A Homemade, Colourful and Musical Summer Barn Wedding

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This week, each of our new writing team members will be sharing a beautiful new wedding. I’m so delighted to be welcoming new members to our team and, later this week, to be introducing you to them more formally.  For now, please welcome lovely Jo and her very first wedding feature for Love My Dress.  I think you’re going to love this one…

Hello lovelies and hope you’re keeping warm on this wintery Monday afternoon! It’s time to take a break over a hot beverage as I have an inspiring tale to tell today that’s so very heartfelt and filled with loads of colour, music and style. Meet Amber and Andy, who married at Lillibrooke Manor on 18th July (on the hottest day of this year!).

“When we got engaged in June last year, Andy and I knew we wanted a fun wedding bursting with love and laughter. We wanted our guests to let their hair down, to have a brilliant day and we wanted somewhere where we could be ourselves; where we were allowed to let our personalities shine through.”

Photography Copyright (c) 2014,

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“My dress was a Rembo Styling design, bought from Angelica Bridal. I used to walk past the boutique every day on my way to the tube.  I’d stop and look in the window and admire all the gorgeous gowns, so I knew exactly where I was going to buy my dress as soon as we got engaged!  As soon as I saw the amazing side split on my dress and the beautiful lace detail, I knew it was the one. A beautiful AND sexy dress – perfect!”

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“As my dress was long and fitted, I wanted a cute, short veil to balance everything out. I’d always loved 1950s style veils because I thought they looked so fun and kooky but I couldn’t find anything on the high street in my price bracket.  I went online and found an amazing veil maker (Rebecca Walker Designs on Etsy) in the US who understood exactly what I was looking for. My veil arrived 10 days after I ordered it and I absolutely loved it and I loved wearing it. I didn’t want to take it off!”

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When it came to decorations for the big day, Amber’s love of crafting meant that it was handmade all the way, with help from those nearest and dearest.

“My Mum, Willow and I made all the decorations and my gorgeous sister-in-law Angharad made beautiful table centre decorations with bride and groom table toppers in vintage cups and saucers and pink, yellow and white flowers – so kitsch and unique.

We also made the yellow, pink and white decorations you can see hanging from the beams in the main barn. None of us could move our arms for days – it was such hard work! As if that wasn’t enough handicraft, Willow and my Mum also made pink and white heart decorations to hang on the end of the chairs in the ceremony barn and above the ceremony table. Just to show her true status as utterly amazing chief bridesmaid, Willow also made a washing line of Polaroid photos of Andy and I when we were little, together with photos of us as a couple AS WELL as making all our wedding signs.  The girl is, frankly, amazing.”

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“Andy looked amazing on the day! So well groomed and so dapper, but to be honest, I knew he would. Looking good is VERY important to Andy, as anyone who knows him well will know! He bought his Hugo Boss suit on a trip we made to Milan earlier this year and had them take it in. It fits him like a glove. He knew I had really wanted him to wear a tweed waistcoat (I love a bit of English heritage!) but as we have had such a hot summer it would have been way too hot for him, so he opted for a gorgeous grey tweed bow tie instead.

He also bought a crazy expensive new pair of dark brown brogues from Church’s Shoes on Regent Street – he loves them so much, I’m surprised he hasn’t framed them.”

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A bouquet in a wedding magazine inspired Amber’s choice of flowers for her own beautiful bouquet and hence the colour scheme of the whole day.

“I saw a beautiful bouquet in a wedding magazine and took it into Longacres Nursery to brainstorm ideas with them.  I told them I wanted pastel coloured English summer flowers – lots of pink, coral, white and yellow. And I wanted scented flowers, as my favourite flowers are scented stocks and sweet peas. They looked like I had been skipping through the fields and just plucked them there and then – which is exactly what I wanted.

I had pale yellow roses, white scented stocks, daisies, yellow freesias, pale pink dahlias, sweet peas and alchemilla mollis.  As soon as I had my bouquet sorted in my head, I knew what my wedding was going to look like – fresh and light and lots of pink, yellow and white to match the flowers.”

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I knew I wanted the girls to wear pale yellow to match the roses in my bouquet, but as I live in Switzerland (and it’s not exactly a fashion mecca), I was slightly concerned about finding the bridesmaid dresses. I need not have worried! My lovely bridesmaid, Jennie, did her research and sent all the girls and I a link to some options. We all decided on the dress they eventually wore – from Coast.

They looked absolutely stunning on the day – the dress suited all of them equally, we were really lucky. In fact, choosing and buying the bridesmaids dresses was the easiest part of the whole wedding planning – the girls are so easygoing and we all loved the same dress.”

