Kerri & Tom

Ok hands up - who is now Googling 'tandem bike wedding hire' and trying to locate their nearest supplier?! I know I am...how awesome are the group and couple shots? It's the perfect prop for a Cornish harbour wedding, a bicycle made for two to enjoy the cobbled streets and views of the sea. Childhood sweethearts Kerri and Tom chose the fabulous Polpier House for their wedding venue and essentially threw a garden party for their nearest and dearest to celebrate their marriage. It looked like an absolute riot and has reminded me just how much I love an intimate wedding day. Kerri looks gorgeous in a three ASOS dresses which were literally cobbled together by her Aunty, and I mean that in the nicest possible way - the bespoke dress is perfect for her and a dead ringer for the French bridal brands Kerri was lusting after, but for a fraction of the price. Well done Kerri's Aunty :) Right, who's ready for a trip to the seaside?

Our Story

Kerri the Bride: Tom and I met at school when we were 11. We “dated” for a week in Year 7 and then didn’t speak for a few years! As we headed into our last year of school Tom and I shared a locker and were forced to talk again and the rest was history! After 7 years, 3 of which long distance at different universities, a lot of travelling and adventuring Tom popped the question. He took me to a hill not too far from where we live that we’ve spent many evenings at the top of, admiring the views. It was a smart move as it was a place that meant a lot to us, but was familiar enough for me to not be suspicious at all. We had plans to go and live in Australia the year after we were engaged so we headed off and came back 6 months before the wedding. In total we were engaged for just over 2 years. It was great as we could enjoy the excitement of being engaged and the planning as nothing was too rushed.

Our Wedding

When we first began planning our wedding, the only criteria we had was that it was informal and relaxed, style wise we wanted simple and clean. I also really wanted to be outside and for views to play a big part of our day, though we knew this was a huge risk in England! We had a while in-between getting engaged and our wedding day and as our idea evolved we thought it would be really nice to have a weekend away, a little holiday for everyone attending, without travelling abroad. So our style was based around our love for the outdoors, travelling and that “holiday feeling”. We pictured sea, sunshine, postcards and ice cream. It was exactly what we got.

The Dress

My dress was made by my amazing Auntie...Out of 3 dresses from ASOS! I also then had a jumper from French Connection to wear in the evening, while we were still outside I always knew the dress would be a challenge! I’m not particularly a dressy person and I can’t say I particularly like wedding dresses, I can definitely see their beauty and on other people I always think they look amazing, just not on me! I tried on some dresses from Jenny Packham and Anna Campbell, which came close to convincing me! Another designer I had spent a year drooling over was Laure de Sagazan, but unfortunately a trip to Paris from Australia didn’t quite fit into our budget! One day in Melbourne I took my housemate to see my favourite Jenny Packham & Anna Campbell dresses and whilst they were beautiful, I came home, tried on a dress I’d ordered from ASOS for our legal ceremony and felt immediately more me! I then looked at ways it could be made to look more “weddingy” and decided to ask my Auntie to help me out! She did a fab job. She made a longer detachable skirt and removed the lining form the top. I then chose an Alice Temperley bodice to wear underneath. I loved the sheer top, the shorter front, and the low V back. I chose not to have a veil, it didn’t seem to fit with the chilled garden wedding we were going for! I knew I really wanted a Jennifer Behr headband so chose this instead of a veil. I adore it, it reminds me of the build up and shopping with my Mum and of spending the day outside with all of our lovely friends and family. I wanted to find some shoes that I could wear again after the wedding and be reminded of the day. As we were going to be on grass I had to find a heel wide enough for me not to sink but that was still elegant. I loved that these were nude and chic from the front but the heel had a pop of colour and was an interesting shape. My Mum and I went to Jo Malone for a Bridal consultation. It was fantastic, the team was so lovely and the whole experience was memorable. After narrowing down my favourite scents, we began mixing fragrances to suit different parts of our day. Once you’ve got your perfect combo they give you a hand and arm massage, layering the scents as they go so you can get an idea of how to incorporate them into your day. I ended up choosing Pomegranate Noir as my main fragrance and picked up the body wash, body cream and cologne in this scent. I also purchased English Pear and Freesia to tie in the garden and outdoors. I wore the body cream in Pomegranate noir, with English Pear and Freesia Cologne over it for the daytime. I then added the Pomegranate noir cologne for the evening. My bridesmaids wore the English Pear and Freesia. While we were in Jo Malone I smelt a fragrance that I fell in love with and decided to get it for Tom as his wedding present. It was Oud & Bergamot Cologne Intense. When the team mixed it with the Pomegranate it was the most perfect combination. I loved the idea of us having our individual scents but knowing that they complimented each other so nicely. I thought it was really fitting for us.

