Tabitha, by Charlotte Balbier, for DIY Filled Rustic Barn Wedding

Hello my darling, darling readers.  You know, sometimes a day can start out on such a rotten turn, only to end up being absolutely fantastic. That feeling. Today has it all over 🙂 …and all that matters now is that I can literally not stop smiling I’m so excited! {many an exciting project at Love My Dress towers, all will be revealed in good time}.

I fancied something beautiful, floral and colourful to match my mood this afternoon and this wedding made the perfect choice.  Bev & Phil Murphy tied the knot on 19 August this year at The Ashes in Endon, Staffordshire.  I adore this wedding for so many reasons, not least because Bev’s dress is so pretty, in a very English rose sort of way – her flowers are just perfect, I love their slightly wild ‘just picked’ appeal. And the whole DIY feel to this day fills mw with happy 🙂

Bev wore the beautiful lace design that is Tabitha by the lovely Charlotte Balbier – a purchase from The White Closet in Didsbury

“I tried on all different styles of dresses, as I didn’t really know what I was looking for. Tabitha by Charlotte Balbier was the last dress I tried on, and I immediately loved everything about her… the beautiful lace, the subtle sparkle, the little ‘puddle’ of a train….”

Love My Dress UK Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Jonny Draper

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“I had three bridesmaids – two of my best friends and my big sister. They were an incredible support and helped out enormously with everything, not least organising my wonderful hen do.

I knew I wanted something knee length, informal and fun for their dresses – I adore the sunshine yellow and I was over the moon when I came across a lovely one shouldered knee length dresses online. I was worried it might not suit them all, but they looked gorgeous! I was so happy when I saw them altogether on the day.  I chose a messy side bun on the opposite side to the shoulder on the dress and kept the rest of the accessories simple, with just some handmade drop earrings that I picked up at a craft fair…”

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“I kept as scrap book of anything I liked on wedding blogs or in magazines and this really helped me narrow down what kind of style I liked – it turned out to be quite rustic featuring lots of kraft card and twine.I collected jam jars and vintage bottles for the year leading up to the wedding and filled them with supermarket flowers.  The jam jars were decorated with bits of vintage looking lace, fabric left over from making bunting and ribbon. I still have lots of them dotted around the house with flowers in now!

Although they’re not strictly necessary at a civil ceremony like ours, our ‘order of the day’ booklets gave our guests a good indicator of what to expect from the day and were a nice keepsake…”

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“I had really clear ideas about what I did and didn’t want. I envisaged brightly coloured wild flowers with lots of daisies, and I didn’t want them to look too ‘done’.

When I found the Traditional Flower Company I knew they would be perfect – the flowers were a seasonal garden style mix, combined with fragrant herbs. Containers were hessian covered jars, vintage tins and milk churns.  Each person had a tiny posy of fragrant herbs and flowers on their napkin, and our beautiful bouquets were tied with twine.

The flowers were one of the most memorable things about the day for me….the smell was unbelievable, and so many people said that one of their lasting memories was the scent of the flowers through the day…”

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“Our drinks flags were a real labour of love, as I had to cut them all out by hand, but I loved them and a lot of the guests used them as buttonholes after they’d finished their drinks!  They said all had “Phil ♥ Bev 19.08.11” on one side, but said various things on the reverse such as “Bottoms up” “Just married” “cheers” and “we do!”

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“I bought an old suitcase from eBay and lined it with floral fabric. I then printed downloadable letters from Martha Stewart onto Kraft card, and used some cute mini pegs to attach them to some twine…I also added a little pic of Phil & I saying “Thanks!””

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“One of my favourite things about summer weddings is the confetti – the confetti shots are always my favourites, and I was NOT taking the risk that people would forget to bring some so I made lots of cones from parcel paper, a frilly corner punch and ribbon. I also lined some baskets with leftover fabric to hold the cones…”

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“My very handsome groom wore a slim fitting blue Reiss suit, and we hired similar suits for the best men. We had wanted to buy their suits, but in the end it was really hard to get the colour and material we wanted, so we hired them instead.  They finished off with ties and pocket squares from Reiss, and tan leather shoes…”

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“I saw these pretty hearts online and I knew they’d be perfect. I attached them to the end of every other row using twine…”

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“I never imagined I would wear a veil, but the minute I tried one on I loved it.  It seemed to complete my look and made me feel more ‘bridal’. I couldn’t find the style I wanted off the peg, so I ordered a bespoke, single tier, chapel length lace edged veil from The Wedding Veil Shop.

For ages I wasn’t sure what to do with my hair, and I I had a loads of different hair trials…half up, half down, curly, straight, fringe, no fringe… The one I finally decided on 4 days before the wedding was a low, casual updo and my (incredibly patient) hairdresser No 1 West Street in Congleton did my hair along with my bridesmaids.I knew I didn’t want a tiara or anything sparkly, so on the day, I had ivory wild flowers dotted in it, which I changed to blue cornflowers for the evening…”

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The Ashes in Endon, Staffordshire is beautiful, and we fell in love with it at first sight as we knew it would be perfect for the relaxed celebration we wanted.

