SUBMIT WEDDING
View Posts By:

categories

 

tags

 
Achingly Romantic Inspiration Shoot Inspired by “The Love Letter”

Inspired by the story of a girl from a rural Italian village who falls in love with a British boy who writes her a love letter every single day they are apart, this stunning shoot from Cecelina Photography is straight out of a fairy tale. Set on the grounds of the historic and endlessly charming Almonry Barn in Somerset, the full gallery of pretty from this inspiration shoot will have any fan of pure romance weak in the knees.

 

Colors
Styles
Romantic

From Cecelina PhotographyThe story behind ‘The Love Letter’ as imaged by the styling team: A girl from a rural Italian village meets an English boy and falls in love. They have been away from each other for the last month and Anthony has posted Olivia a love letter every day, to let her know he adores her and can’t wait to marry her. On the morning of the wedding, the day begins with Olivia sitting in the shade of the tree in the orchard, having quiet time for herself and pouring over the last letter from Anthony. A handmade lace robe, soft fabric, tulle and her details sets the scene while the wind softly rustles in the trees.

Photographed by Cecelina Photography; this Italian inspired styled shoot was dreamed up by Belle and Beau Photography and Naomi Kenton for their A Beautiful Way Workshop this summer. The rustic details of Almonry Barn in Somerset gives a hint of destination weddings; particularly in Italy with it’s gardens, light and fresh food. Soft colours and the wedding dress made specifically for this shoot by Lady Evelyn gives a touch of softness and luxury, interpreted in this fine art photography. The Rose Shed created the rustic flowers with ribbon from Lancaster And Cornish and the styling team creating two different looks for Olivia in her grey wedding dress.

Photography: Cecelina Photography | Floral Design: The Rose Shed | Stationery: Gemma Milly | Bride's Shoes: Harriet Wilde | Make Up: The Barn | Hair Stylist: Louise Alway | Wedding Venue: Almonry Barn Wedding Venue | Mentor: Belle and Beau Fine Art Photography | Mentor: Naomi Kenton Photography | Model: Rachael Hayton | Ribbon: Lancaster And Cornish | Wedding Gown & Accessories: Lady Evelyn | Workshop: A Beautiful Way

Rustic Elegance Wedding Inspiration in England at Almonry Barn

If I could, I would crawl into these gorgeous images from Naomi Kenton and never leave. Because the styling and florals from Amber Persia are next level pretty. With the oldest barn in England setting the scene, this gallery is one you’ll want to sit with awhile, and you can do so right here

Colors

From Naomi KentonAlmonry Barn is unlike any other wedding barn in England, as not only does it still retain plenty of historical soul and a picturesque setting, but it also offers a super stylish twist of rustic elegance and striking architectural design throughout – perfect for the style conscious couple.

Almonry Barn is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (the same historical league as Stonehenge) and has been standing for over 800 years.

The barn is the oldest wedding barn in England!

It was once part of a beautiful abbey – the ruins of which stand opposite – and was used by the monks to give ‘alms’ to passing pilgrims.

This inspiration shoot offers a relaxed elegance with subtle styling details tying the look together; beautiful hand written place cards, linen napkins, and engraved water glasses, all set against the backdrop of the ancient stone walls.

For the outside setting, the weather worn table and bench, raw linen table runner and Edwardian etched glasses and decanter give the table setting the perfect combination of relaxed style and understated glamour.

From our florist and stylist Amber Persia ”I wanted the flowers to blend into the setting, so I went for meadow-like arrangements, which included ferns and wild flowers in gorgeous aged garden urns”.

The drinks table continued the restrained palette of muted greens and whites with glasses of chilled sparkling water, topped with fresh lime and decorated with slices of cucumber.

Whilst inside the barn, wild strawberries found growing in the cutting garden were the inspiration to create a quintessentially English summer wedding.

The striking magenta dahlias contrast against wonderfully fragrant and truly beautiful roses in hues of pink and white. Sweet peas and fragrant herbs not only add to the garden feel but also bring further scent to the arrangements.

Summer fruit features prominently in the styling, from the wild strawberries in the urn planters and individual fruit on each guest’s place setting, to the piles of fruit in hand-made wooden punnets.

This shoot was all about celebrating the natural beauty, serenity and pared-back luxury of this amazing historical setting for a wedding.

Our gorgeous model is Louise Wilson-Ward, who owns Almonry Barn. Louise is a bride-to-be herself – and can’t wait to get married at home at the barn next year.

The two fabulous pooches are Louise’s dogs, Woofy and Wally – because who doesn’t love a cute doggy at a wedding!

