I so love a couple who stamp their own personality into their wedding, which is exactly what Kirsty and Philip did for their wedding held on the 17th May 2014.

They chose to marry at Old Luxters Barn in Oxfordshire surrounded by the beautiful countryside. There was a lovely vintage feel to their day with Kirsty going for a 1950s style bridal look complete with victory rolls hair style and Philip donning tweed for a dapper English country gent look.

They had so many thoughtful and personal touches which represented their loved ones. I just adore the natural blooms and the Ladybird book decor. So sweet.

Thanks so much to the amazing My Beautiful Bride for sharing these images today.

THE PROPOSAL | Mid-flight to San Francisco for a romantic getaway, as the cabin lights dimmed on the top deck of the 747 (Philip works for an airline and loves planes), and everyone was putting on their eye-masks for a sleep Philip asked if I'd married him, producing a beautiful vintage ring with an aquamarine stone. I said a stunned 'yes' and we toasted with a glass of champagne.

THE VISION | Low key, relaxed, fun, not too traditional or stuffy. We are outdoorsy people who love a good long muddy dog walk, so we wanted to create a day that felt like 'us' and that would make our friends and family feel at ease. We both love a touch of the vintage and a bit of eccentricity, so really wanted to embrace this in some way.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | Finding the venue was the first task, as we knew that we wanted a special place set amongst beautiful rural surroundings, but without the grandeur of a stately home. Philip's love of ales and Kirsty's appreciation of wine drew us to the Chiltern Valley Winery & Brewery (which we had coincidentally received a gift token 'brewery tour' experience for). As if to further encourage us, on our first visit together a light aircraft drifted overhead and we saw several red kites souring through the valley (both Philip's favourite things!). With the farmhouse on-site we knew we could accommodate family and create a homely, relaxed and inclusive atmosphere. From there it felt natural to embrace the natural rural setting and use sympathetic wild flowers, rustic mixed grill sharing platters, games and lots of homemade rough-around-the-edges touches. As if we'd just invited all our favourite people around for a BBQ and a knees-up!

BUDGET | As low as we could manage!

THE VENUE | Old Luxters Barn at Chiltern Valley Winery and Brewery, Hambleden, Oxfordshire.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | 1950's style ivory tea dress with a lace bodice overlay, an oyster coloured sash with bow tie bow at the back and an aqua petticoat!!

Drop pearl and diamanté earrings from Kirsty's Mother and a drop pearl necklace, which was Kirsty's Grandmothers. A gold bracelet with mint coloured detail to match the green/blue colour scheme running loosely through the day.

Oyster and gold 1940's inspired peep-toe leather shoes (the style of shoe was called 'Greta', which was my Grandmother's name - sheer coincidence!), which allowed my blue painted toenails to peep through.

To finish the look I had 'victory rolls' in my hair and subtle 40's style make-up with a strong eyeliner flick!

FINDING THE DRESS | After a few painful dress shop experiences of trying to squeeze into ill-fitting sample size dress and attempting to describe my ideal idea of 'the dress' to dressmakers I (Kirsty) stumbled across Candy Anthony who were perfect! The mix and match approach to creating vintage style dresses was fantastic. I was sold.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | Tweed style 'Herringbone Overcheck' jacket and waistcoat with suede elbow patches over a white shirt with rounded collar. A tartan bowtie and pocket square, maroon braces and one red, one green sock - for port and starboard. It was a dapper country gent look, completed with an aged pocket watch and a hip flask containing a tot of rum!

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We chose three readings, read by Kirsty's Brother Matt, Philip's Brother-in-law Pete and Kirsty's school friend Emilia. Each reading had a different feel to suit the reader. Emilia started with a short romantic piece by Victor Hugo called 'You can give without loving', Matt followed with the sweet childhood A.A. Milnes poem 'Spring Morning' and Pete finished with Pam Ayre's light-heartedly silly poem 'He Never Leaves The Seat Up'.

We had string music of our favourite alternative rock and indie songs playing during the ceremony, recorded by the Vitamin String Quartet. Kirsty walked in to her favourite Death Cab For Cutie song played by the quartet.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | Kirsty's two cousins, Bryony and Chloe were dressed in simple teal 'lantern' shaped dresses, with oyster coloured elastic waistbands featuring gold buckles. They had extremely high (sorry girls!) biscuit coloured suede ankle strap court shoes. The simple elegance continued with their hair being scraped back into informal buns and they wore necklaces and earrings of their choice.

