Lucy in Pronovias For Her Beautiful Broadfield Court Wedding

This will be the last real wedding we share…. …until we share our beautiful new website and directory with you next week, that is!

Don’t worry, dear lovers and dreamers, we’re not going anywhere. But we do need to step back for a few days and hand over the blog to our incredible site developers so they can focus on perfecting every last detail of our new site. It’s been a long, intense and heartfelt journey to get to this point, and we want to ensure everything is just right before unveiling it to you.

To mark this little pause, I couldn’t think of a more special wedding to share than this one. Captured by the exceptionally talented Paul Santos and set in the breathtaking surroundings of Broadfield Court in Hereford (you’ll find both venue and photographer proudly listed our our curated wedding directory), these images tell the love story of actress Lucy Aarden and brand strategist Joel Millard, who wed on the 15th of June this year.

After months of intense work, reaching this handover moment feels equal parts thrilling, terrifying, and exhilarating. Please bear with us over the coming days—we promise it’ll be worth the wait. While we’re temporarily away from the blog, we’ll still be sharing the love and beauty over on Instagram.

Thank you for being the heart of our journey. We can’t wait to return next week and share all the joy, beauty, and magic with you. Words below are by the beautiful bride Lucy.

See you on the other side, my loves.

Annabel xXx

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The Venue & Inspiration

We got married at Broadfield Court in Hereford – this is where I grew up and where my family is from, and both Joel and given the venue had the option to marry in the woodland and love the countryside, it felt perfect. Frances Shennan, the event co-ordinator at Broadfield, was outstanding. 

We were inspired by the bright colours and bubbles at Wilderness festival which we went to during our planning phase. We loved how relaxed and happy everyone looked in sparkles and face paint so wanted to recreate this but with our own touch of elegance. So we went for bright pink and orange flowers with lipstick for the bridesmaids, bright green velvet suits for the groomsmen and bubbles as confetti, with the whole thing being hosted outside, using a marquee supplied by Space Intense.

Pronovias

I wore a Pronovias gown which I absolutely loved, I needed something elegant and long – especially being pregnant in my second trimester!

I found my dress at The Wedding Dress Shop in Wimbledon who were brilliant. When my previous dress stopped fitting due to the pregnancy bump, they were able to source this gown brand new in just two weeks, then we had three fittings to alter it to my size on the actual week of the wedding to make sure it was the perfect size for my ever-growing bump.

See all our Pronovias brides

It couldn’t have been more close to the line timing wise! Their seamstress was brilliant, I cried in every single fitting thinking how lovely it was that the dress still fit around my bump and how elegant she was able to make it look.

I previously purchased a Grace Loves Lace gown but it didn’t suit my new body shape post pregnancy, so I decided to go for something silky and halter-neck instead which led me to this Pronovias number.

I loved how elongating it was and how demure and modest the high neck looked with the backless aspect to go with our summery theme. 

I wore a bespoke tiered waterfall veil from The Wedding Dress Shop. Given my dress was quite simple, I wanted to have the bridal wow factor and not hold back with the veil so I decided to get the waterfall style to allow me to have a face covering for my walk.

It was inspired by Nicole Richie who also wore a high-neck dress. I loved how classic she looked with a pearl drop earring and veil face covering so wanted to achieve something like this. My veil ended up being one of my favourite aspects.

Our bridesmaids were from Anaya – I went for sage green netting as I wanted them to look like fairy queens with flowers in their hair and have lots of material for gathering up and swooshing around; in the evening I had them all wear light up LED cloaks like we saw at Wilderness festival; they lit up the dance floor perfectly!

I used gypsophila in an up-do to go with our outdoorsy theme. My scent was Chanel Mademoiselle – gifted to me by my new mum in law Leila; it’s both of our go-to scents coincidently. I got a pair of pre-loved earrings from the iconic Gillion Million in South West London; she has the most fantastic treasure trove of preloved and custom made gowns and accessories; I highly recommend a visit for any new brides looking to try on some amazing styles. 

I got my satin wrap shoes from ASOS. They were a low block heel as I didn’t want to strain my back in pregnancy and the wedding was outside. By 10pm I was dancing in white birkenstocks however.

An Outdoor Ceremony

I walked down the aisle to 1000 Years by Christina Perry. 

We had a humanist ceremony and used the ‘ring blessing’ tradition where each guests holds the rings in their box and gives a blessing before passing it to the next person whilst the ceremony goes on. This felt so special! 

Joel’s mum trained as a celebrant especially for our ceremony and is now available to hire. She made it so personal by interviewing us for an hour about our relationship story beforehand.

She went away and wrote an entire personal ceremony including a rendition of the proposal video which went down an absolute storm. She joined in with Lily’s singing as I got to the end of the aisle which was a moment I’ll never forget!

We used three readings; the first was ‘The Irish Blessing‘. I’m from an Irish heritage so it felt good to make a link to my Grandma given she would have loved to have been part of this special day. My brother memorised it and the nature themes matched the setting perfectly.

