Whimsical Nature Woodland Wedding | Whimsical Wonderland Weddings

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It is always exciting to feature a WWW reader wedding, especially a day which is a wedding you dream of yourself.

WWW readers Caroline and Sam married in September at Crowborough Registry Office, followed by a village hall reception. They had a vision of using nature and the great outdoors as inspiration for their day.

Caroline and Sam had their family and friends contribute to their day, helping with the set up, flowers and cake. Much of their wedding was handmade and crafted by themselves. I especially love the branches in the hall, they look amazing.

Caroline wore a gorgeous sequin dress which she made with her Maid of (Dis)honour and also made her own wedding shoes. Sam donned a sharp three piece suit with red tie.

Thanks so much to the fabulous Alexa Loy f or sharing her photographs with us today. There is so much more I could talk about, but I will leave you to read and see everything in glorious detail for yourself...

After this, I kept an eye out for dresses on eBay. I found an auction with photos of a beautiful Claire Pettibone style dress, and I won it. Unfortunately, when it turned up, it was a cheap Chinese knock off, which was badly made, badly fitting and smelt of cheap net curtains. After much stress, I did manage to get a refund.

However, I am extremely lucky to know such talented people, and my Maid of (Dis)honour, Martha, agreed to help me make a dress. I knew I didn't want a traditional dress, so we started making it together, using a dishevelled Vintage 1950s ballgown as inspiration and a gold sequin dress bought a Boot Fair to make the top of the dress! My friend France helped me choose the rest of the fabric, matching this with the gold and my pale English/Irish complexion. After feeling a little bit overwhelmed with all the wedding preparations, Martha offered to finish it off for me and we both had a little cry when we saw how perfect it when I tried it on. I finished it off by making a sash with a huge bow to complete the look. As the day came closer, the weather forecast wasn't looking that good, so I bought a feather bolero from Coast which went with the dress perfectly.

I absolutely love shoes so I thought this part of my outfit would be difficult to decide on, but a chance came up for me to make my own shoes at one of Hetty Rose's workshops, and as I love making things, it was the perfect and easy option. I wore pearl earrings and my granny's pearl necklace which finished the look off perfectly.

Groom's Attire... Sam: After years of buying cheap, off the peg suits from high street chains, I'd always longed for a tailored, three-piece suit. A friend of mine had just started his own tailoring business, so I approached him to make one. He did an incredible job, and I've never been so happy with everything from the first meeting to the final fitting. For my shirt, shoes and tie we spent the evening at Bluewater and managed to find everything in one night! The final piece of the puzzle were some fantastic "Groom" cufflinks from Tatty Devine, one of Caroline's favourite jewellery designers.

On the morning of the wedding, I spent at least 15 minutes at my parents' house on YouTube listening to the quietest American man I've ever heard giving a tutorial on how to tie a Full Windsor knot for my tie!

Sam: Caroline loves Queens of the Stone Age, as well as being a more recent fan of Alternative Swing music. I managed to find a great Jazz version of their track "No one knows", which has some great (if slightly veiled) romantic lyrics, for her to walk down the aisle to. For the signing of the register we had Heartbeats (covered by José González, from the Sony "Bouncing Balls" advert).

Sam: During the afternoon tea, we had a fantastic Alternative Swing three-piece I used to play with called The Violet Jive (the same band mentioned in the proposal) - I actually got asked up on stage to do a song with them on Double Bass! In the evening, we had an incredible Blues/Funk/Soul/Motown band called David Migden and the Dirty Words, who are great friends of ours. To finish the evening off, we had a playlist of Funk, Soul and Motown, and the Cliff Richard classic, Wired for Sound, as the last track - it's a bit of an in joke with a number of our friends - which went down a storm!

Sam: We also wanted a second shooter, as I've done that job before, and I know how beneficial it can be for both the guests and the main photographer. For that role, Alexa suggested Laura, who did a fantastic job on the day as well.

Caroline: I initially used Pinterest to collate lots of ideas involving woodland and nature style decorations, but had to stop pinning as I was getting overwhelmed by all the information! From the initial idea, it then became quite organic, and we added things as we went along. One of Sam's friends is a tree surgeon, and he very generously delivered lots of Silver birch branches which looked amazing once we had set them all up in the hall. Some very talented and hardworking friends and ourselves came down to the hall, and worked for 12 hours straight to transform it from a drab village hall into what you see in the photos.

We added fairy lights, suspended branches, butterflies cut from old books by Martha, flowers made out of loo roll tubes by France, the list goes on! We had so many artistic and capable people helping us decorate the venue the day before, it was awesome. We decorated the tables with gold fabric as a tablecloth, a strip of hessian down the middle and hand cut paper leaves, along with LED rabbits that proved very popular with the guests and suppliers alike (we gave Alexa and Laura one each, and we just managed to hang on to a pair!). We set out beautiful vintage tea sets on the tables which completed the look.

Sam: Just as we finished decorating it, I stood on the stage with Caroline, and was just overcome with emotion at the effort everyone had put in, and how incredible it looked. As we had quite an early wedding ceremony, we organised a Pub Quiz to entertain our guests during the afternoon. Sam was the quizmaster and probably everyone's favourite round was the 'Film Quotes' round where our incredibly talented friend Adam read these with panache. Our caterers were fantastic - the food was amazing and they went well above and beyond what was expected.

Having reflected on the experience, as well as the theme and décor the following day, a number of us expressed an interest in forming a collective creative consultancy for the theming, planning and decorating for weddings! We're available straight away!

For the rest of the week, we just relaxed. We had some friends round for dinner, and we had a lovely day in Brighton with just the two of us. Blissful!

Memorable Moments... I know it sounds like a cliché, but it's all such a blur! Little moments like holding hands during the ceremony, and feeling that support from each other. Going off with Alexa for our portraits, spending that time together after the excitement of the ceremony. (Having a photo with the RAC man after the campervan broke down!) Having our first dance and thinking how long it seemed to last! Our friend France performing an amazing belly dance as her "wedding speech". Our friends pulling some amazing shapes on the dancefloor. Everything was just little snatches.

Our first dance was awesome, but it was amazing how long it seemed to last with everyone watching us! We had "La vie en Rose" by Louise Armstrong mixed into "Mirrorball" by Elbow. We'd sourced an actual mirrorball for this bit, and Sam took it upon himself to run off and turn it on at the right moment! It did look incredible though!

Caroline: Something that Sam found hard to do as I kept losing him during the day while he was off trying to find someone to unlock the stage door and trying to switch the mirrorball on during our first dance! Luckily our friend Charlie came and danced with me before another friend dragged him back to the dancefloor almost immediately! Then, you can relax and enjoy the day!

Bands | The Violet Jive and David Migden and the Dirty Words

Stationery | The Wedding Collective (our new creative venture!)

Lighting |Simon Burchell

Sound | Ian Gobel

Branches | Prestige Treecare

Photographer | Alexa Loy Photographer

Caterer | The Tunbridge Wells Catering Company t/a Soup-urb

China Hire | Alice and the Teacup

Venues |Crowborough Registry Office, Frant Village Hall

Bride's Dress | Martha Palmer

Bride's Shoes | Hetty Rose

Make up for Bride and Maid of (Dis)Honour | Colour Click make up