Photography: Naomi Kenton Photography | Wedding Dress: The Mews, Clifton | Calligraphy: Lamplighter London | Wedding Venue: Almonry Barn Wedding Venue | Florist & Styling: Amber Persia

Elegant English Countryside Wedding

Give me a straight-from-the-storybooks English countryside wedding, and you’ll have one VERY happy blogger on your hands. I can promise you that. But add film captures from CKB Photography into the mix, and you best believe this beauty is going down as one of my all-time faves. It’s a wedding lover’s dream brought to life, and watch every second unfold in the gorgeous gallery right here.

Colors
Styles
Romantic

From the Bride… We chose our venue because it had so much character. Maunsel House is a 13th century manor house, full of history. It had such an incredible blend of opulence and elegance mixed with the natural and wild feeling of being on a working estate, with animals and beautiful secret gardens – plus the added extra of peacocks roaming everywhere! I loved the idea of an Art Deco feel, but didn’t want it to become too themed, and then we loved the peacocks so much that they become an influence on the design and colours of our entire celebration.

Lisa, (our stationery designer, PaperKnots) used the combination of these tones brilliantly, creating the art-deco style Peacock design that we used throughout our stationery, and then I matched the bridesmaid dresses and the decoration to the teal green and blue colourings.

We wanted our tables named after London underground stops, as we adore living in London, so we gave Lisa the difficult brief of creating an underground tube map in the same design as everything else – she did an incredible job and every guest commented on it. In fact, it’s now framed on the wall of our study at home!

My favourite little touch was the flag that George, the page boy carried down the aisle in front of me, saying ‘Here comes the Bride’. George and Milly, the flower girl, were only 2 and 3, so it could have gone horribly wrong, but they were just gorgeously well behaved on the day and giving George a flag to wave meant he had something fun to do which helped!

Our cake was very kindly made my Paul’s Aunt Marion. We sent a few clippings of simple Art Deco style designs and she did a fantastic job of creating something simple and perfect! Neither me or Paul are big fans of fruit cake so we had the bottom layer as traditional wedding cake and then the other layers were Victoria sponge. As it was so hot on the day we had to try especially hard to keep it cool so that the sponge didn’t collapse! In hindsight, we probably should have gone with fruit cake throughout!

I spent so long looking for my bridesmaid’s dresses, as I had a very clear idea of colour and style, but wanted something just a little different to the norm. So, I was so lucky and happy to find them in Coast. My bridesmaids have very different hair colour and skin tones but the teal green looked beautiful on both of them. Bridesmaid dress shopping was also made harder by the fact that one bridesmaid lives in Thailand and the other gave birth just a few months before the wedding!

I came across the Real Cut Flower Garden online and they were exactly the style of flowers I wanted – natural and slightly wild. Charlie from the garden, is brilliant and did a fab job of picking exactly the right colours and blooms to compliment all of the clothing on the day.

I actually didn’t want a 1920’s style dress, and hadn’t intended to purposefully match it to the overall style of the wedding. In fact I came very close to buying a beautiful Suzanne Neville dress, but as is often the case, I decided to try my Jenny Packham dress as I was leaving the shop. It’s so true that you need to try lots of different designs – I never would have imagined choosing a dress like that, but once I put it on that was it! I loved the cut and shape, and the absolutely amazing detailing.

We were incredibly lucky to get a heatwave on our wedding weekend, so it was 33 degrees on the day, and we were able to get married outside in a civil ceremony. We also had a blessing just with immediate family in a small chapel on the grounds which was a lovely intimate moment.

For the breakfast, we wanted it to be as fun as possible, so we raided the guests’ Facebook photos and used the funniest ones for their namecards, we wrote our own trivia on the back of the menus, and our favours were personalised bottles of Jaegermeister (because we got together on a ski trip!)…with personalised M&Ms for the non-drinkers. Once we’d cut the cake, we all downed the shots to kick off the party!

We were over the moon with our photographs from Charlie @ CKB Photography, they were all shot on film and so beautiful we didn’t stop looking at them for days!

Photography: Charlie Kingsland-Barrow Of CKB Photography | Flowers: The Real Cut Flower Garden | Dress: Jenny Packham | Shoes: Freya Rose | Bridesmaid Dresses: Coast | Catering: Posh Nosh | Make-up: Eve Ashby | Hair: Claire Mathers at Creative Wedding Hair | Venue: Maunsel House | Flower Girl: John Lewis | Groom\'s Attire: Ralph Lauren | Page Boy: Monsoon | Photography - Assistance: Rachel Thomas | Photography - Lab processing: UK Film Lab | Stationer: Lisa Butler of Paperknots | Toasts: Nyetimber | Veil: Jenny Packham | Vintage 1920s hair accessory: Revival Retro

These Featured Designers are members of our Look Book.
For membership information, click here
Orchardleigh House Wedding

In my book, there is absolutely nothing better than an English countryside wedding, and when this bride described her wedding weekend as a “truly unique and proper Downton Abbey experience” I was sold. Planned and perfected by Ever Swoon, so you know it’s good, this wedding, as seen through Ed Peers Photography’s lens, is my Christmas present come early.

