Here Comes the Sun! An English Country Garden Wedding

Morn­ing every­one! I hope some of you are enjoy­ing a ray or two through your win­dows this morn­ing… I always remem­ber my teach­ers say­ing March “came in like a lion, out like a lamb” — so maybe it’ll be brighter in a week or two. But if you haven’t got sun­shine out­side this morn­ing, scroll down: the lovely Olivia and Matt are shar­ing theirs!

Words are writ­ten by Olivia (as won­der­ful a word­smith as she was a beau­ti­ful bride!) and the wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy is by Pippa Macken­zie.

Olivia and Matt’s Eng­lish coun­try gar­den wed­ding (part one)

We met at a party held by a mutual friend. Nei­ther of us really wanted to go and so we would say that it was fate that brought us together. At the party Olivia kept push­ing Matt off of chairs & tying his shoelaces together. Matt was smit­ten and stayed at the party well past his last train home.

Matt went off to uni­ver­sity a few months after meet­ing Olivia which only made the rela­tion­ship stronger, as we were con­stantly on the phone and plan­ning our vis­its to each other every fortnight.

Matt took Olivia to New York for her birth­day and our seven year anniver­sary with the promise of mak­ing it extra spe­cial. On the last day of the trip Matt pro­posed to Olivia on the top of the Empire State build­ing – it was one of the hap­pi­est moments of our lives (before the wed­ding). Matt pro­posed with­out a ring and so we chose my beau­ti­ful ring together the day after we got back to England.

Four­teen months of plan­ning later, we held the wed­ding.

Wed­ding dress:

My dress was by True Bride, who are a Sus­sex designer. The dress was brought from the Bridal Bou­tique in Burgess Hill which was run by the lovely Sally.

Acces­sories:

My shoes were from Kurt Geiger and were beau­ti­ful. My jew­ellery was very sim­ple, I had small pearl bracelets and wore a bor­rowed neck­lace and ear­rings.

I also loved get­ting ready at home with my fam­ily and Amie. My makeup artist Sarah not only made me look beau­ti­ful but kept me so calm. Sarah’s mom also had a wed­ding shop so she was there to help me get into my dress.




The cer­e­mony was held at the beau­ti­ful St Peter’s Church, Twine­ham, which was in the vil­lage where Olivia grew up. The church is only a few min­utes’ walk from Olivia’s par­ents’ home, so they kindly agreed to hold the recep­tion in a mar­quee in their gar­den as Olivia had her heart set on hav­ing the recep­tion there.

The wed­ding was held at 2PM on Sat­ur­day 9th July. Matt’s father is an ama­teur organ­ist and so we were hon­oured to have him accept our request to play for our wed­ding. Olivia walked down the aisle to Charpentier’s ‘Te Deum’. The hymns were ‘All Things Bright and Beau­ti­ful’, ‘Lord of the Dance’ and ‘Be Thou my Vision’. We also hired six cho­ris­ters — also acquain­tances of Matt’s father – to sing dur­ing the hymns and the sign­ing of the reg­is­ter where they per­formed an incred­i­ble ren­di­tion of Gershwin’s ‘Sum­mer­time’ where every­body was stunned and amazed at how great it was. The read­ings were read out by Olivia’s sis­ter Char­lotte and Matt’s sis­ter Becky.

It was a beau­ti­ful day, the sun was shin­ing and it was lovely to see all of our guests min­gling and enjoy­ing the sun­shine.

Matt’s out­fit was from Dick­ies Suit Hire. The groom and best man hired top hats along with their suits.













Before my father and I got in the car to go to the church we had some lovely and pretty emo­tional moments which I will never for­get. When I walked down the aisle with Daddy it was won­der­ful see­ing all the smil­ing faces of my fam­ily and friends – and also Matt with the biggest smile wait­ing at the other end.

Matt – I will never for­get the moment when Olivia walked into the church – she looked so beau­ti­ful. I was shak­ing with excite­ment through a lot of the ser­vice! The recep­tion was amaz­ing, it was so good to see our fam­ily and friends and to be able to enjoy the day that we had been plan­ning for over a year. I was ter­ri­fied of giv­ing my speech, and even more so of hear­ing what Ned would come up with to embar­rass me for his speech!

That’s all for today I’m afraid… I’ve got cal­lig­ra­phy to be work­ing on this after­noon and I really should get crack­ing! But tomor­row there’s more from me — and from Olivia and Matt and the won­der­ful Pippa Macken­zie. Come back to see all the gor­geous­ness of the per­fect Eng­lish coun­try gar­den wed­ding recep­tion! (On the blog Tues­day at 11am)

Olivia and Matt’s rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Vogue Dia­mond, Brighton — Engage­ment & Wed­ding Rings
• Uttam Bou­tique, Lon­don – Brides­maid Dresses
• Condici & Michael Kors – Mother of the Bride Outfit
• Pas­cal from the Point, Brighton– Brides, Brides­maid & Mother of the Bride Hair
• Sarah Wood­house, Burgess Hill – Brides Makeup
• Pippa Macken­zie – wed­ding photographer
• Vin­tage Flower House, Wivels­field, West Sus­sex – flowers
• Rachael’s Kitchen, Wor­thing, West Sus­sex – cupcakes
• The Angelic Host, Lox­wood, West Sus­sex – Caterers
• Pim­per­nel Asso­ciates, West Sus­sex – Organ­iser on the day / first dance
• Brook­field Mar­quees – West Sus­sex – Marquee
• Place Set­tings, West Sus­sex – equip­ment hire
• GG Print, Lon­don – wed­ding invitations
• Digiset, West Sus­sex – Order of Ser­vice & Evening invitations
• Vin­tage Cars sup­plied through fam­ily friend Luis deGrouchy at Arun Cars, Pul­bor­ough, Sussex
• The Sus­sex Sax­o­phone Quar­tet – music before and dur­ing the wed­ding breakfast
• John Bull & The Ban­dits – evening music