Sunflowers and the Most Romantic Memories Ever! A Kent Wedding Blog

There are so many fan­tas­tic ideas here to inspire your wed­ding plan­ning, includ­ing sun­flower bou­quets and table dec­o­ra­tions, and — my favourites — the cutest lit­tle place name card hold­ers with dinky lit­tle sunflowers.

But the most excit­ing thing about today’s wed­ding is Han­nah and Luke’s mem­o­ries of the moment their eyes met as Han­nah walked down the aisle:

Han­nah: “I will never for­get see­ing Luke for the first time as I walked down the aisle and the look on his face when he turned around and saw me. I couldn’t stop smil­ing, noth­ing has ever felt so right!”

Luke: “when I finally turned round I had trou­ble get­ting my head around how beau­ti­ful she looked. An unbe­liev­able feeling.”

Shall we join them and have a look at this beau­ti­ful wed­ding and recep­tion? The fab­u­lous images are by lovely Steve Fuller Pho­tog­ra­phy, and Han­nah and Luke have shared their wed­ding report with you today. You’ll find it about halfway down the page. Enjoy! Claire xxx

A beau­ti­ful sun­flower wed­ding blog — Han­nah and Luke in Kent

The wed­ding venue:

HANNAH: Pen­shurst Place and Gar­dens, Kent. We stum­bled across the venue on the way back from view­ing another one nearby, and it turned out they were hold­ing a wed­ding open day. Just as luck would have it they had a slot to show us around when we arrived. We were blown away by the vast Barons Hall and its gor­geous cen­tral fire pit as well as the beau­ti­ful Sun­der­land Room. Finally the Gar­dens and all the poten­tial photo oppor­tu­ni­ties sealed the deal! We had found our wed­ding venue!

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Steve Fuller Photography

HANNAH: Steve Fuller was exactly the sort of pho­tog­ra­pher we were look­ing for. He cap­tured all the best bits of the day as they unfolded nat­u­rally with­out any forced posing.

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

HANNAH: We both agreed we would love a sum­mer wed­ding so we had about 21 months to plan the day. We tried to steer clear of a rigid theme, instead try­ing to cre­ate a nat­ural sum­mer atmos­phere that reflected our per­son­al­i­ties and com­pli­mented the stun­ning venue.

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony:

HANNAH: The wed­ding cer­e­mony was held in the Sun­der­land Room of Pen­shurst Place at 3.30pm. The rain stopped just in time for my Father to roll the top down on his white Sun­beam Tiger and drive me to the venue. We had about 100 of our friends and fam­ily attend the ceremony.

Hav­ing a cer­e­mony that was per­sonal to us was very impor­tant; we chose a beau­ti­ful piece of music for me to walk down the aisle to called Three Flights Up by Yel­low­card, a way of get­ting a lit­tle bit of rock and roll into the cer­e­mony! I was so ner­vous walk­ing down the aisle, not about mar­ry­ing Luke, noth­ing has ever felt more right than becom­ing his wife, but instead about trip­ping over! Luke’s reac­tion and the look on his face when he turned around and saw me walk­ing up the aisle was one of the best moments of the day, I couldn’t stop smiling.

We had 2 read­ings at the cer­e­mony cho­sen by two of our best friends, Libby and Curly, and Luke’s sis­ter wrote a beau­ti­ful song for us which she sang and per­formed on gui­tar when we signed the reg­is­ter; my brother, Guy and Luke’s friend, Jason were wit­nesses. When the reg­is­trar announced that we were man and wife and Luke may kiss the bride the whole room started cheer­ing and whoop­ing. It was such a fan­tas­tic feel­ing and reminded me why we’d cho­sen to share it with all our amaz­ing friends and family.

Which read­ings did you choose?

HANNAH: We left the choice of read­ings up to one of my best friends, Libby and one of Luke’s best friends, Curly. They both know us very well and both seemed excited to share their read­ing choices with us, which turned out to be exactly the same read­ing; Shakespeare’s Son­net 116! Curly politely decided to leave the Shake­speare read­ing to Libby, she is after all an actress who had just fin­ished a role in a Shake­speare play in the West End!

Curly’s sec­ond choice was intro­duced by him as appeal­ing to Luke’s love of myth­i­cal beasts (he is some­times a bit of a geek!) and my love of num­bers (I stud­ied Eco­nom­ics at uni­ver­sity). He chose a poem by A.A. Milne called Us Two, it was perfect!

What did you wear?

HANNAH: My dress was by Stephanie Allin, shoes were ivory satin wedges by Aruna Seth. I wore a crys­tal head­piece and veil. My jew­ellery was from Tiffany’s and Cartier, very kindly Jodie’s in Maid­stone­lent to me by my Mother. My some­thing old was my orig­i­nal engage­ment ring which is a very old, very del­i­cate opal ring which belonged to Luke’s Great Great Grandmother.

