Bubbles and Bunting at Barrington Hall, Cambridge Wedding

From the illus­trated sta­tionery to the lovely lit­tle bub­bles, through to the adorable lit­tle boy in a suit and then the mag­i­cal first dance, the details of Linh and Tom’s wed­ding day are caught so beau­ti­fully by Peter­bor­ough wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Georgi Mabee.

Linh and Tom have writ­ten a great wed­ding report to share with you, so I’ll leave you to enjoy their story along with Georgi’s lovely pic­tures. This is fab­u­lous — I hope you love it too.

Linh and Tom’s Cam­bridge wedding

Who pro­posed, and how?

Tom pro­posed at Gidleigh Park, a Tudor style coun­try house hotel in Devon, sit­u­ated on the banks of the North Teign River, sur­rounded by Dart­moor National Park. It was sup­posed to be a “birth­day” sur­prise week­end away.

Linh should have known some­thing was up when they trav­elled down to Exeter on the train in First and got picked up from the sta­tion in a car pro­vided by the venue. After arriv­ing, Tom, ner­vous that one of the staff at the hotel might acci­den­tally give the game away, hur­riedly ush­ered Linh into the grounds “let’s go for a walk while they are prepar­ing our room”.

So they dropped their bags and went for a walk down to the stream that passes through the beau­ti­ful, forested grounds. It was all very pic­turesque and roman­tic. Then, to Linh’s com­plete sur­prise and amaze­ment, Tom got down on one knee took out the ring (a halo micropave dia­mond ring he chose him­self). Linh man­age to gasp out a “yes” but was oth­er­wise speech­less (unusual for her), so sub­sti­tuted by giv­ing him a great big hug instead. Tom bought the ring from Blue Nile — bet­ter value for money for the same qual­ity of stones / metal.

They cel­e­brated with a cham­pagne pic­nic, a walk on Dart­moor, and a divine din­ner at the double-Michelin starred Hotel restau­rant http://www.gidleigh.com/restaurant

Wed­ding venue styling and details:

Teal was cho­sen as the main color theme. Linh’s friend Nadine hand-made the the bunting (all 150m of it!), in beau­ti­ful bold colours with the teal theme run­ning though it. The effort (includ­ing one sewing all-nighter lead­ing up to the wed­ding) was well worth it as it they looked gor­geous in the mar­quee on the day. Nadine also co-ordinated with Linh’s chief-bridesmaid and cake-maker Ming, to repeat the same pat­terns on the teeny tiny bunting dec­o­rat­ing the cake.

As two of the brides­maids had recently given birth, fit­tings and mea­sure­ments which were bound to change over the months lead­ing up to the wed­ding would have proven tricky, so she opted for “infin­ity” dress styles in stretchy heavy jer­sey fab­ric. This also meant that the brides­maids could per­son­al­ize their dresses and wear them in what­ever style they felt most com­fort­able in.

The tables were named after Eng­lish coun­try houses, reflect­ing Tom’s love of his­tory and their shared love of his­tor­i­cal build­ings. Inci­den­tally, Tom’s fam­ily gifted the cou­ple with National Trust life­time mem­ber­ships, which they were delighted to receive.

Wed­ding venue: Bar­ring­ton Hall, Cam­bridgeshire

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Georgi Mabee

How would you describe your wed­ding style? Easy-going, prac­ti­cal, fun but traditional …

The wed­ding ceremony:

Reli­gious or civil? Religious

Which read­ings did you choose? Song of Solomon 2: 10–13, and ‘The Pas­sion­ate Shep­herd to his Love’ by Kit Mar­lowe.

Wed­ding day highlights

• Say­ing our vows, the speeches, the first dance.
• Bub­bles being blown at us when we were leav­ing the church.
• Being sur­rounded by fam­ily and friends, many of whom trav­elled to be there from all around the world. Tom’s fam­ily live in Cam­bridge, most of my fam­ily live in Perth, West­ern Aus­tralia, and came over for the wed­ding, as did a bunch of my friends.
• Read­ing through our guest scrap book (com­plete with polaroid pho­tos, stick­ers, etc.) when it all finished.
• Being able to walk straight across the road from the Church to the Hall.

Tom wore a morn­ing suit with neck­tie and but­ton­hole. Hav­ing done the rounds at bou­tiques and sam­ple sales, Linh in the end opted to go second-hand. She wore an ivory v-neck silk dress, with lace and dia­mante detail­ing on the back, by Augusta Jones, which she found on sellmyweddingdress.co.uk, which was almost a per­fect fit, made per­fect with a bit of alter­ation, and for less than half the price of a a brand new dress.

Mem­o­rable moments:

Watch­ing the kids play on the bouncy cas­tle (and hav­ing a go our­selves). Tom’s sec­ond cousin Sam, push­ing over the giant Jenga just as the adults reached the denoue­ment! Our first dance (swing dance to Paolo Nutini, Pen­cil Full of Lead) was a high­light, and slow dance later on to The Wed­ding Song, by Angus & Julia Stone. The gor­geous sky at sun­set (big thanks to Georgi for point­ing it out and tak­ing us out for some sun­set pic­tures).

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

We spent weeks hav­ing fun decid­ing (and at times, heat­edly debat­ing) on the playlist of the DJ, a com­bi­na­tion of mod­ern, cheesy and cur­rent pop favourites. There was also a slideshow of our pho­tos from birth to present day in one of the main rooms in the hall itself. We wanted to empha­sise the fun, relaxed and child-friendly envi­ron­ment so ordered in a bouncy cas­tle (a big hit with both the chil­dren and adults), giant gar­den games, and a kids’ creche dur­ing the three hours of din­ner and speeches, so the par­ents could also relax and enjoy them­selves.

Wed­ding day advice:

Keep a sense of humor. Stuff will go wrong, but you’ll be sur­rounded by fiercely loyal friends and fam­ily who will swoop in to put it right. It will all make for a great story one day. Be prac­ti­cal and try not to get swept away by all the press and media — after your wed­ding, you’ll still have bills and mort­gages to deal with. Also, remem­ber that it’s not just your day — it’s everyone’s day; you’ll end up enjoy­ing it more that way.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Georgi Mabee (pho­tog­ra­phy) http://www.georgimabee.com/
• Bar­ring­ton Hall (venue) http://www.barringtonhall.co.uk/
• Cam­bridge Wine Mer­chants http://www.cambridgewine.com/
• Gidleigh Park for pro­pos­als and incred­i­ble food! http://www.gidleigh.com/

A spe­cial thanks to Georgi for tak­ing such beau­ti­ful pic­tures. We loved her nat­ural style, and lots of peo­ple com­mented admir­ingly about how unob­tru­sive she was and how you barely noticed she was there.

And finally, whilst not an offi­cial “sup­plier” we would give a spe­cial men­tion to Joy Richard­son, as wed­ding helper extra­or­di­naire, in help­ing to sort out the bits and pieces that Linh and Tom (both liv­ing in Lon­don and work­ing full time jobs until just before the wed­ding) didn’t have time to do, not to men­tion sewing in the 8 bus­tles into the dress to ensure that Linh wouldn’t trip and fall dur­ing the first dance.