DIY Wedding at Gate Street Barn — Laura and Jamie

So this sec­ond fea­ture of Laura and Jamie’s DIY wed­ding starts where we left off yes­ter­day morn­ing, with Jamie wait­ing as Laura walks down the aisle — I love the antic­i­pa­tion of this part of the day, and the romance as eyes meet… and today’s blog fea­ture only gets bet­ter and bet­ter as we scroll through all the beau­ti­ful wed­ding pictures.

You’ll love the rus­tic DIY table cen­tre­pieces, the children’s wed­ding favours (so cute!), the charm of Gate Street Barn wed­ding venue. I want you to smile at the enchant­ment of the sparkling can­de­labras, be inspired by the fab­ric printed table plan which Laura made, and resolve to make your own news­pa­per con­fetti cones… but most of all — just feel the love.

“Romeo and Juliet” was Laura and Jamie’s first dance song. It fits like a glove — the love in their eyes should go down in his­tory — a beau­ti­ful cou­ple, and a favorite wed­ding for Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog.

Love…

A beau­ti­ful, DIY, Gate Street Barn wedding

All images by the won­der­ful Sam Clay­ton Pho­tog­ra­phy

Wed­ding venue: Gate Street Barn

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Sam Clay­ton (she was amaz­ing, I love my pictures)

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Old Eng­lish shabby chic. I wanted the day to be cre­ative and per­sonal to Jamie and I.

The wed­ding cer­e­mony: Civil Ceremony

Which read­ings did you choose? I have your heart — E.H Cum­mings

What were your wed­ding highlights?

* The first dance, which was to Romeo and Juliet by Dire straits. They were my dad’s favorite band, and he sadly died before he could see me get mar­ried. It made me feel like he was a part of our day.

* Hav­ing all our friends and fam­ily in the same place hav­ing fun and being happy.

* My shoes, as they were exactly how I imag­ined them in my head. It rarely hap­pens in design that some­thing turns out like that!

Laura wore a wed­ding dress by Span­ish designer Jesus Peiro. I bought it before I became preg­nant, so there were a few addi­tions to it on the way!! Shay Har­ris who I bought my dress from was so patient and kind, and was a bril­liant seam­stress to boot.

Jamie wore a bespoke suit from a suit that fits, but had a really bad expe­ri­ence with them, so wouldn’t rec­om­mend them!

Wed­ding venue styling and details:

As Gate Street Barn is so pretty as it is, it didn’t really need much dress­ing. It is a blank can­vas though, so lends itself to any theme.

I made quite a lot of the dec­o­ra­tions myself, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from mag­a­zines, wed­ding blogs and Etsy.

I also love antique shops and car boot sales, so found lots of bits and pieces there. My cousin restores old fur­ni­ture for a liv­ing, and he painted up an old fire screen for me to use as my table plan.

Laura’s DIY fab­ric wed­ding stationery

I found some amaz­ing paper on the inter­net which lets you print on to fab­ric which I made our invites with, and lots of the other parts of the dec­o­ra­tion. I had 2 years to make all my cre­ative bits, and I enjoyed every moment of it! I was gut­ted that I no longer had a ‘project’ when our wed­ding day had passed.

I wanted it to be per­sonal and cre­ative with­out being OTT. Katie the florist is also a good friend of mine, so she just let me have a free rein and let me act out all my ideas, even if it was a pain in the bum for her! I have since fallen in love with flow­ers, and am start­ing a career in floristry as Katie’s assis­tant when Kitty is a bit older.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

We hired a band called Elec­tric May­hem, and we made playlists of all our fav songs.

We also hired a car­i­ca­tur­ist to draw our fam­ily and friends while we were hav­ing our pic­tures taken. He was so good, and every­one had one to take home with them.

I made party bags for the kids to keep them amused through­out the day, which I think the par­ents were glad of!

The speeches were bril­liant. A really good mix of funny and emo­tional. Jamie’s Span­ish fam­ily were over from Seville and they can’t speak any Eng­lish so his speech was also in Span­ish. He doesn’t see them very often so it was very emo­tional for him. My mom and Jamie’s best man David were also amaz­ing.

Wed­ding day advice:

Have a drink, relax and just enjoy the day. As I was 5 months preg­nant when we got mar­ried and couldn’t drink, I noticed lit­tle things which I would have changed about the day and obsessed about them! Con­trol freak me wanted every­thing to be just pre­fect, but it’s impos­si­ble to con­trol every lit­tle part of the day. No one else would have noticed these lit­tle bits, it was just me! I wish I had been a bit more chilled!

The day went by so fast, all I can advise is to have fun and don’t take it all too seriously.

Also don’t get mar­ried so early. Our ser­vice was at 12 noon, and although we had a really lovely long wed­ding day, get­ting every­one ready and at the venue for that time was an expe­ri­ence!