Inspiration

Sheri and Marcus are lucky enough to be a part of family owned wedding venue, Sugar Loaf Barn. Their big day is truly gorgeous and full of fabulous details, like giant macrame dream catchers, floral and foliage installations and homemade sloe gin wedding favours. Sheri's beautiful dress is such a show stopper and fits her perfectly. Images come from the lovely Eleanor Jane, who has captured everything beautifully.

Bespoke Wedding Dress

Sheri the Bride: I struggled to find a dress that I loved enough. Being a fashion designer, there was always something that I would want to change on each dress that I tried on. When there was only 6 months to go before our big day and I still hadn’t found my dream dress, my friend Katy offered to help design it with me. I wanted a bohemian and very pretty style floaty dress. Every single flower and leaf was drawn by hand and placed so that it fitted perfectly onto my body. The dress had a nude colour lining with a low vee bodice and side cut out detail at my waist, a little sexy but still keeping the style fairly classic. I had a huge elaborate trail with foliage and flower embroidery that matched the flower types in my bridal bouquet. I even had a mini tractor embroidered into the dress (Our transport to the venue!) My friend also hand finished the dress and added a surprise to my dress by adding my something blue to the dress - Marcus’s initial in powder blue beads on my hip. For the jewellery I wore gold and diamond thread through drop earrings as well as lots of rings. All from Logan Hollowell. As well as ‘my something borrowed’ was my grandmothers engagement ring that my Mum leant me for the day. My flower crown was made by Flower Style Co on the morning of our wedding. I wanted a large pretty and boho style flower crown. I couldn’t have imagined it would be so beautiful and it finished my look perfectly.

The Groom In Harris Tweed

For Marcus’s outfit, we wanted to embrace that our wedding was on his farm. Marcus wore a Harris tweed suit jacket, navy tweed waistcoat, navy chinos all from Slaters in Cheltenham. Worn with a soft blue Eton shirt and a burgundy tie that tied in perfectly with my bouquet. Marcus treated himself to dark tan Herring shoes and borrowed his family heirloom pocket watch that was over 150 years old! The lovely hot British weather meant that Marcus took his tweed suit jacket off after the service and had a more casual look for the rest of the day in his waistcoat and this suited the relaxed style of our wedding!

Sugar Loaf Barn Wedding Venue

We are very lucky that Marcus is one of the owners of family run wedding venue Sugar Loaf Barn. We couldn’t have imagined getting married anywhere different than the family farm that Marcus grew up on and being one of our favourite places to spend our weekends together, it’s really special to us. It’s actually a working sheep barn with lambs being born in there in the spring. Then Marcus and his family transform the venue into a beautiful wedding venue for the summer months. Not only is the venue very personal to us but also it is the exact relaxed style and cool rustic vibe that we wanted for our wedding. All the guests are transported from the car park up the long drive by a trailer pulled by tractor driven by Marcus’s Dad! It also has the most incredible breathtaking view, so I knew all our guests would love it, as much as we do. We also hired bell tents for the guests to stay in that were all decked out with rustic Morrocan style rugs, sheepskins and beds with twinkly lights. We had our very own teepee village! We also slept in an extra special honeymoon teepee on the night of our wedding, even though we stayed up partying until 4am! We didn’t want our day to end!

Rustic Decor Ideas For Wedding

For the décor, we wanted to embrace the rustic farm with a boho fashion twist. The colour scheme was inspired by the beautiful flower colours in Marcus’s Mums garden. Our flowers had purple, lilac, soft pinks, pale peach, white and lots of greenery. We had flowers everywhere!! I love bohemian style and found these beautiful large dream catchers that I placed at the centre of the venue behind the flower arch. We hired two amazing neon lights from Love Struck Creative which really lifted the barn venue to give it a modern cool twist. We decorated both signs with more flowers to really make a feature out of them. The venue has a chill out area and I decorated this area with Moroccan throws and cushions to go with our food and the interiors of the teepee village! I had some beautiful calligraphy signs made by Nikki Whiston Inks from her Etsy. My bridesmaid Natalie also made some extra last minute signs for me, the day before our wedding. Embracing the farm theme meant that we wanted some of the lambs from the farm to be involved, so we set up a small ‘petting pen’ with some of the hand reared tame lambs for the guests to pet and feed. We made flavoured gin for our favours, using damson and sloe berries grown on the farm. I also wanted our wedding to have a festival type vibe and had a huge selection of face glitter in the ladies toilets. By the end of the night even every guy was wearing glitter! Everyone getting sparkly, really set the scene for everyone to get the party started!

