Good afternoon lovelies, I’m so happy to be sharing this wedding – genuinely happy. As I was preparing this piece, I kept finding myself tilting my head and smiling my head off like the Cheshire cat – the combination of groom Ben’s fabulous smile, the sweet little page boy (the couple’s son), that gorgeous golden hour light, the pretty bride in her lovely summer wedding dress – it’s been such a pleasure to prepare this piece for sharing with you. I really hope you enjoy it.
Emily, an Artistic Director at Top Hat Stage School Surrey tied the knot with her beau Ben, who trained as a musical theatre performer on Saturday 7th June at The Great Barn in Rolvenden, Kent.
“I am a particularly girly girl, but not in the ‘everything has to be pink’ way. I love afternoon tea, with tea from a proper tea pot, in a cup and saucer. I love floral and paisley designs, which was a major feature of our home made bunting. We also love the outdoors and spend most days in the park in Reigate where we live with our Son, so loved the fact that our venue was set in the countryside, with lots of space to run around. This played a key role in the style of the wedding, we were aiming for a relaxed garden party atmosphere, where it was ok to slip off your shoes and laze on a blanket under a tree amongst family and friends, whilst sipping on a Pimms or cloudy lemonade, also tucking into a homemade scone with clotted cream and jam.”
Photography Copyright (c) 2014, Rebecca Douglas
“Ben and I became friends whilst studying at The BRIT School and remained friends for nearly 18 months before we started ‘going out’. We had even been to the cinema as friends to see possibly the worst film ever ‘NORBIT’, we still laugh about how bad it was today.
It was during the end months of 2007 and beginning of 2008 that we began to get to know each other more. After Ben dislocated his knee in the January, he used to wait at my flat next to college to be picked up, as it was somewhat difficult to get the train with a full leg cast. It was during these times that we realised how much we enjoyed each others company and found out we were as crazy as each other. After a few months of flirting, on 2nd February 2008, whilst getting a drink from a fridge in a shed, at an 18th Birthday, Ben asked if we were ‘official’. Since then we have had many years of amazingness, including welcoming our very own little monster into the world, who goes by the name of Archie. We wouldn’t change a thing!”
“The bridesmaids dresses from The Dainty Yard, Etsy were a complete bargain, working out at around £35 each. They were just what I was looking for. I had 4 bridesmaids and wanted 2 different colour dresses for them, 2 wore mint and 2 wore Blush Peach in the twist and wrap style, meaning they could decide what way to wear it.”
Emily wore a Lusan Mandongus design, purchased from Teokath in Elys of Wimbledon.
“It was the second dress shop I had been in. My first dress shopping experience was terrible. I tried on so many dresses and they all looked awful. So when I went into Teokath in Wimbledon I wasn’t holding out much hope. I took my mum with me and we looked through an enormous selection of beautiful gowns when I spotted a beautiful dress.
I tried it on and fell in love. My mum then picked out an equally beautiful dress, I tried this on and fell in love again. After trying both on numerous times, we took a picture of me in both, from the pictures I was able to decide the one my mum picked out was ‘The One’. Being a sample size dress, it was difficult to get the full effect.
We took it to a dress alteration lady in Norfolk (where my mum lives), who after dissembling the dress completely, she was able to make it fit.”
“I was given a birthday card from my dad shortly after we got engaged. The picture on the front was a 3 tier Victoria sponge cake, with fresh fruit sprinkled over it. This was our inspiration. We both love Victoria sponge with lashings of Jam and butter cream. Having showed Corrinne the picture, we left it with her and didn’t see the finished product until the big day. We loved it and so did everyone else. It tasted SO GOOD!”
“We hired 100 metres of Festoon lighting from a company based in Swanley, kent called I.A. Sound & Light. They made for the most beautiful backdrop for our ceremony, as you can see in the pictures.
Most work went into creating our stationery – hours and hours of designing, crafting, cutting sticking and painting went into our wedding day. The table centre pieces were created by my mum’s friend who is a farmer. He sliced a tree into sections to create slabs that our jars and flowers could be displayed on.
For the able plan, we purchased a wooden ladder from a charity shop/yard that cost us £5 and my husband sanded it down and painted it cream, we then printed our table names out onto brown card and hung these on twine in between the ladder steps.”
“Choosing Rebecca Douglas to be our photographer was one of the best decisions we made. As soon as we booked the venue, we booked her straight away, around 20 months before the big day. She was amazing in the lead up to the wedding, answering any queries we had, helping out with bad weather strategies and generally making us feel as relaxed as possible. On the day she was an absolute delight, her and her assistant Lucy really helped to make our day run smoothly. She was a major part of it and wasn’t worried about getting stuck in on the fun. So many of our family and friends commented on how great she was.
When we went off for our couple shots we had such a fun time. As you can see from the pictures, we love a good laugh and we all really fed off each other. We are so unbelievably happy with our photos of our special day, they were edited and at our disposal in such a short amount of time. We couldn’t recommend Rebecca Douglas more.”
