Inspiration

Your jaw is going to hit the floor when you see how Sarah and Tim have decked out The Barn at South Milton. Honestly, it just looks incredible, the absolute epitome of rustic luxe. The pair sourced a team of excellent suppliers who brought their vision to life, and it's a total pleasure to be able to share this wedding with you all today. The icing on the cake is the epic photography from John Barwood, as always he has capture all of the emotion as well as the glorious details. Sit back, relax and enjoy this one lovelies, it's a beautiful wedding day...

The Venue

Sarah the Bride: The Barn at South Milton was a wonderful find. It was large enough to hold 120 guests, was set in some of the South Hams most stunning coastal countryside, but most importantly was the perfect blank canvass on which to design our own special occasion. It suits the more rustic-chic themed wedding but can be tailored to any style or image. The owners Paul and Paula, were friendly and welcoming; they were full of ideas, suggestions and local knowledge, and very quickly became part of the planning process. Fast-forward to the actual day and they worked round the clock to ensure that everything ran smoothly. We didn’t have a formal wedding planner, but along with our caterer, Paul and Paula contributed so much time and energy to building our special day.

The Ceremony

We were put in touch with Kim Murray at Free Range Ceremonies to oversee the service on the day. Neither of us wanted any religious or humanist elements to the ceremony and Kim worked with us from the start to give us what we wanted from our wedding service. Our initial meeting together lasted over three hours in a small tea room in Totnes, during which Kim really dug into our pasts to get a sense of who we are and what makes us tick. Subsequent correspondence with Kim included help with our vows, music and readings, and the overall flow to the order of service. She was a key part to the building of the ceremony and it’s smooth running on the day – whist keeping everyone calm and relaxed!

The Catering

Hayley Doidge at Cru Events also did so much more than provide the food and it soon became obvious that they are very accomplished at whole event management. We decided we wanted a long, sprig style seating plan, with the food served on big platters. She and her team designed the bespoke menu to fit in with the rustic barn theme, but also made it visually stunning as well as delicious. They also came back the next day for the ‘recovery’ barbeque with burgers, buttermilk chicken, mac ‘n’ cheese all on the menu, washed down with beers and Bloody Mary’s. We met with Hayley a number of times in London where we not only discussed the menus but also the drinks reception, tableware (provided through a company called Classic Crockery), colour schemes and place settings. They also put us in touch with Kingsbridge Wine Room who arranged a lot of the alcohol for the day including our very own cask of ‘I Do’ brew. The table favours were miniature bottles of homemade limoncello that were made by the mother, father, uncle and aunt of the bride. Our wedding cake was a cheese cake provided by local company Godminster. Also, our wedding day was on Tim’s Birthday and we had a large, tiered birthday cake provided by Nelly Konra’di. For the barbeque the day after we used a company called Biopac for decomposable food serving boxes and bamboo cutlery. The mother and sister of the groom used bespoke ink stamps from Speedystamps to customise each food box.

The Flowers

We decided early on that we wanted to pack our venue with as much flora and fauna as possible and were put in touch with Flowers by Passion who are based just outside of Bath. As with The Barn and Cru Events, Michelle at Passion immersed herself quickly into some of our initial ideas, helping to steer us towards the pastel peaches, blues and pinks that made up our colour scheme along with cinerea and spirea greens. They also have a warehouse of props that were available to hire and worked really well with their flower arrangements. For the day itself they constructed a 9ft tall floral archway for the ceremony, a 5ft wreath for the side of the venue and even created a sprawling tree effect around one of the wooden vertical beams inside the barn. Michelle and Jo worked a 14 hour day to get everything ready for the wedding and their efforts were one of the most talked about parts of the occasion.

The Photography & Film

We were put in touch with John and Sophie Barwood and, having seen some of their stunning work online, were keen to meet up with them. As with many of our suppliers, they were so friendly and welcoming, with a real drive to be as involved as possible in making our day so special – and they didn’t disappoint. On the day itself, they split themselves between the bridal and grooms parties, enabling them to capture some of the day’s early memories from the start. Throughout, they were unobtrusive, patient yet incredibly attentive to the details, and the photographs we have as a result are simply amazing. They were also very sensitive to Sarah’s and my emotions during the day, taking us down to the beach not just for some great shots, but also to give us some time alone to reflect on the day and just be with each other. The memories they have created are perfect and will last us forever. We also had a friend film the day for us. His name is Bobby Miklausic and works as an independent videographer.

The Entertainment

We had always wanted a party atmosphere and pictured everyone stood up, dancing around a grand piano. We found Michael G Moore, who is described as a ‘human jukebox’. His approach is to take requests (new, old and obscure) and play them for the audience. But he did so much more than this. He allocated his full day to the wedding and we took him up on his offer of playing the ceremony music, the drinks reception (where he switched to the guitar), through dinner and into the night. He also learned our first dance song and performed his own version of it for us to dance to, which was perfect. He was incredible. I was never completely certain he would be able to keep everyone going all day and night but when people started getting up and dancing between dinner courses, we knew we had struck gold. At the end of the night, I apologised for the backup, iPhone playlist that clearly didn’t get used once. Michael performed on an electric keyboard that we hired a grand piano shell for through Studiohire and we had personalised post-it notes created for song requests by Brandedpads.

The Fashion

Sarah’s dress was by Jenny Packham in Mayfair. The bridesmaids’ dresses were by Ghost from The Wedding Shop in Colchester, Essex and the Flower Girls dresses, cardigans and shoes were from Monsoon. Tim, the Fathers of the Bride and Groom, and the groomsmen were dressed by Roomten tailors. Tim’s shoes were from Crockett & Jones.

The Transport

We hired two Land Rover vehicles from nearby Holmbush Hire to transport the Bridal party to the venue from the hotel (Salcombe Harbour Hotel – very friendly and helpful throughout our stay).

The Styling

Special thanks to designer and friend Josie Johnson at Johnson Design for designing and printing our wedding stationary, which we were so pleased with and grateful for. We hired Victoria Ghost chairs from Yahire for the dinner and a selection of furniture and props from a company called Granger Hertzog. We hired our chandelier, uplighters and other lighting, and fire-pits from a company Stylish Entertainment. We designed and painted our own placecard holders from forks, working with a blacksmith called Conan Sturdy.
Fern Godfrey

Written by Fern Godfrey

Venue: The Barn At South Milton | Ceremony : Free Range Ceremonies | Catering: Cru Events | Wine: Kingsbridge Wine Room | Cheese Cake: Godminster | Florist: Flowers By Passion | Pianist: Michael G Moore | Bride: Jenny Packham | Groom & Groomsmen: Room Ten | Transport: Holmbush Hire | Stationery: Johnson Design | Chair Hire: Yahire | Prop Hire: Granger Hertzog | Lighting & Tech Hire: Stylish Entertainment | Iron Work: Conan Sturdy | Bridesmaids: Ghost

Inspirational articles you may also find useful