Your Sussex Wedding - Dec/Jan 2019 (Issue 82)

We only had three tables, and as we love to travel, we named each after islands that we’d visited. I bought a large picture frame from a charity shop, and painted it with blackboard paint. I enlisted a friend with very neat handwriting to write out all the guests’ names! My best man and lifelong friend, Andrew, made an incredibly heartfelt speech about our school days, which had everyone laughing and crying at the same time! A friend had recommended the Caribbean Kitchen to us. We wanted a quick self- service style of catering so that we could get on with the party sooner! They served a selection of delicious canapés and for the wedding breakfast we had jerk chicken, an incredible veggie curry, and a selection of salads and couscous. The plates and cutlery were compostable, which was important to us. As the venue was out of the city we hired a bus to transport guests from and back to Brighton. We chose The Big Lemon as they use renewable and recycled resources. To continue the garden theme, we used artificial grass as table runners and coloured glass vases with meadow flowers as centrepieces. I sourced all of the vases from local charity shops and car boot sales. I also grew plants in some using cuttings from our garden. We chose blue for our ceiling decorations to imitate the sky in contrast to the grass table runners. I bought lots of old blue and white bed sheets, which we tore into strips and sewed together – about 150 metres in total! I also had meadow flowers in the bouquets and chose simple white and blue for mine, with a more colourful version for the bridesmaids. The star of the show was the tipi structure, which our florist decorated for us. It looked incredible against the stunning view at our ceremony. REAL WEDDINGS 49