I’m going all out with the fantastic British weddings this week…and loving it I might add. Jules & Leighton’s self confessed “oh-so-English-and-slightly-Rock-and-Roll wedding.” Living in Kenilworth, Warwickshire they wanted to keep the day locally sourced and so enlisted the help and expertise of some of their favourite local vendors.
Jules wore a Pronovias Huella dress and hand made accessories from super talented Etsy sellers Lili Swan and Lulu Splendor. The flowers were supplied by Cindy at Pure Botanics who created vintage perfection with her soft bouquets of ranunculus, roses and freesia that looked liked they could have been picked from an English garden, hand tied and finished off with gorgeous fat ribbons. For the centrepieces Jules scoured charity and thrift stores for mis-matched vintage glassware. The bunting was hired by Hired from Beautiful Bunting. The wonderfully mis-matched vintage china, cake stands and glass trifle bowls all hired from Vintage Teas & RSVPs.
“We got married at Kenilworth Castle.” Jules wrote, “No, it’s not completely a ruin! Luckily the Gatehouse is still standing and it’s stunning and as wedding venues go, it’s possibly the best kept secret in Warwickshire. It might sound quite grand, getting married in a castle, but actually at Kenilworth it’s a really cosy affair. We just had 40 guests and it meant we could keep things really relaxed and informal. We had the speeches there while everyone stood around with glasses of champers, rather than doing them the traditional way during the meal.”
They held their reception at Parochial Hall, 5 minutes walk away. “It’s a really old church hall with a scrubbed wooden floor and a stage and a hatch into the kitchen.” Jules told me “It’s the sort of place that brings back memories of childhood for everyone who was ever in the Brownies or the Scouts. We loved it as soon as we saw it and it became our whole inspiration for what turned out to be our dream reception – an old fashioned family style get together. It was all very DIY – we had lots of help from friends and family who were fabulously keen to get involved and set about arranging tables and chairs and shinning up ladders. Our caterers Farmers Fayre really got into the spirit of things. Rather than have a formal style dinner we had joints of lamb brought to the tables and one person per table was then nominated carver – complete with chef’s hat and apron. Even Leighton was up out of his seat handing round the vegetables – it felt like Sunday lunch with the family. As the evening guests started to arrive we had a cocktail hour complete with big band classics playing and Farmers Fayre bar staff serving up Cosmopolitans and Mojito’s.”
Thanks to Jules & Leighton for sharing their “little-but-vintage-little-bit-Rock- n-Roll’ darling British wedding today