“I always wanted to wear a pearl bracelet on my wedding day, but having rather small wrists, finding a bracelet that fits properly is a challenge. So the bracelet i wore on my wedding day was made by my mum, she used to own her own jewellery shop in Bedford, so had left over supplies of freshwater pearls. I purchased my earrings from an Ebay jewellery shop.
I had fresh flowers in my hair, including Gypsophilia and dusky pink spray roses.”
“Our Son wore a blue waistcoat and trouser combo from Next and white linen shirt from Monsoon. His bow tie was from a store on Etsy. His shoes were also from Next.”
“My hair and make-up artist was Kim Henderson – she was amazing and so lovely. The hairstyle she created made me feel so special.
I decided from the start I wanted to buy lovely make-up and get my mum to do it the on the day. I started to collect makeup a few months before the wedding from Bobbi Brown, Clarins, Benefit and Clinique. My Mum had a few practise goes on me and I was so happy every time she did it. I was so happy with it on the day and I am so pleased I got to keep my lovely makeup afterwards.”
“We decided to do the flowers ourselves. My bridemaids sister, Alex( not a florist) has helped several of her friends out with their wedding flowers and she offered to help us. I had a clear idea of what kind of arrangements I wanted and my mum and I played around with a few options. We had been collected jam jars and beer bottle for over a year, we wanted these to feature heavily.
On the Thursday before the wedding, we ventured up to The New Covent Garden Flower Market in Vauxhall at 4am! Alex joined us and together we picked out all the flowers we wanted. Alex took charge of the Bride and Bridesmaids bouquets an the button holes and together with our family members we did the flowers for the rest of the venue. Including table centre pieces, ceremony tables, aisle. Everywhere you looked there were flowers.
We went with a range of gypsophila, lisianthus, daisies, stocks, spray roses, spray carnations, eucalyptus and peonies. They are all very pretty flowers and went with our white, pink and green colour palette.”
Ben describes how he proposed to Emily…
“I had been semi- planning the proposal for several months. I knew I wanted to propose around Emily’s Birthday in 2012, when we were on holiday with some of Emily’s family in France. We were staying in a tiny little village called Availles limouzine, on the Vienne River. Having entrusted Emily’s mum, Clare, with the job of transporting the all important ring over to France, it was now time to work out when, where and how I was going to propose.”
We were all sitting down to dinner on the balcony on one of the first evenings, discussing what we would like to do over the coming week. Without any input from myself (from what i can remember). It was decided that we would all do our own thing on Friday 24th and Clare and Simon, offered to have Archie for the day! Perfect!”
“So that was it the date was set. The activity for that day for Emily and I was Kayaking up the river. So the morning of the 24th, we packed our picnic and I managed to smuggle the ring into the bottom of the cool box.
Neither of us had really kayaked much before, so we set off against the flow. The first few hundred metres of the journey were amusing to say the least, but we found our rhythm in the end. We were steadily going along, keeping look out for a suitable picnic spot, when we came across a small natural weir in the river. Emily suggested turning back, but being my stubborn self, I thought we could pull the kayak up the weir and continue up the river. So that said, I stripped down to my bright yellow, Sponge Bob Square pants boxers, and jumped in the river and pulled the kayak with Emily still in it, up the weir.
Not an easy task, but we both found ourselves laughing hysterically at the whole thing. Not much further up the river, we managed to lodge the kayak between some rocks in the middle of the river. This was the spot.”
“I unpacked the picnic, making sure the ring box was hidden at all times. We opened up the two litre bottle of sangria (classy) and enjoyed our picnic. I have always wanted to do it the traditional way i.e. getting down on one knee. This was going to be difficult in a kayak, but i thought I have got to give it a go. I encouraged Emily to stand up and look down the river, so I ‘could get a photo’. This was my chance to clear some space and get into position. It was only when I was down on one knee, that the nerves kicked in. Would she say yes?”
“Would she fall in the river? Would the whole kayak capsize? So I said I had taken the photo, so she could turn back around, but no. She proceeded to face the opposite direction, re-tied her hair, adjusted her skirt, put her sunglasses back on and then turned around, it felt like I had been on one knee for a lifetime. She let out a little squeal and just hugged me, so I assumed it was a yes, but asked the question just to make sure. It was only on the way back, that I realised I had performed, what is supposed to be one of the most romantic gestures ever, whilst wearing, just my Sponge Bob square pants boxers!
This clearly didn’t matter to Emily and that’s just one of the reason she is perfect to me.”
“My dad Mark walked me down the aisle – as my Auntie playing the cello. She played the instrumental version of John Legend’s ‘All of Me’.
We had two readings during our ceremony – both of which were written by my father in law and then my sister and brother. We decided we wanted them to be a surprise, so didn’t know what they actually were until the ceremony.
My father in law’s reading was perfect;
‘You are my Sunshine
Outshining the grey towers of south London
Practicing, playing and entertaining
Sharing a sense of fun and love of performing
They found Sunshine in their lives.
Across the water away from loved ones
Playing stars of pop, rock and stage
Finding friends and happiness
Their Sunshine only grew.
