A Fun-Loving Wedding featuring a Tractor & Space Hoppers

You can't help but fall for this fun-loving couple. Tasha and Niall DIY'd their wedding from the ceremony up, and their personalities shine through every brilliant detail. I love their handmade marquee decorations - the bunting, ribbon chandeliers and burlap table runners, and their genius idea to ask all their friends to make cupcakes for their wedding cake. They hosted their reception in Tasha's parent's orchard, and filled it with lawn games, giant jenga, a child-out area, and even a calypso bar. Amazing! Enjoy these pictures by Michael from My Beautiful Bride - he's really captured the spirit of the occasion.

It was an easy choice to have the wedding reception in the garden of my family home where I grew up, as it's so beautiful there. 

We set up lots of different areas around the garden; we had a calypso bar with a rum punch bowl, an orchard with lots of games like giant jenga, a chill out area and a photobooth with costumes for silly pictures.

Our photographer, Michael from My Beautiful Bride was brilliant. His fantastic photos speak for themselves!

Our wedding flowers were DIY'd by my mother and my mother-in-law on the morning of the wedding. 

Together with friends and family we did lots of DIY decorations, which obviously saved money, but meant we had really unique and personal things. 

Instead of a wedding cake some of the family made over a hundred cupcakes and on the day everyone decorated one. The effect when they were all done was brilliant! 

For entertainment, a friend played the piano in the afternoon {we're lucky enough to have very talented friends!} and after dinner we had a 50's rockabilly band The Hound Dogs. These were absolutely fantastic, playing so many classics that appealed to all the generations.

We made bunting, ribbon decorations, signs, hung hearts and ribbons from all the trees and did our own flowers. Our marquee was provided by County Marquees.

After the speeches we gave everyone a pair of these amazing glasses that turn every light into a heart. With them on we watched fireworks with Michael Buble's 'Feeling Good' blasting out! Definitely a highlight! 

We are so lucky to have so many fabulous people in our lives that helped make the day amazing. We definitely couldn't have done it without them! 

Our caterer was Sarah Hollowell of Goodys Cake Company - she was brilliant - the food was delicious.

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A Fabulous Festival-Style Marquee Wedding

This incredible boho wedding features a folly, a tractor, and a trio of Space Hoppers. It's pretty special!  Tasha chose her family home for her marquee reception, but took a chance on the weather, and picked an outdoor folly on the edge for a corn field for her wedding ceremony to Niall. Luckily the sun shone, and all the guests loved their personalised vows. Other DIY details include all the wedding flowers, which were arranged by the mothers of the bride and groom, the design of Tasha's wedding dress, and most of the marquee decorations. They even managed to persuade a local farmer to lend them a tractor and trailer for wedding transport. Love it! Don't miss the reception pictures in my second post of today - brilliant wedding photographer Michael, from My Beautiful Bride has done us proud!

It was an easy choice to have the wedding reception in the garden of my family home where I grew up, as it's so beautiful there. However it was harder to decided where to host our ceremony.

My husband's three-piece suit was by Duchamp London. He teamed it with a purple tie and simple white handkerchief and shirt.

For my dress I ended up going to a bespoke wedding dressmaker, Dana Bolton, who is based in Muswell Hill in London.

I tried the shops and found lots that were lovely, but none were completely perfect, so I designed one combining all their best features. Dana was on the same page as me throughout and she did such a beautiful job.

Our wedding flowers were DIY'd by my mother and my mother-in-law on the morning of the wedding.

I had bridesmaids from one year old to thirty one, so ended up with three different styles of dress. We linked them by putting the younger girls in white dresses by Monsoon, with sashes that matched the older bridesmaids and they all looked to die for {especially the one year old!}.

For our wedding transport we managed to persuade a very kind local farmer to lend us an old vintage tractor that pulled a trailer, which we decorated with red material and ivy. For seats, we put in an old sofa and a load of beanbags. 

On the way back to the reception we had about fifteen of us all piled into the trailer! It was great to have something that all the young bridesmaids and ushers could enjoy together with us. 

My grown-up bridesmaids' dresses were by Alfred Sung on the Dessy website. I chose a fab teal colour in four different styles, and paired them with nude heeels.

We had to think about where to have the ceremony, as we didn't fancy a church wedding. In the end we took a massive gamble on the weather and had it outside at a beautiful little folly in some fields just down the road from the reception.

It completely paid off as we were so incredibly lucky with the weather. We kept it rustic with hay bales for seats, big white festival flags in the fields, flowers and an ivy arch behind us. 

Because the ceremony location wasn't licensed for weddings we did the legal part in a registry office a couple of days before, which meant we could have free reign over the ceremony.

We wrote our own vows, my brother in law took the ceremony, friends and family did a reading, poem and prayer, and at the end we all sang 'Can't take my eyes off you'! It worked so well - personal, emotional and lots of fun.

