We love a romantic Cotswolds wedding and Katie and Dan’s late September celebration was a beautiful blend of heartfelt tradition, chic, subtle 1960’s inspired style and understated glamour. Held at Lapstone Barn near Broadway, their day paid tribute to family history while embracing an elegant black tie dress code.
Katie wore a bespoke Jesus Peiro gown from Morgan Davies Bridal with beautiful, removable puff sleeves. The details reflected Katie and Dan’s personal style, from the wild, homegrown flowers and vintage cut glass to the candlelit tables and pared-back elegance of the space and everything was captured beautifully by photographer Jack Aldridge, whose work it’s an incredible pleasure to share with you.
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Venue & Location
Our venue was Lapstone Barn, just outside Broadway in The Cotswolds. We chose this venue and location as my family live in Broadway and have done for generations, so it’s an area that is close to our hearts. I’ve always dreamt of getting married at St. Michaels in Broadway, retracing the footsteps where her grandparents had a joint wedding (with her grandmother’s sister) in 1955.
Lapstone Barn – We were wowed by the space itself and its honey-coloured grandeur, and we loved the different spaces it gave our guests – a beautiful lawn overlooking the Cotswolds hills for the reception, a large open dinner space and bar, a separate party barn for the dance floor, a beautiful courtyard with twinkly light for evening drinks, and lots of accommodation for our whole wedding party to stay.
I used to plan events in London and we already had a clear idea of what we wanted. The Lapstone Barn team and our florist, Ellie Frances, did a wonderful job of acting as our stylists on the day and prepping the trestle tables and decorating the spaces with flowers.
The Dress
Jesus Peiro
I wore a Jesus Peiro dress, from the Morgan Davis Bridal boutique, who I woul absolutely recommend. I worked with a lady called Bouquet and she guided me from start to finish and made the whole experience so relaxing and was everything I hoped for. She had a lot of experience and clearly understood what would suit me best.
The dress was the one thing I couldn’t picture when I started wedding planning and in my research I struggled to know what I wanted.
I tried on a range of styles with Bouquet, and as soon as I tried my dress on, it clicked (which a lot of people seem to say it does). The silhouette made me feel very elegant and the luxurious fabric made it feel very different to a dress I would usually ever wear. I didn’t want to change to a second dress on the day (so I could maximise the time with my friends and family!) so I really loved that I was able to customize the dress with buttons all the way down the train, and make puffball sleeves (for the church) and more sleek straps (for the evening) so it felt like two different dresses.
Morgan Davies also supplied me with a long veil.
Shoes is the area I chose to save money as lots of my friends said their shoes were wrecked by the end of the night or they never wore them again. I considered the Jimmy Choo platforms, but in the end opted for these simple ASOS block heels – they were incredibly comfortable! (And black by the end of the night!)
I took my niece, Ella, out shopping and we fell in love with these beautiful dresses from Next, a bow and pearl buttons. I kept my jewellery really simple.
I found these gorgeous Olive Green Silk bridesmaids dresses from Nobody’s Child. This is one of my favourite colours and really worked well with the country-inspired theme as well as the black tie.
I bought these pearl drop earrings from Lily & Roo, and I wore two rings: My grandmother’s diamond ring (the one who got married in the same church – so felt like she was part of the day), and my sister-in-law, Tala’s diamond & sapphire ring as my ‘something blue’.
One of my best friends, Freddie, bought me an engraved bottle of one of my favourite perfumes, ‘Blackberry and Bay’ by Jo Malone which a wore on the day. A wonderful keepsake too.
My wonderful Dad, five bridesmaids (a friend from each part of my life – my young cousin, best school friend, best uni friend, best London (work) friend, and sister-in-law) and two flower girls (my two nieces) accompanied me into the ceremony, to Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel on the organ.
We had two readings, the first was a reading from the bible, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, and although it’s quite popular at weddings, it was the best bible reading we could find!
We also had ‘Like a River Finds the Sea’, by Whitney Hanson. We found a lot of wedding poems online very gushy or overused so this was a really beautiful and meaningful poem about nature and love that resonated with us.
Photography
We chose Jack Aldridge for his natural and relaxed photography style, that also has this unique touch of elegance. He has this amazing way of playing with light that makes everything look so beautiful and sort of retro.
He was an absolute dream to work with in the lead up to the wedding and on the day itself – and so many of our guests said he was a joy to be around. He made us feel so relaxed in front on the camera, and captured so many important moments that we’ll treasure forever.
How They Met
We met at work in Soho in 2014 – it was our first job in London. Despite Dan’s plans for a romantic river walk proposal in Battersea where we live, there were a few hiccups on the day, and he proposed in our living room in June 2023. Our wedding weekend was exactly 10 years since we first met, my first day in the office!
The Hornbrokers were a brilliant band who played from our confetti moment at the church and then walked us all down to the village green where our car and buses were picking us up. They then played throughout our reception drinks. They played everything from Beyonce to The Beatles – 60’s again!
For transport, we hired two 1960’s red double-decker buses (our nod to meeting in London) from The Vintage Red Bus Company to take our guests from the village to Lapstone Barn – only a short 10-minute drive, but such a fun and memorable part of the day. The bus journey followed the route from Battersea Bridge to Piccadilly, which we used to get to work together when we first started dating.
Our wedding car was another personal touch – Dan and his dad had been lovingly restoring a 1954 Aston Martin DB24 over the past 20 years, and it was so special to finally drive it on our wedding day.
The Reception
We opted to have limited decorations, so flowers were really important to us to dress the space. We absolutely fell in love with Ellie Frances‘ work when we first discovered her.
Ellie creates English country garden-style flower arrangements that are really unstructured, soft and natural, and she grows a lot of the flowers in her own garden.
We opted for these wild, loosely arranged bouquets and floral displays with white cosmos, delphiniums, and seasonal foliage.
Toria Sefton Cakes made a beautiful, very simple, white 3-tier cake that looked like silk. Our florist then added floral displays around it. The top tier was ‘Lemon Heaven’, the middle tier was ‘White Chocolate & Raspberry’ and the bottom tier was ‘Decadant Chocolate’.
Evening & Dancing
For the evening, we brought in a hint of 1920s glamour with a ‘martini hour’ to kick off the party.
We hire a 6-piece band, The Revue, with a saxophonist that really got the party started! The Revue very kindly createf a bespoke version of ‘Praise You’ by Fat Boy Slim for our first dance.
We weren’t a big fan of having a long, slow dance so the band played the slow intro to the song (by Hannah Grace) which quickly led into the party version to get everyone on the dancefloor! We loved it!
Words of Wedded Wisdom
It sounds obvious but pick suppliers you trust, that are reliable and you get on with. It makes it so much more relaxing and enjoyable!
We also found it easier turning wedding planning and making big decisions into a bit of a date night i.e. over a glass a wine or dinner.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the detail and to do lists, so it helped to get out of the house and turn it into something fun!
I also wish I’d drunk less Martinis! In all serious though, I wouldn’t change a thing.
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