Barn wedding venues are pretty much the most popular in the UK. They're such versatile spaces with all the benefits of a marquee, without the potential for cold ankles! Laura and Ben chose the gorgeous Olde Bell for their wedding venue. It's a hotel with a barn attached, and it's actually where my husband and I spent our mini-honeymoon after our official London wedding ceremony. The gardens are stunning, as you can see from Laura and Ben's stunning wedding photographs by Kate Gray Photography. I absolutely love all of Laura's clever wedding details. Make sure you read her answers to the Before the Big Day Questionnaire - she saved lots of money by using great local vendors, and DIY-ing much of her reception stationery, using hessian, an old London map, and vintage-style luggage labels. My favourite details? The personalised rustic signs, Laura's simple Grecian-style hair band, the wedding favours reflecting their heritage, and the incredible wedding cake, complete with totally original flavours!
We got married at The Olde Bell, Hurley on Saturday 21st September 2013. We looked at seven local venues on Christmas Eve 2012, and this one just felt right.
The Olde Bell had a country feeling that Ben & I grew up with, and we instantly knew we could easily achieve the soft, romantic wedding atmosphere we were hoping for. The grand hotels we looked at just seemed a bit formal for us, and we didn't like the thought of knowing that people other than our guests would be in the venue on the day.
Luckily for me my photographer was also one of my very best friends, Kate Gray Photography. To have someone I knew so well with me all day to capture every moment was so calming and reassuring, I am very lucky.
Kate also did a pre-wedding shoot with us to see how were as a couple and to help us feel less pressure on the day. The whole experience was amazing and the pictures are truly awesome, I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Thank you so much my friend ☺
I loved planning the wedding! I was very lucky to have a man that wanted input, and so many other people around me willing to help, and make the experience so personal.
My advice to brides would be, don't underestimate how stressful organising your wedding is going to be - it's a massive project, and can be overwhelming to begin with. My best friend found a wedding planner in a bridal magazine telling me exactly what I needed to have done in each month leading up to the wedding. That way I didn't forget anything.
On the day try to stop for a moment every hour or so, and take in the atmosphere. Glance around the room with all those happy faces, take a mental snapshot, and feel proud at what you’ve achieved!
Our florist was a lovely lady called Anne Harris of By Arrangement Flowers, who was recommended by a friend. I actually already knew her, as I taught her daughter dance!
I didn't know a lot about flowers but with the help of internet searches of bridal bouquet images and Anne's advice, I decided on a mixture of roses, freesias, hydrangeas and gypsophila.
We had a three-piece jazz band from Silk Street Jazz playing awesome tunes on the lawn during our drinks reception. Fantastic entertainment, would definitely recommend!
My mother in law handmade pretty little bags of traditional sugared almonds for each guest, with lovely labels that explained what each of the five almonds represented - Health, Wealth, Happiness, Long Life and Fertility.
I love a DIY project so packed loads into the wedding to give a personal touch. I made the table plan with a Victorian map print showing both Ben and my home towns, plus our wedding venue just along the Thames. I then printed childhood pictures of us both, and arrows pointing to where we grew up, and a 'You are here' for the venue. I then put the guest table lists around the edges, and mounted it onto hessian, and into a vintage cream frame, which was popped on an easel.
I found gorgeous luggage tags, and hand-printed all the name tags, then mounted them on hessian, and tied them to the favours to double up as place settings. I ordered a personalised wedding card sack, and numerous other rustic signs to personalise the venue. I also found a great site to print our own 'Wed-Libs' to keep the guests entertained between courses. Reading them on our honeymoon flight was hilarious ☺
Our wedding invitations were designed by our very talented friends Elliott Holman and Ewan Jones. They used the colours of ivory and mint green to create gorgeous, vintage-style cards. We wanted something elegant, but not fussy, and got exactly that. We had our wedding email address printed on them for RSVPs to save paper. Ben and I created the stationary for the tables. We printed off photos of us together in different places, and named the tables after those locations. We backed the photos with card, and a brief description of where the photo was taken. I bought vintage table number stands to complete the look.
Our florist was a lovely lady called Anne Harris of By Arrangement Flowers, who was recommended by a friend. I actually already knew her, as I taught her daughter dance! I didn't know a lot about flowers but with the help of internet searches of bridal bouquet images and Anne's advice, I decided on a mixture of roses, freesias, hydrangeas and gypsophila.
We had different favours for the men and women. As my mother is a Filipina we had palm size palm leaf fans sent over from the Philippines for the girls. Ben’s mother is Greek Cypriot so we decided on miniature bottles of Ouzo for the boys. The children weren't left out. I found a supplier online for personalised children’s wedding activity books full of puzzles & colouring in to keep them entertained throughout the meal. These went down a treat!
My sister-in-law bought our cake for our wedding present ☺, however our initial consultation at Choccywoccydoodah gave an estimated price of £1400!!! No way! We instead decided to look for a supplier a bit closer to our venue, and found the best cake-baker in the land in the form of Jordana Rickson of Petit Gateau. Taking into account the number of guests we went for a four-tier style cake, and Jordana very kindly helped us with create a bespoke design, based around our theme colours.
