Tara and Barny enjoyed a weekend long wedding celebration at Treseren in Cornwall with 17 of their closest friends and family.
They arrived on a sunny Friday afternoon in May 2024, and enjoyed cocktails in the gardens before sitting down for a welcome feast. The following day the sun continued to shine for a magical ceremony under the 200 year old Walnut Tree in the beautiful grounds of this very special and intimate country house.
The bride wore a beautiful gown by Essense of Australia, complete with cape and crown and the wonderfully talented Cornwall based Lyra & Moth, whose own wedding we’ve shared on these beloved wedding blog pages, documented the day through photography.
As always darlings, please enjoy this article. In a world of fast-pasted and disposable social media, we work hard to ensure Love My Dress remains a place that you can linger and enjoy beautiful imagery and stories in your own time. Pin to your hearts content and if you’re planning your own wedding, feel free to share this wedding with your besties for inspiration.
Bookmark Our Shop
Did you know that we also have a shop full of hand-picked designs and curated categories that we know you’ll love? From bridal gowns, to bridesmaids dresses, veils, shoes, jewellery, hair accessories, bags – even gifts for newlyweds.
Did you know that we’re also very busy behind the scenes, preparing to launch a brand new, beautiful Love My Dress in a few weeks time? We’re making big changes that we’re really excited to share with you, including the ability for you to create your own Love My Dress account and save all your favourite real weddings and articles, shop items and soon to be improved directory listings to your own easily accessible dashboard. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop.
explore our shop
Venue & Location
Our venue was Treseren in Cornwall. We dabbled in different venue ideas, and had ideas for a big one day London wedding at first – but then I started toying with a really beautiful well curated small wedding experience instead. I was up one night – and found Treseren on social media.
I was obsessed.
I brought it to Barny as an idea, and from there it took seed.
We loved the idea of an experience – we love to travel the UK in our tiny car and this would be a chance to extend our love to our friends and treat them to the style of travel we really, really enjoy.
We booked to come for a viewing, and accidentally picked the summer day with 40 degree heat. So we headed off from London in our little car with no air con, arrived at Treseren and had a wonderful and unique experience. After meeting Izzy and Emma, we knew immediately that this was the place for us.
A small wedding was not something I had ever considered, but slowly after seeing Treseren’s social media and all the articles in different magazines we sort of realised it would be great for many reasons, namely:
Value for money – everything can we so well curated, so special and personalised and really embody us as a couple, especially as we didn’t have any pre-established wedding traditions to abide by, it meant we could really curate those!
A bespoke package – we really felt like we had control over everything, from tree decor to menus.
Perfect service – The Treseren team got to know us and us them, when people are serving 10-20 people it’s far more personable!
Extending our celebration – we were able to afford more days and a real holiday for all our friends as much as we could – rather than a one day affair in London for the same price we got a weekend of memories that will last a life time and really deepens our bonds!
The Dress
Essense of Australia
Myself and Barny went to the same university in Canterbury – a town I know like the back of my hand. I returned to Canterbury a year before the wedding, and as I walked along a road I had been down a hundred times, I saw that a new bridal shop had opened, Victoria Grace Bridal. It felt like fate.
It was 20 minutes until closing, so I asked if I could take a quick look around the selection. They had the only white dress I had been loving! I hadn’t found it anywhere but here it was! It was by Essense of Australia (design D3636).
Prior to this, I’d kind of decided I wanted a coloured dress, but this one was just so perfect. It had these sleeves, a perfect wrap, and I felt and looked like a goddess in it. I came back a few weeks later for a trial and that was that – I had my dress.
I knew I wanted stars – it had felt like stars had aligned for Barny and I to meet, so I wanted to honour that.
I never cared for having my face covered or being ‘revealed’ to my husband so a traditional veil was always off the table. I also knew I wanted intricate hair and that would need to be seen So I decided on a medieval style cape rather than a veil.
I always knew I didn’t want a traditional cape, but as a dramatic human I had to have something flowing off me. I found this stunning piece from AliceCorsets on Etsy, then broke the chain between the two pieces and wore it as a medieval style cape.
