British Country Wedding

For Lloyd and Hilary it was an easy decision to get married in Cornwall. They got married in the local parish church and followed it up with a good old fashioned country ééòknees up’ in their old field. BRITT SPRING ééò who is shortly moving back to her native Australia after several years in the UK ééò was on hand to capture all the festivities. The couple love a good picnic, and being that it is the essence of summer they wanted their wedding day to convey this. Every table had their own picnic basket full of goodies to tuck into straight away ééò LOVE that idea!! Next came a buffet filled with local Cornish pasties from a friend’s family bakery, and on top of that there was home-made cookies, brownies and jellies. Basically good food meant good fun for their guests! And of course an English affair wouldn’t be complete without Pimms (my favourite summer cocktail!) which was served on arrival, alongside a ééòpull your own pint’ set up of local ales. Sounds like a dream wedding to be a guest at right? The gorgoeus bride shares some more details with us belowééò

HOW DID YOU MEET? My husband and I met online, some people find it hard to understand how you can fall in love with someone you have never met in person. I can’t explain it either, I like to think it was fate. If it’s meant to be, it will be, and this definitely ééòwas’! He lived in Cornwall, we spoke constantly for about a year, then finally met whilst I was on a camping holiday with my parents. He worked three jobs to pay for visits to me where I lived 160 miles away whilst I finished school. I ended up moving to Cornwall to go to college and so we could finally be together and we haven’t been apart for more than a few days since.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR PROPOSAL: The first day we met, Lloyd took me to a beach called Holywell Bay. We spent the whole afternoon walking on the beach and sitting in the sand-dunes where we watched the sun set. The day he proposed, he took me back to the sand dunes where we had a picnic looking out at the sea. After we finished our picnic, a beautiful wooden box appeared on my lap holding the most gorgeous ring I had ever seen. I was so speechless I forgot to say yes for a good few minutes!

TELL US ABOUT FINDING YOUR WEDDING DRESS: I had an idea of the silhouette I wanted, but that was about it. My Mum and Sister came with me to The Mews Bridal in Clifton village, I had seen a lovely dress by Suzanne Neville and they had it in. I thought it would be ‘the one’, but when I tried it on it turned out to be completely wrong for me. At which point I thought, well if that wasn’t the one I’ll never find it! But dress number 2 (also by Suzanne Neville) turned out to be a winner!

ANY DIY ELEMENTS? It really was a family affair from the start, the best man designed and hand printed our invitations and his mum spent two days making more bunting than you could ever imagine. Our rings came from a very talented friend who has a beautiful Jewellery shop in Truro and specialises in tailored jewellery. He is too generous for his own good and ended up making a bespoke anchor tie pin and also fitting a new strap to a vintage Omega watch for Lloyd to wear on the day. We spent the whole week before with family and friends on the finishing touches like filling origami boxes with dried petal confetti and tying all the cutlery together. We were just overwhelmed by all the help everyone gave us, and they all did it with a huge smile on their face.

DESCRIBE YOUR WEDDING FLOWERS: My wonderful friend Emilie, whom happens to be a very talented florist, made the bouquets and other beautiful floral arrangements for us. We had spoken about the feel of the day, I left the rest up to her and she really out did herself.

WHAT ADVISE WOULD YOU GIVE OUT TO A COUPLE PLANNING THEIR WEDDING? If people offer their help- take it! It can become very consuming and one of the best things for us in the lead up was sharing our excitement with everyone. Also, don’t compare your day to anyone elses because your day should be full of all the things you love. It’s very overwhelming seeing all these beautiful pictures of other weddings and it’s easy to forget that it will have taken a lot of effort to get to that point.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT? There are so many, but I will treasure the time we spent having our portraits taken back on Holywell Beach. It gave us a moment to ourselves for it to really sink in that we were married, and we were so happy to be able to spend part of the day at our special place.

ANY OTHER DETAILS THAT HELP TELL THE STORY OF YOUR DAY? A year or so ago we bought the land with my father in law, behind his house. My maiden name is Orchard, so we thought it would be fitting to turn part of it into a fruit orchard. We planted our first apple tree on the
wedding day and our second the day after. Thanks to our guests, we also have a nice little ééònest egg’ to dip into over the next few years so we can really make the orchard into something special.

I also have to thank Britt our photographer for giving us such incredible photographs to look back on, the day looks more beautiful than I even remember and that really is down to her. Not only is Britt incredibly talented in her art (and it really is an art) but she is the kindest most friendly person you could meet. Always being behind the lens myself, I thought it might be awkward being in front of it all day. But Britt soon took care of that. It felt like she was just another friend, snapping away.