We’re ending another fabulously gorgeous week with this country garden inspired wedding held in beautiful South Wales. If you are planning a summery, floral and pretty affair, with a multicoloured palette and serious style to boot, then you are certainly in the right place. Get comfortable and be ready to read this lovely write up, immerse yourself in stunning imagery by Jonny Barratt (thanks Jonny!) and be prepared to want to pin pretty much everything.
Yes that’s right it’s time for WWW readers Daisy and Andrew’s delightful nuptials, which were held back on the 24th June 2017 at Penmaen House. They chose the venue thanks to it’s three different spaces for their day, plus the week long hire to prepare and extend the celebrations. Their focus was on making fun memories and so for the drinks reception they had a cute funfair theme with fete games to entertain and delight in equal measure. For the marquee reception they opted for a boho floral theme, with tables utterly laden with stunning blooms, just wait until you see. It must have had such wow factor on the day.
This pair are just adorable and so romantic. Andrew wrote Daisy a letter for the wedding morning, which left everyone pretty emotional. Not only that but he also set up an Instagram account and posted daily before the wedding with a a reason why he loved Daisy. Isn’t that the cutest? You can really feel the love here today, not to mention see the total style the bride and groom have. They looked so gorgeous and the portraits of them both really looked so special.
THE PROPOSAL | Andrew used to be best friends with Daisy’s brother back when they were both 13 but it wasn’t until 2013 when we both went to the same wedding that we “met as grown ups”. A little bit of social media interaction over the next 8 months led to a first date in London and it all grew happily and merrily from there.
On our second date we went to a very lovely place called Fairy Hill for dinner and it was clear from that night that something special was happening. It was there, 2 years and 4 months later, that Andrew proposed in the exact same spot that we sat for that special date in 2014.
THE VISION | We chose the venue at Penmaen House because it gave us the opportunity to have three different aspects to the wedding reception. For the drinks reception this was very much Andrew’s domain and the theme here was just fun but classy fun. So that’s why we went for the fun fair games, candy floss, popcorn and the mini golf, we wanted everyone to have a giggle with us.
For the marquee and the meal, this was all Daisy. This was a boho vintage theme but we wanted lots of flowers in loads of different sized bottles to give it a summer garden type feel. As you can see from the photos our florist, Eve, absolutely nailed this.
Then for the barn in the evening, we wanted a boho feel again but with lots of lights. Again we wanted an aspect of fun so we had the photo wall that we created and the “we tied a knot so take a shot” table.
THE VENUE | Penmaen House, Swansea. We loved our venue as soon as we saw it because we knew it gave us a blank canvas to have whatever wedding we wanted but with the incredible scenery that is the Gower Peninsula. It also meant that we could have the house and the grounds for the week leading up to the wedding, which meant we could have all our close friends and family stay with us leading up to the wedding (and to help with all the setting up).
Penman House also allowed us to have three venues in one because we had the drinks reception on the lawn outside the house, then we went to the marquee, which was hidden away and then into the barn for the evening. It meant that the day was almost a journey and helped stop the day blurring into one.
THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | The dress was a Pronovias dress from Allison Jayne Bridal shop in Swansea. I wanted something a little bit different and I always knew I wanted sleeves! When I tried this dress on it was exactly like the movies… I burst into tears! I knew it was what I would be marrying Andrew in. I felt a million bucks and I can’t thank Allison and her staff enough!
GROOM’S ATTIRE | With the help of social media and my good friend Joseph, I was able to find some well dressed chaps who had the same colouring as me. I then found one particular suit that I thought looked great in a photo and I set about finding a similar suit and waistcoat. I got the suit from Hackett, the waistcoat from ASOS and the belt and shoes from Church’s. The daisy cufflinks were from Paul Smith and the tie clip was a wedding present from Daisy.
THE READINGS & MUSIC | Clair-de-lune by Claude Debussy and we walked out of the church to Champagne Supernova by Matt Pond.
BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | The bridesmaids dresses were from ASOS. They were relaxed but still had a bit of sparkle in them to make them wedding perfection! The girls bought their own shoes as I wanted them to be as comfortable as possible!
YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | We wanted someone who could make us feel relaxed the whole day and would not be too formal with the photos. We wanted to enjoy having them taken and not feel like it was a bit of a chore. We also wanted quite edgy and artistic photos rather than your standard formal wedding photos. Even though we only met Jonny once for our pre-wedding photo shoot, it felt like we had one of our friends taking our photos. We both felt completely at ease with him the whole day and we knew that the photos were going to be excellent (which they were).
THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | We chose All Saints Church in Mumbles because that was where Daisy’s sister got married and is the family’s closest church so it’s a very special venue for us. It was actually the Vicar who mentioned doing “bubbles and welsh cakes” after the ceremony and we know all our guests loved it.
We also loved our table plan, which was a drinks cabinet we put together with labels around each bottle setting out the table names. This was in keeping with the tables themselves, which had lots of different bottles with flowers in them.
Our wedding was on the same weekend as Glastonbury (which meant we lost a few guests who had already got tickets) but it helped us come up with a hash tag for the wedding of “McGlashtonbury”.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Andrew wrote Daisy a little letter for her to read before she left the house and headed to the church. She read it in front of her family and bridesmaids and had pretty much the whole room in tears as it was so lovely. Then during Andrew’s speech, he showed Daisy the Instagram account he had set up. On that account Andrew had posted every day for the 127 days before the wedding a picture and a reason why he loved Daisy. It is something we will both treasure forever.
For Daisy it was definitely the moment when we walked into the marquee and everyone clapped us to our table. To see everyone that you love most in the world in the one place, which also looked so incredibly beautiful was truly special.
For Andrew it was the first dance. I had danced many dances with Daisy before but this was just amazing as I completely forgot about everyone else in the room and it was just me and my beautiful wife. Then when the song finished and everyone joined us on the dance floor for Johnny B Goode, well it was awesome.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Bride: In the lead up to your wedding a lot of people will offer you advice. My advice would be to ignore it all and just do what you feel is right for you both! Oh but also… comfortable shoes! ;)
Groom: If you are going to do a DIY wedding like we did, make sure you have a wedding co-ordinator for the day itself. It takes so much of the stress and worrying out of the day because you know when you go to bed the night before there is nothing left to do but enjoy it.
Advice for those planning their wedding now? You will undoubtedly have stressful moments when planning the wedding. This will be in the months leading up to the wedding and in the days before. You have to keep sight of the fact that you guys are a team and don’t get stressed out about the little things.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |
Photographer | Jonny Barratt
Make up artist | Rosie Trelawny
Florist | Eve Francesca Designs
Rings | Lauder Jewellers (Hatton Garden) – We chose him as he made Daisy’s engagement ring.
Cake | Scrumdiddily
Catering Company | Clever Chefs
Entertainment | The Styles
Cars/Transport | Clive James (Family friend)
Fun Fair Games | Traditional Fairground
Wow such fun! I love it all.
Daisy and Andrew I cannot thank you enough for sharing your magical wedding here with us today xo Lou