Here at The Rustic Wedding Company we are so blessed that we get to work with some really lovely people on the biggest and most exciting day of their life and today's couple are no exception.
We first heard from Charley & Paul when they dropped us a DM message on instagram way back in February 2018 to arrange a consultation to chat about styling ideas. We arranged a meeting at their venue and was clear from our first meet how excited they both were about getting married at the gorgeous Mythe Barn in Leicestershire.
After just over a year of planning and lots of messages back and forth between Charley and Lesley, we headed over to the venue to begin set up on Sunday 19th May and all of the team were super excited to begin the installation.
Here at The Rustic Wedding Company, we hand make all of our signage and our rustic wooden welcome sign is a clear favourite with our clients at the moment. Being totally rustic in design (and perfect for this particular wedding!), we used it to set the scene outside the main entrance to the venue and to welcome guests upon their arrival to the wedding.
We then began setting up The Oak Barn ready for the ceremony to begin and used a variety of wicker hearts on the chairs with blush pink ribbons and added some gorgeous vintage brass candlesticks to the altar table.
Charley & Paul's chosen florist (Ivision: The Litchfield florist), had provided some gorgeous aisle flowers in jars, rose petals and a stunning blush pink & white floral arrangement for the altar table which worked so well alongside our candlesticks.
They also had some giant light up letters, to decorate the front of the room.
After we finished setting up the wedding venue, the team stayed to watch Charley walk down the aisle which was a real special moment for us, as we do not always get chance to see this part of the wedding as we are quite often still working in another part of the venue or have finished and gone by this time.
It is always really lovely (and quite emotional) to watch the bride's arrival, especially for head stylist Lesley who gets to know each client pretty well in the run up to the wedding! - although let's be honest, the whole team gets emotional about seeing a beautiful bride because we are all huge romantics!
After the ceremony was over and the register was signed, the guests headed out into The Cart Barn to enjoy some cocktails and canapés.
In this area we created a gorgeous display area using a variety of rustic props. We placed the beautiful semi-naked cake by Carla's Bakes on a vintage wooden whiskey barrel with a gorgeous chiffon table runner draping over it along with some some greenery and added a huge gold laser cut Cake sign to decorate.
Charley asked us to make a bespoke cake topper for the cake to match the table numbers (more on this later) which we designed ourselves and had laser cut for them especially. We just love it, don't you?
Next to the cake display, we placed a variety of rustic wooden crates in different shapes and sizes and created a little confetti station next to the ceremony room entrance. We always work with real, dried petal confetti as most venues now have a requirement that it must be biodegradable and we sourced a pale pink, white and ivory confetti mix to match the colour scheme. We added some extra greenery and a cute little sign telling guests to grab some confetti and get ready to throw.
We also created a gorgeous reclaimed wood rustic Order of the Day sign and placed it in this area for guests to keep referring to if they needed to throughout the day and to help them to keep track of what was happening and when so that they didn't miss out on any action!
We also took along our super popular rustic romance wooden table plan (which actually matches the order of the day board above) and pegged on some cute circular table plan cards along with a bit of gypsophila and greenery.
At 3pm, the guests headed into The Grain Store (the wedding breakfast barn to you and me) where we had set up some gorgeous table decor.
The florist had provided an array of high and low centrepiece floral arrangements for the tables and we added our gold laser cut table numbers, some simple lace trimmed jars filled with gypsophila, blush pink water colour menus and a selection of clear and gold tea lights to help to finish off the look.
Each table was slightly different in design and they had table names for each one rather than standard table numbers. Charley sent over a list of iconic movie titles to us a few weeks before the wedding and we again designed and created some gorgeous gold laser cut table names to slot into our gypsophila jar arrangements in the centre of the tables for them.
We also decorated every other chair with a simple knotted hessian chair sash with a gypsophila floral insert in the back.
Charley & Paul were keen to go with sand coloured napkins for the guest tables, which we placed on top of our gold charger plates along with a little sprig of greenery (our signature touch).
We wanted the place names to be a bit special for this wedding and have a touch of the blush pink intertwined so we contacted the talented calligrapher Millie Stone and asked her to create us some beautiful watercolour, modern calligraphy place names for us. She used gorgeous metallic gold ink and they were just perfect.
Charley & Paul decided to have a cute little sweetheart table for the both of them to sit at rather than having the traditional Top Table to seat 8, and we literally loved this idea from the moment they mentioned it!
It is quite unusual for the bride and groom to have a sweetheart table but we think it is such a wonderful idea to be able to sit together and reflect on your day so far and take a little moment for just you two. So, so romantic, and just perfect for C&P who clearly adore each other.
For the Sweetheart Table we wanted to go a little bit "extra" (as we always do with the most important table in the room) and decided to switch up the colour scheme a little bit. We kept the gold charger plates but used white napkins instead and hand made some amazing clear glass plates with "bride" & "groom" place names on them in gold text. We also added some beautiful gold cutlery too.
It was always the intention to transfer the main table floral arrangement from the wedding ceremony barn into the breakfast barn and use it to decorate the sweetheart table. We absolutely hate to see an empty table so we added some spare greenery to the front in preparation for the floral arrangement to be moved.
We used some super shiny brass candlesticks and some tall white dinner candles and a few gold tea light votives to add even more sparkle!
Behind the special table for two, we added a blush pink & white ribbon backdrop with a bit of eucalyptus foliage and some laser cut signage which just finished off the table design nicely and matched the rest of the room perfectly.
As a bride and groom, you are always the centre of attention on your special day and your daytime guests will spend a lot of time looking directly at you whilst you are sat at your top table. Whether for the speeches or just during the meal itself as you celebrate and giggle together and it is really important that you make the most of the styling in this space and make it as special as possible. - it is also great for photographs as you can see from these pics!
We have had such a wonderful time working alongside Charley and Paul to design their beautiful day over the past year and we are a little bit sad that it is all over!
We wish them a lifetime of happiness together and hope they keep in touch!
The Rustic Wedding co. Team xx
p.s. Huge thanks to Nicola at Daffodil Waves Photography for providing us with these beautiful images of our work!