Emily and Daniel are one of the loveliest couples I’ve had the pleasure of featuring… and their wedding is filled with pretty touches and creative details. They married at Upton Barn in July and chose lovely Mark from Evolve Photography to photograph their day.
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I have so much to tell you I barely know where to begin… the interview which follows the photos today is superb, and this quote from Emily is spot on: “If at the end of the day you are married to your best friend then it has been a success, everything else is just details.”
The details, however, look to have been a total success and then some! I adore the place settings and little favours (too cute!) and the lavender touches are just divine. Suppliers were found through recommendations and online, and Emily and Daniel found their venue through a local wedding show.
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It struck me when reading Emily’s interview that it’s totally possible to fall in love with a bridal boutique as well as with a dress. I always ask my brides ‘did you fall in love with your wedding dress?’ and Emily’s answer is one of the best I’ve read. Her words prove to me that a good boutique with lovely staff and a friendly, welcoming atmosphere is worth searching for… read more at the end of the blog post to find out why!
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Images are by lovely Mark at Evolve Photography in Devon. Find out more here:
- www.evolvephoto.co.uk
- www.facebook.com/evolvepics
- www.pinterest.com/evolvephoto
- @PhotoEvolve
- instagram.com/evolvephotodevon
- http://english-wedding.com/tag/evolve-photography
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The English Wedding Blog Interview
Please type your names:
Emily and Daniel Taylor
Wedding photographer’s website:
How did you choose your photographer?
A friend of mine followed his page on facebook, and on the day I told her I was looking for a photographer he had written a status saying he only had 2 dates free for the following summer…one of them was ours! I had a look at his website and facebook page and was so impressed, I messaged him instantly.
Were you pleased with your wedding photographer? Do tell… we love a brilliant review!
Mark was fantastic! As soon as we met him we were totally confident that we had made the right decision and that he would do a brilliant job. On the day he was perfect – calm, approachable and extremely professional. We knew that the photos would be great but they were even better than we had imagined!
Tell us about the moment you saw your wedding photos for the first time?
Mark uploaded a large selection of ‘preview’ photographs two days after our wedding. We were at Gatwick Airport and we took so long looking at the photos that we almost missed our flight and had to run to our boarding gate, we made it just in time! We couldn’t believe how amazing they were, we both couldn’t stop looking at them! The photos were absolutely beautiful and captured every part of our day perfectly.
Wedding venue:
Upton Barn and Walled Garden, Cullompton. This is a brand new, exclusive wedding venue with a beautiful walled garden for the ceremony with stunning contemporary converted Cider Barn. Luckily we spotted them at Westpoint Wedding Show and we visited them soon after – although the conversion wasn’t finished at this stage we could tell how amazing it was going to look, and booked our wedding there the next day.
Wedding month:
4th July 2015
Can you describe your wedding in fewer than 10 words?
The best day of our lives!
Your wedding style or theme:
A rustic barn theme with lots of natural wood, hessian, lace and wild flowers.
Where did you find your suppliers? (Blogs, magazines, recommendations?)
Almost all of our suppliers came recommended from friends and work colleagues – that’s one of the good things about being one of the last to get married! Others I found from scouring the internet, and along with our venue I also found my bridal boutique at Westpoint Wedding Show.
What’s your top tip for saving money?
As we were having quite a large wedding we saved a lot of money by choosing a venue which enabled you to use outside catering. Our food spend per head was a lot less and the standard of the food was very high. Our venue also didn’t change corkage, so we saved a lot of money on wine and champagne. We spent a lot of time doing our own wedding crafts and made use of talented friends and family for things like the wedding cake, wedding hair and bridal bouquet, which saved a lot of money.
… and which elements of your wedding are you glad you spent more on?
Definitely the venue, food and band! We hired local pop up caterers Pickle Shack for the wedding breakfast and the food was absolutely amazing! Good evening entertainment was very important to us as we wanted the dancefloor to be full, and The Hijackers Band did just that!
Where did you buy or source your wedding stationery – or was making it a labour of love?
We ordered our wedding invitations from Sarah Wants, who are based in Cornwall and produce gorgeous wedding stationery in a vintage, rustic and country style. I made the seating plan based on our time spent interrailing in Europe, and used a vintage world map with luggage tags for each table, which were named after places we visited.
Did you fall in love with your wedding dress?
I must have tried on every style of wedding dress before finding ‘The One’, none of which worked for me. I knew the style of dress I wanted but I couldn’t find one that fitted that description until I walked into Serenity. Every dress in there was beautiful, I think I would have been happy with any of them! My dress was the first in the shop that I tried on, and as soon as I did I knew it was it! I fell in love instantly.
Wedding dress designer and bridal boutique:
Mori Lee by Madeline Gardner, purchased from Serenity in Newton Abbot. It is made from Venice lace and has a bateau neckline with a V-shaped back, and a crystal and pearl removable tie sash. Jenny at Serenity was fantastic, so helpful and friendly and her shop is beautiful.
Tell us about your accessories: jewellery, shoes and anything else!