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“We had the best photographer!! Lovely Hector from We Heart Pictures is the perfect person to have around you on your wedding day. Undeniably cool, my favourite memory of him on the day is when the registrar motioned that the time had come for us to pose and pretend we were signing the register. Andy and I looked at Hector as in ‘Really? This is cringe’ and he took a couple of photos, shrugged and smiled as if to say, ‘Yeah, don’t worry guys, I understand – let’s move on’. And that was how he was all day. He just seemed to get us, to read us and know exactly what we wanted. 

Our pictures are awesome (as you can see) and Hector was a real star. His wife, Charlie works hard behind the scenes too and I had lots of help with her throughout the planning stages. She was always there to answer any questions I had. In fact, she even made a tissue pom pom for me to get me started with my homemade decorations and she made our Swiss themed photo booth bunting! We Heart Pictures really are an amazing team.”

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Amber was able to call upon a friendly face and local help for getting extra gorgeous.

“Luckily for me my gorgeous hairdresser and friend, Cassandra Rizzuto, is an old pro at wedding hair and fashion shoots, so I always knew she’d be styling my hair (and my bridesmaids). Cass was wonderful on the day – so calm and collected and it was lovely to have a familiar face with us as we were getting ready – it felt like I had another friend in the room.

My lovely make up artist was Henna Shahid. Henna lives in Reading near where I grew up and we’d met before when I had my make up trial.  I found her by walking into the Benefit counter at John Lewis and asking if any of the girls there did wedding make up. The girl I spoke to recommended Henna and I never looked back.  She is such a lovely girl – we all loved her and I can’t recommend her enough.”

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Amber and Andy wanted to include a range of their favourite styles of music throughout their day to highlight three main stages: the ceremony, post-ceremony and the evening entertainment.

“Music plays a large role in our lives even though we have quite different tastes, so we knew we wanted an eclectic mix of music to reflect the different mood for different parts of the day.  As my father died a few years ago, I knew I did not want to be walking down the aisle to anything that would make me feel really sad; the ceremony music had to be joyous and good fun. My bridesmaid Emily suggested gospel, but we weren’t allowed any non-secular music in our civil ceremony. Instead, we found an amazing gospel choir and they sung (and I mean, they sung their title=”A bride wearing Rembo Styling for her colourful, Summer barn wedding. Photogarphy by We Heart Pictures.” alt=”colourful wedding, rembo styling, barn wedding, we heart pictures photography”s out) some of our favourite Motown tracks instead!

I love Motown, so it made me smile from ear to hear to hear them. They were awesome – a real highlight of the day for me, and everyone else, I think.”

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The couple kept it simple with the choice of suits for the groomsmen – and the groom looked stylish in his wedding attire.

“I’m a bit of a suit fascist – I only really like blue suits, so it made sense for our groomsmen to all wear blue.  I didn’t want to make them wear something they would not normally wear, so we asked them all to pick their favourite blue suit and wear what they already owned. Luckily for us, our friends obviously all have brilliant taste because the boys looked incredible! We bought them all a pale yellow linen tie to match the bridesmaids and I’ve got to be honest, I thought they looked amazing! Andy also bought his two best men a vintage gold tie-pin and black braces.”

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“As soon as we arrived at Lillibrooke Manor, we knew we’d found our perfect venue. There is a charming small barn where civil ceremonies take place and a beautiful larger barn for the food and party. There is also a courtyard perfect for post-ceremony drinks and a lawn area for outside games.

As we did not want a church wedding, having everything in one place was really important to us – we wanted everything to be as easy as possible for our guests, but there to be enough of a wow factor to keep them smiling throughout the day and night.” 

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The couple were blessed with a lovely (and hot!) day and the guests were treated to the groovy tunes of a blues band after the ceremony.

“We were really lucky on the day as it was the hottest day of the year – 32 degrees! Thank goodness, because it meant we could have our post-ceremony tapas in the courtyard as planned, to the sound of Dakota Jim and his amazing blues Americana band. Andy and I had been mesmerised one weekend at Broadway Market, East London, when we had heard him perform and tracked him down once we were engaged to ask if he could play at the wedding. Again, we had so many people come up to us afterwards to say how brilliant they were – they were awesome.”

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“We had two milk bottles (to honour my maternal grandparents who used to own a dairy), one jam jar on each wedding breakfast table filled with an assortment of the above and the same arrangement on our ceremony table. The flowers really did play a central role in our colour scheme. I just loved them.”

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Another element of the décor was weaving an aeroplane theme into the day – a beautiful touch that held a very special meaning to both Amber and Andy.