The Photography

I’m lucky enough to call Melissa and Ezra of Tupou Photograph family and even more lucky that they agreed to be our photographers. I had watched Melissa from the beginning of her photography venture and was completely blown away by all of her photos. As someone who loves photos it was really important to me to have a collection of pictures that were beautiful to look at whilst being natural and honest. Melissa and Ezra are both so calm and fun, which allowed us to relax and be ourselves. We found this really came across in the photos, which we couldn’t be happier with. They captured all aspects of our day, in a style that complemented they look and feel of our wedding. They managed to catch moments we didn’t see and document little personal moments we will never forget. We couldn’t have wished for more beautiful, stylish pair to have there with us on the day. I couldn’t recommend them enough.

The Groom

Tom chose a navy suit from Next, with a simple white shirt. Tom was adamant he didn’t want to wear a tie of any kind and wanted his outfit to be simple and comfortable and fit in with the surroundings. When we first got engaged he spoke about top hats and canes and to this day I’m still not sure if he was winding me up or not, but I’m sure glad he changed his mind. He looked stunning. Tom’s best men were his two brothers and they all chose to wear the same suit.

The Flowers

We opted for a wholesaler florist local to Cornwall called St Melliers.​ They were so amazing to work with. I was hopeless with flower names, so went armed with photos and ideas and Phillip, who was extremely passionate, matched the styles and colours perfectly. He also recommended certain flowers by scent, which was something I hadn’t thought about, but was blown away by when my bouquet turned up. We were extremely lucky as they allowed us to purchase wholesale flowers to decorate the venue, but were able to buy our bouquets and hairpieces ready-made. The night before the wedding a few of us made the buttonholes, which was fun and strangely therapeutic! We were fast running out of time and whilst we had planned to do all the venue flowers ourselves we started to panic that we wouldn’t have time to get them all in place. Our amazing friends Sam and Dan ended up coming over early on the day and styled all the table and venue flowers, they completely saved the day.

The Cake

Tom is not a huge cake fan, and whilst we did toy with the idea of a wedding cake, we thought it would be fitting to have scones and tea instead as we were in Cornwall. The scones were made in Mevagissey by Boddingtons. There was only one left by the time we got round to “cutting the cake” so that was quite hilarious!

The Details

In a true DIY fashion I decided to design and rope Tom into making most of our stationery. We designed and purchased a stamp for our wedding invites, which Tom hand stamped. If you know how to use Photoshop and have a design in mind this is a great way to save. You do have to be prepared to put in some time though! Our favours were sticks of Mevagissey rock from the local souvenir shops. We pretty much cleared the whole town out of rock! We handmade all of decorations and signs for the wedding. I spent the week before our wedding down in Mevagissey painting signs and making things, for me it was the perfect build up to our big day. We also borrowed a vintage sofa from a shop in Mevagissey that I came across a few days before the wedding. Everyone in the town was so helpful and kind, the sofa owner delivered and picked up the sofa for us, the post office lent us a postcard stand to display our postcards for our guestbook, the car park owners offered us a discount for everyone that needed to use the car park. Little acts of kindness really made us feel special.

Special Moments

My wonderful Dad, Mick walked me down the aisle. We were slightly late as when I met my Dad on the stairs his eyes welled up, which made me completely lose it! It was an amazing moment to have 5 minutes with my Dad before we walked down the aisle. We chose Ben Howard, Old Pine as our ceremony music. As we weren’t having a traditional wedding we really wanted to find a song that meant something to us, it was another way for us to personalise our day.

The Ceremony

Choosing our vows was possible one of my favourite memories of planning our wedding! Whilst Tom and I are totally cool with private displays of affection, the whole saying something lovey dovey in front of people, just wasn’t sitting well with us. After an evening of reading hundreds of vows online, Tom nearly running away and me trying to hold back the laughter, we decided to write our own vows. That way we could say what we wanted to say to each other, in our own way. I couldn’t be happier that we decided to do that, Tom completely blew me away with his vows and it was completely unexpected. I had to take a minute before I could read mine to him.

The Music

Tom and I love to dance, but the thought of everyone watching us for 3 whole minutes was kind of nerve-racking. We had always said if we ever got married we would want to have Justin Timberlake – Love Stoned/I Think She Knows as our first dance, a throwback to our early love days and one of the first albums Tom bought for me. As it’s a 5 minute song, we had a friend cut it down and decided to distract people with sparklers! This moment turned out to be one of our favourite parts of the day, we danced in front of the beautiful house, while all our best people danced around with sparklers below us. I remember seeing my Dad suddenly appear with a blow torch to light everyone’s sparklers and it made me smile as who else would have a blow torch lying around at a wedding?!

Favourite Moments & Advice

It really is too hard to choose, every single moment of the weekend meant the world. You just can’t explain the feeling of having all your favourite people around to celebrate your love with you. The absolute only thing I would have done differently would have been to get a videographer, I would love to have our vows on video. Fellow brides, my biggest piece of advice is not to rush the planning and do it as a team. It makes our memories so much more special knowing we both created them.