I wore lace covered two piece shoes with small diamante crystals from Rainbow Club and a simple wedding tiara by Richard Designs. I had pearl drop earrings from The Jewellery Workshop in Honiton and a Joma Jewellery bracelet, with a lotus flower signifying calm! My bouquet was made by a family friend from jewellery and buttons, some of which came from my Mum and both of my Grans. It also included a small clock face set to 12.30, the time we got married.
And what did the groom wear? Any recommendations for tailors?
The groom, six best men and our Dads all wore the Claverley grey three-piece lounge suits from Bakers of Bond Street, Yeovil. The tailors were absolutely faultless – the suits were measured perfectly and looked very smart!
Beautiful bridesmaids: what did your best girls wear?
The bridesmaid dresses were floor length, chiffon, sage green dresses by Venus from Catwalk 09, Exeter. They wore matching Joma Jewellery bridesmaid bracelets and crystal and pearl necklaces from Jon Richard.
Hair and make-up – did you DIY or hire a professional?
My friend and hairdresser Stef Hayes styled mine, all three bridesmaids and my Mum’s hair, and I had no less than five hair trials before the day! Charlotte from Changing Faces did all of our make-up, and both girls did an amazing job making us all look beautiful, and it was lovely to be pampered!
Describe your wedding flowers. Who arranged them for you? (florist details would be lovely please)
All of the wedding flowers were from Dillys Florist in Honiton, who were fantastic! There are beautiful, vibrant lavender bushes lining the aisle in the venue’s walled garden, therefore lavender was a big theme in the wedding flowers. The bridesmaid bouquets were made up of roses, lavender, gypsophila and other wild flowers, and for the centre pieces we bought several boxes of wild flowers and arranged them into jam jars.
General styling – did your venue need much decoration?
The venue was so beautiful it didn’t need a lot of decorating – we hired fairy lights from Party Lights for the main barn and scattered jam jars with flowers and candles all around the venue, decorated in hessian, lace and twine. We printed a selection of photos of us over the years Polaroid style, and hung these on some twine in a washing line effect. We also hired a wooden Kissing Booth and some garden games which were very popular!
Crafts and makes – tell us about any homemade elements of your wedding… did you enjoy them?
There were lots of homemade crafts, including an old step ladder my Mum shabby-chic’d which we decorated with flowers and wooden letters which we painted. We put together a basket of flip flops for the ladies to use when their feet ached, and for the favours we sourced small jam jars from a local hotel and filled them with jam and honey. Almost everything was bought from Ebay – it’s amazing how much you can buy on there! We decorated at least 100 jam jars, I think most people that came to our house were roped into helping with these at some point! I really enjoyed all the crafting except the cutlery pouches – with the amount of time these took me I would much rather have bought them online!
The wedding cake: what kind of cake did you choose and why?
A family friend made the wedding cake, and we went with a 3 tiered sponge cake (lemon, Victoria sponge and white chocolate), along with lots of cupcakes in a variety of flavours. It was decorated very simply with lavender and hessian bows, and we had personalised bride and groom wedding toppers from Ebay. Around the cake were framed photographs of our parents and grandparents cutting their wedding cakes for a personal touch.
Entertainment: any musical recommendations, surprises or treats?
There were several musical surprises! Firstly the best men wrote and performed a rap about us to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme tune as part of their speech, complete with backwards baseball caps! Then after the first dance they and Dan performed a dance routine to Get Lucky – unbeknown to me they had hired a choreographer and had been rehearsing in village halls! It was a complete surprise and I was so proud of them.
Our band were The Hijackers and I would definitely recommend them – all of their songs were exactly to our taste and they kept the dancefloor busy despite it being a lovely warm night outside!
On the day tips and advice:
Try to keep calm and enjoy yourself! Ensure that relevant people know the plan for the day so that you can just relax and enjoy the good times. Try to take a moment with your new husband/wife to soak up the day and appreciate all the people that are here to celebrate your marriage and are having a great time! Also keep yourself fed and hydrated, enjoy the food and drink that you’ve paid good money for!
If at the end of the day you are married to your best friend then it has been a success, everything else is just details.
What’s the best thing about being married?
Knowing that you are both committed to being with each other forever, and that you get to come home to your best friend every night.
Favourite supplier list for other brides and grooms:
Photographer – http://evolvephoto.co.uk/
Venue – http://www.uptonbarn.com/
Wedding breakfast caterers – http://www.pickleshack.co.uk/
Wedding dress – http://www.serenitydreams.co.uk/
Bridesmaid dresses – http://www.catwalk09.co.uk/
Groomsmen suits – http://www.bakersofbondstreet.com/
Furniture hire – http://www.southwesteventhire.co.uk/
Kissing Booth/Postbox – https://www.propfactory.co.uk/
Garden Games – www.funtasiaentertainment.co.uk
Lighting – http://www.partylights.co.uk/
Make-up – http://www.changingfaces.net/
Band (The Hijackers) – http://www.warble-entertainment.com/
Flowers – http://www.dillysflorist.co.uk/
Evening caterers (Crinhayes Farm) – crinhayesfarm1@btconnect.com
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