And just a little teaser of these cuties from Shutterbox Films

[iframe http://player.vimeo.com/video/82109912 601 338]

From the stunning bride… Jon and I met 3 years ago on a crisp October evening in a bar on the Upper East Side of New York, where we now live. Jon, who is English, had just arrived on a business trip, and he was still living in London, but the connection was immediate and we decided that despite the miles (3,459 to be exact!) between us, we would give the relationship a go. After countless Skype calls, emails, texts and trips back and forth and in between, Jon decided to move to the USA and pop the question!

As a graphic designer, I always knew I would design every piece of my wedding and what a project it was! First I designed a family crest for us, based off of the historic Mitchell crest and adding some fun elements that are personal to Jon and I (such as little UK and USA flag hearts, and diamonds in the crown matching my engagement ring!) The rose background image was also a custom watercolor I created just for the wedding. These design elements were used for the website, invitation suite, stationery, canvas tote bags, and leather gold embossed luggage tags.

We decided on an autumn wedding in Somerset near Bath close to Jon’s hometown. The venue is located in the sweeping English countryside on the grounds of the beautiful Orchardleigh Estate. At Orchardleigh, our guests stayed the night (and filled the entire estate) for a truly unique and proper Downton Abbey experience. We had a classic Church of England ceremony at this beautiful little church on the estate grounds, surrounded by water and dating back 1,000 years! Since there was no electricity in the church, the marriage service was entirely candlelit. The hand-pumped organ and string quartet played “Jerusalem” as I married my best friend and finally our two worlds became one.

The bridesmaids were all 5 of my sisters, plus my now-sister in law. The “vintage English rose” theme was carried through with their dusty pink gowns, each one unique different in style. As the guests arrived back at Orchardleigh House after the wedding, they were greeted with warm cider and live classical music played by a string quartet, The canapés were passed and the doors were open to the beautiful (surprising!) sunny day, allowing the guests stroll the vast grounds enjoy the spectacular views of the estate. Following the cocktail hour, we served a 4 course seated dinner, consisting of all local and traditional Somerset fair, made complete with hilarious speeches from my husband (English tradition), my 2 fathers, the best man, and my two maids of honor (American tradition). Following the dinner, the 3 tier cake was cut and the singer with a Frank Sinatra voice swept us into our first dance, “Beyond The Sea”- aptly chosen, in our opinion. Then came the DJ, countless glasses of champagne, a midnight buffet and eventually the sun, as we had danced ‘til dawn.

Photographer: Ed Peers Photography | Videographer: Shutterbox Films | Wedding Planner: ever swoon | Florist: Julia Moore | Wedding Dress: Inbal Dror | Cake: Artistry in Sugar | Stationery: Christina illustrations & invitations | Church: Orchardleigh House | Reception Venue: Orchardleigh House | Bride's Shoes: Badgley Mischka | Engagement Ring: Marisa Perry | Jewelry: Luxe Deluxe - Etsy | Bridesmaids Dresses: Dessy Collection By Vivian Diamond | Hair Stylist: No. 3 Hairdressing | Grooms Attire: Moss Bros | Transportation: Bugler Coaches | Bride's Jewelry: Luxe Deluxe - Etsy | Bride's Jewelry: Luxe Deluxe - Etsy | Cocktail Hour Music: ABK Music Solutions | Reception Music: The Modern Way through Alive Network | Veil Designer: Inbal Dror

These Vendors are members of our Little Black Book.
For membership information, click here
Somerset, U.K. Wedding by David Jenkins Photography

This gem had us upon first glance at that gorgeous bride and her pretty Jimmy Choos. We’re mad for shoes after all but more importantly, we’re mad for great weddings and this Somerset beauty could honestly be stills from an epic love tale. It’s a beautiful ode to the English wedding. One ripe with sentiment and lovely moments caught on film by David Jenkins Photography and we’re cheering from the front row, popcorn and coffee in hand. See more of this love story here.

Click here for the FULL wedding!

From the bride… The venue is stunning with everything you need in one place: the chapel, accommodations for all guests in a gorgeous Georgian house and beautiful grounds.  Many of the table decorations were done by me, and the flowers were done by my mother-in-law. The flower vases were jam jar pots and tin pots. The wedding was the best day of our lives and if we could afford it, we’d do it every year. Babington House is the perfect wedding venue, and we partied long into the morning, as they have no time limit. Which was what we wanted.

Photography: David Jenkins Photography / Flowers: Groom’s mother / Venue: Babington House, Somerset, U.K. / Shoes: Jimmy Choo / Dress: Jacqueline Byrne / Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Ted Baker / Groom’s Suit + Tie: Paul Smith / Table Decorations: DIY by the bride