Summer dreaming today courtesy of WWW readers Kira and Jack and their divine Blake Hall wedding in Essex.
Yes, that’s right, you are about to clap eyes on the prettiest of days, think rustic DIY decor meets seasonal summer flowers. Then there were the stylish outfit choices, pearl accessories, meadow portraits and emotional ceremony.
I also love Kira and Jack’s advice to keep to your top priorities and to remember that guests won’t know about those extras you craved during planning. Spot on advice guys! It’s the perfect way to manage your budget and the planning to-dos.
Gemma Giorgio Photography, thank you ever so much for sharing with us these sensational shots of a very gorgeous celebration indeed.
Blake Hall Wedding
The Proposal
Jack and I have been together since we were 16, and always talked about moving in together and getting engaged after getting our degrees. We finally moved into our house after 7 years, in August 2020, so I knew a proposal was coming at some point soon.
During the first week in the house, we spent 14-hour days stripping wallpaper, putting together Ikea furniture and repainting every room, and being the time of COVID, we had booked a Monday night “eat out to help out” dinner to celebrate all our hard work (we were still very much students and unable to resist a discounted meal).
My friends said that there was no way Jack would propose over a half-price weeknight dinner… but I knew him better, and had just enough time to do my nails on my left hand only before we were due to leave.
As we were on our way out, Jack suddenly plopped down to pop the question, surrounded by the carnage of the half-decorated living room. He was so nervous and shot back up before I could say yes, but of course I did, and we celebrated over a very lovely (and very reasonably priced) dinner.
The Vision
We wanted our wedding to feel woodsy and rustic, but still be polished and pretty enough to feel like a proper wedding.
I love all things pretty, girly, and glam. But we also spend most of our free time wind-swept and knee-deep in mud with the dog, so our wedding needed to marry those two things.
The Venue
Blake Hall in Ongar, Essex; a stunning 17th-century barn venue on the grounds of a beautiful family home. The venue suited our vision perfectly.
The Essex Barns is beautifully rustic and full of history, while the Hay Barn is more modern and home to the most stunning picture window, which is absolutely perfect for photos. The grounds are beautifully looked after and a lovely tranquil environment to spend your wedding day in.
Your Outfits
Bride
I knew from very early on that I wanted to wear something I could move in, perhaps with a little bit of colour. I tried dresses on in 3 boutiques and finally found the Bobbi dress by Madi Lane at Isabella Grace Bridal in Tunbridge Wells.
The dress had a gorgeous latte-coloured underskirt which made for a bit of interest without being too non-traditional. The dress was originally twice my budget at £2000, but a week later the sample went on sale for more than half price, and I snapped it up!
I chose a fingertip-length pearl veil by Ami Elisah Bridal as I wanted to be able to wear my full bridal regalia all day, and bought super-cheap pearl hair pins to match on Amazon. I had another incredibly lucky sale find with my shoes, which were the Henriette Pearl heels from Charlotte Mills – they went on sale 2 days before my first dress fitting and arrived just in time.
Bridesmaids
The girls’ dresses were by Biba at House of Fraser and were (another) sale steal. The champagne colour matched my dress underskirt perfectly, the material was stretchy and comfy, and the fit was so flattering on all of my beautiful bridesmaids. The high street has so many lovely options for bridesmaid dresses now that you really don’t need to spend much money at all.
Groom & Groomsmen
Jack had his heart set on a dark green tweed-style suit and we ultimately found The Grooms Room in Colchester which had exactly what he wanted. We chose to rent the suits as the price was very reasonable and meant the guys wouldn’t be stuck with an outfit they never wore again.
The Ceremony & Music
We had our ceremony in the Hay Barn in front of the gorgeous picture window. We walked down the aisle to an instrumental piano cover of Late Night Talking by Harry Styles, and walked back up to Celebrate by the Jonas Brothers.
We spent so long changing our minds about whether we wanted something traditional for our music. We settled on these songs because they’re fun and upbeat; we wanted our wedding to feel happy and festive rather than overly emotional!
That being said, Jack started crying the second his niece Matilda started walking down the aisle as our flower girl, and didn’t stop for the entire ceremony, and started again all through the speeches! Neither of us expected this at all, but it goes to show just how unexpectedly special it feels to really be getting married to your favourite person!
We were lucky enough to be married by Maid of Honour’s mum, Mandy, who is a registrar and has known Jack and I since we were at school. Mandy and I met up in advance of the wedding and tweaked the wording of the ceremony to reflect mine and Jack’s relationship, which made the ceremony feel so much more personal.
