Sophie & Jay

Sophie and Jay stuck to an all white theme with their wedding flowers and it looks gorgeous - really dreamy and ethereal and just perfect for making the inside of a tipi look a little more whimsical, rather than rustic. We are big advocates of using flowers and plants that grow locally to your venue to create an organic look. Sophie dazzles in a wonderful combination of Eden by Jenny Packham and Jimmy Choo and I love how pretty her looks clipped up with her veil. Her mum wins the award for best dressed Mother of the Bride too! All in all it's just a lovely, relaxed but stylish wedding, captured as it unfolded by David Jenkins.

The Bride

I wore the Jenny Packham Eden dress in Ivory bought from the Jenny Packham boutique in London. I traipsed around lots of places and didn’t like anything. Then I went to Jenny Packham, this wasn’t my favourite in the store but when I looked back at the photos I knew it was the one. It was beautiful and just suited my shape. It has a silk slip underneath. The top layer is a mesh with beaded and sequinned patterns all over it. It has capped sleeves, a v neck and is pinched in slightly at the waist. It just hangs loose with no structure which is what I loved. It is a vintage style but with modern touches. The beading is stunning. I wore my mum’s diamond bracelet and my own diamond necklace. I had a vintage style sparkly hair grip. I splashed out on some sparkly Jimmy Choo shoes too as I didn’t want ‘bridal shoes’. I couldn’t get them in London in my size and then I found one pair in my size, 3.5, online, at a boutique in Belgium and had them sent over. Must have been fate.

The Groom

Jay – Chris Kerr is brilliant. I had only ever worn a suit for weddings or funerals so my knowledge was next to nothing. Chris made the whole experience super relaxed and enjoyable. I loved the process and was really pleased with my suit. I also wanted something I could wear again in the future. Shoes were from Barkers and the pink shirt and tie were from Selfridges.

The Venue

It was my mum’s house in Tunstead, Norfolk, we always thought we’d get married there as it’s such a beautiful setting: the garden, the barn etc. We were also one of the last of our friends to get married and wanted to make it our own. The ceremony itself was in a thatched barn and the reception was in a tipi tent in the garden supplied by Beautiful World Tents.

The Decor

Nothing specific. We wanted it to be very relaxed and suit the countryside surroundings. Once we found the tipi tents we built it around that really. Flowers were a mixture of simple white flowers and foliage in cream metal jugs on the tables. All around the tipis was more foliage and white hydrangeas in boxes on the floor. My mum sourced all the flowers and decorations and both mums made the arrangements and decorated the barn. A mixture of trees e.g. silver birch and little box cones plus cow parsley, ivy and laurel.

The Wedding Party

They wore vintage style dusky pink dresses from Warehouse. I just searched all the high street stores for a dress I thought would look ok on all my bridesmaids and was in a style that went with my dress. I wanted dusky pink as it goes so well with the navy worn by the groom & groomsmen and luckily enough I found it. I couldn’t afford to get dresses made so high street it had to be. Groomsmen had suits hired from Austin Reed – matched these as closely as possible to Jay’s suit.

The Ceremony

We got ‘legally’ married in a registry office in the local town 2 days before and then had a blessing ceremony conducted by a celebrant in front of friends and family on 25th. The registry office we treated entirely as a formality – we turned up in jeans with my mum and Mike as witnesses and it was over in about 10 minutes. We then went straight home and carried on with the organising. We wanted to treat the ceremony on the day as the real wedding. A celebrant conducted our ceremony on the day: Judy Mansfield. She was brilliant. She came to meet us in London and we discussed what we did and didn’t want. She then wrote a draft and we edited it to get it just right. We had three readings, one of these was from The Alchemist - on our first date we realised we were both reading The Alchemist, a funny coincidence. When Jay proposed (at Christmas) he gave me a hardback copy of The Alchemist. I opened the book and inside the front cover was a message which finished with “Will you marry me?”. Inside the book Jay had cut out a hole which held the ‘asking’ ring. I said yes. We then went to choose my ring together.

The Entertainment

We had a local band, 4 young lads who were fantastic - The Mesh Band. Just playing a range of music to suit all tastes but people danced from the moment they started until the moment they finished at 1am. We had a iPod with a carefully selected playlist that played in between.

The Food

The food was: Canapés were pizza from the clay pizza over outside - no starter. Main was barbequed chicken and lamb served on sharing plates with 4 different salads. Just what we loved though Jay’s Dad did ask where the potatoes were! Dessert was a blueberry bakewell tart with blueberry ice cream made from local blueberries. Then we cut our cheese cake and this was served at the tables with crackers. It was a stacked cheese cake from Teddington Cheese. It comes with instructions to assemble it – one of my bridesmaids was given this job the morning of the wedding and felt a lot of pressure (she was pretty proud that she managed it though).

The Photography

We saw the photos David had taken at our friends’ wedding, Kate and Tom. The pictures were amazing so we didn’t look any further. A friend recorded the whole day on their iPhone and edited together a film which we are very lucky to have.

Advice

Get decorations from the countryside e.g. cow parsley if it’s the right time of year. Ivy is pretty much around all the time. It takes a lot of work but putting in the effort to add your own touches, spending time really searching for everything to be just right really pays off. Then just relax and enjoy it. It’s your day so don’t worry about anyone else!