This afternoon is all joy, giant balloons and low key vibes. This cool pair will have you inspired by their town hall meets pub wedding and you’re going to adore all of the happy shots.
WWW readers Gemma and Jason were hitched on the 3rd November 2016 at Worthing Town Hall followed by a reception at The Gun Inn, West Sussex. They had just 3 months to plan the celebration of dreams and kept to a budget of £10, 000. A local wedding was the focus for the couple, with great food and their nearest and dearest by their side. With their quirky style they chose the loveliest of touches. Lets start with the outfits.
Jason was suited and booted in a tweed jacket and waistcoat with contrasting chinos and pink paisley tie. Gemma wore a long sleeve lace dress by Monsoon with a delicate Britten hair piece woven into her darling up do. Didn’t they look marvellous? Then there were the dried blooms, on trend peg board signage, naked cake and sparkler exit too. Amaze.
Thanks so much to Olivia Judah for sharing these epic images with us.
THE PROPOSAL | Jason proposed during a picnic on a mini break in Budapest in April 2016…. which sounds wonderfully romantic, but in reality I had found my engagement ring in Jason’s sock drawer on Christmas Eve 2015. I was super excited all throughout the festive period waiting for him to pull the ring out, but that moment did not come. I managed to keep the fact I knew about the ring a secret until February 2016 (which absolutely killed me). In the end I told him, but he still kept me waiting until our holiday. Jase likes to do things in his own time and slowly!!
THE VISION | Because of my discovery I was able to start the planning process in secret and set up a Pinterest board with all my wedding ideas. We were always going to have a low key type of wedding with as few formalities as possible. We had moved to Sussex from London the year before, so were keen to have the reception in a lovely local pub with good food and our close friends and family. We were hugely inspired by another wedding we saw on WWW – Helen and James who got married at the White Horse, West Sussex. We actually saw this venue and loved everything about it, it was just a little too far away from us sadly.
THE PLANNING PROCESS | We had been trying for a baby for some time before the proposal, so it was difficult to pin down a date for the wedding, then we saw a specialist who advised our best chances of conceiving would be IVF. So we decided we would make our immediate focus getting married so that we could concentrate on the IVF process later. This gave us three months to plan the wedding!! I was very thankful for my secretive planning as it meant I had focused in on a lot of decisions.
BUDGET | We had a relatively small budget of £8,000 as we had just finished an extension on our house, but in reality we spent about £10,000.
THE VENUE | Worthing Town Hall for the ceremony and The Gun Inn, Findon for the reception. We hired an old route master to take all our guests and us to the reception venue after the ceremony.
THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Dress – Monsoon Bridal.
Shoes – Charlotte Mills, which had a sixpence in the sole for luck.
Veil – Pelican Rose Bride, they embroidered my new initials and date of the wedding into the hair slide section.
Hair piece – Britten accessories for brides.
Earrings – pearls borrowed from bridesmaid.
My Brother’s lovely girlfriend Milly (who is a hairdresser) did my hair after endless hair trials where I was completely indecisive, but her patience was never ending. My hair was in-between lengths so I could not decide on an up-do or down. In the end I loved what she did with it.
I did my own make-up after a make-up trial that left me not feeling like myself. It gave me an excuse to spend the money I would have spent on lots of new make-up from Mac.
FINDING THE DRESS | I knew I wanted a lace dress with a vintage feel to it as my engagement ring is vintage. I also wanted long sleeves as were getting married in November. I knew that with only three months a boutique may not be able to get any dress I wanted in time. So I decided against bridal shops and concentrated on the high street, I fell in love with the Monsoon one and I only needed to alter the sleeves.
GROOM’S ATTIRE | Jase wears a suit every day from work so he wanted to look a bit different on our wedding day. He decided on a tweed style jacket and waistcoat from Moss Bros and smart chinos from Ted Baker with a pink paisley tie.
THE READINGS & MUSIC | Jason is a huge Star Wars fan and sold some of his collection to help fund the wedding, so I walked down the aisle to the throne room/end title from Star Wars IV. It was a surprise, and every time I got nervous I thought about walking down the aisle to that song and what his reaction would be, it made me laugh and took away all the nerves.
We played Stevie Wonder – signed, sealed and delivered, The Wannadies – you and me song and Jack Johnson – better together, whilst signing the register and we exited to Starship – nothing’s going to stop us now.
My younger sister Paige read a lovely love story by Edward Monkton and my other sister Amy read love is temporary madness from Captain Corellies mandolin.
We had a DJ in the evening who was recommended to us by someone I work with – DJ Split. He played some great tunes and got everyone dancing. We left glow sticks out for guests to take in the evening.
BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My sister Amy, and two school friends Tania and Laura. They wore ASOS dresses.
THE FLOWERS | My bouquet was from the Artisan Dried Flower Co – I loved the idea of making my own but thought that would be too much pressure on the day before when there were so many other things to do. I really wanted to be able to keep my bouquet afterwards and with dried flowers I could. I have it on a shelf above my bed and it still looks as beautiful.