THE FLOWERS | Loosely arranged wild flower arrangements in enamel jugs for the tables, in whites and muted blues featuring stocks, spray roses, lisianthus, peonies, lavender, veronica, nigella and sweet peas. My 'country style' bouquet used the same flowers but all in white and my bridesmaids carried a single white hydrangea stem each. The buttonholes were white lisianthus flowers with a sprig of lavender and rosemary and I made some that featured pale blue veronica too. I filled old tin tea caddies with flowers, which sat on the outside tables in the courtyard and some mini caddies for the registrar's table.

THE CAKE | A cheese tower featuring mainly Cornish cheeses (as Kirsty was born in Cornwall), decorated with a homemade topper of a plane carrying a 'just married' banner. Black Bomber Snowdonia mature cheddar, Cornish Brie, Cornish Smuggler, Little Allet, Cornish Yarg in nettles and some smelly oozy ones - which were served later in the evening with Kirsty's homemade chutneys and pickles.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Michael of My Beautiful Bride. Just amazing. So hard working and friendly, he managed to get the best out of everyone and captured every last little detail!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | We designed and printed all our own stationery - invites, 'Order of the Day' and I-Spy & Mad Lib cards to keep guests entertained during the meal.

Our favours were individually picked classic Ladybird books, bound with brown paper bellybands and a little library card name plate. We both love reading (Philip's Mother was a librarian) and the ladybird books were so much a part of our childhood, that we thought it would be a thoughtful token for each guest to take away with them. Having sourced quite a few books, there were some that weren't quite up to scratch (scrawled with childrens' crayons and grubby fingerprints), so Kirsty turned the leftover books into paper garlands, used for decorating the marquee.

In another nod towards nostalgia and also wanting to include people who could not be present, we used Philip's late Grandfather's antique typewriter as a method of people leaving us little messages for our guest book. We also spent the engagement collecting petals (from bouquets bought when our niece was born, Birthday bouquets, 'I love you' bouquets and from flowers in ours and family members' gardens etc) to use as confetti - 'Petals with Memories'.

We put together our own sweet treats table, featuring fudge, coconut ice and chocolate discs made by Kirsty, her Mother and Philip's Mother - a team effort from the ladies! The men did a great job of setting up the lawn games and tuning the guitars, which we had around the venue with 'Please Play Me' labels hanging on them.

All the ales and sparkling wine were straight from the vineyard and brewery, and went down a storm!

THE HONEYMOON | The Maldives! 10 days on a tiny paradise island swimming, snorkelling, reading, eating, drinking. No internet, no phones. Utter bliss!

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | For Kirsty it was waking up early in the morning and pulling back the curtains of the farmhouse bedroom window to reveal a beautifully clear sky and a warm morning sun shining through the vineyard. To later peep through the net curtains and watch guests arriving in the courtyard. Eek!

For Philip seeing Kirsty arrive at the entrance to the barn to walk down the aisle and 'knowing' ☺

Both of us running out of the barn after the ceremony and taking a private walk through the woods.

Seeing so many smiling faces and receiving so many well-wishes. We felt incredibly loved!

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Take time to walk around the venue together at some stage during the day - in all the guest greeting/chatting/photo posing we didn't actually get that much alone time to appreciate what an incredible day it was and to look at what we had created. But it was worth sneaking off so that we could bask in that for a few minutes.

Don't fret about things going wrong, because nobody else will notice and anything that doesn't go quite to plan will just become something to laugh about in the future!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Venue | Old Luxters Barn

Catering | Rhubarb

Flowers | Ruby and Grace

Cake | The Cheese Shed

Photographer | My Beautiful Bride - Michael

Hair and Make-Up | George Heron

Dress | Candy Anthony

Shoes | Agnes and Norman

Bridesmaids' Belts | Netalyshany (etsy)

Bridesmaids' Dresses | Oasis

Bridesmaids' Shoes | New Look

Jacket & Waistcoat | Moss Bros

Accommodation | Old Luxters Farmhouse

Ahh such a perfect day.

Thanks so very much to Kirsty and Philip for sharing their lovely wedding with us today XOXO Lou