Hold on tight, you’re about to be blown away by WWW readers Eleanor and Rupert’s gorgeous Haylands Barn wedding. Their day was so relaxed, filled with personality and all the summery vibes (think 30° heat!).
They had an outdoor celebrant ceremony, a confetti throw to end all confetti throws and gorgeous sundrenched portraits in the evening light. I really adore the pink, coral and orange seasonal blooms, the gorgeous attire with pops of pink, the cute car and the creative signs to name just a few.
Most of all though, I love their advice and insight throughout their report below. Thanks ever so much to the supremely talented Phoebe Rossi Photography for sharing with us these tremendous and joy-filled images.
Haylands Barn Wedding
The Proposal
Rupert proposed on a Sunday afternoon walk on Wimbledon Common, which is near where we live in London.
The proposal was lovely – it was low-key, it was just us, and it was a huge surprise! Rupert was acting a bit strange on the walk but I didn’t think too much into it. Things got a bit weird when he commented on a nice tree (very unlike him) and then asked me to go and stand in front of it for a photo. I obliged, wondering why he wanted a photo of this tree with me in it, but he told me someone had walked behind me so I needed to go back and do it again.
Little did I know he was waiting for his moment! As I turned back round to smile for the photo he was down on one knee with a gorgeous engagement ring. I was completely blown away, I’d had absolutely no idea and getting engaged wasn’t on my radar at all. He did a wonderful job at keeping it all a surprise, as well as choosing a beautiful ring which I loved.
After yes’s, hugs, a few tears and about a hundred questions from me about when on earth he’d been planning all this, we finished off our walk on the Common before heading home to share the good news with our immediate family. We then took ourselves to our favourite Italian restaurant for a celebratory dinner!
The Vision
Neither of us particularly knew exactly what we wanted when it came to our wedding day, but we did know we wanted it to be a very relaxed day and one big party with our friends and family. We wanted to prioritise good food and good music, as well as feeling like our day was individual to us.
Neither of us are religious so having a church ceremony wasn’t right for us. We also aren’t that formal so weren’t that keen on some of the more traditional elements of weddings. On top of that, we wanted our wedding to feel unique to us and different to other people’s!
As we started to look at some venues, we got a clearer idea of what we wanted and didn’t want. Many of the wedding venues we looked at were either a bit too formal and traditional for us, or we felt that they held so many weddings there that we would just feel like another one on the books.
We quickly realised that we wanted somewhere we could make our own, ideally with a large outdoors element, and somewhere where we could choose our own suppliers. Our own freedom quickly became a priority for us!
Budget
Whilst we were fortunate enough to have a healthy budget for our wedding, supported by our own money and contributions from family, we quickly became aware of how wedding costs can spiral out of control.
We therefore tried to keep a close eye on costs – we set priorities for the day where we were happier to spend more money on those areas meaning that we spent less on other things. We tried to do lots of comparisons between suppliers and tried to identify areas where we could do things ourselves or ask for help from others.
The Venue
After visiting lots of different places and considering venue vs marquee wedding, we discovered and were blown away by the stunning Haylands Barn in the South Downs, West Sussex.
Haylands Barn is owned by a family in the village of Graffham who had recently renovated and started renting out one of their huge barns for weddings. The beauty of it was that when we first came across it, they had only just started doing that and so by the time we had our wedding, they had only had a handful of weddings there. We absolutely loved this – it felt so unique and personal to us and like no one else would have ever been there (and not one of our guests or suppliers ever had!)
The barn is set on private farmland. It’s quiet, secluded and it’s stunning – it’s set amongst the rolling hills of the South Downs. Every time we drove down the driveway to get to the barn we just felt a sense of peace wash over us.
We had our whole day at the barn – we had an outdoor ceremony on the front lawn, the drinks reception on the barn’s backfield, and the meal and party inside the barn. It was also 30 degrees on our wedding day so it just looked gorgeous in the sunshine. We couldn’t have got more compliments on our venue if we tried!!
The Ceremony & Music
We had an amazing celebrant ceremony led by celebrant Claire Bradford (Creating Ceremony). It was outdoors on the front lawn of the barn. There was something really special about being in the great outdoors in the beautiful sunshine, it was intimate and quiet and we could see all our guests rather than facing away from them at the front.
I arrived with my dad, three bridesmaids and my young nephew as page boy. We entered to ‘Somewhere over the rainbow/what a wonderful world’ by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole – the summery acoustic vibes were exactly what I wanted.
Due to the weather being so warm, we’d had to rearrange the chairs to be out of the direct sunlight, which meant I walked into the ceremony across the lawn in front of our guests, rather than behind the aisle. It was a bit alternative but we loved it!
Our ceremony was personal, unique and unlike a wedding ceremony I’d ever heard before. Our celebrant did an incredible job of telling the story of how we met, our lifestyle together and what we hoped for our future together. There were tears and laughter throughout.
