A Marchesa Gown for a Magical Moroccan Inspired Summer Wedding

We've just the absolute perfect wedding to share with you today – a colour-burst fusion of Moroccan and English traditions with the beautiful Tythe Barn at Priston Mill, Bath, playing the rather lovely backdrop for the day.

Fashion designer Layla and her furniture designer Matthew’s magical summer wedding took place on 15th June last year at Tythe Barn in Priston Mill, Bath, and their wedding was beautifully shot on film by the very talented Christian and Erica.

“I am Moroccan so it was important to me to have Moroccan influences on my wedding day without it feeling Moroccan ‘themed’. Like a Moroccan wedding, we wanted our wedding to be an explosion of colour, which influenced colours that we used in decorations and flowers, and we also asked our guests to wear colour on the day, and they didn’t disappoint!"

Photography Copyright (c) 2014, Christian and Erica Ward

“Matthew and I met at university and we got engaged in November 2010. For our anniversary that year Matthew planned a weekend away in the Brecon beacons. Matthew proposed on a quiet country walk, with a Victorian engagement charm which I wear around my neck. It is a beautiful little gold box with the tiniest engagement ring inside."

"We wanted to have our wedding in a beautiful building that was also a blank canvas. Tythe Barn has been used as a wedding venue for around 15 years and has a rustic charm to it. We felt we could add our personal touch to it as our wedding had a mix of traditional English and Moroccan influences.”

“I wanted my bridesmaid dresses to be different from each other and not too uniform in appearance. I chose a shape that was unstructured and, most importantly, suited all my bridesmaids. I worked together with one of my bridesmaids, Amie, who the dresses made for me. We chose chiffon as the main fabric so that the dresses looked relaxed and ,picked solid colours and floral prints to reflect the eclecticness of our wedding.  My bridesmaids also wore flower garlands in their hair that were handmade by Matthew’s Auntie, Tacy.”

"Invites were hand illustrated by my bridesmaids sister, Sarita Hawkins. She is an amazing illustrator and her handwriting suited the feel of our wedding perfectly. Sarita designed the wedding invite and booklet based around the look and feel of our wedding - colour, vintage bottles and wild flowers."

“I wore a dress by Marchesa that I purchased from Browns Bride.  I tried on a lot of dresses, but the one I ended up buying was one of the first I tried on. I loved the glamour of the dress- pleating on the bodice and embellishment but most importantly I loved how relaxed I felt in it.”

“During the day time, I wore a custom made charm bracelet which I had made at Andrew R. Ullmann in Hatton gardens. I wanted to wear jewellery that was personal to me so I had a charm bracelet made that had a ring from when I was a baby, a victorian swallow charm to reference my engagement necklace and a gold coin that belonged to my grandmother.  I also wore a pair of ‘Love’ earrings from Anthropologie.”

“We were lucky that Matthew’s Auntie used to be a florist and helped us achieve the look that we wanted. We wanted our wedding day to be filled with colour and we let Tacy have full reign of flowers and colours. Peonies are one of my favourite flowers and my one request was that my bouquet was white peonies as I wanted my outfit to be all neutral. Tacy chose the colours and flowers perfectly.  She mixed flowers such as freesias, glorious, hydrangeas with wild flowers and greenery.”

"For the wedding breakfast we decorated the barn with multicoloured tassels made from paper and kaftan fabrics.

All our wedding decorations were handmade by ourselves with help from family and friends. We wanted the ceremony to be natural and this was one of the most important parts of the day for us. We created a backdrop from paper flowers strung together and hung them from a branch.

We used some eclectic vintage bottles to hold the table centrepiece floral displays, which we sourced from many trips to Ardingly and Kempton vintage markets."

"In homage to my Moroccan heritage, we took traditional elements from a Moroccan wedding and incorporated them into our day.  As our guests arrived traditional Moroccan mint tea and Moroccan biscuits were served, and in the evening I got changed into a traditional Moroccan kaftan. We had a procession through the garden into the barn with a folk Moroccan drumming band and our family and bridesmaids.

In a Moroccan wedding this procession takes place when the bride leaves her family home, so we incorporated it into our celebration.

In the evening I also wore a gold necklace as a headpiece from Morocco. This was a wedding present from my parents. The gold bracelet, gold earrings and gold belt were all my mum’s which she also wore on her wedding day.”

“Our photographers were Christian and Erica Ward, who work with film, as opposed to digital photography.  We chose Christian and Erica as we wanted a natural reportage of our wedding day.

We wanted un-staged photographs that captured moments throughout our day. Christian & Erica were so lovely to work with and we feel that they captured important moments throughout the day perfectly.”

“I wore fresh flowers in my hair, that were put together by Matthew’s Auntie  Tacy. Flowers were from The Bay Tree in Cowbridge.”

"My dad walked me down the aisle to the sound of ‘Cupid’ by Sam Cooke.

Saying our vows was very emotional for me. After all the planning and organising, it was all for that moment."

"For our first dance, we chose ‘Your love keeps lifting me higher’ by Jackie Wilson as to us our wedding day was a celebration of our love."

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

“Everyone’s wedding day is personal to them, my advice would just be to enjoy the process. Remember that on the day, it doesn’t matter if something goes wrong as you and your husband are the only people that will know!”  

What an absolutely beautiful day, so much colour, style and smiles. I truly do love everything about it.

You can see more Moroccan influenced weddings here, as well as more colourful and Summer weddings here, and if you are keen to explore more about film photography, take a peek here too.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this wedding, as I know Layla would too – are there any elements of Layla and Matthew's day that you'd like to incorporate into your own wedding?

Enjoy what's left of your bank holiday weekend UK readers!

Love Annabel

Photographer – Christian and Erica
Venue + Catering – Tythe Barn at Priston Mill, Bath
Brides Dress – Marchesa from Browns Bride
Headpiece – real flowers
Brides Shoes – Miu Miu
Accessories – charm bracelet via Andrew R. Ullmann + earrings via Anthropologie
Grooms Suit – Paul Smith + Aubin & Wills tie + Kurt Geiger shoes
Bridesmaids – Bespoke
Florist – The Bay Tree in Cowbridge
Cake – Jenny Knott
Cars/Transport – Vintage Citroen Elysee DS from Paul Kingscote
Entertainment – Dakka Marrakchia London- Traditional Moroccan band
Rings – Andrew R. Ullmann + Annoushka at Libertys
Stationery – Sarita Hawkins
Hair Stylist – Abi at Melanie Giles in Bath
Make-up Artist – Sophie Higginson
Engagement ring – 1920s Victorian cluster ring from Andrew R. Ullmann, Hatton gardens
Wedding ring- Rose gold eternity ring from Annoushka at Libertys
Matthew – Platinum wedding ring from Andrew R. Ullmann, Hatton gardens

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