A Festival Inspired Farm Wedding in Shades of Peach

Brace yourselves Monday morning lovelies, you actually might need to sit down for this one – such is the staggering beauty and resolutely personal nature of the wedding I’m about to share with you. And I readily admit to harbouring a bit of a bride crush. It’s my utmost pleasure to introduce you to the stunning Sarah, a make-up artist and avid Love My Dress reader, and James, a Sound Engineer, who wed on 16th July this year in a festival-inspired, farm-based celebration of epic loveliness in Derbyshire.

“Because of the job I do, I see weddings and brides two or three times a week. I’ve been to every possible venue in my area and worked with most of the suppliers. I didn’t want our wedding to feel like another day at work so I set out to create the most personal wedding we possibly could. Most of the inspiration for the wedding, venue, table plan, entertainment and food was based around experiences James and I have had together. Because of James’ job we have been to tonnes of festivals and they’re really my happy place so I did want the wedding to feel very relaxed and festival like.”

Wedding film by Tregoning Weddings

“I thought long and hard about whether doing my make-up would be a good idea on my wedding day. I didn’t want to be stressing on the morning and not feeling like I was relaxing and enjoying myself, but after lots of debate I decided that for many reasons I would go for it. I decided if I was going to do it I’d treat myself to all the make-up I desired and that’s exactly what I did.”

Photography by Rosie Hardy + Adam Bird Photography

Sarah and her loyal band of family and friends decorated their rustic farm reception with lashings of fairy lights, chiffon, candle holders, and hand-painted signs. The marquee supplied by Mudford Marquees (who also provided the chairs, tables and toilets) and the barns around the farm were all painstakingly lavished with handmade love and attention.

“Décor was pretty much my entire focus for the wedding! Between me, my mum, my bridesmaid Emma and lots of other wonderful friends and family we managed to hand make hundreds of metres of bunting, which was everywhere. It was the easiest and cheapest way to brighten up the farm and make it look more wedding-y.”“My wonderful close friend Rosie Gray Cowley designed our beautiful save the dates, invitations, place names and order of services. I pretty much let Rose choose what she wanted to go with because I knew she would do an incredible job. I was so blown away with them, she really did capture the theme and feel of the wedding and again it was so amazing being able to have someone I knew design something for us.”

“My bridesmaids Beck and Emma and my mum all wear natural make-up and were only used to me doing it and I wanted them to feel super comfortable and happy on the day. I did plenty of trials on myself and worked out exactly what I was going to do on the day with a step by step guide to follow, I basically had a calm version of me guiding a very anxious one through what to do.”

“James bought me Jo Malone’s ‘English Pear & Freesia’ as a wedding gift – I’d seen lots of my brides with Jo Malone perfumes and thought they all smelled amazing.”

“I had a very obvious hint stuck on the fridge for James so made it quite easy for him! We met at High School aged thirteen, went out for a short time and then went back out at sixteen and the rest is history; we’re childhood sweethearts.”

Sarah’s friend and fellow make-up artist, Ria Leslie, was on hand to assist with cleaning brushes and notoriously tricky lash-application as well as hairstylist friends Hannah Turner and Holly Aldersley, who created all the girls’ gorgeously relaxed styles.

“I bought my dress from an off the peg shop called New York Bride in Eckington near to where I live. It’s Kenneth Winston, Private Label by G (the 1596 model). I was reluctant to go to an off the peg shop when I started looking, it was my mum that pushed us to go because she’d had a lot of recommendations from other mothers of brides.”

“My lovely mother-in-law, Heather, had always said when James and I got married she’d like to buy my dress and kindly didn’t put a difficult budget on it, however I was conscious that the dress would be dragged around a farm and knowing my photographers I would most likely be trespassing into some fields to get photos, so I didn’t want anything too extravagant. I would of just been worrying about my dress all day instead of getting stuck in and enjoying myself.”

“Off the peg option did tick that box because it made it a lot cheaper, I also found as a very petite bride it was much easier to get a proper idea of how the dress would look by trying on the smaller sized dresses that didn’t swamp me. The dress was the first one I tried on that day in that shop; I loved how it was more of a off-white/champagne colour, loved the lace boho feel but with the more glamorous embellishment around the bust.”

Like so many brides, Sarah ended up choosing a style she never thought she’d opt for, the fitted shape set off beautiful by a headily romantic lace-edged veil and sparkling Kurt Geiger shoes – a pretty and practical farm-friendly alternative to the Sarah Jessica-Parker style Manolo Blahnik’s our bride was dreaming of.

The look on Sarah’s dad’s face when he first sets eyes on her made me weep unashamedly – a true testament to just how stunning she looks.

“I imagined I’d go for a very relaxed boho feel but because I’m so petite and look quite young, I found the trumpet shape dresses made me look like a proper grown-up bride, which was really important to me. I had the dress altered at Individual Design in Newbold Chesterfield; I was super nervous about this but they did an amazing job and made it fit like a glove.”

“I’m not really a jewellery person so was planning on maybe borrowing something from my mum but then mum and dad surprised me with a lovely gold bracelet and pearl charm on the morning of the wedding. They bought it from a local jewellery shop where we live in Dronfield, which also happened to be where I got my grandma’s wedding ring resized.”

