The Best Ever Kinder Surprise and a Churston Court Wedding

Their wed­ding is another very spe­cial day full of love for fam­ily and friends, with a relaxed and deliri­ously happy feel to it — the wed­ding pho­tographs from Tay­lor Barnes Pho­tog­ra­phy (based in Bris­tol) really cap­ture the emo­tions of the day (and some gor­geous details too!) — while Han­nah and Dave’s wed­ding report cap­tures the excite­ment and is guar­an­teed to bring a big soppy smile to your face! (I’m doing mine now!)

You’ll love this real wed­ding blog — with the most stun­ning bride in Mag­gie Sot­tero ‘Tracey’ and her ador­ing (and hand­some!) groom who just doesn’t stop smil­ing all day — it’s an amaz­ing day and I’m so glad to be shar­ing this wed­ding with you today.

Enjoy!

A per­sonal, nat­ural and time­less wed­ding: Churston Court

Who pro­posed, and how?

This may take a while as I am still soppy about the whole sce­nario! So, Dave pro­posed. I’ll attempt to sum­marise – Dave had given me a card with strict instruc­tions to not open until Tues­day evening. On open­ing the card, it said that we were spend­ing the day together on the Wednes­day and that (obvi­ously in cahoots with my man­ager) work was taken care of.

We then drove down to Corn­wall where we got a heli­copter to Tresco (one of the Isles of Scilly). If you have never been, I thor­oughly rec­om­mend it, they are truly beau­ti­ful. Tresco in par­tic­u­lar is like a utopia – no cars, sand that sparkles and turquoise seas.

After a walk round the trop­i­cal gar­dens, we headed to the beach; Dave had made us a pic­nic and the sun was shin­ing. One aspect of the pic­nic was a kinder egg (this has been a recur­ring theme in our rela­tion­ship for some rea­son!) which, instead of a toy, con­tained a ring and a note ‘will you marry me?’. On the knee, ques­tioned popped, engage­ment secured!

After a quick swim and a lot of roman­tic gaz­ing (cringe),we flew back to the main­land. We then drove down to Porthcurno (another stun­ning part of Corn­wall) where we ate cheese/biscuits/grapes/wine. We even man­aged to see a dol­phin, hon­estly it was so stu­pidly per­fect it was like he’d hired it! So that was our per­fect day…sigh…

Wed­ding venue:

16th Cen­tury Churston Court, NR Brix­ham. Also the place where Dave asked me out. Very unusual venue, lots of his­tory & quin­tes­sen­tially English.

Wed­ding photographer:

The won­der­ful Tay­lor Barnes — who else?!

How would you describe your wed­ding style? … Clas­sic, quirky, per­sonal, vin­tage, nat­ural, timeless.

The wed­ding ceremony:

Reli­gious or civil? … Religious

Which read­ings did you choose? … No read­ings, but the talk was given by some­one who has known both of us for don­keys years so it meant a lot.

The wed­ding reception:

What were your high­lights? … See­ing each other for the first time, our mini-trek down to the beach, band & DJ, incred­i­ble food, bril­liant speeches…

What did you both wear?

Dave — Next suit & shoes, Deben­hams flo­ral print white shirt, Dessy green tie.

Han­nah — Mag­gie Sot­tero ‘Tracey’ dress, floor length veil, irreg­u­lar choice shoes.

Mem­o­rable moments:

Prob­a­bly not the best, but def­i­nitely mem­o­rable — Me (Han­nah) for­get­ting the rings on the way to the cer­e­mony! There is a rea­son the best man should worry about that! Our wood­land walk down to Elberry cove, speeches, lanterns. At one point there was a hel­met from a suit of armor being passed around & some­one was up the chim­ney — very amus­ing! Cut­ting the cake with a sword… The list is end­less! The whole day was just bril­liant, as it should be

Wed­ding venue styling and details:

Tables — pearls, lace, green gems, plants in ter­ra­cotta pots. Table num­bers — pho­tos of us with the table num­ber on a large chalk­board doing silly things around the local area e.g. on haystacks, cycling, at the park.

Place names — egg cups with Lord/Lady and then name writ­ten with green porce­lain pen (Dave con­ve­niently does cal­lig­ra­phy!). Of course, kinder eggs sat in the egg cups as the favours!

We also had vin­tage style post­cards & a post­box for every­one to write com­ments of the day and advice on & then post. We gave the chil­dren crayons so that they could keep them­selves amused too! The comments/pictures were bril­liant and gave us a good laugh the next day!

Music and entertainment:

Unusual (and fan­tas­tic) Blue Orchid — cov­ers band. The amaz­ing and lovely Zak Peters as the DJ — fin­ished at half 2! Due to it being quite a long jour­ney, we made a cd for each car load (includ­ing evening guests) to put them in the mood for a good time. Also we had scones for the guests when they first arrived and after the speeches we all went out­side to let off Chi­nese lanterns.

Wed­ding day advice:

Always take a moment to step back for a minute & soak it all in. Let the best man look after the rings! If wait­ing for your meal, walk round & talk to your guests; chances are, if you have a large wed­ding then you won’t have another oppor­tu­nity to say hi. Enjoy every second!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

Pirou­ette — incred­i­ble ser­vice, beau­ti­ful gowns in an unusual set­ting with a vin­tage feel. Hair done by the lovely Kaye & Beth at Pen­hala­gans, Ilmin­ster. Every­thing else was homemade!

Thank you to the lovely www.taylorbarnesphotography.co.uk for sub­mit­ting such a gor­geous wed­ding to Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog!

See more of Han­nah and Dave’s wed­ding at Churston Court here