Clare & Jack – Wed in the Woods (Part 2)
Clare & Jack – Wed in the Woods (Part 2)
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On Friday we featured Part 1 of Clare and Jack’s Woodland Wedding!! If you missed it take a look here….
But here is the grand finale….Part 2 – The Reception which took place at The Bell in Ticehurst (A stones throw away from the magical woodland). Over to Clare for the last instalment…
We welcomed our guests with a cask of 1648 brewery’s ‘Signature’ beer (chosen by J) and glasses of Sangria (my favourite) accompanied by a selection of the Bell’s wonderful canapés.
Prosecco was served pre-dinner for the only toast (we didn’t have speeches)
Our standard menu was as follows:
STARTERS : Minted Summer Vegetables, Golden Cross Goat’s Cheese
MAIN: Breast of Kentish Lamb, Rosemary, Bubble ‘n’ Squeak
DESSERT: Doughnuts, Chocolate & Lemon Dipping Sauce
The vegan menu:
START: The chef’s garden tempura
MAIN: Beetroot, quinoa and pomegranate salad with ruby leaves
Dessert: Fresh fruit platter with coconut sorbet
Followed by coffee in vintage tea cups, downstairs in the stable.
We then had a selection of the Bell’s bar snacks served at 10:30pm, including triple cut chips, their ‘Burwash Beauties’ (Chipolata sausage in a honey dressing – they’re to die for!) and their goat’s cheese and pea croquettes.
CHURCH CANDLES, INSTAGRAM COASTERS & LOND BOARDS
The tables were decorated simply with an array of white church candles of various sizes down their centres.
Adult favours were instagram inspired coasters, made from cork roll + kitchen tiles, topped with photographs of the Bell’s quirky features, handmade by my mother and I. They were tied with brown garden string, and an oversized brown name tag, handwritten by Clare.
The table names were handmade by J + I using brown card and kebab sticks, to create scroll style signs with longboard names as their titles. The signs were stood in some little glass bottles (ebay’s finest) and filled with sand.
The children’s favours were little brown paper bags, filled with 2 mini pots of playdoh, a small set of pencil crayons, a handmade Disney colouring book and a set of stickers – chosen to suit each child’s tastes.
Rather than a table plan, we used escort cards. The little black cards were handwritten by Clare and their interiors printed and stuck in. The ‘find your seat sign’ on the escort card table was jig sawed out of MDF and then simply hand painted with poster paint.
The so-called ‘guest book’ was one of J’s old longboards, a Holesom ‘Sexbomb’ (for any board lovers!?)
To customise is J heavily sanded it down, then created the custom scroll design featuring our names, printed it on white card then stuck it to the board and varnished over the lot to seal it in.
We provided sharpies for our guests to sign their names on the board and hung instagram pictures of us skating together with wooden pegs on brown string above it. Also for the guest book table, J + I designed a custom print entitled with our home grown motto: ‘those who skate together stay together’ using Photoshop and had it printed locally and put in an IKEA frame.
Designed by J + I, which we then had printed (oh the perks of marrying a graphic designer!)
Our good Kentish mates Freddie + Alex make up the DJ act ChemikalRecipe, find out more about them here:
They did our premixed playlist (during dinner) which is available here: http://www.mixcloud.com/wedinthewoods/
And then a live set comprising of reggae, an hour of UK garage (no idea where that came from, but it was awesome) and a whole mash of our favourite tunes!!
9 weeks may sound like the most horrendously, terrifyingly short period of time, but I loved it. The hype and excitement it caused our guests was totally worth it, it pulled us together as a team and it helped us make concise, snappy decisions. All in all – I’d thoroughly recommend a short time period to plan your wedding.
Don’t over inspire yourself. I found that once I’d made choices and decisions I had to then actively stop seeking out ideas (it had become a late night habit) because I was over-stimulating myself and at risk of over-styling the wedding.
If you can, hand make the hell out of it – it’s so much more personal and there are so many great little DIYs around – get your backside on Pinterest!
Come up with a budget, and then anticipate it costing double that!
Work with great people – they make the whole process so much more relaxed and enjoyable.
If the schedule for set up and the wedding day is a little hectic, write an itinerary and distribute it to everyone – saves you saying it a million times!
Diagrams, diagrams, diagrams!
Don’t be scared to share your inspiration and play with ideas. Our photographer, Amy, and I created a secret Pinterest board to share concepts and styled shots to fuel the thinking behind our photos.
Asking for vouchers = MUCH simpler and more effective than a wedding list!!
Don’t worry about being a Bridezilla, you can NEVER be too organised, or too specific.
xx Thanks to Clare & Jack for sharing their very cool wedding!!
