Inspiration

Line and Adam's wedding is so laid back you can't help but feel relaxed looking at the images from Dale Weeks. The pair chose the wonderful RMW recommended Nancarrow Farm as their venue and it's gorgeous barn spaces, incredible home grown food and general lovely vibe was the perfect place for these lovebirds. (You can see more Nancarrow weddings here). Line loves to knit (she runs a Nordic knitting blog) and Adam is a tree surgeon. And if you were to imagine a wedding that combined a love of knitting, with a love of trees, this is exactly how it would look...! We adore weddings like this, full of personality and fun and totally representative of the couple.

The Fashion

Line the Bride:I wore a Maggie Sottero dress, which is the first one I saw, with a veil borrowed from my sister, and some 29 quid shoes that eventually made my feet bleed (but at least they looked nice!) Adam’s the sort of guy that leaves everything to the last minute, but somehow always lucks out. So about 2 weeks before the wedding, he ordered his Harry Brown suit from ASOS, borrowed some RM Williams shoes – and of course looked ridiculously handsome (after some alterations done by my wonderful mum).

The Venue - Nancarrow Farm

When we saw Nancarrow Farm online for the first time, we instantly knew it was the place we wanted to get married. Although it is a working farm, it pretty much looks like a film set, and is perhaps one of the most gorgeous places I’ve ever been to. Despite it pretty much blowing our budget in a split second, it was totally worth it. The kitchen team at Nancarrow Farm is beyond amazing, and we had the most delicious meal prepared by the team, using ingredients sourced on the farm. We had ham hocks for starter and lamb legs with the best roasted veg I’ve ever tasted for mains. The canapes included hanger steak, planked salmon and baked camembert. Adam’s Dad’s girlfriend Clara made our incredible cake from a photo we’d sent her about six months prior. I’d actually forgotten about the photo, and had no idea what she was making, until we went in to cut the cake – I remember my face just lit up!

The Ceremony

The ceremony was one of our favourite parts of the whole day. I’m not a fan of outdated traditions, especially the aspect of being ‘given away’. So we chose the Swedish tradition of the bride and groom walking together as a symbol of equality. It was just perfect. Everyone afterwards told us how they’d been sitting in the gorgeous converted Rusty Barn hearing the birds sing louder than they ever had whilst they waited for us. It was also the perfect sunny day, despite a thunderstorm having been predicted – to top it all off. The ceremony was super relaxed, we basically had no idea what we were doing and just laughed our way through it.

The Décor

I didn’t want to have one of those ‘perfect colour scheme’ weddings. We live in Norway, so we were already quite restricted in terms of what to bring, and how much we could actually plan in advance. We both prefer autumnal colours, so we sort of went with that, and I sewed some bunting, knitted a few cactuses and we had loads of fairy lights throughout, in addition to some makrame plant hangers. We also had a photo booth using a feather backdrop, a polaroid camera, and some string to peg the photos onto. Our super creative designer friend Chelley made our chalkboard welcome sign, and Adam’s dad did an amazing job making funfair games, including ‘whack a mackerel’ (for the Norwegians) and coconut shy. Our table cards were leaves that we’d painted the night before – we basically winged most of it.

The Flowers

I’ve never been a huge fan of the super styled bouquets, so we were pretty set on ordering buckets of flowers and doing them ourselves. We got in touch with Clare from Hendra Farm Flowers, who was absolutely amazing throughout. She dropped the flowers off at the venue – and I’ve got to say, I barely knew what we’d be getting when we got there, but they were beyond beautiful. It was such an amazing surprise. My friend Ella brought loads of gypsophila and eucalyptus, and quickly took the role as florist for the day, along with Bryony (thanks guys!). Our equally amazing friends Jen & Andrew brought several bin liners filled with foliage, which we used in the arrangements and for draping from the beams, and over the door in the rusty barn, where we had the ceremony. We also used lots of foliage and flowers for the milk churns, and the plant hangers. Ella made my bouquet (which was the first one she’d ever made) and it was literally the most perfect bouquet I could’ve ever imagined. Anemones will forever be my favourite flowers after that.

The Photography

It’s a bit embarrassing to say that I knew I wanted Dale Weeks to be our photographer before I’d even met Adam (and we met five years ago!) – but can you blame me?! I absolutely love the warm lighting, colours and vibe in his photos, there is something so incredibly special about them. To top it all off, he is just the loveliest human alive (if you’ve met him, you’ll know), and made us feel completely comfortable on the day. Even though I look a bit insane in the photos (for good reasons), he perfectly captured how happy we both were on the day. I particularly loved seeing photos of all our friends and family looking their absolute best, especially during the moments we’d missed.

The Entertainment

For our ceremony, my bridesmaid and one of my best friends, Milly, sang Skyscraper by her band Elephant – a song that she’s written and Adam and I both love. My brother Alex is an awesome guitarist, so he played with her.

Norwegian Traditions

Considering I’m Norwegian and Adam is English, we needed a good mix of both traditions (despite not wanting to be traditional at all). In Norwegian weddings, when everyone taps their glasses, the bride and groom have to get up on their chairs to kiss, and when everyone stomp their feet, they hide under the table to kiss. We also did a traditional (and slightly hilarious) polonaise dance really late in the evening, which sounded like the worst idea ever, as it’s so cringey if you watch a youtube video of people doing it. But I remember it being my favourite moment from my sister and her husband’s wedding. So they took charge, and it was so much fun. A few of our English friends have asked us to do it at their weddings in the future, which we took as a good sign.

The Invitations

Our amazing designer friend Vicky Perry who runs the best wedding stationary business Violet Paper Studio (she just quit her job to do it full-time, check her out!) made our invitations and we gave her full creative freedom as she knows us so well. She nailed it.

The Wedding Party

The bridesmaids wore all different coloured dresses, because I wanted everyone to wear something they were happy in. They all had gypsophila bouquets, and the groomsmen (who Adam actually forgot to officially ask until the night before) had gypsophila button holes to match. Our daughter Matilda wore a handmade knitted dress that my mum had made (pattern by Ministrikk) and a bonnet (pattern by Petiteknit), and the flower girls wore white dresses.

Advice

Remember that you’re the only ones who care about the smaller details. As long as people have good food, booze and music – they’re dead happy. We spent ages sourcing jars, buying candles, putting tea lights in jars and placing them all around the farm, and the next morning, we noticed we’d forgotten to light them! And guess what? Everyone still had a blast!
Fern Godfrey

Written by Fern Godfrey

Bride: Maggie Sottero | Groom: Harry Brown | Flowers: Hendra Farm | Venue: Nancarrow Farm | Invitations: Violet Paper Studio | Hair: The Comfort Zone | Knitted Outfits : Knit Like A Norwegian
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