A Wedding at Home and a Pony Called Peanuts

So how could I resist sharing this lovely wedding full of DIY touches and great ideas with you. It's everything you'd imagine for a countryside wedding and bundles more: there's bunting by the mile, and as an extra treat we have a vintage tractor and of course the adorable Peanuts the pony!

The wedding photography is by Martyn Norsworthy, who captures all those details and the beautiful bride with her handsome groom so well.

Holly & Dan's countryside wedding

"I stayed at my parents’ house the night before the wedding and awoke at 5am full of excitement-the kind you get on Christmas day when you are a child! The weather looked ok so I got up and finished putting some finishing touches to the garden and marquee-within half an hour it was raining so had go and collect everything in again!

My mother, brides­maids and I went off to have our hair done at Floc Con­tem­po­rary Hair in Kings­bridge where we met our fan­tas­tic pho­tog­ra­pher Mar­tyn. Whilst hav­ing my hair done, our florist popped in with a beau­ti­ful bou­quet of flow­ers from Dan.

Once we had had our hair done we went back home where my father had cooked scram­bled eggs and smoked salmon for all the girls which we fol­lowed with cham­pagne. Hav­ing eaten it was time to start get­ting ready-it was lovely hav­ing all the girls in the same room doing our make up, gig­gling with excitement.

At 1.30pm it was time for my brides­maids and mother to head off to the church in my Moth­ers blue VW Beetle-thankfully it had bright­ened up by then so they could have the roof down!

My gor­geous wed­ding dress was “Goldie” by Sot­tero and Midg­ley. It had a beau­ti­ful lace train with lit­tle sequins that caught the light and a bow under the bust with a sparkly brooch embellishment.

My Shoes were a com­plete bar­gain for £25 from Perdita’s wed­ding shoes — a web­site I came across in my searches! My ear­rings were from a set again from the inter­net but I can not remem­ber which site. I had orig­i­nally bought a sparkly/pearl hair slide for my hair but at the last minute changed my plans and bought the flower clip from Accessorize.

My mother gave me a white gold and sap­phire ring as a wed­ding day present on the morn­ing of the wedding-it is beautiful.

The it was my turn. I remem­ber get­ting to the church and there were loads of peo­ple wait­ing eagerly out­side to see me. We posed for some pho­tos and made our way inside the church. Walk­ing into the church was amazing-seeing so many peo­ple hap­pily gath­ered to wit­ness us say­ing our vows was incred­i­ble. The night before, at the rehearsal, I got quite emo­tional and was wor­ried I would do the same on the actual day but I held it together and I am sure it was because it was in front of some many fam­ily and friends.

After the church cer­e­mony we headed back to my par­ents’ house for our mar­quee recep­tion, on a vin­tage Massey Fer­gu­son trac­tor dri­ven by a local farm­ers son, who had dec­o­rated it with white ribbon.

Hav­ing 5 min­utes alone with Dan on the back of the trac­tor was lovely as we barely spent any time together after this moment!!

We got back to the house where we were greeted with cham­pagne, cloudy lemon­ade and mini scones but also a vin­tage Ice Cream bike sup­plied by Icy­cle Tri­cy­cle. Our guests loved this idea-it was great to see adults enjoy­ing the ice cream like excited children!

Dan wore a hired suit from Robert Ellis Menswear in Kings­bridge. Because Dan wears a black suit most days for work, we decided on a navy blue suit with a cream waist­coat and Sap­phire blue cra­vat. As a wed­ding gift to Dan, I got him a lovely watch to wear on the wed­ding day and he chose some cuf­flinks with his favorite hobby-gardening!!

Dan and I headed off to the woods with my Shet­land Pony, Peanuts for some pic­tures with Mar­tyn, which have turned out fabulously.

For our wed­ding break­fast we choose a fam­ily style pic­nic at the tables in the mar­quee. The Din­ner Ser­vice of Kings­bridge pro­vided the excel­lent food which ranged from a selec­tion of cold meats, sal­ads, to warm breads and roasted veg­eta­bles. For pud­ding each table had a big bowl of Eton Mess, a jug of choco­late sauce, a big bowl of ice cream and pour­ing cream which every­one just helped them­selves to.

After din­ner it was time to min­gle with our 200 extra guests who where arriv­ing and ready to dance the night away with my broth­ers fan­tas­tic band, “Blue Orchid”.

We served a huge cheese plat­ter and a hog roast to our evening guests and rounded the night off at 1am when Dan and I made our way to Buck­land Tout Saints Hotel for our first night as a mar­ried couple.

The whole day was perfect-each lit­tle part of the day stands out in our minds for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. There was noth­ing that we would change or do dif­fer­ently apart from to do it all again every weekend!

We both work in the wed­ding indus­try and have seen so many times when cou­ples leave things to the last minute and end up being really stressed. So our one piece of advice would be to have most things sorted the week before the wed­ding then you can really enjoy that week long build up and have a stress free night’s sleep the night before.

Holly and Dan’s rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers

• Mar­tyn Nor­swor­thy pho­tog­ra­phy www.norsworthyweddings.com
• The Din­ner Ser­vice, Kings­bridge www.thedinnerservice.com
• Lind­say Johns — Florist via www.thurlestone.co.uk/weddings/wedding_services.htm
• Blue Orchid — Band www.blueorchidmusic.co.uk
• Icy­cle Tri­cy­cle — Vin­tage ice cream bike www.icicletricycle.co.uk
• Robert Ellis Menswear — Kings­bridge http://devon-weddings.co.uk/suppliers/robert-ellis.html

More from Holly and Dan on the Nor­swor­thy Pho­tog­ra­phy blog: their pre-wedding shoot with Mar­tyn, and some wed­ding thumb­nail images — love those flow­ers! The Coun­try Wed­ding of Dan & Holly