Rachel & Mark

Apologies in advance everybody - but after this morning's wedding feature you are absolutely going to need a Gin Bath at your wedding day. Yes, you heard me correctly. That's a bath where gin pours from the actual taps. We know!!! Amazing right? Rachel and Mark are big gin drinkers and just knew they had to create something gin related for their wedding day and so the Original Gin Bath was born and you can now hire it for your own wedding day! Not only is the gin bath amazing, but the rest of their wedding day is pretty special too. Every last detail has been thought about and the styling is rustic, pretty and boho all at once, which is hard to pull off. Right, let's delve in then shall we?! I hope you've got your tonic chilling in the fridge...

The Venue

Rachel the Bride: From the moment we were engaged on a crisp and snowy New Year's Eve in Honfleur, Normandy, we knew that we wanted to have a relaxed festival style wedding with all of our family and close friends in our beautiful home town of Tenterden and that our friends' beautiful house at Brick House Farm in the middle of the beautiful 'Darling Buds of May' Kent countryside would be the perfect venue.

The Outfits

The dress code on our invites was 'country casual' and we wanted our outfits to blend in with the day. Rachel chose a two-piece bohemian outfit called 'Jude' from LA designers, Daughters of Simone, and had a veil handmade to match the style of the dress. Mark's jacket and chino's were from Hugo Boss, which he matched with shoes made by Barker. The flower girls wore outfits from Tea Princess, a gorgeous boho store in Australia and the page boy's outfit was matched to the groom and purchased from Monsoon.

The Rings

We wanted our rings to be unique to us and also to have a history so we chose them from a beautiful vintage shop in Brighton called Fidra.

The Flowers

We chose a mix of beautiful and simple garden roses and other wild flowers for the bouquets which were prepared by Millie and Rose Designs. They lasted beautifully and many of the flowers have now been dried to make beautiful decorations in our home.

The Photography

The wonderful Holly Rose Stones captured our day perfectly, which we knew she would - just take a look at her credentials and wedding blog! She spent the morning with Rachel at her home, then travelled to the farm to get some 'album cover' photo's of Mark and his groomsmen before focussing on the venue, ceremony and capturing images of the day. We have so many favourite pictures of the day but those taken by the fishing shack, where we stayed on the night of the wedding, and of our first dance are among them.

The Ceremony

Many of our friends and family arrived at the venue on the Friday afternoon and pitched their tents then enjoyed a pizza from the Mark's brother's own horse-box pizza oven and celebrated with the groom. Rachel travelled to the ceremony with her dad, who drove her in Mark's 1978 Land Rover, which was perfect for travelling down the bumpy country lanes to the farm. We were married in a beautiful barn at Brick House Farm and the ceremony was very personal to us as we'd written our own vows and chosen songs that were very special to us, including the bridal entrance to 'The Book of Love' and the music that filled the ceremony included 'Love is like a Bottle of Gin' and 'Better Together', which were sang by the best men. We also had the wonderful reading 'Oh the places you'll go' which was read by the Mark's sister-in-law and the flower girls.

Down on the Farm

The afternoon was spent outside enjoying the late summer sunshine and enjoying the Cajun sounds of the one-man band 'Flaky Jake'. We had games galore for adults and children alike - bowling for a pig, tug o'war, splat the rat, a revolving horse to name a few. The children also had their very own sweetie shop, with snacks and drinks aplenty and the adults could enjoy their own grown-up sweetie selection. Our favourite drink is a great gin and tonic, so we engineered our very own gin bath with gin free-flowing from the taps for people to enjoy. It was so popular that we now hire out our Original Gin Bath for others to enjoy at their celebrations. Other drinks were spread around the farm in tin baths, along with snacks, for our guests to help themselves. We also had a 'Love Rocks' station so people could put their messages on pebbles to us instead of a traditional guest book, together with a polaroid camera for people to pose and hang up their pictures for us to take home as memories.

Grubs Up

Caroline who owns Brick House Farm with her husband Rob, is also a professional caterer so was delighted to also prepare the food for our day. We wanted the wedding breakfast to be informal and relaxed to continue the mood of the day. The wedding breakfast was served in the late afternoon and included artisan breads, a Greek moussaka, fresh salads and Brick House Farm sausages for the children, served in individual mess tins. Caroline made a beautiful naked lemon cake - as lemon cake is our little boy's favourite! The cake was served alongside delicious meringues and fruits for pudding. Our favours were created by our neighbours who own a small chocolate shop in Tenterden called Truffles @ CoCo and were hung on a farm ladder for our guests to also take and enjoy. Late in the evening, Rob served Brick House Farm sausages in fresh bread from the wedding horse box.

If Music be the Food of Love...

After dinner, Eliot Rivv placed some funky sounds outside so the guests could enjoy the last rays of the summer sunshine and then the Mark and his groomsmen took to the stage to play as their band Bromley v's Pilcher. The main music of the evening was provided by our favourite local band, Pass the Cat, who started with the song 'On a harvest moon', which was our first dance together as Mr & Mrs Pilcher - outside with the sun setting behind us. Later in the evening, a campfire was lit and we all huddled round to share stories of love and laughter under the harvest moon itself.