Happy Monday Lovely People!

We have an absolute gem of a real wedding for you today. I’m sure you can guess by the title that Dylan and Hollie’s wedding was captured entirely by friends and family via Instagram making it very personal and very unique. They wanted their guests to help document their day so what better way than encouraging people to get out their phones and join in by uploading their photos to the wonderful world of Instagram. Genius!

“We’re so used to documenting our lives like that nowadays, and a phone was less intrusive and intimidating than a camera in your face! Say’s Hollie. “We knew we didn’t want to hire a photographer as one of our aims was for it to be private and intimate, no strangers, therefore not having to introduce each other to family or friends each hasn’t already met. I bought an old polaroid camera from Sue Ryder but after spending £40 on film and getting one awful photo, it just wasn’t reliable for that one special day! I  love the look of instagrams and our photos just seemed to glow when I used the filters on them!”

Dylan and Hollie married on the 31st August 2013 with a beautiful ceremony at St Mary’s Church, Crimplesham followed by a garden reception at their gorgeous 300 year old cottage which Dylan spent 6 weeks renovating in time for their wedding. After their ceremony everyone walked together from the church, which was just round the corner from their cottage, showering Hollie and Dylan on the way with homemade confetti made from dried roses. Just lovely!

With camping in one of their paddocks, a bonfire in the other and enough homemade elderberry champagne to keep everyone happy; Dylan and Hollie’s homemade country wedding sounds picture perfect….. in fact I think the word I’m looking for is idyllic. Almost everything was handmade from Hollie’s stunning wedding dress to the decor and food making their wedding incredibly unique and very special to everyone involved.

Hollie tells us all about it…..

A day in the life of Dylan and Hollie…..

We wanted our wedding day to be just like any other normal day in the life of Dylan & me (I didn’t even brush my hair!) but with the very precious people in our life all on the same continent for once!  We didn’t want to make a fuss, we just wanted to have a really honest, joyful and organic day.

A homemade number…..

My wedding dress was originally from TKMaxx last winter but I took the back out, moved the waist and lengthened it to the floor with lace and crocheted ribbons then a row of lampshade Pom poms! I just adore it! The sheer shrug was originally a t-shirt from Dorothy Perkins but I chopped it up to make a cardy! For my jewellery I planned to wear an old ivory and brass bracelet with huge glass gem from Swinderby antiques fair, a treat from Dylan’s mum. Sadly it fell off and smashed when I was getting dressed so my plastic Oxfam version replaced it for the day. My necklace was from Accessorize and so was the glitter nail polish!

Mix Match Bridesmaid Dresses….

My bridesmaid dresses were such an odd combination of boho babes! They were from La redoute, Peacocks, Next, Oliver Bonas , forever 21 and Miss Selfridge! 6 different shapes and personalities meant they had to all be random, but such a pretty line up!

They wore their own jewellery but we all carried my Nanny Kitten’s white embroidered hankies.

White Wax Flower, Baby’s Breath and Limonium…..

Dylan’s sister Amy, whose a part time florist and full time creator, arranged our flowers. My bouquet was white wax flower, with the stems left long, and the girls had Baby’s breath and Limonium. In jars we had all white hydrangeas, eryngium, gladioli, eremurus, ornithogalum thyrsoides and lisianthus, also big bunches of thyme and sea holly in the church. I love the woodland kinda feel!

A Party of 60, 150 meters of buntings and an abandoned caravan…..

The party of 60 was in our orchard and we drank blackberry and elderflower pimms and homemade elderberry champagne! Bridesmaid Kym made 150 botanical cupcakes, Dylan’s baby sister Elly made the 3 tier chocolate, fruit and carrot cake and my friend Stacey made 120 beautiful meringues!

We decorated the orchard with 150 meters of handmade white paper heart bunting on string (a cliche I know but I just couldn’t stop). We had our bar under morroccan brollies at our moss covered 70′s abandoned caravan and I painstakingly collected 60 old willow print plates, victorian bone handle knives and forks, charity shop crocheted and embroidered table cloths, a plethora of tables and chairs from junk shops, charity shops, our house and my mums! We also had a couple of old sofas and a few big rugs. 

A picnic feast…..

For food we had a marmalade spice roasted ham, cheeses, figs, apples, pickles/chutneys/piccalilli, breads/crackers, posh crisps. Gallo Summer red wines! Scrummy! All served out of picnic baskets, veg crates, old breadboards, hessian sacks and my fave, brown paper on a roll! In the evening we had Lincolnshire sausage hotdogs and marshmallows round the bonfire.

 

A lot of special moments……

There were a lot of special moments in the lead up to our wedding. My heroic mum & pap flew my best friend Flora and her baby Noah over from Chicago a week before the wedding. My baby brother and his pal Charlie spent around 30 hours mowing our fields. My bridesmaid Lj secretly planned my hen weekend with playlists, make overs, florals – I could go on and my grandpa agreed to do our reading the week of their anniversary despite my grandma being just a few days diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Ahhhh thinking back, what a wonderful wedding we had!!!

Favourite moment of the day….

Not leaving my husbands side for one moment.

Any advice for couples planning their wedding day?

You really won’t notice any of the details on the actual day, so enjoy them up until that point then let everything go – you are getting married!

The Line Up Photographer: Family and Friends via Instagram Ceremony Venue: St Mary’s Church, Crimplesham Reception Venue: Dylan and Hollie’s Orchard Bride’s Dress: TKMaxx personalised by Hollie Bride’s Shoes: Accessorize Bride’s Jewellery: Bracelet from Swinderby Antiques Fair and Oxfam; Necklace from Accessorize Groom: Top Man Bridesmaid Dresses: See Post Bridesmaid Jewellery: Bridesmaid’s Own Catering: Friends and Family Flowers: Dylan’s Sister Amy Entertainment: Couple’s own Playlist  

Thank you so much to Hollie and Dylan for sharing your beautifully intimate wedding day with us and your equally beautiful Instagram pictures.

Makes me wish Bob and I had encouraged our guests to use Instagram on our wedding day – it’s such a great way for guests to instantly share their wedding photos with you.

Would you have an Insta-Wedding like Hollie and Dylan? It would save you a lot of money on a wedding photographer but would you be missing out on those very precious professional images? We’d love to know what you think……

I have a feeling we may be seeing more and more Insta-Wedding’s in the future.

Big Love

Festival Brides xx