LUKE: I hired my suit from Cameron Ross, based at Bridal Gowns at Jodie’s in Maid­stone. I wore a long black frock coat with plain black trousers (I’m not a fan of the tra­di­tional stripey ones!). The waist­coat had what I can only describe as a very pale gold swirly type pat­tern, which matched the gold/yellow cra­vat. I also had the ben­e­fit of a cane, bor­rowed from a good friend (he actu­ally insisted), and some patent leather shoes. All in all, it felt pretty swish.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

HANNAH: There really are so many amaz­ing mem­o­ries from the day, it is hard to nar­row it down to just one, so I have nar­rowed it down to three!

1. I will never for­get see­ing Luke for the first time as I walked down the aisle and the look on his face when he turned around and saw me. I couldn’t stop smil­ing, noth­ing has ever felt so right!
2. My sec­ond most mem­o­rable moment is walk­ing out into the court­yard after the cer­e­mony with my new hus­band and see­ing all of our friends and fam­ily prop­erly for the first time smil­ing, laugh­ing and blow­ing bub­ble con­fetti at us, at that point, with per­fect comedic tim­ing, my garter slipped down and I almost flung it at our guests!
3. My final most mem­o­rable moment was Luke’s speech, I know he worked so hard on find­ing the right words to say and it was hon­estly so per­fect and meaningful.

LUKE: Like Han­nah, I have an immense col­lec­tion of mem­o­ries that are pretty impos­si­ble to choose between. Hon­estly though, I will strug­gle to for­get see­ing her walk down the aisle. It was the most incred­i­ble feel­ing. I had no idea what the dress looked like as I’d insisted on being kept in the dark over any details, so when I finally turned round I had trou­ble get­ting my head around how beau­ti­ful she looked. An unbe­liev­able feeling.

Tell us a lit­tle about your wed­ding venue styling and details:

HANNAH: We wanted to have colours and styles on the day that nat­u­rally com­pli­mented the venue and sea­son. So as a guide we went with yel­lows and greens for the colours. The brides­maids wore olive green dresses from Coast with yel­low rose cor­sages. The ush­ers had olive green cra­vats to match and yel­low rose but­ton holes.

My bridal bou­quet was white and cream roses and Luke’s but­ton hole was a cream rose. The recep­tion was held in the Barons Hall and we wanted the style to feel less for­mal and more fun. We had beau­ti­ful, can­de­labra flo­ral arrange­ments as cen­tre­pieces with sun­flow­ers, roses, spray roses, Sep­tem­ber and foliage.

It was quite a cold day for July so we had the fire pit in the cen­tre of the Barons Hall lit which was a won­der­ful fea­ture and added so much atmos­phere to the room. We named each of the tables after a book which held spe­cial mean­ing to us or that we just loved! We had the side tables dec­o­rated with ivy and tea light candles.

For some per­sonal touches we col­lected and framed fam­ily pho­tographs of past wed­dings and dis­played these through­out the venue. My Mother-in-Law had the wed­ding cake made as a gift to us which was a gor­geous cup­cake tower with flower dec­o­ra­tions which matched the style of the day per­fectly. Our hope was that all these details would come together to give a relaxed fun atmos­phere which showed off and com­pli­mented the stun­ning sur­round­ings of Pen­shurst Place.

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

HANNAH: This was another area where we wanted to keep it per­sonal. We made all of the sta­tionery. We sent out ‘Save the Date’ cards which we made using a per­son­alised stamp. The invi­ta­tions were all hand made in a sim­ple style with rib­bon and stamps. For place name hold­ers we col­lected cham­pagne and sparkling wine corks which we dec­o­rated and I hand wrote all the place cards which sat in a small slit we cut in the top of the cork. We had two table plans for the wed­ding break­fast which we made using old fash­ioned travel tags and string which we framed.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

HANNAH: Luke is musi­cal and plays in a band so the music choices were delib­er­ated over for a long time. Luke’s sis­ter, Jess, wrote a beau­ti­ful song which she per­formed dur­ing the cer­e­mony. All the other songs dur­ing the cer­e­mony held spe­cial mean­ing to us. At the recep­tion we had a band called Dan­ger Mouse, we chose them because of their reper­toire (which leaned more towards rock cov­ers) and they met Luke’s high musi­cal stan­dards. They were amaz­ing! They had the nearly all the guests on the dance floor from their first song, one of my (many) best mem­o­ries from the day is jump­ing up and down to Feeder’s Buck Rogers with my best girl mates!

Wed­ding day advice:

LUKE: Han­nah was given a rather sen­si­ble piece of advice in the lead up to the day, ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’. A won­der­ful nugget of wis­dom that I myself com­pletely ignored as I had a minor melt­down about which way my but­ton hole should be attached (fac­ing down, by all accounts). It by no means ham­pered my enjoy­ment of the day, but did make for some rather amus­ing wed­ding video footage. So, again, don’t sweat the small stuff!

Rec­om­mended Kent wed­ding suppliers:

Venue: Pen­shurst Place and Gar­dens
Flow­ers: Flower and Glory, Sevenoaks
Pho­tog­ra­pher: Steve Fuller Pho­tog­ra­phy
Video­g­ra­pher: Other Fin­ger Films
Dress: Stephanie Allin
Shoes: Aruna Seth
Grooms suit: Cameron Ross
Ush­ers suits: Cameron Ross
Brides­maids dresses: Coast
Band: Dan­ger Mouse, Func­tion Cen­tral