An Enchanting Woodland Wedding - Holly and Will
Packed with originality and personality, this stunning July ceremony took place in our rustic Enchanted Woodlands. Surrounded by their closest friends and family, Holly and Will said their ‘I Do’s’ surrounded by trailing and traipsing nature.
We catch up with Holly about planning their countryside wedding day experience . . .
We remember the first viewing very well. We’d had visited a couple of venues and we hadn’t really had that ‘feeling’ when you know you’ve found the right venue.
We remember arriving and seeing the ducklings waddling across the yard and Julie greeted us at the door and showed us around.
We left feeling so excited as we’d finally found somewhere that we both agreed was ‘the one’. After this we also attended a couple of wedding fayres to get some inspiration and familiarise ourselves with the venue a bit more.
Autumnal colours are typically my favourite and Will quite likes bright and pastel colours so we tried to incorporate both with golds, browns, greens and added pastel yellow to make it a bit more summery with it being a June wedding. We also loved the rustic theme of the venue and the woodland setting and felt these colour choices fitted really well with this. In addition to the woodland theme and colour scheme we also both love Lord of the Rings and I have loved foraging for mushrooms from a young age. We managed to incorporate elements of these themes too and overall we think it all worked well together!
We chose to hold our ceremony in the Enchanted Woodland. It was one of the reasons we chose the venue as we loved the idea of a Woodland Wedding. It was also really reassuring to know that if the weather didn’t go our way, The Pergola at the rear of the barn was a lovely alternative indoor/outdoor location. The Log Barn was also perfect so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it rained!
We chose the seasonal arch and table foliage. It was really worth it! The foliage looked amazing on the arch, the tables and also at the ceremony in the woodland. We could see how much work had been put into this to create the overall look. We also included some toast drinks and wine for the tables with the wedding breakfast and went for a tipple trough which looked great and meant that guests could help themselves to a drink after the ceremony.
So many moments of the day stand out when we look back, here are the top three!
The first would be the ceremony. After the initial nerves settled we really enjoyed having our moment in the stunning scenery with our friends and family. The second would be the wedding breakfast. The food was delicious, and all of our guests really enjoyed it. The third would be the dancing (especially with our niece)! We loved that this wasn’t separated and that everyone was together in the same room whether it was sitting at the tables having a chat, ordering drinks at the bar or dancing.
We hired a DJ that our friends had booked before for their wedding in 2022 and he accommodated us by allowing us to send a playlist with a number of songs we wanted to play through the evening.
Cake || I actually purchased the sponge and decorated it myself a couple of days before the wedding with a Lord of the Rings theme!
Catering || The Oaks in-house award winning caterers Ridgway
Dress || Astrid and Wild, Stone. Lucy has a great range of modern dresses to suit different tastes. I liked that the dress was a 2-piece so I swapped the skirt for trousers in the evening which was easier for dancing!
Seamstress || Joan Brown Bespoke Bridal – Melanie did a fab job of ensuring my dress fitted perfectly for the day.
Florist || My extremely talented bridesmaid, Rosie. She also made mine and my flower girl’s flower crowns.
Photographer || Bridget Lloyd Wedding Photography – I would definitely recommend. We’re really happy with the pictures and she was so lovely to work with.
Videographer || Sofranc Films – Lee was great to work with and his humour and energy added loads of fun to the day!
DJ || Multiplex Deck
Confetti || Etsy -Dried Petal Co. They do a range of eco-friendly biogradable confetti and delivery was quick.
Wooden Signs || Etsy – The Dribbly Yak & RoodyMillerGB. With our Lord of the Rings theme we ordered a few signs to place around the venue along with table names. We were really happy with the quality of these.
Suits || Moss Bros
Order of the Day and Table Plan Boards || Paper Fudge – Suzy did a great job of creating these to fit our theme (especially seen as she hadn’t read the Lord of the rings books or seen the films before). She also does lots of wedding stationary, cards etc and can make a design to fit a theme/colour scheme.
Photo Van || Here comes the Ride - They were really easy to work with and we’re really glad we did this as it was great to look through the photos of all our guests with their notes in the photobook the day after the wedding. It’s such a great keepsake to have from the day.
Hair || Altar Hair & Make Up – Mel is a close friend of ours and also my regular hairdresser. She’s our ‘go to’ for wedding hair and had already done hair for myself and a number of the bridesmaids previously for weddings.
Make Up || I did my own make up but some of the bridesmaids had their done at Contour in Leek and they all looked stunning.
Favours || My dad brewed a beer especially for the day which we designed labels for which was fun. As I have a small candle business locally (Shrubby), I made votive candles as wedding favours and my mum made little gift bags with lord of the rings quotes on chosen individually for our guests.