“My Dad worked in the airline industry his whole career, so the plane theme running throughout our day was a sort of homage to him. Andy also unfortunately lost his Mum when he was younger, so we each had a framed photo of our lost parent in front of us when we were married and when we sat down to eat. It was really important to us that we felt they were with us all day.  Andy and my Mum also made 10 wooden bi–planes to hang in the barn and we spray-painted them bright yellow and pink – they looked really cool.”

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The couple also had help from a very clever family baker.

“My gorgeous cousin, Janine, is a bit of a cake ninja and I’d seen a picture of a beautiful edible flowers cake in a magazine and half-teasingly asked her last Christmas if she’d like to recreate it for our wedding…and amazingly, she said yes! It was no mean feat.

We had a three tier cake to feed 120 guests and poor Janine had to source all the flowers and do trial after trial – each time the cake was perfect – and on the day – WOW. It was amazing. The colourful flowers looked so beautiful and elegant. The sponge was part lemon, part orange and we had amazing cream cheese icing. Absolutely delicious.”

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Amber wore jewellery that held a very special meaning to her.

“My father died at Christmas nearly 9 years ago and the last present he ever bought me (and did not get around to giving to me) was a pair of green amber earrings. There was never any doubt that these were the earrings I’d wear on my wedding day. He might not have been able to walk me down the aisle, but he was as close as he could possibly be.”

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The night ended on a high with a DJ for the evening frivolities.  And when you hear about the choice of the first dance song, you may just shed a little tear.

“For our evening entertainment, we knew we wanted a DJ rather than a band as all our friends and family love a cheesy dance, and we wanted music that everyone could at least relate to, and hopefully dance the night away to.  And well, they certainly did!  The dance floor was packed and everyone got involved, it was brilliant.  There was even a bit of break dancing and dance floor press up action – random. Our lovely DJ, Mark from Mighty Fine Entertainment, was an absolute superstar.

We spent AGES trying to choose a first dance but all the songs we both liked we couldn’t actually dance to! In the end, a few weeks before the wedding, Andy said to me, why don’t we just play ‘High Hopes’ by Frank Sinatra and it felt so right. High Hopes is a song my Dad used to whistle in the garden and sing to my brother and I when we were little.  Andy knows it’s my special ‘Dad’ song and that I play it whenever I get sad and want to feel happy again.  The fact that he knows that and that is the reason he suggested we play it as our first dance means I could not actually love him any more.”

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Words of wedded wisdom

“Have a photo booth! We had a Swiss themed one because of our Swiss connections and it was a real chance for some of our guests to dress up and be silly…and the photos are amazing.

What I really loved about our wedding was how personal it was.  We had so much help from Angharad (she bought most of our photo booth props too), Willow and my Mum and our bridesmaids, the best men and groomsmen were all just brilliant.  Everyone got stuck in to help us and you could really feel the love that day, it was perfect.

My one tip is to do whatever you want to do – it’s your day, and it’s only one day, so make sure you have a damn good time.  Surround yourself with suppliers who understand what you want, who understand how you think and whom you genuinely like.

Most importantly, spread the love and enjoy every single second – create some awesome memories.”

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I just love all the beautiful little touches of this wedding – especially the aeroplane-theme and the gorgeous handmade decor. Amber and Andy, thank you so much for sharing your special day with us and a big thank you to Hector and Charlie from We Heart Pictures – the shots perfectly capture so many emotions.

Love Jo –xxx-

 

 

Photographer – We Heart Pictures
Venue + Catering – Lillibrooke Manor
Dress – Rembo Styling via Angelica Bridal
Veil – Rebecca Walker Designs via Etsy
Bride’s Shoes – Diane Hassall ‘Miss Alice’ via Bridal Rogue Gallery
Bridesmaids – Coast
Groom – Hugo Boss suit
Groom’s Shoes – Church’s Shoes
Groomsmen – own blue suits
Flowers – Longacres Nursery
Cake – made by bride’s cousin Janine
Hair – Cassandra Rizzuto
Make-up – Henna Shahid
Entertainment – gospel choir (no website), Dakota Jim (no website) and DJ Mark from Mighty Fine Entertainment

Jo Singletary

Jo Singletary View all Jo's articles

Jo hails from and lives in sunny Australia, is currently working towards her dream of being a career coach and a few of her favourite things are watching the sunrise over the ocean, morning walks on the beach, butterflies, and supporting the guide dogs charity.

6 thoughts on “A Homemade, Colourful and Musical Summer Barn Wedding

  1. We have booked We Heart Pictures for our wedding in Kent next August. This feature has made me EVEN MORE EXCITED for them to be there 🙂

    Congratulations Amber and Andy!

    1. I had to Google translate that! But I gather you said something on the lines of “I loved the story , a couple where many complicity note . A great job.”

      Thank you Sandra! 🙂 xXx

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