a DIY filled barn wedding in the Cotswolds | uk wedding blog

Good Morning all! Another beautiful wedding for you today. Jam packed full of DIY elements by the bride and families. It really is a great idea to try and decide on a bit of a theme as soon as possible so that you can start collecting and grab any bargains that may come up. You will be surprised at how much you can save buying Christmas decorations in January or summer bunting in September for the following year.

Photography by Kristy Field

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Venue: The Great Tythe Barn, Tetbury http://www.gtb.co.uk/. The thing that really grabbed us about the barn (as well as being a stunning venue) was the on-site B&B. This allowed us to turn our wedding day into more of a weekend affair and continued the party on Sunday with a BBQ at the venue.

Wedding photographer: Kristy Field http://www.kristyfield.co.uk/. Kristy was fantastic from the start , exactly the photographic  style we were looking for and a great pre-wedding shoot to get us relaxed.  She really captured some great moments on our day without being intrusive in any way.

Flowers The Flowers were from Flowercube (www.flowercube.co.uk) They did a great job from starting with an in-depth consultation and then seamless delivery and setup on the day – perfect service!

Bride’s dress /shoes: The dress was Essence of Australia which we bought from London Bride (www. http://londonbrideuk.com/), who did a great job at making Kate feel special throughout the process.  Shoes were Next plain satin shoes with rose shoe clips.

Bride’s hair accessories/veil

Bride’s hair /makeup Make up by We Are Make Up Artists http://www.wearemakeupartists.co.uk, who were perfect.

Bridesmaids’/dresses/shoes/accessories: Dresses from Coast, Necklaces from Etsy.com, shoes from Dorothy Perkins

Groom’s outfit/accessories/shoes: Outfits from Austin Reed. Kate bought Mike some custom cuff-links showing maps of the wedding venue and where they got engaged from EVY Designs at notonthehighstreet.com‏

Groomsmen’s outfits/accessories: Outfits from Austin Reed

Cake: Homemade by the Mother of the Bride.

DJ/entertainment. Prior to the ceremony and during the reception drinks the Bristol String Quartet did a great job providing music.  The evening started with a Barn Dance with the Banshees (http://www.banshee.org.uk/home.htm) and then continued with  a DJ from Concept Entertainment (http://www.wedding-dj-gloucestershire.co.uk/)

Stationery Homemade (with a little help from Confetti.com for invitations)

Décor/wedding details  We had no real theme for the wedding, we decided on blue as the principle colour and then collected together  white candles in glass hurricane lamps, white paper lanterns, white hearts and photo frames to keep a natural and sparkly look. We then added a few details to tie in with the colour of the bridesmaids’ dresses (navy) e.g. blue bunting, chair sashes, homemade padded hearts, wedding favours, flowers.  The table plan was our own handywork – I made the navy fabric notice board and bought the wooden heart pins from etsy.com (The Hickory Tree) and the postcards with personalised stamps were Mike’s photoshop creation (as were the street sign table names).

Catering/food/drink Food was by Crown Catering with wine from Majestic and then some good local ales bought through the venue (Mike spent a long time “investigating” those!)

Wedding favours We got some personalised packets of forget-me-not seeds from Confetti. And wrapped them up with navy paper to bring in the accent colour of the wedding – tied up with string and homemade labels stamped with guests names, so they doubled up as place cards.

Honeymoon Destination Two weeks in Thailand, One week relaxing/recovering on beaches on Koh Phi Phi and then a week soaking up the temples in Chiang Mai.