We had two readings – one from Rupert’s two sisters and one from one of our ushers. They chose the readings themselves so we got a great surprise on the day. We also did a ring blessing, where we passed the wedding rings around our guests before we put them on, as well as a handfasting ritual, where we tied a ribbon together to signify us ‘tying the knot’. We originally weren’t sure if it was a bit woo-woo for us, but we really enjoyed including it in our ceremony and it just made it even more personal.
We also had a group song, which was our equivalent of singing a hymn in a church ceremony. We felt it was a bit of a risk (what if our guests didn’t want to sing a random song?) but it was amazing – everyone sung their hearts out and it was so joyous. We all sung ‘I love you baby’ by Andy Williams, a song everyone knows across all generations. It was brilliant. If you do this, make sure people can see the lyrics to the song – we got it printed on the order of service, but you could also have a screen at the front. Lots of people know the chorus but not the verses and it stops there being lull moments in the group song.
We also asked our brother-in-law to perform a song on his guitar, he re-wrote and performed a version of ‘I believe in a thing called love’ by The Darkness for us which was just fantastic and another surprise for us! He replayed it as we left the ceremony as our exit music.
In hindsight, the ceremony was probably the part of the day which we got the most comments on. Our guests absolutely loved it, and so did we. (I should say that our celebrant ceremony wasn’t the legal marriage, we went to Wandsworth Town Hall where we live in London a few days prior with our immediate families to do the legalities and sign the papers!)
For our music, we used a band local to the venue – The Deloreans. We arranged for them to do an afternoon acoustic set during the reception (2x45mins) and an evening set in the barn (2x1hrs). We absolutely loved them. They had a broad playlist which you could pick and choose from ranging from 60s-70s classics to today’s big top 40.
They did a fantastic job mixing between songs and genres, keeping the dancefloor full all night and celebrating alongside us. We also paid a little extra for a saxophone player to add to their normal five-piece band (they have other add-ons) which we would highly recommend. The band were a delight to be around, professional and very easy to deal with in the build-up to the wedding and on the day itself.
Your Photographer
We chose Phoebe Rossi as our photographer, and she was fabulous, just look at these photos! Phoebe is so friendly and was such a warm and calming presence on the day. It honestly felt like she wasn’t there half the time, she did an amazing job of slipping into the background but capturing such special moments. We also had a second shooter, Scott Howard, who Phoebe knows and having two photographers meant we captured loads of amazing moments. Our couple photos are informal and not posed, they’re very us.
We found that choosing a wedding photographer was quite overwhelming, there are so many to choose from and obviously so many styles of photography. Phoebe was one of the first we spoke to and we were happy to book her from the start, why overcomplicate things? We knew she had experience in relaxed outdoor weddings, which was exactly what we wanted – someone who liked our style of wedding and could capture that feeling.
We didn’t book a filmmaker/videographer as we were trying to keep costs down and we asked Rupert’s uncle to take lots of footage for us on his video camera.
Your Outfits
I wore a beautiful dress called Tommie from Willowby by Watters. It was perfect – simple, girly, easy to wear, lightweight and fun. It had little straps, a deep plunge neckline, a plain satin top and a gorgeous shimmery floral skirt. I had buttons put on the back of the dress to add some extra detail.
It was the perfect midpoint between a big skirted dress and a fitted dress and it was just a dream to wear. Particularly on what turned out to be such a hot day, it would have been so uncomfortable to have been in a tight or heavy dress. Mine basically felt like a totally amazing summer dress.
I got my dress from Heritage Brides in Hatfield, Hertfordshire which was a wonderful experience. I went to three different bridal shops and I couldn’t quite find what I wanted. To be honest, I never really knew what I wanted and I thought that something would jump out at me, but for a while it didn’t. I was very indecisive, all of the dresses were so beautiful that I found it hard to even narrow them down.
I also realised that the pressure of it being ‘THE wedding dress’ was a bit overwhelming. I felt like I was playing dress up in some of them – they just weren’t me, no matter how stunning they were. After a while, I realised that something comfortable and fun was more me. Sam at Heritage Brides helped me narrow down and when we got to Tommie, I skipped out of the changing room with it on because it just suited my vibe. I was so happy with my dress and can only wish I could wear it more!!
I paired my dress with silver and beige suede block heels from Esska. I wanted shoes I could wear again as well as ones I could wear most of the day. I did bring trainers for the evening but I wore my Esska’s all day and all night, including a full night of dancing!
I wore my friends veil which she lent me. I wore small gold dangly earrings from Missoma (which I still wear day to day), a gold engraved bangle which was a gift from Rupert on the wedding morning, and a small pearly bracelet which I gifted to my bridesmaids too.
Rupert wore a morning suit (which he owned already from Neal and Palmer) and paired it with a light pink waistcoat and cream floral tie from Moss Bros. The groomsmen all wore the same outfits which looked lovely on a sunny day. He wore black shiny shoes from Loake and our florist made some wonderful buttonholes for the boys too. The morning suit jackets didn’t last for long though in the 30-degree heat!
