Nathalie & Mark

I've sung the praises of The Garden Gate Flower Company a few times before on RMW, but today I'm doing it again as Becca and Maz are just SO TALENTED. Their style is so unique and so obviously theirs too, I can pick their work a mile off now and once you've seen it, it's hard to imagine flowers styled and arranged in any other way. The other thing about these ladies is that they GROW ALL OF THEIR flowers on their on farm. It's a beautiful process which I think makes their work even more special. Although they are based in Cornwall, they love to travel far and wide for weddings so do get in touch if like me, you're bewitched by their way with blooms. We've saved this Spring wedding for today as this afternoon we'll be bringing you a special Spring Flowers inspiration post from our List florists (Becca and Maz included)! So sit back and enjoy todays seasonal feast for the eyes...who doesn't love the promise of Spring?

The Venue

Nathalie The Bride: When we found out about Boconnoc, Mark was down in Cornwall visiting his parents and so he drove over to take a look and was absolutely blown away. He called me there and then and said that that was the place we had to get married. Mark agreed to save the last available date they had before the latter part of the year and I went down to visit not long after and was equally smitten. We just fell in love with the house, the grounds and old bath house for the ceremony and from then on I just couldn’t have imagined getting married anywhere else - despite everyone saying we should have a plan in case it rained, I just decided there wouldn't be any rain and that was that...and there wasn’t! Cornwall is such a beautiful part of the world and Boconnoc is absolutely breath-taking, with incredible views from every angle. It was simply perfect in every way. Another thing we loved is that you can book rooms and cottages there for a holiday so we are totally planning on going back for an anniversary stay at some point as it’s a very romantic setting.

Our Story

We met about 10 years ago at a friends wedding, but we only started dating 5 years ago when we met up again after having not seen each other for a couple of years and really clicked. We got engaged in Thailand after a months travelling with friends after our friends wedding in New Zealand. Mark carried the ring round in secret for a whole month, so he could propose on Christmas morning. It was a total surprise and very romantic. He later confessed that every time we went through airport security he was paranoid that they would make him empty his pockets and he would have to propose there and then. We initially wanted to have a short engagement or more importantly not spend too long planning the wedding, but we didn’t get around to starting organising until we had already been engaged for a year. We then spent just 3 months planning as we were very lucky to get a free date at Boconnoc for Easter Saturday.

The Bride

I made my dress myself. I had been to a few shops and by the time we selected the venue most places said three months wasn’t long enough to make the ones I had liked, I tried on one that was waaaaay out of my budget so I decided to make something similar myself. Despite most people thinking I was a bit insane I loved the whole process, and as I am more of a maker than an organiser it was actually one of the less stressful parts of the wedding process. I wore Rainbow Club shoes - I actually thought my shoes were kind of ugly but more importantly to me they were super comfy and I don’t think I thought about my feet at all, all day which was perfect and exactly what I wanted, as I knew you wouldn’t see them under my dress anyway. Earrings were borrowed from my cousin the night before the wedding when I spotted her wearing them at our family meal!

The Photography

Amy Shore and Liam, her assistant were absolutely amazing, super friendly, helpful (they pretty much organised us so we were in the right place at the right time all day) and just down right lovely...oh and did I mention massively talented!

The Styling & Flowers

We wanted a relaxed wedding, nothing too formal. Boconnoc is just such an inspiring place, very beautiful, grand and historic that we just wanted everything to be in harmony with the setting. We wanted local grown flowers and something more wild looking. The Garden Gate Flower Company were perfect.

The Food

The cake was baked by the mother of the groom, Kate and of course my hero Niki the day before the wedding. And beautifully put together by the wonderful Kate on the morning of the wedding. She did such a beautiful job we were very chuffed! Our food was from The Round Kitchen. What can we say? They were amazing, incredible and totally delivered.

The Entertainment

Our friend Rick – DJ extraordinaire and creator of a room full of people saying “OMG I love this track” every 3 minutes! I might add he also had my 5 year old niece dancing her little heart out for literally 5 hours, it was hilarious! I’ve never seen her so entertained.

DIY Aspects

The stationery was made by us – Mark made the seating plan, He made little tables and then wrote the names of the guests on clothes pegs which were attached to the tables, he also wrote out the place names on cards which were clipped to the glasses with mini pegs. Nathalie made the menus. Mark also made a beautiful wooden (flower) arch for the ceremony which the florists then decorated. We put candles around the ceremony space too and had a few giant white balloons attached to a tree (we were initially going to have more balloons and some balloon letters but we ran out of helium!)

The Ceremony

The ceremony was amazing. The sun came out about half an hour before the ceremony started and there was a bird singing in the trees whilst we were saying our vows, it was so perfect and magical. And the old sunken swimming pool in the bath house where it took place just looked beautiful. I couldn’t have been happier.

Final Thoughts

My word of the day (and the whole process) was flexibility. I tried to be flexible throughout the organising process (mainly because I am not a naturally organised person) and I think this helped limit my meltdown moments to just 3 incidents – one about bread (I thought I had missed the order deadline), one about an ironing board that didn’t turn up (dress making related) and one about a potential face breakout the day before (that disappeared)! On the wedding day my mantra was “what will be will be” and it allowed me to be relaxed and not at all nervous and just free to really enjoy the day!