Our photographer, Michael from My Beautiful Bride was brilliant. His fantastic photos speak for themselves!

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A Quirky DIY Wedding with a Groom in a Top Hat

DIY weddings are always pretty special, because of all the personal touches. This wonderful Alice in Wonderland themed wedding definitely falls into that category - it's chock-full of brilliant handmade details! Bride Sophie made her own wedding cake and marshmallow favours, her friend made the cute toppers, her sister and mother made all the wedding decorations, including incredible vintage china cake stands, and the groom and his ushers were in charge of all the music, and the brightly coloured 'Drink Me' favours. Even the flowers were provided by a friend of the family. Feast your eyes on these amazing pictures by Sarah Jane Ethan Photography, and be sure to check our the Ceremony and Getting Ready pictures too.

We celebrated our wedding at Crook Hall and Gardens in Durham. We both fell in love with the Medieval Hall and Georgian Tea Room. 

We chose to host an Alice in Wonderland wedding, and the variety of secret gardens fitted our theme perfectly. Crook Hall was the first and only venue we visited. 

My bridesmaids dresses were from TX Maxx. I didn't have a colour theme in mind at the time. They were a taupe colour, and suited my bridesmaids beautifully. They chose their own shoes as I wanted them to be comfortable. They looked stunning. The ushers wore grey suits with red ties and hankies, plus a playing card in fitting with the them!

Our wedding photographer was Sarah Jane Ethan. She did the most amazing job at our wedding. My husband used to be a keen amateur, so we knew what we wanted when it came to style and SJ fit the bill perfectly. 

We reviewed the work of a number of photographers online, and met with a shortlist of five. Sarah Jane’s natural light style and lack of formal structure was really appealing, and as a person, she really lived up to her promise of fitting in just like a guest. She's super positive and her personality really put us at ease during those potential awkward moments. Highly recommended!

My father-in-law owns Grove House Plants Nursery in Greatham so he arranged for our flowers to be supplied by another family business, Blackfords Nursery in Hartlepool. I wanted to have simple rustic greenery and white flowers, so we opted for gypsophilia and white roses, with a red rose buttonhole for the groom.

We hired a self drive vintage VW camper van for my wedding car, in which my mum drove me and the bridesmaids to the venue to get ready. We used it for photo duties too, and have some great family shots in and around it! 

After our wedding ceremony, we hosted a Mad Hatter's tea party in the tea room with plenty of quirky twists, followed by a hog feast in the Medieval Hall, with an open fire and candles for our evening guests, all with appropriate music and decorative touches.

We wanted as many unique touches as possible, and I'm fortunate to have a very creative mum and sister who made the majority of our wedding decorations, from moustache drinking straws to giant card bunting.

Our Afternoon Tea wedding breakfast was by Crook Hall, and our evening feast menu was put together especially for us by Mandy at The Spitting Pig.

We didn't go for traditional take away favours, but added a few edible treats for guests. I made small marshmallow treats for each place setting, and my hubby and his groomsman mixed up some multi-coloured alcoholic shots in small drink-me vials.

My sister made cake stands from vintage cups and saucers, which was really effective.

Our magician, Jonathan Pickard was really well received and created some great photo moments with his amazing close up magic. 

Music was a big part of our day, and my husband and his groomsman, Dave, took great care to select fitting tunes for each part of the day, which were played back through a PA system hired from Ingram Sounds. 

I loved planning my wedding. It mainly consisted of Prosecco, tea, cake and lots of lists!! Every weekend was spent spending! My mum had so many lovely ideas and at whatever cost she made them happen. My bridesmaids were and still are wonderful! They kept me calm when things didn’t go to plan or when my husband and I disagreed on things – he wanted a lot more input than most! 

Our parents were utterly fabulous and we could not have done half of the things we planned without them! They supported us in whatever way they were able – financially and materially, with advice, love and guidance. My Dad even missed the football! We are an incredibly lucky Mr and Mrs!

We had a specially decorated vintage suitcase for our wedding cards. Heritage Blacksmith Partnership created a beautiful copper memory box, that my husband gave to me for our engagement. 

My sister made gorgeous hand embroidered hanging clocks and a personalised, hand-stitched guest book designed around the gates of our wedding venue. >My mum made the cute bride bunting from doilies and hand-painted Alice in Wonderland-style signs around the gardens. 

After a lot of deliberation, I decided to design and make the cake myself. This saved us a lot of money plus, as a cake maker, I thought I would put my skills to use. The cake was Alice themed with two tiers, a chocolate sponge and Victoria sponge. We had personalised toppers made by our very talented friend Annie, from Millerville Mini Models.

My advice for other brides? Enjoy the day! Enjoy the planning! Don't stress over the little details, they’ll take care of themselves. Do “six impossible things before breakfast” {I suggest prosecco} and “who is to say what is proper?” – Alice in Wonderland.

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