A Fairytale English Wedding in Kent

By Claire

Gemma and John were mar­ried ear­lier this year in Kent. They had a church cer­e­mony and with the help of Gemma’s mum, trans­formed a vil­lage hall into a fairy­tale wed­ding venue for a princess bride!

Think pink pom-poms, fairy lights, hand­made table dec­o­ra­tions, wish­ing trees… it’s gor­geous. No apolo­gies for this fab­u­lously pink, beau­ti­ful dream of an Eng­lish Wed­ding. The pho­tog­ra­phy is by lovely James Melia at funkyp­ixel; the wed­ding report is by the beau­ti­ful bride Gemma.

Gemma and John’s Eng­lish wed­ding in Kent









The bride and groom: Gemma and John Meades

Who pro­posed, and how? John pro­posed on a fam­ily hol­i­day in Menorca 2011, on stage in front of a room full of peo­ple! He got down on one knee and pulled out a beau­ti­ful ring and of course I said yes!

Eng­lish wed­ding venue: Benen­den Vil­lage Kent

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: James Hef­fer­nan of FunkyP­ixel Pho­tog­ra­phy http://www.funkypixel.co.uk/

What did you wear?

The men wore gray tails, with a light pink waist­coat and pink cra­vat and handkerchief.

I wore an ivory corset cov­ered in Swarovski crys­tals with a large six hoop under­skirt to give the dress lots of vol­ume, the dress also had Swarovski crys­tals scat­tered down it. Stick­ing with the pink theme, I even had hot pink shoes.

Which wed­ding read­ings did you choose? … 1 Corinthi­ans 13.























The wed­ding reception:

What were your highlights?

The day before my fam­ily and friends help­ing to make an hon­estly dingy hall in to a beau­ti­ful pink princess wonderland!

The speeches were another high­light for me as my now hus­band John is very much a man’s man and his speech was so heart­felt and very mean­ing­ful. That meant a lot!

His best man Doie also did a crack­ing job and was very funny! My dad was so great as well he even had very embar­rass­ing pho­tos of myself and John as chil­dren! I myself am not one to stay quiet and I had even pre­pared my own speech!

Wed­ding venue styling and details:

My princess theme all came to life by my mom who had done a lot of hard work cre­at­ing my wish­ing tree and 100’s of pink pom poms! She had even made her own Elder­flower cor­dial for each table from her farm in Benenden!

Music and enter­tain­ment: We had a fam­ily friend who is a magi­cian, who worked his magic on our guests while they were at their tables. Thank you Raj!

Mem­o­rable moments:  The trip to the church in the horse and car­riage with my Mum and Dad, we were rem­i­nisc­ing on child­hood mem­o­ries and how we had got to this point in my life. The other was see­ing our two beau­ti­ful chil­dren as our brides­maid they looked so cute in there also pink princess dresses! Obvi­ously we’ll always remem­ber the moment we took our vows and became hus­band and wife, but I don’t want you to bore you with that…

Wed­ding day advice: I know every­body says it, but it really does fly by so enjoy every minute.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

FunkyP­ixel Pho­tog­ra­phy www.funkypixel.co.uk

Every­thing else was pretty much done our­selves!