ASOS Bridal Separates for a Botanical Inspired Barn Wedding and Wedding Cake Bakeoff

How on earth is it almost mid-April and time for the Easter break?! I feel like it was only yesterday I put the Christmas decorations away. The abundance of mini Cadbury Creme eggs currently tempting me in the shops, however, is an instant giveaway. Oh dear, now I feel like a sweet treat, so this utterly divine wedding featuring bridal separates, fun-filled images by Sophie Carefull Photography and Claire Bradley Photography, and a bake-off competition is sure to satisfy the cravings.

Georgia and Ash de Lotz held their wedding celebrations at The Wool Barn in Frampton-on-Severn in Gloucestershire last summer on the 27th of August 2016. Ash is an electronic engineer, whilst Georgia works as a freelance product photographer and operations manager for a party business, which proved very handy when preparing for her own wedding; just wait until you see the gorgeous gold decor in the couple’s barn reception.

Georgia chose the most gorgeous bridal separates from ASOS, comprising an embellished top and maxi skirt, which she found for just £200 in the sales. It goes to show you don’t need to spend a fortune on your wedding attire to look absolutely beautiful.

“We didn’t have a florist … or flowers! My vision was more botanical and leaf green than floral and Natalie was incredible at helping me achieve what I wanted. We went to a small florist in Weston-super-Mare a couple of days before the wedding and chose a variety of gorgeous leafy stems, such as eucalyptus and poppy seed heads. These became my bridal bouquet, small bouquets for the bridesmaids and stems to go in bottles on the tables. Natalie tied them up into bouquets the night before. My bridal bouquet is still looking beautiful in a vase in my living room, four months after the wedding!”

Photography by Sophie Carefull, supported by Claire Bradley

“I knew I didn’t want to spend a lot on a dress and I didn’t want anything traditional. I felt uncomfortable with the idea of trying on expensive dresses and I couldn’t imagine finding one in there that felt very me. I’d seen the ‘Forever Unique‘ white two-piece in a bridal magazine probably a year before the wedding and couldn’t ever find it online – it always seemed to be out of stock or not in my size. When I noticed it came back into stock in my size, I snapped it up immediately. It was the perfect mix of bridal glamour and less formal style that I wanted and totally suited my personality. I had to have the waist altered so that the skirt didn’t sit too low, as otherwise I felt a bit like a belly dancer!”Rather than investing in potentially costly stationery, the couple ended up doing their ‘save the date’ on Facebook and main wedding invitation as a website.

“I made the website using WIX – I designed it myself and I am really pleased with how it came out and we had really good feedback from it. We emailed guests with a link to the website and asked them to RSVP. We wanted to make sure Spoke, our dog, was featured on the invitation and our friend Flick created a beautiful picture of her based on a photograph we took on holiday. This featured on the first page of the website. I also designed and printed place cards for our guests which were printed with their names on to textured white paper and cut out.”     

“I knew I wanted some sort of hair vine or stones in my hair but couldn’t find anything online. I spotted something I liked in Primark which had elastic attached to it so you could wear it as a headband. I asked my hairdresser to cut off the elastic and pin it to my hair, it worked perfectly and cost less than a couple of pounds!”

Georgia added block heels in silver and light blue from Dune, ‘Petale Noir’ scent by Agent Provocateur, with hair and make-up by Rumours salon.

“When it came to my bridesmaids, I originally started looking at dresses on places like ASOS, but struggled to see anything that I thought would suit all five of the ladies. I was also very conscious that I wanted everyone to feel happy and comfortable in their dresses so they could enjoy themselves. I’d seen quite a few dresses on the high street and decided to give the girls some money towards the dress and let them pick one based on it being knee-length and nude in colour.”

 

“They all managed to find beautiful dresses which looked great together – and it was a huge relief as it had been causing me a lot of stress! When I asked my lovely friends to be my bridesmaids, I gave them each a matching gold necklace with varying coloured stones from Accessorize which they wore on the big day.”

