.  

The Groom

Again, Joe didn’t want the traditional full matching suit. We sourced the majority of his outfit from Reiss, with a Heart and Dagger waistcoat from ASOS and shoes from Charles Tyrwhitt. We found Beau Tie UK, an amazing shop on Etsy that do handmade ties, bow ties and pocket squares. So we put Joe and all groomsmen in a variety of floral ties and our 6 year old page boy in one of their children’s bow ties.

The Venue

When we found The Fire Pit Camp, we loved it because it had a large industrial warehouse and a lot of green space...plus they had a wedding license meaning we could get married outside. Finding somewhere that had the best of both worlds (industrial and outdoorsy) was tricky and we are so pleased we found somewhere that did. Rachel and Sarah are sisters running a family business and on the weekend of the wedding were brilliant in making us feel special and doing everything they could to help. They give you the whole day before the wedding to set up and it was a complete blank canvas for us to dress as we wished. When we arrived, they had already styled the fire pit area and the ceremony room for us so that was a lovely surprise! They helped us style and set up the venue and made our families so welcome when we brought them en masse to help with the set up!   

The Decor

Joe and I attended Most Unusual Wedding Fair at Godwick Hall and it was there we saw the brilliant Penny from Little Lending Company and Michelle from Swaffham and Fakenham Florists doing a presentation on the trends of 2017. One trend – Wild Bohemia – caught our eye: brass accessories, candles, wild flowers, rich colours etc. We went to see Penny shortly after and hired a ton of her beautiful accessories (including Penny’s amazing Boho ceremony arch and Persian rugs for the outdoor ceremony) to complement The Fire Pit’s own furniture and accessories. A lot of the additional décor came from trawling through charity shops and gradually buying bits online (shout out to my mum who sourced all our dinner plates from charity shops over 18 months!)

The Flowers

We absolutely loved our flowers by the very talented Swaffham and Fakenham Florists. As a starting point, I sent Michelle a few images and told her the general theme we were going for but beyond that, it was all their creative work and I was blown away by what they did. Beyond my beautiful bouquet, they created an amazing backdrop to juxtapose the corrugated iron in the warehouse, dressed Penny’s boho arch with the most amazing flowers, finished off our table plan with some trendy greenery and even created a gorgeous display on an upside-down wheelbarrow! Our tables were a mix of Little Lending Company’s brass flower vessels, geo holders and candle holders as well as some brass frames we’d bought and written the table names on.

The Ceremony

Our friends read ‘Starlings’ by Elbow. We chose this as it’s not a conventional love song, but we love how Guy Garvey writes about falling in love. Another friend read ‘Into My Arms’ by Nick Cave, which made us both a bit emotional!

The Entertainment

We had the brilliant Vibe City Brass playing after the ceremony. They had so much energy and got everyone dancing and singing and even learnt a Beatles song especially for the wedding as Joe is a huge fan. We were also lucky to have Gospeloke as our evening entertainment (yes, it is as it sounds: karaoke backed by a gospel choir!) They were so much fun and it was a real highlight of the day for me.

The Food

Our catering was done by Proper Pizza Company. James was great and really open to us having a lot of freedom over what his team made for us. We chose pork belly for the meat-eaters and for the vegetarians, James made a posh mac ‘n’ cheese. Dessert was lemon posset, Eton mess and chocolate brownies. Then we had their amazing stone baked pizzas for our evening food. All the food was absolutely delicious and served beautifully.

The Photographer

We found Honey and the Moon on RMW and loved their photos so emailed them hoping they would be a) free and b) happy to travel from Northern Ireland to Norfolk. Lucky for us they were. Jess and Karolyn were absolutely brilliant and we are so chuffed with our photos. Most of their photos are documentary style, but for the posed ones, they helped us relax by getting us to play a few silly games, which was actually a real highlight of the day as it was just Joe and I messing around and getting to spend some quiet moments together. They were so on it and got all the details including spotting the sunset when were too busy downing the prosecco and got us outside just in time to get some lovely shots!