I had been in love with this fabric on Etsy for years, and then found this was the perfect excuse to find a cape/veil with it on – which I did! I felt very Game of Thrones-y walking down the aisle and around the grounds with my trailing cape.
Bridal Beauty & Accessories
My shoes were from the stunning Harriet Wilde collection, I went to the London show room and feel completely in love. They were super comfortable, and absolutely stunning – I ended up buying two pairs in different styles (Hetty and Rossalyn).
I knew I always wanted a crown atop my head so I found the person who made crowns I had seen in photoshoots before. I thought if you can’t be truly yourself in the fullest on your wedding day it’s not right – so I went with it. I ordered this perfect crown and felt like a goddess all day. My crown was from Carbickova Crowns on Etsy. It was deceptively light but incredibly ornate.
How They Met
We met in sixth form at college back in 2013. I had a love for drama and English literature. I’d had a bit of trouble with school and I ended up not taking my drama exam in year 11.
I met Barny in an English lit class where we were on the same table.
We got on immediately. I found he was doing drama, and due to my not taking the drama exam had not got the grades to do the A-Level.
After meeting Barny, I went straight to the drama teacher and begged to be let back in, they agreed and I sneakily asked to be based in the same class as him. Two years later we had performed multiple plays together and got closer based upon our mutual classes and our mutual loves.
We had been together ten years (from 18-28) and we had just moved into our new flat that year. Barny spent months planning something I had no idea about! He had a ring bought, created a whole personalised treasure hunt and perfect little gifts. On Christmas Eve I noticed all my presents suddenly had little padlocks on them.
The next morning I found they all linked together – I could get the key for each present by answering a riddle that pertained to a section of our life together. The keys were all hidden in different locations in the house. The final one lead me to the Christmas tree, and I, like a fool had no idea what it might be.
Turned out to be a tiny but heavy box and I turned around to find him on one knee (and I was also on one knee too!).
The Reception
Our wedding breakfast which was created by the fantastic Chef in my Home team Dean and Victoria.
Our flowers on the day came from Ella at Society Flowers who was superb to work with – I’m quite relaxed and didn’t want anything in particular so I sent over our colours and some of my favourite flowers, and she created these masterpieces.
Favourite Moments
Ah there were so so many favourite moments; I think the highlight was saying the vows with Barny. We went from our introduction which Aggie had written, to her asking us to hold our hands together.
As we did, the most magical thing happened – all these dandelions released their fluff and drifted on the air around us.
Everyone says it was magical and so perfectly timed. I didn’t notice it too much myself, but standing under the tree with Barny holding hands and staring into his eyes as we said how we felt, it was like nothing else existed but us, nature and the love surrounding us.
Another moment was the breakfast – there is something so lovely every morning at Treseren about coming together to share in breakfast together – there’s anticipation in the air each morning for what you might get up to that day, everyone is in a wonderful mood and all excited and the food served is just gorgeous.
Words of Wedded Wisdom
If you are considering having a small wedding , then my advice is – do it!
If you have even a single thought that you may want one – you more than likely do! Those who are set on a big wedding wouldn’t have even the thought of a small one, dig into why you are thinking of a small wedding and you’ll likely see the aspects that are important to you start to be fulfilled more in a smaller wedding. Also, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, we had a dual wedding – we had a celebrant led Celtic hand fasting spiritual wedding at Treseren, and then a legal wedding celebration in London a week later.
I can tell you, I have more recollection of our event with Treseren. We had the time to really soak up the experience, to indulge in all the things we had spent so long planning, we got to spend quality time with every single person invited. Of course, we also had tremendous fun and laughter at our ceremony and then reception.
Love My Dress Recommended Vendors & Venues
The below suppliers and venues featured in this article are part of the Love My Dress Wedding Directory.
Treseren Cornwall
Additional Credits
The below suppliers and venues are featured in this article, but are not part of the Love My Dress Wedding Directory.