Kate & Doug’s backyard wedding took place in Kent, in June. Kate designed her own dress, hand-crafted the decor and played in a band with her husband at the reception! She told me all about their magical day. “We have been together for 10 years so we really wanted to have a proper big wedding to cement our relationship and have a blast with our friends and family. I really wanted to get married in the garden of England, Kent, where I grew up and have a proper English country wedding. So we started looking at venues and found Ratsbury Barn, a beautiful 17th century Kentish barn in Tenterden for the ceremony. Then, my Mother’s boyfriend who lives down the road very kindly offered to let us use his amazing place for the reception! We got a marquee and extended his pool house area, it was perfect.”
“I had our good friend Adam who works as a designer at Penguin books help me design a fun tea towel wedding invitation with a matching rsvp postcard”, she continued. “I really enjoyed designing it with him and we were so happy with the result, we love the fact our guests got to have a little pre wedding favor to get them in the mood for the big day! We went with a red white and blue colour scheme to tie in with the Queen’s Jubilee which was the weekend before our wedding.”
The bride designed her stunning dress herself (I can’t stop looking at it! Isn’t it gorgeous?) She loves the full skirted 50s style but wanted something different to the usual 50s style wedding dresses that are so popular these days. “I love the shorter at the front but longer at the back thing, I think it suits my 5 foot 2 frame better than a full shirt all the way around. I went to Jane Bourvis who makes antique-inspired wedding dresses near where I live. She was really helpful and made the underskirts and also introduced me to Finiks Dressmakers in White City who helped me with the rest. They were absolutely amazing and made my rough sketches a reality. They completely understood the brief and the dress turned out better than I could ever have imagined. It was an amazing process where I learnt so much, I even went and bought all the fabric myself cheaply from Goldhawk Rd.”
“I went for a really long soft tulle veil as I thought I might as well really go for it as it’s my only opportunity to wear one!” she added. “I loved the way it looked over the dress. My sparkly shoes were Kurt Geiger. I wasn’t sure at first if they would work with the dress but I always go with the ‘if you put things together that you love, it will always work’ theory.”
“I guess our theme was eclectic”, she explained when I asked about their overall wedding theme. “Doug wanted a really slim cut suit and he found October House tailors on Rock n Roll Bride! He had his suit made there and it was perfect, with polka dot lining to match the wedding!”
“I wanted to make something more of the marquee as I find plain wedding marquees a bit too big and bare. I love to make things so I covered 14 paper lanterns in paper flowers and stuck them in using those clever clip thingys that fasten at the back, very easy but rather time consuming! Once the lights went on inside it was all totally worth it! They looked amazing! I also made all the napkins using some very cheap gingham fabric and I used some of the paper flowers to make napkin rings to tie it all in. My amazing sister Lottie made the giant bunting which I loved and I ordered a load of very affordable bunting from eBay. I made the table seating chart, the placename cards and the ceremony flower wreaths. I loved making all the decor and tying it all in together, best fun ever.”
“The Music was mega important to us so we had our friend Hugo fly over from Barcelona and play keys for the ceremony and reception”, Kate concluded, “Doug is a musician and we decided to save money and for fun to put together a little ‘one night only’ fun wedding band with our best buddies, and semi-ironically called ourselves ‘Sil vous play’. We played a short set of classics from Honkey Tonk Woman to Sweet Home Alabama! It was great fun and Doug really enjoyed having the opportunity to play at his wedding to all his family who live far away, it was a wicked party! We had another friend Craig DJ some great tunes until 5am. It was a fantastic night of silly dancing and running around with sparklers. At about 2am Sassy, our photographer, had everyone running around Doug and I with sparklers and it felt like we were in the wicker man! It was epic! The best thing was having everyone together and smiling, the only thing we didn’t like was when it ended!”
So awesome. Big love and thanks to Kate & Doug and of course their photographer Sassy of Assassynation for sharing!
