An Essex Wedding - Jul/Aug 2019 (Issue 87)

We were keen to have a local feel to our day, so we chose to have a ceremony at the Church of St Laurence in Upminster, which is where my parents got married. Broadfields Essex Barn at Thames Chase Community Forest was the perfect choice for our reception. It offered us a blank canvas without the rules and regulations that some venues impose. To fit with the setting, we opted for a rustic, country feel with a dusky pink palette. We arranged classic flowers such as roses, gypsophila and lisianthus in jam jars and sat them on top of wooden log slices for the centrepieces. I created the table plan from a wooden pallet decorated with mini bunting. For a personal touch, we named each table after a place we’d visited with a photo of us at the location. My mum’s homemade bunting hung across the beams of the barn and a friend took care of the lighting. The pink uplighters outside looked amazing at dusk. We had a simple three-tier cake with coordinating blooms on the top. There were also gluten-free options and a sweetie stand brimming with old-fashioned treats. Our favours were homemade ginger biscuits with our names embossed in them. 54