Ash suited up in groovy attire from Slaters, with shoes from Clarks. He added the same grey ASOS tie as his best man and ushers, who all wore their own suits in blue or navy, with personalised socks from eBay.

Ash and Georgia married legally two days before their wedding celebration, and then Ash’s dad performed the ceremony at the venue. Beautiful Georgia was accompanied down the aisle by her dad to an instrumental version of Lily Allen’s version of Somewhere Only We Know.

“Ash’s dad performed the ceremony for us as he used to be a Minister. This gave the whole ceremony a completely intimate feel. We legally were married in a registry office two days before what we class as the wedding – this is because we couldn’t have a legal ceremony outside in the venue gardens. We did this purely for the legal reasons and were joined by four members of family. Having Ash’s dad perform the ceremony felt perfect, I can’t imagine it feeling anywhere near as special with someone you didn’t know. He added many personal touches, which brought tears to both our eyes.”

“We both tailored our vows to make them personal. We didn’t let each other know anything about our vows before the ceremony, so they were a complete surprise. One of my bridesmaids and closest friends from university gave a reading that we found online called ‘He never leaves the seat up’ by Anon.”

And you’ll notice in these ceremony pictures a very special member of the wedding party – the couple’s three-year-old rescue dog Spoke (a collie cross springer), who was a main feature on the wedding website invite, as well as their flower girl.

“We always knew that Spoke had to be part of the wedding. At one point we were dreaming of elaborate plans to create a parachute-type contraption that she’d wear that would allow petals to fly out the back as she ran down the aisle! She waited patiently at the end of the aisle with our usher John, she then was let off the lead and ran down the aisle to us and then stayed with us the rest of the ceremony. I handmade a flower garland for around her neck, as I couldn’t find anything as delicate and beautiful as I wanted her to wear.”

“We also bought her a special sparkly gold collar for the big day. She did a little bark when the important question was asked “does anyone have a problem with these two getting married”, but other than that, she was good as gold and stole the show. She stuck around for the formal photos and then went to my dad’s house for a well-earned nap!”

 

The couple chose plain sterling silver bands from their lovely family friend Sally from inspirals.co.uk – then a few months after the wedding they got matching triangle tattoos on their ring fingers.

“It’s a simple equilateral triangle, we didn’t want anything too complicated and didn’t want a band. Ash also suggested a triangle because it is commonly used in engineering due to its strength from its ability to disperse stress equally along all sides, which we felt seems to perfectly reflect the foundations of our relationship.”

“Ash and I met in Plymouth in 2011 where we both went to university. I didn’t feel like going out but my friends dragged me out for a drink in a bar. Not long after walking in, I was approached by a burglar (Ash was dressed up in a striped top and burglar mask as part of a water polo social!). We chatted for a while and felt like it was the first time a guy actually cared enough to ask me about myself/my degree/my life rather than the normal boring chat up lines. We swapped numbers and it all went from there! We officially started going out 1st Febuary 2012.”

“We’d always openly talked about marriage so we knew we mutually felt the same about tying the knot sometime in the future. In 2015 we went on holiday to Fuerteventura and on the first day of our holiday, 1st February 2015, he proposed. He planned a treasure hunt where he gave me clues to find my way from the apartment down to a secluded cove on the beach where he got down on one knee with a sapphire and diamond ring.”

As a photographer herself, Georgia struggled with finding a photographer that would be right for the couple’s style and within budget. Then she spotted a beautiful picture of a friend on her Facebook page that was taken by Sophie Carefull, she fell in love with her style, and that was it. The couple also enlisted the help of a second photographer, which is a great way to capture moments that are often missed.

“As Sophie was a friend of a friend, I felt I could trust her. We met several times before the wedding and have actually become wonderful friends. Ash and I decided we wanted minimal formal photographs, we wanted images of everyone having fun and enjoying their day and in order to capture this, we also asked Claire Bradley to be a second photographer. It was actually Claire’s portrait photograph on Facebook that led me to find Sophie!”

