The Barn Wedding
When we got engaged the first thing Jose and I agreed was that we wanted our wedding to be a little different. I really liked the idea of a barn wedding, but we couldn’t find one large enough. Then we’d come across a website hiring tipis, and there was no going back, we couldn’t accept anything else for our wedding. We hunted all over London and found
Chiltern Open Air Museum, a museum dedicated to historic buildings. We had our dream wedding - the ceremony took place in the barn and the reception in the tipis behind the barn (except for when the DJ arrived and the barn turned into a rave).
The Fashion
When in doubt,
ASOS is my go-to shop. I had tried on a number of wedding dresses, but I couldn’t really see myself in a traditional white wedding dress. I’d found a bridal section on ASOS and after a few months of looking out, I found one that was perfect for me- simple, comfortable and a little different.
Jose’s suit took a lot longer to find that mine (mostly because he wouldn’t let me help until we were running out of time). We were looking for the right shade of blue for the suit, with the right shade of green tie (because organising a wedding isn’t stressful enough). We discovered
Richard James Mayfair, and after a few minor alterations, we were both really happy.
The Decor
We really wanted to keep it simple and natural, so pale greens mostly with pale pinks and whites. The tipi came ready covered in fairy lights, and that’s all that was really needed. We had to DIY our centrepieces on a budget so I had collected lots of large coffee jars over the previous months and wrapped in burlap with a ribbon. We’d ordered the flowers from a local florist and went for a “rustic” (I’ve got no real skills in flower arranging) look. We’d made our wedding programmes into fortune-tellers and used those for our place cards and each table had a polaroid picture of the guests (mostly from childhood). Petals also made my flower crown and bouquet to match based on the flowers we’d ordered from them.
The Ceremony
We had had our actual civil ceremony a few days before with just a few family members present, so at this was more of a blessing officiated by my cousin and Jose’s sister so that we had it in both English and Spanish. Jose decided to re-write our vows the night before so I ended up winging it during the actual ceremony as I couldn’t memorise what he’d sent me the morning of our wedding. It was pretty embarrassing but mostly just funny.
The Entertainment
During the ceremony and reception drinks, we had an acoustic band playing traditional Spanish songs. It wasn’t long before everyone was on the dancefloor mid-reception drinks. During dinner we had a traditional bhangra performance by
Nachda Sansaar. It was something different for our friends and family that had come from Spain, and again, it wasn’t long before my mother decided to join them and everyone was back on the dancefloor. We had a DJ in the barn after dinner. We’d given Mand a list of Spanish songs and he mixed these with English and Punjabi music really well. Once Meghan started throwing the glow sticks, the party was in full swing.
The Food
We’d tried to combine both our cultures throughout the wedding, so naturally, the food was a big part of it. We’d hired two caterers that worked together to provide a mix of Spanish and Indian canapés, starters and mains, which worked really well. And of course, I can’t forget our ham guy - the professional ham slicer than no Spanish wedding is complete without. We didn’t have a wedding cake, instead, we had a dessert stand (my favourites, Crème Brulee and cheesecake) and a candy stand.
The Photography
I had found
Bates + Bates Photography through
Rock My Wedding and was really excited when we first met and she showed us more of her photos. Jose and I were really nervous about having our pictures taken but we’d had an engagement shoot with Meghan and Andy a few months before the wedding, it was really good fun and meant we weren’t nervous or (too) awkward on the day.