A Village Fete Inspired, Wild Flower Wedding at Winters Barns

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Good morning, I hope you are well rested and ready for the day ahead.  I will be out walking our dogs and embracing this beautiful day by the time you're enjoying this lovely handmade wedding.  Sophie, an Assistant Merchandiser at Topshop married Flynn, a Recruitment Manager on 12 July last year at Winters Barns in Canterbury. I just love how sweet and in love this couple look, and I love the whole very laid back nature of this wedding too.  This is defintely one I'd have enoyed being a guest at.

"We always wanted a relaxed and informal wedding with a large element of homemade touches. We would have loved to get married at my parent’s farm in Kent as we loved the look and feel of such a setting, but unfortunately this wasn’t possible. So we started our search for a similar location and when we came across Winters Barns, we knew we’d found our perfect venue.

We didn't feel the need to style our wedding along a fixed theme, but I did love the idea of a laid back, village fete style wedding so we used bunting, garlands, wild flowers, ice-cream and a BBQ to help create the atmosphere – basically, all the best parts of summer rolled into one!"

Photography Copyright (c) 2014, Gavin Photography

Village fete style barn wedding

"Flynn and I met through a close friend seven years ago. He used to DJ in a local bar and I would to go and see him every week with my friends. Flynn popped the question after we'd been together for five years – he took me away for a weekend in Paris for an early christmas present. I thought it was extravagant for a Christmas present, but had no idea he was actually going to ask me to marry him! it was the best christmas present."

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"I have a Degree in Graphic Design and a passion for designing arts and crafts so I wanted to personally create a much as possible for the day. So I started by designed my own save the date cards and wedding invitations. I used a lot of my own hand-drawings mixed with digital designs."

Invitations

"Our wedding flowers were from a fantastic place in Maidstone called Blooming Green Flowers, where there is a field full to bursting with wild flowers that you can pick yourself.  We visited them the day before the wedding and filled the car with buckets of wild flowers, which I then arranged myself. I also added some coral roses from our garden at home.

Blooming Green Flowers also made our beautiful bouquets for the day, with a mixture of textures and colour to fit the pastel colour theme."

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"I was not sure if I definitely wanted a veil, but as my bridesmaid said 'when are you ever going to get a chance to wear a veil again!'. So I looked on Ebay and managed to get a lovely mid length net veil for £13. My hair comb accessory was from Vintage Styler.

My dress was my own design – I work for Topshop and I was lucky enough to have the amazing pattern room team create my wedding dress. I went to a few wedding dress shops to find the perfect shape. Then spent days looking through wedding magazines and Pinterest (I'm slightly addicted to Pinterest!) to help me decide on the finer details. The team did an amazing job and even stitched in a little blue bow to the inside, for my something blue."

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"We both loved every second of the day, though I think we both agree the moment I walked down the aisle and Flynn and I saw each other with the music playing and all our friends and family around us was our favourite moment."

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Sophie's bridesmaids wore dresses from Warehouse and shoes from Amazon.  Their hair accessories wers from New Look.

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"My favourite hand-made touch was the seating plan. It was a simple idea, but gave such a strong impact when you walked into the room. I painted a large board with layers of blackboard paint. Then I used a chalkboard pen to write out each name and added some drawing to the sides. I also added a paper garland to add a dash of colour and tie in with the rest of the decorations (multi-coloured bunting, pom-poms and lanterns etc). 

For the menu I used a roll of brown paper and wrote out the menu using a sharpie pen. Then hung this from the wall with some twine, and rolled the bottom back on itself to make it look like a large scroll falling to the floor."

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"For the wedding guest book, we really wanted to do something different, that was personal to us. I wanted to incorporate my husbands passion for DJ’ing, so he picked out four of his favourite vinyl records, which all fortunately had love themed song titles

We placed these in some wooden frames from Ebay and left them on the table with some Silver Sharpie pens with a printed note in a frame that asked people to sign them. Everyone commented on what a nice touch this was and immediately recognised how this was relevant to us.  They looked amazing once everyone had written their messages and these are now hanging on our wall as a great memory of the day."

Village fete style barn wedding

"We hired Gavin Photography to take our wedding photographs.  We wanted a photographer that took natural photos that captured every detail and moment of the day and Gavin was prefect. We loved his friendly and relaxed approach. Gavin managed to capture everything we wanted and more and we are so pleased with all of the photos, they make us smile every time I look back at them."