Two of our bridesmaids wore dresses from Rewritten, one wore a dress she had bought herself as she lives abroad. We went for orange/coral mismatching – perfect for our summery and outside vision.
The Styling & Decor
Our overall style for the day was relaxed, colourful and summery– hopefully reflecting us as a couple. We didn’t want anything too styled or formal but wanted it to fit in with the natural beauty of our venue.
We didn’t have a tight colour scheme other than ‘colourful wildflowers’! This was what we put on our initial invitations and we tried to loosely keep that throughout.
Our flowers were stunning, we went for bright pink, orange and yellow colours, all locally grown and seasonal blooms. We had my bridal bouquet and 3 bridesmaid bouquets made, as well as buttonholes for the groomsmen. We then did ‘DIY buckets’ for our table flowers, rather than pay for the florist to make up a load of centrepieces etc. We were having long tables so we didn’t want huge floral displays that would just get thrown out afterwards.
We got three huge buckets of flowers and foliage delivered from our florist which we then popped into small vases and bottles ourselves. This not only saved cost but was a really nice thing to do the afternoon before the wedding (with the handy help of mums, sisters and bridesmaids!) We then displayed our bouquets around the tables after we had finished with them to make sure we got the most out of them on the day.
For the cake, we went for a three-tier naked cake in three different flavours – blackberry and gin, white choc and raspberry, and orange and almond. It looked amazing when it was displayed as it was decorated with berries and some of our flowers, as well as two cute giraffe bride and groom cake toppers. We also had some gluten-free guests so Rupert’s mum made her speciality gluten-free chocolate cake, so there was a lot of cake going round!
I made most of our signs myself in a bid to save money and add a personal touch. I created our menus, table names (family pet names!), bar menu, orders of ceremony etc on Canva and then got them printed at a local print shop. I used the same design for a welcome sign and got that printed on a huge A3 board from Printed.com.
We also made our own order of the day by using an unwanted wooden pallet that we took from a local house construction. We sanded it down, painted it in dark rustic brown and then used a paint pen from Hobbycraft to handwrite our timings on. Cheap, authentic and handmade!
We also hired some props and decor from local hire company, To Have and To Hire. This was great as it saved us forking out for things we would then be stuck with after the wedding with no use for. We hired things like candle holders, a peg photo frame, wooden barrels, ‘just married’ bunting, Polaroid cameras… They also put up some artificial flowers and foliage on the beams of our barn which looked amazing and matched our colour scheme too!
The Honeymoon
A couple of days after the wedding we flew to Spain for a mini-moon, but for our ‘big honeymoon’ we are heading off for a month travelling and exploring New Zealand. We’ve never done a big trip like that together before so what better excuse than our honeymoon! We are very excited.
Memorable Moments
- Our respective mornings – my morning with my bridesmaids was relaxed and full of laughter. Rupert headed to the pub with the boys! No stress, just good times with friends and family.
- Arriving to the ceremony (a little late oops!) and seeing all of our guests sat and waiting – I almost couldn’t believe everyone was there for us!
- Our confetti train – I had ordered SO much confetti out of fear of not having enough that we ended up inhaling so much and almost having a coughing fit halfway through!
- Our photographer taking us out for some couple photos out in the fields just as the sun was setting, we are so grateful as those photos are lovely.
- Merging from our first dance into our live band’s first set and everyone just jumping in and joining us on the dancefloor.
- Being lifted up by our friends late into the evening on the dancefloor to dance on their shoulders!
Advice For Other Couples
First and foremost, create the wedding day that YOU want. You will receive lots of opinions and experiences from other people (wanted or unwanted!) but try to remember that it’s about you as a couple and your vibe should shine through in every aspect. Don’t feel you have to do something just because your sister or friend or partner’s auntie suggests it.
Think of ways to inject personality into the day. Weddings typically follow a very similar format sure, but there are lots of ways you can make it about you guys. Whether it’s in photos, table names, the speeches, your decor – think of ways that make it about YOU.
Get a friend or family to take photos on your or their phone during the day. They’ll capture some good shots that you might not be aware of and it’s really nice to see phone photos straight after the wedding when you’re waiting for your official ones to come back!
Don’t forget to enjoy the day you planned. It’s easy to get caught up in everything on the day and everyone wanting to speak to you but remember all the time and money you’ve spent is for you too! I danced the night away at our wedding and was so happy to have made the most of our amazing band. If you’ve arranged games for guests, play them! If you’ve chosen your favourite cake flavors, eat the cake. If you’ve got a photobooth, get in it. The day goes by in a flash, so make the most of it!
Finally – honestly don’t stress about it. As long as you have a time and a place, someone to marry you, friends, family, and something to eat and drink – the rest is all nice but not the be-all and end-all. Enjoy your wedding day for what it is, a celebration of your commitment to your partner rather than a show!
Does it get any more beautiful? I think not!
Eleanor and Rupert, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your gorgeous Haylands Barn wedding story with us.
Further Reading
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