The Flowers

Our flower theme was to bring the outside, inside. Inspired by the wedding venue farm grounds and Marcus’s Mum’s beautiful flowers that she grows in her garden. I was lucky to find an amazingly talented floral designer Esther from Flower Style Co that I met with 5 times to brainstorm and go over our ideas. I did go a little over the top with flowers...flowers & greenery were everywhere. A flower aisle garden in the church, a huge flower arch, flower garlands everywhere, a flower bottle table plan, a greenery ladder, all table tops were covered in greenery and real rose petal confetti. The florist used greenery from around the farm in her flower arrangements and also Marcus’s Mums garden flowers in my bouquet and flower crown to make it really personal. The florist also moved the 38 flower aisle garden arrangements to our venue, so we could utilise the flowers from the ceremony and have the beautiful boho flower arrangements in the venue for the rest of the day.

Rewritten Bridesmaids Dresses

The bridesmaids wore different boho style floaty maxi dresses from Rewritten, all in a lavender grey colour. I wanted the girls to feel relaxed and comfortable in their dresses. They were able to choose which style dress they wanted when we went to visit the Rewritten bridesmaid dress showroom in London. My two year old flower girl wore a pretty white dress that she chose herself from John Lewis! The groomsmen wore the same Harris tweed jacket, navy tweed waistcoat and navy chinos as Marcus but with white shirts.

The Ceremony

It was important to our families that we maintained traditions in the church ceremony because the rest of our day was so modern and relaxed. My Dad walked me down the aisle to ‘Higher Love by James Vincent McMorrow’. My brother read a love poem ‘A Shepherd to his passionate lover’ We hoped this would make a few of our guests chuckle because Marcus grew up on a sheep farm. Marcus’s cousin read a bible verse about love; 1 Corinthians 13. We then wanted to have fun after the serious church service and made sure the volume was turned up with a silly exit song. The vicar announced the song by quoting what I had told him earlier that week ‘Marcus and Sheri wanted this song to get the party started’. We had ‘Sherry by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons’ Marcus calls me ‘Sheri baby’ so it was quite fitting and made all of our guests laugh that we had a song singing my name. The whole atmosphere just instantly relaxed then we almost danced out of the church and we gave everyone a loud ‘woooo hoooo’ in joy!!!

The Entertainment

We had fashion illustrator Miss Magpie Spy attend our wedding. She illustrated guests and we have an extra special wedding couple illustration. Band - We had an acoustic duet from The Brotherhood during the welcome drinks and then we had the whole brother hood band in the evening! The band really got the crowd going, everyone of all ages were dancing!

The Food

We chose a rustic style two tier butter iced naked Wedding cake from Happy Occasion Cakes decorated with flowers. For the wedding breakfast, it was really important to us that it was really relaxed vibe. We opted for Moroccan sharing plates that were served on the tables. It meant that everyone on the tables got chatting to each other when they had to pass around the dishes and this created an amazing atmosphere for the rest of the day. The dessert was a coconut brownie with coconut cream & chocolate ganache. Our caterer Prickly Pear Catering finished this dish with an edible flower. The presentation of all of the food was beautiful. In the evening we had a hog roast from The Full Hog Company.

The Photography

Our photographer was Eleanor Jane Photography. We picked her because she has photographed at the venue many times and we loved how relaxed, bright and beautiful her photo style is. We did an amazing woodland shoot on our day and the photos look in. Eleanor captured our day wonderfully and we are so happy with all of our photos.

Unique Elements

After Marcus proposed to me in a walk-in wardrobe that he built me as a surprise, we knew that we wanted all the details at our wedding to be unique and to tell our story. We wanted our wedding to be an expression of ourselves and to be an amazing fun experience for all of guests- something they had never experienced before. We were both very hands on with the wedding. I designed and made our wedding stationary. Along with all the other little details. While Marcus home brewed and made our gin favours using berries from the farm, planted trees and made the picket fence for the petting lambs! Marcus surprised me the Christmas before our wedding by arranging something super cool for our big day! We made an entrance to the venue on a red vintage Massey Ferguson tractor. Our ride was amazing; I perched on the mud guard next to Marcus, while he drove the tractor from the ceremony up to the venue to greet all of our guests!!

Advice

Make the whole day as personal to you as possible! Enjoy it and know that everyone will be happy because you are! Take time out on the day, with just you and your husband. Have a moment and realise what you have managed to organise together and that everyone is there because they love you both!
Fern Godfrey

Written by Fern Godfrey

Venue: Sugar Loaf Barn | Bridesmaids: Rewritten | Neon Signs: Love Struck Creative | Flowers: Flower Style Co | Hair: Blushes | Catering: Prickly Pear | Hog Roast: The Full Hog | Cake: Happy Occasions | Band: The Brotherhood | Illustrations: Miss Magpie Fashion Spy | Calligraphy: Nikki Whiston Inks | Groom : Slaters
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