Our second reading was an excerpt from ‘Everything I Know About Love‘, by Dolly Alderton, and for our third reading, Joel’s brother Harry co-wrote a bespoke reading for us using a cycling metaphor of ‘two bikes beginning a journey’ which was so sweet. 

Sharing our vows, which we wrote ourselves, was my favourite part of the day. Standing opposite Joel in front of our entire family and friends and speaking words with such meaning was what it was all about.

Find your wedding readings

Joels Vows to Lucy:

“Lucy, you little rocket. Our relationship is an adventure, a journey of personal growth, and a deep connection.”

“I love how you challenge me to be better, to step outside my comfort zone, and always add a little sparkle. You’ve taught me the power of vulnerability, openness and just getting the first draft of anything done!”

“I’ll always think you’re stylish, even in mismatched socks, inside out. I’ll be your biggest cheerleader, especially during headstands in yoga or riding up steep hills with a hand on your back. And I’ll forgive you when you leave the cap off the toothpaste.”

“I’ll always join you on a mission, whether we’re exploring a new path in Richmond Park or making a ‘leftover special’ out of whatever we have left in the cupboards.?

Lucy’s Vows to Joel:

“Joel, from the moment we met, I knew there was something special about you. You notice the smallest details in life and share them with such joy and insight. Thank you for teaching me how to be properly present.”

“I promise to always be grateful for the (little and big!) things you do for me, driving me to the station, cleaning my bike, listening attentively when I tell you every detail about my day. In return, I’ll be your biggest supporter…. and remember to let you finish your sentences without interrupting.”

“I promise to embrace your feedback… trying not to be defensive – and knowing it’s because you care. You’re my greatest teacher, patiently showing me how to change a puncture for the 100th time and basically helping me become the best version of me. I promise to continue to find time for our shared loves; yoga, cycling, as well as finding new passions we can share throughout our lives. Because your passion for life inspires me every day.”

“I promise to embrace the challenges we face, knowing that we are a team. I’ll never forget the time you wrote N.F.L.M on a coffee cup in my car. ‘What does this mean’, I asked? ‘Never fucking leave me’, you said. So I promise to N.F.L you, to learn from our setbacks and get stronger with every year.”

“And finally, I promise to laugh with you, find silliness in the mundane, and to never take ourselves too seriously. Life is too short not to enjoy every moment, especially with someone as special as you.”

My engagement ring was an heirloom from Joel’s nana with baguette diamonds. I wanted a small subtle gold band to slip underneath it.

The singer Lily Beck sang us down the aisle accompanied by Minerva String Quartet; an outstanding local quartet which worked so well for creating magic in the midst of the forest. Lily led the whole congregation in a version of ‘Stand By Me’ whilst we signed the register which I’ll never forget. 

Decor & Details

We had our flowers with The Vintage House That Could – founder Katie Sutton is brilliant; she’s one of the few florists we could find that also do all the table dressing and accessories. She brought so much clobber with her to help create our vision; not only the stunning bouquets but the line of vintage carpets along the aisle, the vintage gold plates to serve cake and cheese and the pastel blue bike filled with flowers as Joel and I are both cyclists; we couldn’t have asked for more. 

Our stationery was by The Wildflower Illustration Co; our table names were ‘untranslatable words’ not currently in the English Language but that we found beautiful – like Forelsket which is Norweigen for the Euphoric feeling you get at the start of love. They hand painted illustrations to go with each and all of them were beautiful. 

My dad made my cake and covered it with yellow and pink roses from our garden which coincidentally matched the colour scheme perfectly without us even telling him. My Dad’s been making my birthday cakes every year since I was a baby so it had to be him.

We tried to refuse when he offered as I knew he would put in far too much effort and he pulled out every stop; we were blown away but the little cut out flowers he did by hand. 

Evening & Dancing

AO Events provided our dancefloor. Joel’s mum was a singing teacher so we had her work with some of my actor friends to prepare a song for our first dance.   

We had our choir of pals and Joel’s mum Leila sing a medley of Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ mix into ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’. The lyrics of Can’t Help Falling in love are so apt for us; it was an unstoppable force from day one, and we love climbing mountains together (physical and metaphorical) plus its an absolute floor fillers.

The light up dance floor and bubbles going off as they switched into this track is a moment I’ll remember forever. 

Words of Wedded Wisdom

Planning a wedding can be quite intense, and it can be easy to love perspective on what really matters; the details are important, but it’s much more important to enjoy the process and not sweat the small stuff; decide how you want to feel during your wedding in advance, and just embody that throughout the process decisively, no matter what’s going on around you. 

I think I would have got less stressed about the rain in the morning and in the run up to the wedding; I had my heart set on a sunny day and when the forecast kept changing it gave me so much anxiety. I wish I’d just relaxed and enjoyed the build up without stressing about the small things. Everything worked out perfectly and we got the sun we needed. 

We definitely exceeded the original budget, but it was worth every penny 🙂 

Also, we used Pinterest a lot!

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