Jason and I got up at the crack of dawn to go to Brighton flower market a couple of days before the wedding to get all the flowers for the venue and the bridesmaid bouquets. I was in flower heaven and the staff there were so helpful.
THE CAKE | My brilliant friend Alex made the cake, based on one of Ruby from GBBO recipe’s. We spent a day doing a trial run and then she made it even bigger and even better for the day. It was lovely. Jason and I went blackberry picking and made loads of blackberry jam for the filling.
YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Olivia Judah – who was totally amazing. I can’t recommend her enough. We both hate having our photos taken, but Olivia made us feel so relaxed and the results were amazing. She was brilliant on the day too. We were going to have a first look at a beautiful church at the bottom of our road, but Jason forgot his Dad and Best man’s ties, so I thought the first look would be cancelled as he would be rushing about for new ties. But Jase was sitting in the graveyard waiting for me unbeknownst to myself. Eventually he came back to the house just as we were about to leave and had no way of getting to the Town Hall, so Olivia took him in her car and saved the day.
We did not want any formal photos of the day so all the photos were candid, I think this reflected the relaxed feel of the day.
THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | The Gun Inn had a newly built outdoor barn area where we were having arrival drinks and canapés. My Nan made oodles of bunting to decorate the space. Jason made the chalk board arrival board and story board.
I used a dyno label maker to make the place settings and the invites which took me forever. I made terrariums filled with succulents as the centre pieces. Jason and I made Blackberry vodka and Limoncello and filled small bottles as favours.
We bought giant balloons from Notonthehighstreet which looked fab in the photos, but we left inflating them to the last minute and ran out of helium so my lovely Brother had to run about trying to buy another canister at the last minute.
The venue is lovely enough that it did not need much decoration. Sally and her team at The Gunn were so helpful and did all the setting up on the day which relieved a lot of pressure.
We had a Jazz player – Tim Bolwell playing for the arrival drinks, he was great and created a lovely relaxed atmosphere.
In the evening we had use of the Instavan which is run by Sally at The Gun Inn. It’s a photo booth in an old caravan. It was the best fun ever and the photos were great. Two copies were printed and Sally created a guest book for us with the extra set.
We served a three course meal consisting of sharing charcuterie boards with butternut squash arancini balls, poshed up sausage and mash, and sticky toffee pudding.
In the evening we served a giant cake of cheese with crackers and local chutneys and loads of home made brownies made by myself. Although everyone was so full up that barely any of the evening food was touched, so Jase and I had a lot of leftovers to eat in the treehouse.
THE HONEYMOON | We had a mini moon at a magical treehouse at Blackberry Wood in Sussex straight after the wedding ,which we loved and was just what was needed. Then in January we went to Copenhagen for 5 nights, but we have not had a “proper” honeymoon yet. We asked for Thomas Cook vouchers as wedding gifts so when the timing is right we will have a lovely sunny break somewhere.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Seeing Jason for the first time at the Town Hall. Getting ready in the morning felt quite stressful as there was so many people at my house, but as soon as I saw Jason I relaxed.
The journey from the Town Hall to the reception venue was nice as we sat on the top deck of the bus alone and got to have a little time alone to take in what had just happened.
My Brother’s speech was lovely and I loved the fact he walked me down the aisle, he looked so handsome in his suit.
Whilst having our couple photos taken outside the Gun Inn all the people tooting their horns and waving, and a lovely lady I work with drove past us which was really funny. Olivia caught a snap of me hanging through the window of her car giving her a hug.
ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Every wedding blog I read said that the day just flies by, and it is so clichéd but true. We had no formal photos which I am really happy with as that meant there was more time to mingle with people.
Don’t do things because you think you should, do what you want to do. If I could go back and re do the day I would change a few things that I knew I wasn’t entirely sure about at the time. If you are not sure about something it will generally mean it isn’t right.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |
Photographer | Olivia Judah
Bride’s dress | Monsoon
Shoes | Charlotte Mills Chloe shoes.
Veil | Pelican Rose Bride
Hair piece | Britten *WWW wedding directory member*
Bridesmaids dresses | ASOS
Flowers and button holes | Artisan Dried Flower Company
All other flowers | Fayes flower market – Brighton
Groom’s suit | Moss Bros
Groom’s trousers | Ted Baker
Venue | Worthing Town Hall & The Gun Inn
Cheese cake | West Country Cheese
Jazz player | Tim Bolwell
Transport | Pavilion Coaches
Photo Booth | Instavan via Sally at The Gun Inn
Giant Ballons | Notonthehighstreet
Decorations | Collected over time from various places and stolen from home.
Terrariums | Marks and Spencer
Just marvellous.
Many thanks to Gemma and Jason for sharing their wonderful wedding story xo Lou