“One of my oldest friend’s mum’s did my flowers, Helen Wilmott. I’d seen flowers Helen had done in the past and was so happy when she said she would be willing to do mine on our wedding day. We met up a lot to discuss the types of flowers but mainly I asked for very cold, blue-green foliage to match the bridesmaids dress colours and an accent colour of peach with cream running through.”

Sarah chose David Austin roses in place of out of season peonies and attached her ‘something borrowed,’ a broach belonging to her granny, which was lent to her by her bridesmaid and cousin, Emma.

Sarah was transported to her ceremony in a beautiful old Citroen, decorated with a pretty flower garland, in honour of the first car she owned. After looking into expensive hire, the bride’s canny dad located lovely local, Barry Francis, through a classic car garage. This absolute gem of man even looked after Sarah’s lipstick during the ceremony!

“My wonderful mum made my niece and flower girl Evelyn’s dress; I wanted Evelyn to stand out so we chose a peach tone to tie in with the flowers and compliment the pale blue bridesmaids. We sourced the material and advice from a lovely friend and bridal designer, Kelly Redhead, who also helped us to find the fabric for our table runners (so good to have friends in the business!) We were a little worried about Evelyn cooperating with us on the morning of the wedding so we bought a dolly and my mum made her a matching little outfit which thankfully worked a treat and she couldn’t wait to get dressed up!”

“I’m sure everyone says this, but our engagement was perfect. James planned a surprise treasure hunt starting with my best friend (and bridesmaid) Beck randomly picking me up from our house and following clues that James left for me. I was taken to all the significant places around where we’ve grown up – our first kiss, where we officially went out – and at each place was another best friend with the next clue.”

“It was truly magical and so overwhelming as so many people were involved. At the end James waited at one of our favourite places to go walking and got down on one knee and then we went back to our local pub where he’d arranged a surprise party with thirty of our closest friends and family.”

James and his best man both wore ensembles from Next and the couple bought all the groomsmen and both dads steel tankards to use throughout the day. In keeping with Sarah and James’ laid-back style, the men in the wedding party wore waistcoats from ASOS (where Sarah also sourced her bridesmaid’s softly-hued floor-length gowns) and grey Next ties mixed in with their own clothes; a lovely melée of relaxed and complementing outfits emerged.

“My lovely dad walked me down the aisle to Jose Gonzalez’ ‘Heartbeats.’ It reminds James and I of going to see him aged sixteen. It makes me feel emotional but happy, not sad – I really wanted to avoid crying because once I start I can’t stop! My Auntie Julie Pelly read Colossians Chapter 3, Verses 12-17 and James’ Uncle Richard Sleath read Khalil Gibran, On Marriage, from the prophet. We let both of them choose the readings they thought we’d like.”

Sarah’s cousin, Chris Pelly, played the organ to accompany the whole wedding party singing ‘Lord of all Hopefulness’ and the highly personal (and at times funny) ceremony was led by minister David Markay; a church ceremony service with some added twists. James bought Sarah’s engagement ring in London, with matching the design of her grandma’s wedding band firmly in mind.

“We had our ceremony in our local Methodist church, somewhere that’s been around the corner from me my whole life. We managed to squeeze 110 people in a 70 seated church so it was slightly cramped! On the end of each aisle we had pictures of all of the generations before us on their wedding days. I copied this idea from a wedding I worked at; a beautiful tribute to all the couples that had brought us to this moment.”

“Once my mother-in-law, Heather, heard about my mum making Evelyn’s dress she thought it would be nice to make an outfit for my nephew and page boy Oscar. She managed to recreate a tiny version of the groomsmen’s outfits; one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I’m surrounded by talented women!”

“I was lucky enough to inherit my grandma’s wedding ring when she passed away to be mine when we got married. I absolutely love my grandma’s wedding band because it’s a dainty thin gold band with an inscription inside: ‘with fondest love 10.6.41′ – something my granddad used to always write in cards to my grandma. It’s an honour to wear it and I hope James and I can only be happily married as long as they were.”

“While we signed the register we had a slideshow for everyone to watch – basically just to show everyone what a wonderful life we’ve had so far, to remember some people who aren’t here anymore and say thank you to the ones that still are. I spent the year before the wedding collecting roses from our garden, drying the petals and made a full basket of confetti.”

The bride’s lovely mum and her friends, Viv and Janet, took care of all the blooms for the church and reception tables and Sarah’s dad got crafty making crates.

“We all chipped in with the flower arranging the last few days before the wedding, even James got involved which my mum found very cute. These two lovely ladies also helped by setting up and serving the welcome drinks for us; we were so reliant on the kind nature of good friends to help us on the day and people were so generous and helpful.”

Andrew of Tregoning Weddings was chosen to shoot Sarah and James’ wedding video, a film Sarah admits to having watched over thirty times.

And yet again, friends were on hand to make the couple’s day just that bit more special – these achingly romantic images were captured by Rosie Hardy and Adam Bird. The stills of the newlyweds wandering through that endless green field have the most beautiful dream-like, ethereal quality.

