A Detail-filled DIY Country Wedding from Leicestershire

All of the images are by Sam John­son Pho­tog­ra­phy (based in Leices­ter). I hope you find lots of inspi­ra­tion here and I know you’ll enjoy see­ing such a fab DIY coun­try wed­ding on the blog today! Share your com­ments if you have a sec­ond at the end — I’d love to hear from you and I know Mark and Anisha will too! Enjoy. Claire xxx

A beau­ti­ful DIY coun­try wed­ding: Anisha and Mark

Anisha and Mark’s wed­ding report

The wed­ding venue: Vic­to­ria Farm, Nr Lut­ter­worth
Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Sam John­son Pho­tog­ra­phy
How would you describe your wed­ding style? DIY Coun­try Wedding

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony

We chose to have a human­ist cer­e­mony to make the day more per­sonal and sen­ti­men­tal. The mother of the groom read an excerpt from “An Apache Wed­ding Bless­ing” as part of the ceremony.

Tell us a lit­tle about your wed­ding venue styling and details:

We chose Vic­to­ria Farm’s tra­di­tional pole mar­quee as it was a blank can­vas for all of our DIY ideas, and it was sur­rounded by breath­tak­ing views.

We hung tis­sue paper pom poms from the ceil­ing and around the edges of the mar­quee, and draped rib­bons from the mar­quee poles.

For cen­tre­pieces, we filled vin­tage bird­cages with flow­ers and match­ing bowls with float­ing candles.

We made our own favours, which were sweetie jars with lace rib­bon and a vin­tage cameo – we also tied a voucher for the ice cream van around the jars! We also cre­ated a dessert table filled with cakes and treats made by friends and family.

Wed­ding invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery

All sta­tionery includ­ing save the dates, invi­ta­tions, the table plan, and ice cream vouch­ers were made by myself! I also cre­ated an infor­ma­tional web­site, which we shared on the invites.

Wed­ding music and entertainment

Our friend Gareth Barkley-Smith had per­formed an acoustic set, which included our first dance song. He was then fol­lowed by DJ Alex Kerr (pro­vided by Hen­der­son Man­age­ment in Leices­ter) who kept the party going all night.

The bride wore: A sim­ple Ben­jamin Roberts dress in crisp taffeta with a sweet­heart neck­line and a beaded belt around the waist. The shoes were satin wedges by Bad­g­ley Mis­chka in a dusky pink color (to match the brides­maids) with a flo­ral embell­ish­ment. I acces­sorised with a sin­gle pearl neck­lace, a pearl-strung bracelet given to me by the groom, and an Ivory & Co side tiara.

The groom wore: A black three piece suit with a white shirt and a skinny black tie all from Next. He wore Jeff Banks shoes.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments

1. Get­ting ice cream from the ice cream van.
2. Hav­ing alone time with the groom when we were tak­ing pho­tos in the venue’s gar­den – fol­lowed by tak­ing silly pho­tos in the photobooth.
3. Hav­ing my father, who lives in Amer­ica, walk me down the aisle.
4. Danc­ing the night away with all of our favorite people!

Wed­ding day advice

Be sure to have help from plenty of peo­ple so you can enjoy your big day, rather than run­ning around try­ing to sort every­thing out yourself.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Vic­to­ria Farm Venue (Lut­ter­worth, 01455 208270)
• Sam John­son Pho­tog­ra­phy (Leices­ter, 07904 162 611)
• DJ Alex Kerr (Hen­der­son Man­age­ment, Leices­ter, 0116 242 9900)
• CK Flow­ers (Leices­ter, 0116 270 1456)
• Pic­ture­blast Pho­to­booths (Coven­try, 02476 670 267)