Lily and Owen, who live in the US, came back home to the UK for their August wedding. They day was held in the groom’s parent’s farm. The bride wore an upcycled vintage dress and their budget was £8500.
“Our wedding has always centred around friendship”, said Lily. “We knew that we would sacrifice detailed luxury over guest numbers as living on two continents for equal parts of our lives means that we’ve collected quite the community of amazing people along the way. Our friends are like family and our family are like friends. We wanted a celebration that would reflect our love and appreciation for all those people and one that would also reflect a little bit of all of them in one creative way or another.”
“We had a bit of a haphazard theme which was loosely arty bohemian at best but a quintessential explosion of random creativity most of the time! I guess if I had to describe the ethos of the day and the two days that flanked it either side – I would say we had a Co-Op Wedding. By that I mean that it was a massive group effort and came together on the creative and inspirational backs of all our nearest and dearest. Without them it wouldn’t have been and everything about it was covered in their fingerprints.”
The ceremony was particularly special. “The most significant thing for me was to have my father walk me down the aisle”, the bride continued. “He was diagnosed with a rare but terminal disease called Scleraderma when I was 12 years old. They told him then that he’d likely have 2-3 years. I never imagined I’d be able to walk with him down the aisle on this day. I burst into tears as soon as I saw him and had to stop and restart our intro music as I didn’t want to cry my way down aisle, that and the fact that with tears in my eyes I couldn’t get my bloody shoes on!! I can’t tell you what it meant to have him by my side and just the thought of it makes the waterworks kick in all over again.”
“Another funny thing which will always make us chuckle was our (my) desire to have mason jars for our cocktails. We’ve had every friend who’s been to visit in the last two years return home with suitcases full of the bloody things. That’s 120 glass jars that have flown across the Atlantic to be put to use for a total of 60 minutes. Madness. Lovely though!”
“We did SO MANY DIY things with lots of help from our families. It included the home-cooked food made by my mum and the bunting made by my aunt. We also made the giant LOVEFEST letters, hung the lighting and made the confetti bags, welcome packs and stationery. The ceremony backdrop, all the signs and the flags on the paper straws were put together by us. Owen’s dad even made the tables from scaffolding plants. The bar was made of palettes and my mum grew and arranged all the flowers!”
“My advice to other couples would be to not sweat the small stuff. We certainly didn’t. If you CAN, give yourself way more time than you think you need for your DIY things to. If you can’t then let some of them go! You’re guests are there to see you, not the 117 hand stamped favours that they’ll throw away!”
