A Wedding with Waves — St Donat’s Castle, Wales

Rachel’s hair is divine — with twists of the pret­ti­est wild­flow­ers in a beau­ti­ful braid. The love in Eugene’s eyes is there for all to see. This is an inspir­ing and won­der­ful wed­ding in every way imag­in­able. Watch out for the ice cream and the bub­bles too! Thank you to Rachel and Eugene for writ­ing a lit­tle wed­ding report, and to wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Simon Bif­fen for shar­ing their day with us all at Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog. Enjoy today’s lit­tle sprin­kling of beauty. Claire xxx

Rachel and Eugene’s wed­ding with waves — St Donat’s Castle

“We organ­ised the wed­ding from Aus­tralia and wanted a venue which was sim­ple to organ­ise and min­i­mal fuss, but char­ac­ter­ful and close to home and fam­ily in Wales, to per­fectly blend with our inter­ests and tastes.

We both love the out­doors and the sea, so the strik­ing views of the Bris­tol Chan­nel and Devon­shire hills across the water with the dra­matic Welsh cliffs com­pleted this element.

The roman­tic and fairy­tale vision was set in the 13th Cen­tury St Donat’s Cas­tle in Wales, with Renais­sance, tiered gar­dens, and a short walk down to the beach. The Cas­tle Hall was dec­o­rated with fresh wild flow­ers picked straight from the gar­den, high rus­tic beams, nat­ural wooden floor­ing and tall enchant­ing windows.

The flow­ers were inspired from the Groom’s grandmother’s wed­ding bou­quet, a tear drop flow­ing shape with nat­ural sub­tle flow­ers for the brides­maids. The duck egg silk blue brides­maids dresses were detailed with a del­i­cate side panel of beads; and a Mum’s home­made ivory tiered flower girl dress with match­ing bas­ket, which all com­ple­mented the hand sewn beads embed­ded into the lace on the bride’s dress with an ele­gant, dreamy long train.

The bride acces­sorized with a bohemian style braid entwined with flow­ers in her hair, hand­made South African fresh­wa­ter pearls made by her Mother and car­ried her Moth­ers ‘some­thing bor­rowed’ own wed­ding Parasol.

The relaxed feel was com­pleted with a Mediter­ranean style hot carvery buf­fet, with local Welsh beef carvery leg, tra­di­tional Span­ish paella, hand carved honey roast gam­mon with a mus­tard glaze and caramelized apple and a 1960’s ice-cream tricycle.

The day was every­thing we could have wished for, a wed­ding with waves… in a cas­tle by the sea with all our fam­ily and friends. Not to for­get the young, funky Brazil­ian band who rocked the party.“

St Donat’s Cas­tle wed­ding: rec­om­mended suppliers

• Venue: St Donat’s Cas­tle, Atlantic Col­lege, Llantwitt Major, Vale of Glam­or­gan. S. Wales
• Cater­ing: Town and Coun­try Hotels Out­side Cater­ing– http://www.townandcountrycatering.co.uk
• Bou­quets: Bloomin Styl­ish, Pen­coed, South Wales http://www.bloominstylish.co.uk
• Pho­tog­ra­pher: Simon Bif­fen Photography
• Grooms­men Suits Hire: Moss Bross, Brid­gend, McArthur Glenn Designer Out­lets, South Wales
• Brides­maid Dresses: Josephine Beaded Dress, Coast
• Shoes: Rain­bow www.lightinabox.com
• Jew­ellery, Cake & Flower girl’s dress: Mother of the Bride
• Hair and Makeup: Friends
• Music: Soul Fiesta www.soulfiestalive.co.uk