The wheels on the bus go round and round
And life with Archie is Peppa’d with Tumbles
But in Archie’s night garden
There is always Sunshine.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
Hopes all things, endures all things.
Emily & Ben have their love and their love
is the Sunshine in their lives.'”
“During the signing of the register, two of our very talented friends sang a song by the musical theatre composer Scott Alan, called Home. It is a beautiful song that they made into a duet which bought everyone to tears.
Once we had be pronounced as husband and wife, we danced our way out of the venue to Signed, Sealed and Deliverd by Stevie Wonder, it was a complete shock to everyone else, but they loved it and so did we.”
“I think both of us would agree that our ceremony was our favourite part. I was so nervous waiting outside beforehand but when the music started to play and me and my dad entered the venue I was so overwhelmed with how beautiful the venue looked, how beautiful my guests looked and of course how drop dead gorgeous Ben looked. I was so excited to get down that aisle and kiss him. The ceremony was so personal to us as my auntie Mary who taught me to play the cello played me down the aisle, two of my best friends sang during the signing of the register, my brother and sister wrote a reading as did my father in law. It was utterly perfect.
There wasn’t a dry eye in sight. Our registrar paused during the ceremony to hand both ben and me a tissue as we were sobbing! She was fantastic and put us completely at ease.”
“The Great Barn in Kent is a rustic 17th Century Barn set in the heart of the countryside. It is a completely dry venue, meaning we had full reign of the decoration and design. We hunted high and low for the perfect venue, looking over several different counties from Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex and finally found what we wanted in Kent and not a chair cover in sight – I’m not the biggest fan of the often used chair cover!”
“Our venue was a completely dry venue. Meaning we had the shell of the building. Everything in the barn was either hired out by ourselves or made and bought by us. We hired all chairs, tables, crockery, cutlery, fridge etc from 1st Settings and we hired a bar via National Mobile Bars.
Our waiters and waitresses were all dancers and performers I knew personally or through friends. They were excellent and made our day run so smoothly.”
“One of my bridesmaids mum’s is an accomplished chef and teaches at Leiths Cookery School. She also runs her own catering company – Corrinnes Island Kitchen.
For our main meal we hire in a Hog Roast company, Smoking Hot Pig. We met with them a few weeks before the wedding at our venue, to talk through the scheduling of the day. They were a great help. We opted for a Hog Roast with a large selection of hot and cold salads, included stuffed peppers, pesto and pasta, garden salad, coleslaw, new potatoes, potato salad.
We were thrilled with the quality of the food and the presentation. The pig was cooked amazingly and crackling was just right.
We highly recommend Smoking Hot Pig.”
“We cut out 433 triangles of material, in pink, white, green, floral, paisley, gingham, hessian. My amazing mum then stitched them all together to create around 130m of bunting. The bunting really helped to create our dream weddings.
Our table runners were from EBay and were purchased around 50m of hessians and cut them into table runners.
We collected various styles of apple crates. Two to which my mother in law transformed into flower beds. The others were used to house the scones that were given out after the ceremony.”
“We had a friend’s fiancé band perform – All Night Long. www.tomworrall.com. They were excellent and kept the dance floor filled all night long. We are both performers and a lot of our friends are too. At every wedding we go to, there is always a dance off circle…..more than one. All our waiters and waitresses were friends and friends of friends who were all dancers and got stuck right in with the dance battles. Inbetween the bands sets, we had a special playlist we had compiled that was played.
Our first dance was to ‘Ain’t No Mountain’ which the band performed. We hadn’t planned what we were going to do, so we just let the rhythm flow. During which Ben decided to lift me high into the air, which made for some epic dress swishing photos.”
Words of Wedded Wisdom…
“Your wedding day is about the both of you. Don’t worry about what anyone else has to say. As long as it is perfect for you, thats all that matters.
Make sure you delegate jobs to people. I couldn’t have done any of it without family and friends helping out.
Make sure on the actual wedding day, you take time out with your new husband/wife to look at everything you have achieved to create your perfect day.
The only thing we would have done differently would be to STOP worrying about the weather. It is what it is. Luckily the rain had stopped by midday and we were left with glorious, hot sunshine.”
What a simply gorgeous day, so lovely to see this couple so happy with their beautiful little little boy on their wedding day, we’re so privileged to be able to share these images – thank you so much to photographer Rebecca Douglas for being so very kind and huge congratulations to you both Emily and Ben!
Have a super-lovely Friday afternoon everyone,
Love Annabel xx
Photographer – Rebecca Douglas
Venue – The Great Barn in Kent
Wedding Dress – Lusan Mandongus viaTeokath in Elys of Wimbledon
Brides Shoes – Phase Eight
Groom – M&S Autograph suit + mint green tie & pocket square via Etsy + Next brogues
Bridesmaids Dresses – The Dainty Yard, Etsy + M&S shoes
Page Boys – Next + Monsoon
Stationery + flowers – the bride & groom
Hair and make-up Artist – Kim Henderson
Bar Hire – National Mobile Bars
Hog Roast – Smoking Hot Pig
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Annabel View all Annabel's articles
Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.
