Sarah & Richard

These two are just a bit gorgeous. Married in their local village church & then congregating in a tipi in the stunning Warwickshire countryside for a massive party. Undoubtably stealing the show is bride Sarah and her fairytale Mori Lee bridal gown (wow!!!). And how can I forget her fabulous Manolo Blahnik blue shoes. The floral print bridesmaid dresses and the bride & groom's beautiful baby girl, Autumn also bringing the adorable factor to the rustic proceedings. With sausages on sticks, three giant French Fancy wedding cakes and Sarah's peony bouquet of dreams, you'll be hard pressed not to be beaming from ear to ear whilst viewing this family wedding. Enjoy.

The Dress

Sarah the Bride: I was really worried about finding my dress as I gave birth to our daughter only seven months before the big day, so just a few weeks later after seeing a dress online we booked an appointment at The Cotswold Frock Shop. I had no idea what I wanted so tried on lots of dresses all different styles and was nearly giving up when she bought out the last dress which I instantly knew was my dress! I had seen a Pronovias dress online which I was in love with so still wanted to try that on before I ordered THE dress but it just didn't live up to the Mori Lee. My favourite bit of shopping was for my wedding shoes! As a wedding present my sister in law arranged for Harvey Nichols to come to my house with champagne and shoes! Certainly the best way to pick my wedding shoes. I knew I wanted blue shoes, my something blue and fell in love with the Manolo Blaniks. As a surprise they also turned out to be my wedding present from my two brothers and sister in laws.

Grooms Attire

Just 4 weeks before the big day Rich still hadn't sorted his suit after falling in love with one that they were unable to get in his size. So we hit the shops determined and eventually after no success ended up in Rich's fail safe shop Reiss. The sales assistant managed to persuade him to try on a check one as he wears a suit to work and wanted to look a bit different and to both our surprise it looked amazing!

Venue

We live in the countryside and Rich even proposed in a field by our house so the venue was an easy decision for us. We got married in our village church and desperately wanted to have the venue near by so after asking a massive favour from our family friends who happen to own the local farm we sourced a field with the most perfect view! We knew a teepee would offer us the perfect setting for our wedding and after speaking to different suppliers went with Elite Tents due to the fantastic service and value for money.

Colour Scheme

We didn't set out with a colour scheme, but after Rich's brother designed our wedding invites Pale pink and Dark blue a lot of the colours ended up following this.

Florist

One of the best points about getting married in June was that peonies were in season which with hydrangea's are my favourite flowers. I had a mammoth bouquet of peonies which I loved and our florist got spot on, I didn't want it to look insignificant in the photos and it definitely didn't! We then had a few different displays around the church which were then moved to the teepee afterwards. The table centre pieces we actually made ourselves with some inspiration from Pinterest I put my made of honour to work decorating glass jars, my dad cut up some logs and finished off with some flowers from my mums garden.

Wedding Party Attire

I was really relaxed about the bridesmaids and just wanted them to have a dress they felt comfortable in and would wear afterwards. I just happened to stumble across their dresses by accident whilst flicking through ASOS on my phone. They were one of the first purchases we made and by sheer fluke the few sizes they had left were the right ones. The flower girl and our daughter who was ring barer I wanted to have just pretty dresses but managed to find one that came in both their sizes and resembled mine which was perfect! Then the groomsmen much like Rich's suit was left to the last minute. We just wanted them to match and again feel comfortable and wear it again so settled on a Navy modern suit from River Island.

Ceremony

Our daughter was christened in the church we got married in a month before the wedding with the same vicar. At her christening we had a special appearance of Brian a sheep hand puppet and for the children requested him again. There were certainly some laughs from both the children and adults when Brian reappeared to give a sermon around a bolt which we later received to keep.

Entertainment

We were lucky that one of Rich's colleagues from work is a fantastic singer so we managed to persuade her to sing and play her guitar whilst we had canapés and prosecco. This gave a lovely atmosphere. Then later on we had a fantastic band Academy Allstars which got everyone up and dancing! They even rose to the challenge of performing our first dance- Akon, Beautiful (long story!) slowed down and acoustic. We also had a Photo Booth as our guest book to make sure we got lots of silly photos and messages to keep and look back on.

Food & Drink

Our cake was based on one of Rich' favourites, French Fancies, made by our friends sister and we used old fashioned cake stands to serve it on later in the evening. We had a traditional wedding breakfast with a his and her menu which our guests chose from before the wedding these were all our favourite foods! I cannot believe what a great job the caterers did from a tent in a field with a generator and no running water! We wanted all our guests to relax and enjoy themselves so actually supplied all of the alcohol for the day. This surprisingly didn't break the budget and we even had some left, but we had some great shapes on the dance floor!

Photographer

We actually found our photographer through the recommended suppliers of RMW. I think finding a good photographer who suits your style is one of the most important items on the list and I was so pleased to find Hannah and Toby (Red on Blonde Photography) on the blog. Their relaxed and laid back photographs suited us as we wanted lots of pictures of our day how it was and to see everyone natural and enjoying themselves!