“We couldn’t have asked for lovelier people to capture our day and we couldn’t be happier with the images. We hardly noticed they were there and they captured some wonderful moments throughout the day. By having the pair of them, it allowed us to have images of both of us getting ready in different locations and we both felt completely at ease, even though they are such intimate and tense times of the big day.”

Georgia was very keen for a venue with no restrictions on decorating, catering and so forth, so upon seeing their venue The Wool Barn, her ideal location was found. With the barn as a blank canvas, and a trusted family friend Natalie as side-kick, Georgia and Ash were able to get creative with DIY projects, including making their own gold glittered light-up letters, loads of stylish bunting, and perform the huge task of spray-painting 80+ toy animals, dinosaurs, soldiers (for place settings), 40 wine bottles to hold the green foliage as table centrepieces, and 10 pineapples to place around the barn.

Festoon lighting was from Lights4Fun and the balloons via Flingers Party World. I’m going to cheekily borrow a few ideas here for my next party!

“Natalie was an absolute star and I can’t thank her enough for making sure I was keeping to the plan in the lead up – and she meant I could relax on the big day. It was extremely important to me that I made lots of elements of the wedding décor. Using inspiration from Pinterest, I pulled together lots of different ideas to create a relaxed and fun atmosphere that Ash loved as much as me (I think some weddings can be too much about the bride’s taste!).”

Going against a conventional formal meal, the couple went with one of their favourites – fish and chips! – which was provided by Food Genie, with accompaniments of mushy peas, pickled eggs, pickled onions, and gravy. And for the evening, they sourced a range of bar snacks like crisps and chocolate, as well as nuts, pork scratchings and the like from Love Pub Snacks and also hired a black stylish bar from Top Quality Caterers. These are all such great choices if you’re thinking about arranging your own catering and drinks.

Look at these mouth-watering entries for the couple’s ‘bake off’! Georgia and Ash asked their day guests to bring along a bake, sweet or savoury, which were then up for best bake or best decoration. The couple’s very creative friend Natalie also made a gold cutting cake in the shape of a pineapple.

“It’s difficult to choose a single favourite moment but I think it was really important that we took a moment to ourselves after the fish and chips and speeches. We had a cup of tea and some cake from the bake-off competition and went and sat in the gardens on our own. It was a moment of peace away from the excitement where we had some quality time as husband and wife. It also meant we could have a giggle about the little things that had happened throughout the day!”

“A family friend kindly offered to DJ and provided all the musical entertainment needed! We had lots of games to keep people amused too such as giant jenga, limbo, skittles, air hockey, table football. We also had a little photo booth which I organised myself.

We wanted an upbeat song for our first dance song and the words to ‘Ain’t Nobody (Loves Me Better)’ by Felix Jaehn and Jasmine Thompson felt relevant, especially the words ‘I hope this night will last forever’.”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“The last six months absolutely fly by, so before the ‘six months to go’ mark, book out one weekend a month to dedicate to getting everything sorted and make sure to invite friends/bridesmaids too. They are great at DIY help as well as mental preparation! I wish I planned special weekends more in advance so more ladies could come along as they now feel they missed out on the creative side of things. I originally thought I could do it all myself … you can’t! Make Facebook events well in advance and you’ll be sorted.”

Take note of Georgia’s sound advice lovelies – I too thought I could do everything myself and upon reflection would have loved craft weekends and help from friends in the few days leading up to the big day. Spread the love and jobs around! I have so adored sharing your most gorgeous day Georgia and Ash – and thank you to both Sophie and Claire for working together to capture all of their delightful moments.

Be sure to check out these other weddings featuring bridal separates, if you’ve been inspired by Georgia’s amazing attire.

Have a lovely relaxing time over the holiday everyone … and bring on the hot-cross buns!

Love Jo -xo-