Hi, I'm Ashley and I work at Shropshire Petals. I've seen every wedding trend you could imagine, read every wedding blog and have more Pinterest boards than I know what to do with. So when my long-term boyfriend James, popped the question on a romantic wedding getaway in Yorkshire, I knew I wanted to make our day special and reflect the people that we are.
Venue - Pimhill Barn
Thankfully we found lots of wonderful suppliers along the way to help us get the wedding that was just right for us. First we decided on a venue. We wanted something we could add some personality to, but that also had it's own story to tell. I've known about Pimhill Barn near Shrewsbury for a few years now and knew it was the right place for us. Not only would we dress the barn how we wished, we hired the barn for three days, day one was dressing it with all our family, day two was the wedding and day three to take it all down.
We chose to have a midweek wedding to save us a few pennies, which is a great little tip if you're wanting your budget to go further. Ginny and her team at Pimhill Barn team were fantastic, we had a few viewings to do some measuring up, and even have a family visit too!
Colour Scheme - Green, white, copper!
After that we moved onto setting a date, deciding a colour scheme and creating our own invitations. I'm a huge fan of foliage so knew I really wanted green to feature heavily in the wedding. We have lots of copper things around the house, as it's a favourite of ours, so we came up with our green, copper and white colour palette. Having this colour palette set from an early part of the wedding planning process really helped us make a lots of decisions quite easily.
The Dress - David's Bridal
In the meantime I went on the hunt for 'the dress'. And I've got to say, finding the 'right' dress is not all it's cracked up to be. Lots of trying on dresses that were out of my budget, or that didn't quite flatter me. I really didn't want a lot of fuss or drama with my dress, so I went with a cute blush A-line with foliage detail from David's Bridal, it was even in the sale for under £500!
Wedding Photographer - Lisa Webb
Once we hit the 5 month mark we went all guns blazing with the wedding planning. We booked our incredible photographer Lisa Webb. We both just fell in love with her work, and we got to meet her in person on an engagement shoot disguised as a dog walk, a month before the wedding too. Lisa just got us and everything felt so natural. We couldn't have asked for better photographs of us and our family and friends on our wedding day. She captured everything perfectly.
Daytime Catering - Fresh & Lush
After a lot of looking we also found our wonderful caterers Fresh and Lush. From start to finish they were a delight to work with, they catered for all our needs from guests with special requirements, to even giving us tips on timings. We chose a menu that was just right for us, with pie and mash for the main meal and chocolate torte for desert for after. It was delicious!
Evening Food - Pizza Peddlers
For the evening food we really wanted something that was easy for guests to grab when they were ready and we love pizza, so we had to have Pizza Peddlers! They helped us choose a menu of pizza options to offer guests, something for everyone and made them all onsite in their adorable food van. They were so thoughtful and also made us a few extra pizzas to tuck into the following morning. It was so tasty.
Bar & Furniture Hire - Tipples
Now that the ball was rolling and we had a few essentials, we needed to start thinking of decorating the barn. We got in touch with a company Pimhill Barn has recommended Tipples, who offer a bar hire and also furniture hire. Charlotte and Tim completely understood the look and feel we were going for and went above and beyond for us. They even added some extra rums on the bar for us (I'm quite the rum fan!) and so we weren't waiting around for them, they even setup the bar and dropped off the furniture the day before too.
Lighting - Love Me Do Bridal
We really wanted to create soft lighting in the barn with fairy lights, Pimhill also recommended Love Me Do Bridal. Kerry came and installed what must have been hundreds of lights, which were hung from side to side across the barn. They looked so pretty! Plus she even helped us with her styling skills and made a few really helpful suggestions for extra details on the day, that I hadn't even thought about.
Bridesmaid dresses - NEXT
When it came to the bridesmaid dresses, I searched high and low for green dresses. It was my sister (bridesmaid on the far right) who found them on NEXT in the end. I loved the colour and shape, and I think the girls did too.
Make up artist - Helena Restall
I'd known Helena from a bridal shoot we did the year before and I was a bit lost when it came to make up, so hiring someone I knew was perfect for me. Helena is incredibly talented, we had a trial before the wedding and she listened to all my ideas for the wedding and designed what make up to use around that. On the day she even did my bridesmaids, mum and aunt along with me. I'd highly recommend her for weddings and any event you want to look that extra special.