Village fete style barn wedding


Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"I knew a wanted my hair up for the wedding, so I wouldn't hide the neck detail of  the dress. Danielle Rowley did an amazing job. As I wanted a natural up-do that would last for the whole day, she also used clip-in extensions to add volume. I wanted the bridesmaid’s hair to be down to add a contrast to my own, but with some additional small details. so Danielle added a plait to the side."

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

I do love the sequence of shots that follows, as the Father of the Bride arrives and see's his daughter for the first time…

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"My father Alan walked me down the aisle to the sound of a song by Turning Pages called ‘Sleeping At Last’ – its such a beautiful song and lyrics. 

We signed the register to ‘So Good To Me’ by Chris Malinchak. We both have a love for house music. I heard this song a few months before and knew we had to have it in the wedding.

We walked back up the aisle to Elton John's 'Are You Ready For Love' to get everyone into the party mood."

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"Winters Barns have a list of recommended catering companies and we chose to work with CBH Catering.  We wanted a BBQ but still with a professional sit-down feel. CBH couldn’t have been better, we had amazing rustic style salads with morrocain lamb, a verity of spiced sausages and thai style fish pracels.

CBH helped us plan everything and ever helped by suggesting having a plated dessert so people didn’t have to get up twice for main and dessert. We had a buffet in the evening with cured meats, rustic breads, cheeses and chutneys. so we wanted something people could pick at and not have to stop partying!"

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

"I spent a year collecting glass jars and old wine bottles that we used for the table centre pieces, which I wrapped in twine, candles and little table number flags to.

My wonderful Father-in-law is a baker and he made our cake.  We wanted a simple white three-tier cake with pin dot details. The personalised cake topper was from the lovely company called Miss Cake."

Cake and flowers

"Our first dance was to Etta James ‘At Last’ – we just loved the song and always wanted something timeless and beautiful."

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Village fete style barn wedding

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“I was given advice from so many friends before the wedding and I think the best advice was to remember to take a step back and take in the day. Enjoy having all your friends and loved ones under one roof celebrating with you both, as before you know it its midnight and the day is over. We want to make sure you take in every moment and not worry about the little things.

"As we had so many nieces, nephews and children coming to the wedding we wanted to make sure we kept them entertained for the day and especially during the speeches (or poems as my nieces called them). So we created little gift bag favours and filled them with colouring pencils, small toys (including tiddly winks. Fun for kids and adults!"

I loved Love My Dress  – every lunch time I would be looking at the real weddings from my desk, looking for inspiration and tips. I still look at the blogs and pin now, as everyone loves a good wedding! I also love helping friends when they want to find ideas for their special day. I have even continued to make wedding decor for friends weddings. I loved the real weddings that were featured as you get to see how other people have achieved their big day and how easy it can be.  I also used Pinterest. Its a great place to find ideas for all aspects of a wedding and perfect that you can file anything you like all together in one place – like an online wedding scrap book"

Village fete style barn wedding

Sophie, you look so very happy, I can't help but love your smile 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful day and experience with us.

Ladies, if you loved the vibe of Sophie and Flynn's wedding, you might want to look at more barn, DIY, summer and wild flower weddings.

Love Annabel

Heart

 

Photographer – Gavin Photography
Venue – Winters Barns in Canterbury
Wedding Dress – Topshop  design team
Brides Hair Accessories – Veil from EBay + comb from Vintage Styler
Brides Shoes – Jenny Packham at Debenhams
Brides Accessories – Earrings from Marks & pencer + bracelet borrowed
Groom – Moss suit + T.M.Lewin tie + tie clip from notonthehighstreet.com
Bridesmaids Dresses – Warehouse + shoes from Amazon + hair accessories from New Look
Flowers – Blooming Green Flowers
Cake – Family + topper from Miss Cake + cakepops by Dippy Designs
Rings – Leon Whitehouse
Catering – CBH Catering
Stationery – The Bride
Hair Stylist – Danielle Rowley

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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.

6 thoughts on “A Village Fete Inspired, Wild Flower Wedding at Winters Barns

  1. Gorgeous wedding! I love a wedding that proves it can be done with high street and diy influence rather than all bespoke or designer.
    They look like they had an amazing day and have given me some ideas for our wedding.

  2. I completely agree, weddings don’t have to be expensive, you can craft something just as beautiful if you put your mind to it 🙂
    So pleased you’ve got some ideas for your wedding too xXx

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