DIY WEDDING

How did you two meet and get engaged?

Jesse and I were subtly set up by our friends, Joe and Judith. Joe was Jesse’s flat mate and I was over at their flat one evening hanging out with Judith. As Jesse puts it – “I just came home one evening and Emily was there sitting on my sofa!”. Fast forward ten months later and we got engaged on a gloriously sunny Autumn day in Richmond Park. I knew it was coming but it was still a very, very
happy moment.

The dress and the look

I’m petite so I was really keen not to get lost in a big meringue-like dress. No puffs or frills allowed! I loved the long-sleeved, plunging V-back look and also wanted something with beautiful lace. I found Indie Bride online after googling “boho lace wedding dresses”. As soon as I saw the photos of their dresses and read about their sustainable, low-waste ethos, I had a good feeling. My first visit was totally dreamy. The shop is full of creativity; tucked away in the attic of a church. Miina was so relaxed and incredibly helpful. She totally understood the look I was going for and the whole experience was chilled out but magical. I only tried on a few dresses because I fell in love with the beautiful lace on
the Cecile dress. I had it customised to add in a V-back and a small train. It fitted perfectly, Miina is so skilled and talented.

Makeup

I really wanted to look like myself and not over-done, so in the end I did my own make up as I felt I knew my face best. It was fairly nerve-racking, but I did it under the watchful eye of one of my bridesmaids, Amy, who is amazing at make-up.

Hair

My extremely talented and clever sister, Lucy, did my hair. She’s an artist and she’s great at creating so I knew she’d do a fabulous job. I wanted to have my hair up so that it didn’t cover the back of the dress. We had quite a few practices beforehand with lots of grips and hairspray flying around, but the final outcome was just perfect.

Accessories

Finding shoes for me is such a nightmare because I’m a size 2.5 but I managed to find a pair a sparkly sling back heels from Paradox London Pink. Comfort is key however, and for the dancing I wore white Nike Air Max 1’s with a gold tick. Jesse had a pair of matching Nike Air Max 1s in yellow.

In my hair, I wore the Festival Meadow Half Hair Crown from The Artisan Dried Flower Co. My bridesmaids wore a mix of the Boho Midnight Hair Circlets and the Boho Candyfloss Hair Circlets from the same company. Jesse and his groomsmen wore the Festival Meadow buttonholes.

The groom's outfit

Jesse wore the Light Brown Herringbone Tweed 3 Piece Suit from Tweedmaker with a light pink tie. Despite arriving in a tiny box, it fit like a glove.

Bridesmaids

Probably one of the hardest things to source – five dresses that looked good on five gorgeous but different gals. I made the error of purchasing dresses in the ASOS sale, so they didn’t have loads in stock. Some of the dresses didn’t fit so I had to constantly refresh the page hoping that someone would have returned one in the size I needed! We got there in the end though and my bridesmaids looked gorgeous in knee-length, white, lacey boho dresses.

Venue

We got married at St Peter’s Church in Yaxley, which is the village I grew up in. Our reception was held in a marquee in the beautiful grounds of my old secondary school, The Peterborough School. As well as the main meal and evening party, we had a traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony. We had 230
guests at the meal and an additional 70 guests in the evening.

Decor

We really wanted our wedding to be fun and relaxed for our guests. Thankfully the sun shone so we could be outside all day. It was lovely to see our friends and family having a good time – people were chilling out on deckchairs, playing table tennis and volleyball, and the kids were having tussles with giant blow-up dinosaurs. It was a bit of a DIY wedding really – we spent hours making huge vats of chutney with Jesse’s mum for the wedding favours and our friends and family all helped to make hundreds of colourful paper cranes which hung up in the marquee. Our flowers were done by the incredible Boopie Cope, who is a family friend. She came up trumps providing the most exquisite flowers that were more beautiful than I could have imagined.

Food and cake

We had a delicious hog roast and salads provided by Little Piggy Catering who also put together a phenomenal cheese tower for the evening food. Charlie was just amazing and really got behind our vision for the food. Our cake was made by our super talented friend, Katrina. It included three different flavours – ginger, lemon and vanilla – and was gloriously decorated with loads of colourful edible
flowers. We also had 900 of the most delicious little cakes and bakes provided by the legendary Brian Mahan from my church back home in Peterborough.

Entertainment

Whilst we signed the register in the church, Jesse’s brother’s band, Flight Brigade, played some stripped down renditions of traditional hymns. At the reception, my Scottish Uncle Rod lead a wild Ceilidh for the first half of the evening. The rest of the night we danced our socks off to the sounds of Beats in Abundance. We also had the Basscycle – a bicycle powered speaker system invented by Jesse and Jonny the Wizard.

Photography

Our photos were taken by Poppy Maltby Photography and our plan was to have Jesse’s brother Seth Baines edit them. However, our dear Seth tragically died of a brain tumour a few months after our wedding. Jesse and I have channelled our inner Seth and edited the photos ourselves. Our understanding and appreciation of Seth’s skills has increased significantly – editing photos is really hard and takes a really long time. We hope we have done you proud, Sethy.

Was there anything that went wrong on your wedding day and how did you deal with it?

My Dad’s mate had agreed to supply hundreds of spring rolls from his Chinese takeaway but I think at some point the request got lost in translation, and we weren’t sure if they would ever appear. It was only when we saw them at the reception that we knew we would be enjoying those spring rolls!

Apart from saying "yes" to your husband, what was your favourite moment of your wedding?

We had a twelve-minute medley of eighties worship songs during the service that ended in a massive “Hey!” and raucous applause. To hear 300 people in the church belting that out was very special.

What advice would you give to brides planning their wedding?

The most important thing is having all your loved ones together in one place celebrating. Everything else is embellishment. It’s so easy to focus on the embellishments first. We found that reminding ourselves of what really mattered helped take some of the pressure off.

- Emily -