Our cake flavours were, passion with vanilla butter cream, lemon, poppy seed and lavender with almond syrup and vanilla buttercream, pink champagne with pink champagne butter cream, and rich chocolate cake with a praline ganache filling. It was epic, and certainly tasted as good as it looked! We were determined to have slightly different flavours to the norm, and I searched online for different flavour combinations. Jordana was fantastic, and made every flavour we suggested, for us to try.
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Before the Big Day - The Best UK Wedding Blog.
The Olde Bell had a country feeling that Ben & I grew up with, and we instantly knew we could easily achieve the soft, romantic wedding atmosphere we were hoping for. The grand hotels we looked at just seemed a bit formal for us, and we didn't like the thought of knowing that people other than our guests would be in the venue on the day.
Luckily for me my photographer was also one of my very best friends, Kate Gray Photography. To have someone I knew so well with me all day to capture every moment was so calming and reassuring, I am very lucky.
Kate also did a pre-wedding shoot with us to see how were as a couple and to help us feel less pressure on the day. The whole experience was amazing and the pictures are truly awesome, I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Thank you so much my friend ☺I loved planning the wedding! I was very lucky to have a man that wanted input, and so many other people around me willing to help, and make the experience so personal. My advice to brides would be, don't underestimate how stressful organising your wedding is going to be - it's a massive project, and can be overwhelming to begin with. My best friend found a wedding planner in a bridal magazine telling me exactly what I needed to have done in each month leading up to the wedding. That way I didn't forget anything.
On the day try to stop for a moment every hour or so, and take in the atmosphere. Glance around the room with all those happy faces, take a mental snapshot, and feel proud at what you’ve achieved!
Our florist was a lovely lady called Anne Harris of By Arrangement Flowers, who was recommended by a friend. I actually already knew her, as I taught her daughter dance!
I didn't know a lot about flowers but with the help of internet searches of bridal bouquet images and Anne's advice, I decided on a mixture of roses, freesias, hydrangeas and gypsophila.
We had a three-piece jazz band from Silk Street Jazz playing awesome tunes on the lawn during our drinks reception. Fantastic entertainment, would definitely recommend!
My mother in law handmade pretty little bags of traditional sugared almonds for each guest, with lovely labels that explained what each of the five almonds represented - Health, Wealth, Happiness, Long Life and Fertility.
I love a DIY project so packed loads into the wedding to give a personal touch. I made the table plan with a Victorian map print showing both Ben and my home towns, plus our wedding venue just along the Thames. I then printed childhood pictures of us both, and arrows pointing to where we grew up, and a 'You are here' for the venue. I then put the guest table lists around the edges, and mounted it onto hessian, and into a vintage cream frame, which was popped on an easel.
I found gorgeous luggage tags, and hand-printed all the name tags, then mounted them on hessian, and tied them to the favours to double up as place settings. I ordered a personalised wedding card sack, and numerous other rustic signs to personalise the venue. I also found a great site to print our own 'Wed-Libs' to keep the guests entertained between courses. Reading them on our honeymoon flight was hilarious ☺
Our wedding invitations were designed by our very talented friends Elliott Holman and Ewan Jones. They used the colours of ivory and mint green to create gorgeous, vintage-style cards. We wanted something elegant, but not fussy, and got exactly that. We had our wedding email address printed on them for RSVPs to save paper. Ben and I created the stationary for the tables. We printed off photos of us together in different places, and named the tables after those locations. We backed the photos with card, and a brief description of where the photo was taken. I bought vintage table number stands to complete the look.
Our florist was a lovely lady called Anne Harris of By Arrangement Flowers, who was recommended by a friend. I actually already knew her, as I taught her daughter dance! I didn't know a lot about flowers but with the help of internet searches of bridal bouquet images and Anne's advice, I decided on a mixture of roses, freesias, hydrangeas and gypsophila.
We had different favours for the men and women. As my mother is a Filipina we had palm size palm leaf fans sent over from the Philippines for the girls. Ben’s mother is Greek Cypriot so we decided on miniature bottles of Ouzo for the boys. The children weren't left out. I found a supplier online for personalised children’s wedding activity books full of puzzles & colouring in to keep them entertained throughout the meal. These went down a treat!
My sister-in-law bought our cake for our wedding present ☺, however our initial consultation at Choccywoccydoodah gave an estimated price of £1400!!! No way! We instead decided to look for a supplier a bit closer to our venue, and found the best cake-baker in the land in the form of Jordana Rickson of Petit Gateau. Taking into account the number of guests we went for a four-tier style cake, and Jordana very kindly helped us with create a bespoke design, based around our theme colours.
Our cake flavours were, passion with vanilla butter cream, lemon, poppy seed and lavender with almond syrup and vanilla buttercream, pink champagne with pink champagne butter cream, and rich chocolate cake with a praline ganache filling. It was epic, and certainly tasted as good as it looked! We were determined to have slightly different flavours to the norm, and I searched online for different flavour combinations. Jordana was fantastic, and made every flavour we suggested, for us to try.
Before the Big Day - The Best UK Wedding Blog.