“When we saw our highlights video we were honestly blown away, we have had SO many compliments about it and is truly is something we’ll treasure forever. I had two wonderful friends of mine to do the photography. I met Rosie years ago through doing a photoshoot with her and met Adam through Rosie. We often work together on photoshoots so they were an obvious choice. I think Rosie was the first thing I booked for the wedding, we HAD to have her, and Adam kindly offered to second shoot which was just a dream come true.”

“I couldn’t recommend both of them enough, I really think the photos speak for themselves, they are both extremely talented photographers who truly captured the day as it was. A massive strength in both of them is their ability to capture stunning photos of the bride and groom, which is probably due to their experience in fashion and editorial style photoshoots.”

“We had two bell tents, one a full of toys and activities to keep kids entertained and one with the photo booth, which included a huge blow up flamingo which I think was in most of the guestbook photos. We decided to play a game for the photo booth and gave everyone a sticker with a number on it and explained that someone at the wedding had that same number and they had to find them and have a photo together. It made for hilarious photos of very random pairings and I think helped everyone mix up and chat.”

“We decided to run our own bar; we got a temporary bar license which came in five days and was only £21, and I hired three younger siblings and cousins of people we knew. It meant we could keep costs down for our guests and it was such an awesome feeling to go up to the bar and have a familiar face serving the drinks; it kept that personal feeling of the wedding running into the night.”

“I’d love to give special thanks to all the friends and family who helped to set up, help on the day and pack away the whole wedding. We had no staff what so ever so we were really reliant on people mucking in and helping us, and so many people did so without even having to be prompted.”

Sarah created a table plan using a map of The Isles of Scilly, a long-time family holiday destination, and the new Mr and Mrs Campbell created a beer pong table for their guests – an absolutely brilliant idea to make sure their reception was filled with laughter.

“For catering we were pretty set on having paella because we had fond memories of eating it at Glastonbury and we thought it would be fun, relaxed and give that festival vibe. Unfortunately most of the festival paella companies were booked for exactly that, and wedding catering companies just didn’t have the authenticity. Luckily we managed to find Lee Capille who serves paella at local food festivals so he was perfect for the job. He served us delicious bruchettas with the welcome drinks and a mixture of paellas in the big pans for the wedding breakfast. The food seemed to go down really well and was exactly the feel we were going for.”

The newlyweds catered the evening buffet of meats, cheeses and bread themselves, with guests contributing to a yummy cake table. Another family friend, Lyndsay Jeffcock, created the peach-toned wedding cake, lavished with textured white icing and the bride’s cousin Hannah of HanDrawn Art, crafted a bespoke beauty of a sign to sit alongside it.

With James’ love of music and their festival style theme in mind, music was always going to be super important. A whole host of family members, including James, his brother and groomsmen, played a feet-twitching mash-up of everything from Beyoncé to N.E.R.D. The groom also put together a dream band of favourite session players he’s worked with over the years.

“My dad’s awesome folk band Scuppered played for everyone sitting on hay bails on a grassy area after the meal, it was such a fantastic atmosphere. I think James began to see the wedding like a gig, he hired in a massive PA, sound desk and sound engineer. I don’t think James or I could comprehend how good it sounded and how unbelievably lucky we were to have all of those incredibly talented musicians performing. Everyone was dancing, singing, it was such an amazing atmosphere.”

“Our first dance, ‘In Your Atmosphere’ was performed by wonderful close friends Kat Eaton and husband Nick. John Mayor is one of our favourite artists and I think if it wasn’t for this song meaning so much to us we wouldn’t have bothered with a first dance at all.”

“The whole day was just the most wonderful, crazy, happy moment in time with every single person we love on this earth. I have snippets of emotional amazing memories; James and I lying in the grass beaming with happiness, walking around watching friends playing beer pong and laughing, dancing with my niece to my dad’s band, moshing and raving with all our friends to the best band I ever heard. I could go on and on, it’s just a million happy memories.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“So many brides said to me, ‘take it all in because it goes so fast,’ and I did keep stopping and just looking around.

Don’t chase your guests around all day trying to say hi to everyone, if they want to see you they’ll find you. We said hi to everyone as they came out of church which is a great way to tick that box.

Try and eat something! I have a nervous stomach and was running on adrenaline all day, I hardly ate anything. Although it didn’t make me feel ill, I did totally run out energy by the end of the night so just try and get something down you.

Top tip – even if you think you can cope, take flat shoes! I didn’t, and ended up bare foot walking around a farm. Ouch!

Just enjoy every minute, running up and on the big day. All the little things you think need to be perfect no-one notices and you don’t care either.”

Thank you so much to Sarah and James, and to Rosie Hardy and Adam Bird Photography, for sharing this sublime day with us. I can’t begin to tell you how much this has made my Monday. Ladies, you can find Sarah on Instagram and Facebook (her website is also in the suppliers list below) and I readily admit to losing track of time admiring her incredible make-up skills.

Today I’ll be daydreaming of wearing a dreamy wedding dress and wandering in a summer meadow (Annabel, can I come and frolic in yours?) and I suspect many of you will too.

Em x