Our first reading was an excerpt from Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney, read by Jack’s sister Helen, which we chose as we felt it reflected our love and gratitude for our families and all of their support.
Our second reading was from Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, read by my Maid of Honour, Rebecca. We chose this because it felt very us; it’s silly and funny, and discusses the more mundane parts of being with your partner for a long time, but also how special it is to have someone to do all of the mundane things in life with.
Your Photographer
Gemma Giorgio Photography; Gemma did an absolutely incredible job with our photos and making us feel comfortable in front of the camera. We chose not to have a videographer so there was a lot riding on our photos, and Gemma did not disappoint.
We knew she wouldn’t, because we had also met up with Gemma in 2022 for a pre-wedding shoot with our dog, and the photos were stunning, and we had a surprisingly fun time taking them considering how nervous we both were!
We would recommend Gemma to anyone looking for a photographer who will take beautiful, bright and airy photos you will treasure forever, without “over-directing”.
The Styling & Decor
Blake Hall is beautiful and so well looked after that we didn’t feel the need to add many of our own decorations. We preferred to keep most things bare to reflect the rustic theme, and the few touches we did add were mostly DIYed to save money.
- We used Christmas tree off-cuts for the wood slices on our table centrepieces
- My brother found some free wooden pallets which we cleaned up for the table plan
- My mum made a sweets table on a £50 budget with bits and pieces from Amazon
- I didn’t have any signs made up and instead printed everything on nice paper and put them in mismatching wooden frames
- We bought some secondhand polaroid cameras on Facebook marketplace and asked guests to pin the photos to a pallet to create a photo board throughout the night
Otherwise, our only big investment in décor were our flowers by Elisha’s Floral Design. We met Elisha for a consultation in 2022 and felt that she completely understood what we were looking for. I know nothing about flowers but knew I wanted loads of texture and foliage, nothing too formal or traditional, and a little bit of pink to liven up our very neutral palette.
Jack wanted a buttonhole that was a bit different, and Elisha created something so unique that he loved. Due to our budget constraints, we didn’t have much to spend on flowers, but Elisha did an incredible job with what we had to spend, and focused on creating pieces we could move from the ceremony room to the reception room so that everything was re-used.
My mum and I spent months collecting and cleaning mismatched jars which Elisha kindly let us drop off with her before the wedding to save on vase hire. She filled them with a stunning mixture of flowers and foliage and tied the jars to the chairs in our ceremony, and created table centrepieces that were all different from one another.
The look she created was simple but so effective. The mismatched florals complemented the rustic theme perfectly while being so interesting to look at. We were thrilled with what Elisha created and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her to anyone looking for beautiful wedding flowers.
Our cake also ended up being decoration in itself. I wanted a cake that looked like a tree stump with our initials carved into it, but knew getting a professional cake made would cost a fortune.
My mum, who has no cake decorating experience, volunteered to make it and spent 3 years practising. She did an absolutely incredible job and you would never know she isn’t a pro because she created a stunning three-tiered cake that was exactly what I wanted. It was probably the feature of the wedding that got more compliments than anything else. It also tasted amazing!
The Honeymoon
We took a road trip around California for two weeks. We started in San Francisco and travelled down the Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles and San Diego, then drove to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.
We went to Disneyland on my birthday, saw wild otters, sea lions, and coyotes, drove through redwood forests and watched the sunset at Big Sur. The landscape was utterly breathtaking and completely indescribable. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime trip and something we will never forget.
Memorable Moments
When the ice cream cart came out! We had a heatwave on the weekend of our wedding – it was 28 degrees, and horribly muggy. We had arranged for ice cream to be served during reception drinks nearly a year earlier, having no idea if it would even be warm.
We were so glad we had decided to do this as everyone was thrilled when the cart came out, especially the kids, and we got some really special photos as a result.
Advice For Other Couples
Decide on a few things that are non-negotiable for your wedding, and book those first. For us, we were happy to spend more on having the exact photographer whose work we adored, and on the venue we fell in love with. There were other things we would have liked to have if the budget had been there, like live music, or a videographer, but we committed early on to let these things go if we had to.
If you decide at the outset that you must have a live band, or a light-up dance floor, or a doughnut wall, then make that a priority. But if you have none of those things, your wedding will still be beautiful and fun, and you will still be married to your favourite person, and no one will wonder where the doughnuts are.
What an honour it’s been to share their beautiful real wedding story. Wow!
Kira and Jack, I can’t thank you enough for sharing with us your super special Blake Hall wedding story.
Further Reading
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