There are two beautifully restored grade II listed barns – one for the ceremony, and another for the receptions. The setting is amazing too – you make your way up a long sweeping driveway surrounded by fields and trees to find a beautiful courtyard, gardens, pond, horses…even highland cows!

It was important to us to be able to personalise the day as much as possible, and The Ashes allowed  us the flexibility to do (almost!) anything we wanted  in terms of decorating and set up….”

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“My Dad passed away when I was younger, so it was very special that my mum walked me down the aisle.   We knew we didn’t want to go down the traditional classical route, so I walked down the aisle to ‘Only You’ by Joshua Radin…”

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“Phil’s mum made at least a hundred meters of bunting, by cutting out each flag with pinking shears, sewing a small fold along the top of each and stringing them onto twine. You can’t tell from the photos but it was all different flowery prints and looked so pretty. I can’t wait to string some out in our garden next year!”

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“We wanted to personalise the day and keep costs down as much as possible, so almost all of the details were DIY, made by me and our families.  For our table plan, I used pretty wallpaper to cover a piece of card that exactly fit the frame supplied by the venue. Details of who was sitting on each table were strung on twine using mini pegs, and decorated with buttons…”

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“We both wanted a sit down meal but wanted it to be a little bit different, so we chose to have the main course as a ‘Host a Roast’.  After the starter, a whole leg of lamb was delivered to each table, and a chef’s hat, apron and carving knife was given to the person we had chosen to be the ‘host’… they then had to carve for the rest of the table. It was hilarious and everyone really entered into the spirit of it….”

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“Phil is a HUGE fan of Only Fools & Horses, so all of the tables were all named after a Del Boy phrases….we were ‘Luvvly Jubbly’ of course!”

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“The experience of choosing the flowers was amazing too…they are based on a farm in Staffordshire and everything is homegrown. We were taken around the flower fields and picked out all the flowers we liked ….then a week before the wedding the bouquets, buttonholes and table arrangements were all mocked up so we could see what they looked like. This really was one of my favourite things about planning the wedding.

The Traditional Flower Company also hired the vintage crockery to us….”

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“I always knew I wanted cupcakes! I also knew I didn’t want to spend a fortune on them, so this would be another DIY effort.  Phil’s very lovely mum kindly volunteered to do all of them and spent the day before the wedding making over 100 beautifully decorated cupcakes in all sorts of fabulous flavours. My sister also made a giant cupcake to go on top, so we would have something to ‘cut’.

The Playmobil characters were one of the first things I bought for the wedding…they had the same hair as me and Phil so I bought them on impulse! Still makes me chuckle.  The mini bunting was something I made quickly the day before the wedding…it was something I’d saved in my scrapbook, but I nearly forgot to do it. It was just two short BBQ bamboo skewers, twine and left over scraps of material stuck on with glue….”

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Words of Wedded Wisdom…

“Get organised! I did lots of research on wedding blogs and magazines and found it really useful to put everything I liked in a scrapbook. I also had a spreadsheet (affectionately referred to as ‘the wedding spreadsheet of doom’) to keep the budget and guest lists organised.

I really enjoyed making all of the little details, but what makes your wedding special is having all of your favourite people in one place to help you celebrate…so try and think about this when you’re stressing about drinks stirrers and place settings!

Phil had prepared a quiz for after the wedding breakfast – it was a great way to keep everyone entertained before the evening do, and it gave Phil and I chance to have some photos of just the two of us without being missed.  We also had some board games like pop up pirate and jenga, which I suspect were used for drinking games a little later on!  In the evening, we had to reign in the budget and hire a DJ instead of a live band but they were great, and the dance floor wasn’t empty once.

I made a DIY photobooth for the evening, which made for some fantastic pictures when everyone was quite merry.”       

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Such a gorgeous, gorgeous, colour-filled day.  Huge congratulations to you both Bev and Phil and many many thanks to Photographer Jonny Draper…

“Our photographer was Jonny Draper. We didn’t want to spend hours having our pictures taken and wanted reportage style shots, with just a few portraits, and Jonny understood this perfectly.

On the day itself Jonny didn’t dictate or demand, he just worked discreetly in the background capturing every minute.  I knew the photographs would be amazing, but when they arrived they were beyond our expectations – Jonny captured so many beautiful memories that tell the story and emotion of our wedding day perfectly.

We also had a pre-wedding photoshoot gave us more confidence being in front of the camera – something that definitley doesn’t come naturally to us…it was also a good way of getting to know Jonny and how he works much better…”

You see people how very, very important it is to choose a Photographer  you are comfortable with and are really impressed – spend your pennies wisely my lovelies, your photographs will serve as treasured memories for years to come.

Which of you are wearing a Charlotte Balbier design on your wedding day? I’d love to hear from you!

Much late afternoon love 🙂

Annabel xXx

Photographer – Jonny Draper
Venue – The Ashes in Endon, Staffordshire
Brides dress – Tabitha by Charlotte Balbier
Brides veil – The Wedding Veil Shop
Groom – Reiss
Bridesmaids – Purchased online {site not provided}
Flowers – The Traditional Flower Company
Cake – Baked by the Grooms Mother
Catering Company – Jenkinsons Caterers

 

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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