Cake - Sam's Sweet Treats
I'm a major cake eater, I'd even say cake is basically one of my food groups! So finding a cake that was beautiful and delicious was a must. After doing some research and emailing a few cake professionals I got a bit deflated as I knew what I wanted (a rustic three tier semi naked cake) but I didn't find find the contacts I had to be that helpful. Thankfully after spotting an epic bridal shoot on Instagram I found Sam's Sweet Treats. James and I went to Wales to meet Sam, and she completely understood our vision. The year previous I had kindly been given a large wooden cable drum, and I thought the cake would look great on it. We had all three tiers with lemon filling and it tasted amazing and looked so beautiful! I can't believe Sam even made all the succulent decorations by hand from icing!
Cake Topper - The Letter Loft
I also wanted something extra special as our cake topper, and as James and I specialised in typography at university, it had to be type! I found The Letter Loft on Not On The High Street and had to have one of their personalised couples name cake toppers in copper!
Flowers
I really wanted to source a lot of the flowers myself and as our wedding was in May the flowers at Shropshire Petals weren't in bloom yet. So I decided to go for hydrangeas, eucalyptus, spray roses, avalanche roses, ruscus, gyp, drilby and even a few flowers and foliage from our garden and James's mum's garden too. My very talented aunt Carole is a professional florist and worked her magic and put all the flowers together and it all looked so beautiful! Plus all the family helped out with extra buttonholes which made it all feel that more special.
Confetti - Shropshire Petals
For me, confetti was a big deal. So we chose to have not one, but two confetti photos! We had one during the day with about 45 guests, where all our guests made a walkway. For the daytime confetti moment we chose a Pick & Mix of: Mellow Meadow, Daisy Daisy and Envy (click here to see that mix). To display our daytime confetti we chose two Shropshire Boxes and mixed the forest green cones with the foliage cone. When we walked out of the barn all our guest throw confetti from the cones and we love the photos from it.
As for the evening confetti photo, we had about 80 guests for the evening. We chose to go against our colour scheme and have a whole mixture of colours with Tutti Fruity, and we had two Confetti Baskets so there was 10 litres in total. Our photographer Lisa Webb was amazing at guiding the guests what to do, when to throw and capturing the all important throw!
Band - The Matchsticks
We looked for a band for such a long time, until we came across The Matchsticks on wedding-bands.co.uk they played a mixture of music from different eras, and we just loved their style. We agreed a rough list of things we'd really love them to play and they really nailed it, guests danced the entire time they played. They even learnt our favourite song, Death Cab for Cutie's 'I will follow you into the dark'. It was beautiful. As the last song of the night, they even played some Rage Against the Machine, which was epic!
Finishing Touches and thank you's
There are so many finishing touches that we added to the big day and had lots of help from our family and friends. With us having a barn wedding that we could dress as we liked, my mum made us about 100 metres of green and white bunting which looked the bee's knees! My sister-in-law did our hair on the morning of the wedding. She even found time to make two giant polaroid signs so guests could pose with them for photos for our photo book. My step-dad made copper stands for the ceremony and name table board, and father-in-law hand painted signs to direct everyone on the day which way to go. There was so much of our family that came the day before to help us set up, and also the day after to take down everything too. Thank you to everyone!
Highlights
As cheesy at it sounds, it was the best day of my life. The entire day was a highlight but if I really had to pick, I think having our first dance and both of our confetti moments would probably have to be on the top of my very long list.
Advice for couples
After working in the wedding industry for a while now, I thought I knew all the do's and don'ts of getting married. But honestly, until I did it, there were lots of things I came across that I learnt as I went on.
My best advice would be:
- Make a spreadsheet of your wedding budget; who you have paid, when you need to pay them, their contact details. It is so helpful!
- Choose when it's good to craft/DIY to save money and learn a new skill, but also when it's best to buy, to save your time (and sanity)
- Ask for help. Both James and I are very fortunate to be surrounded by talented family and friends, and they did so much for us before and on the day.
Supplier List
Venue: Pimhill Barn | Photography: Lisa Webb | Make up artist: Helena Restall | Bar and Furniture Hire: Tipples | Cake: Sam's Sweet Treats | Daytime Catering: Fresh & Lush | Evening food: Pizza Peddlers | Lighting: Love Me Do Bridal | Confetti: Shropshire Petals | Band: The Matchsticks | Dress: David's Bridal | Suit: Marc Darcy | Bridesmaids: NEXT | Flower Girl dress: Mothercare | Ashley's Ring: Daniella Draper | James's Ring: Beaverbrooks
