Ashlee & Mark

The delicate green & white palette of this rustic wedding at Wasing Park in Berkshire gives it an overwhelming elegance and timeless feel. The slim A-line silhouette of both the Brides David Fielden gown and the Bridesmaids Ghost dresses are so chic. I simply adore the lace back on Ashlee's gown. Plus you have to check out her AMAZING Casadei shoes. Talk about killer heels. Also blowing my mind are all the florals. Using so many of our favourite blooms; roses, astilbe, Bruina berries, and giving the bouquets depth poppy seed heads. All the details, pretty and love has been captured beautifully by Julia & You Photography for you to pore over and pin to your hearts content. And believe me you're going to want to...

The Dress

Ashlee the Bride: I found my dress at The White Closet in Manchester. Firstly this shop was everything I could have hoped for as far as wedding dress shopping goes! We had bubbles and cakes whilst trying on the dresses and I was so spoilt for choice, I liked every dress I tried on! After trying on countless dresses, I decided on the David Fielden dress. I completely fell in love with the simple style at the front and the beautiful detail at the back. I decided against a veil, as I didn’t want to cover up the detail on the back of the dress, so instead went for a delicate floral headpiece to entwine in my hair. This was also from The White Closet and was suggested by the girls working there when I showed them pictures from my hair trial. Wedding shoe shopping was a big highlight for me. A day spent wandering around London trying on shoes was a dream! I found the perfect pair of Casadei shoes in Harrods Shoe Heaven, which is very appropriately titled! I kept my jewellery very simple and wore gold drop earring and a matching bangle from Oliver Bonas.

The Groom

Mark’s suit was tailor made from The Cad & Dandy on Saville Row. Mark went for a navy tweed suit with an oat coloured waistcoat. I had no involvement in the suit shopping, but knew Mark would pick something perfect for our October wedding. Mark loves clothes as much as I do, so this was the perfect opportunity for him to go all out on something special!

The Venue

The minute we visited Wasing Park we knew it was the venue for us. The exclusivity of the place was a big selling point and we instantly fell in love with the countryside setting, the red brick of the Castle Barn and the beautiful accommodation, which adds to the overall private feel. We wanted an autumnal wedding and knew that Wasing Park would create a perfect backdrop for our day. The team at Wasing Park are amazing, everything ran smoothly and exactly as we had discussed with them. We didn’t have a single stress on the day, they took care of everything.

Colour Scheme/Décor

As Wasing Park is so beautiful, we didn’t want to distract from the natural features of the venue, so we decided to keep the decoration simple. Without really meaning to we ended up with a green colour scheme. We kept being drawn to different shades of green as it complimented the setting and the time of year, the bridesmaids wore pale green, the flowers were white with lots of foliage and the groom and best men wore forest green ties and handkerchiefs, which perfectly complimented the chairs for the ceremony! Additional décor we wanted to keep with a rustic feel, so we made a lot of things ourselves. We used a world map for our table plan with luggage tags for the tables of places we have visited. We used a vintage briefcase for our cards, and displayed wedding pictures of our parents and grandparents around the case. The only extravagant detail we went for was a fairy light canopy in the Castle Barn, which was provided by Partylights and looked fabulous.

Flowers & Decoration

Again we wanted to keep the flowers quite simple, with lots of texture and foliage. I did a lot of pinning on Pinterest of the different flowers I liked, and I was beyond pleased with my bouquet, it was stunning. For the centrepieces we had a selection of small bouquets on each table, in birch covered vases with tall candles in the middle. We also had flowers on each place setting rather than wedding favours, the guests loved this and we had lots of compliments. The beautiful arrangements were created by Emma at The Green Parlour. Working with Emma was great, she understood straight away the look I wanted to achieve.

Wedding Party Fashion

My beautiful bridesmaids wore pale green Ghost dresses. This was the easiest decision in all of the wedding planning! They were the first dresses the girls tried on, I loved them instantly and luckily the girls did too. They looked very elegant and timeless. The two best men wore matching navy suits from Marks and Spencer, and matching ties and hankies to Mark. We didn’t want lots of matching suits for the rest of the wedding party, so our dads and brothers wore their own suits, but had beautiful boutonnier’s to distinguish them as the wedding party.

The Ceremony

The ceremony was held in The Garden Room at Wasing Park, which is a large bright space with huge floor to ceiling windows. We kept the chairs bare in this room and had flower arrangements tied at the end of each row. I was very nervous walking down the aisle in front of 130 people, but the minute I reached Mark at the end I relaxed. So much so that I burst into giggles during the vows and really struggled to compose myself!

Entertainment

We completely blew our budget on the band for the evening, but it was worth every penny!!! Getting the right band was so important for us, as we both LOVE a party and dancing and so do both of our families. I found Soulidify after trawling through the Internet and watching lots of videos and they exceeded all expectations. The dance floor was packed from start to finish, they played all the songs we asked for, members of the band came out onto the dance floor playing instruments and to top it off we had a conga....I mean what is not to love! It was the biggest talking point of the wedding, the guests loved and we have had two guests book them since. We had our first dance to Sister Sledge – Thinking of You, which is a very special song to us and at this point I remember feeling so happy to be married and to have everybody there. It was my favourite part of the day. We also had a photo booth black cab pull up outside which also went down a treat with the guests. This was hired from Studio Rouge.

Food

The catering team at Wasing Park are Galloping Gourmet and they created a delicious meal for us. We started with a pork spring roll, followed by lamb for the main and eton mess for desserts. The food was outstanding, and they catered so well for a number of guests with complicated allergies! Our cake was made by Joanna Rickson from Petit Gateau and was topped with fresh flowers by the florist. We went for a vanilla sponge on one tier and red velvet on the other – it was delicious and we were so happy there was plenty left for us to take on our honeymoon!

Photographer

I found Julia of Julia & You on Rock My Wedding and loved her portfolio and blog posts. All the photos are really natural, whilst capturing the finer details. I am not a fan of very staged pictures, so it was really important for us to have lots of natural shots of our guests and us and this is exactly what we have. Julia & Michelle were amazing on the day and lovely to have around. To top things off we now have the most beautiful wedding album to look through.

Videographer

We used Shoot It Yourself to record our day and cannot express how happy we were with this decision. We almost didn’t have a video, as it seemed like an easy cost to cut but the finished product from SIY made it all worthwhile.