Victoria & Matthew’s EPIC festival wedding in Cambridge, with Thyme Lane Photography

Published by Claire Gould on June 22, 2020June 22, 2020

We’re not doing this Monday by halves, lovelies! We’re jumping right in to the week on English Wedding with a breathtaking, boho festival wedding which has everything. Gorgeous Victoria & Matthew’s day is brilliantly personal – the styling is done to perfection and its 100% uniquely THEM. The ceremony sounds amazing, with Aunty Jo (who told childhood stories and ended up with her own chant) in the role of celebrant.

Victoria’s incredible tasseled wedding dress is Woodrose by Willowby, from the highly recommended Heritage Brides. Matthew’s suit is from Master Debonair, discovered at A Most Curious Wedding Fair in London. Their day is captured beautifully (and with a wonderful focus on the entire ambiance of the day) by lovely Noemi at Thyme Lane Photography. I hope – actually I know – you will adore this.

With love,

Wedding photographer’s website

https://thymelanephotography.co.uk

How did you choose your photographer?

When we went to look at our venue, the owner showed us some pictures of a shoot that they’d just staged there the previous weekend. After seeing those photographs, there was no one else that we wanted for the job!

Were you pleased with your wedding photographer? Do tell… we love a brilliant review!

We were over the moon with Noemi, our wedding photographer. There was no task or ask too big or too small. Not only did she capture the most beautiful photographs of our special day, but she also made sure we felt at ease every step of the way – meeting up for coffee before the wedding, quick to reply on emails, always up for chatting on the phone. She even recommended other fantastic suppliers who we also loved (our videographer and our hair / make-up artist). We’re so proud of our wedding photos and feel incredibly lucky that we had someone as talented as Noemi with us on our special day!

Videographer details – and any thoughts for other couples about having a wedding video?

Our videographer was the wonderful Jade from Hushabye Films, recommended by our lovely photgrapher. Jade was an absolute dream to work with. A super sunny presence on the day, who made us feel totally relaxed on camera. We are still completely in love with our wedding film; she really captured the essence of our personalities and totally nailed it in the edit. We will happily sing Jade’s praises from the rooftops!

Tell us about your venue – what made this place special for you?

Our venue was Horsley Hale Farm, in Ely (Cambridge), and we cannot recommend them highly enough. Not only was the setting idyllic, with the lake view ceremony and the treelined walkway, but the facilities were also faultless – beautifully decorated glamping bell tents, the best eco loos / showers we’ve every used, a fully equipped kitchen, power and water hook-ups, plentiful parking, benches, fire pits, etc. Stuart, the owner, was always quick to reply to any questions that we had. He was always open to site visits and suggestions – giving us free rein to personalise our wedding and make it our own. We had numerous comments on the guests on how accommodating and lovely Stuart and his team were, without them it would not have been possible.

Did you love wearing your outfits? How was the dress / suit shopping experience?

We adored our wedding outfits, and never wanted to take them off! Mat’s suit was from Master Debonair (the Marc Darcy Ted Tan Tweed Herringbone Check Suit.). I spotted it at A Most Curious Wedding Fair at the Truman Brewery in London, a day out to remember with my Maid of Honour and Best Woman – he then bought it as a surprise for me! My dress was from Heritage Brides, a gorgeous boutique dress shop situated in the historic Hatfield House. I knew I was in good hands at Heritage, with the awesome Sam taking me through my consultations and fittings, and the wonderful Wendy making sure everything fit to perfection! The name of the dress is called Woodrose and the designer is Willowby. The veil was Richard Designs cathedral veil. The fringing on the dress was spectacular, and the modern lace detail was exactly “my thing” – I felt like a angel / princess / ROCK STAR (!) in it, and had a smile from ear to ear when I went to collect it.

Did you hire a florist? Tell us about any floral amazingness

Our florist was Bridget from Wild Rosamund. We knew we wanted wild flowers, and nothing too structured or fancy – as we’re not very structured fancy type people! I met with Bridget and showed her my colour scheme, and she ran with the rest! She provided an aerial floral display to hang over the top tables in the tipi which was draped with festoon lights, and was absolutely breathtaking. She also provided the bride and bridesmaid bouquets and buttonholes for the groomsmen and fathers. Together, we sourced various brass ornaments from charity shops to line along the tables instead of table centres; Bridget then added flower stems and candles to them. Everyone commented on how this gave a really personal and quirky touch – we’ve kept our favourite brass pieces as little mementos of the day.

As cake lovers here at English Wedding we’d LOVE to know who made your cake, and how delicious it was?

My friend Alice made our three wedding cakes, and she kept it all a total surprise until we saw them on the day! They were all absolutely breath-taking, with three individual flavours and flowers around the outside amongst homemade chocolate shards. Her brother in law made a three-tiered cake stand out of old tree trunks for it to sit on, which perfectly encapsulated the rural / festival theme, as well as incorporating another personal element into the day.

Tell us about any special personal touches, or creative projects you made yourselves

Everything was incredibly personal, with lots of homemade elements. My Best Woman Izzy was also our Master of Ceremonies, and had a school bell and a gong to make her announcements – she absolutely nailed it!

Annie made copious amounts of stunning sari bunting to hang in all of the tipis.

My friend Ellie let me borrow a hanging wagon wheel decorative piece that she made for her wedding.

I made the order of the day schedule from a builder’s pallet and some artificial flowers. I also hand wrote / painted all of the chalkboards / signs (borrowed from friends and family!)

My dad upcycled a table and vanity mirror to make an eco-glitter and hair feather stand, which was a massive hit! I made a giant personalised polaroid frame made with our names and hashtag on for people to take pictures in while holding it.

Our wedding was a child-free wedding apart from my brother’s two kids, so I bought a mini teepee from Amazon, decorated it with colourful fairy lights and cushions, and hid lots of toys in there so they had a little secret hideout.

My friend from school (Charlotte Willis) designs wedding stationery, and create the order of service for us.

For the place cards, I made and hand painted little cement blocks with paper clips in, which people could take home and use for photo holders. My mum painstakingly hand wrote all of the name cards to go in them.

We named each table after a festival. I sanded down 18 frames from The Range and printed the table names for them / placed them on the tables. I also bought chalkboard buckets which doubled up as ice buckets for wine, and wrote the table names on those as well.

For the meals, we had 2 giant hat kata tipis, we also used a catering tent for the bar, sofas and photobooth / guestbook area. We hired them from Magical Events Ltd, who were fantastic throughout the whole process. They also provided the dining tables, the benches / chairs, the dance floor, tipi fairy lights, a walkway, the disco uplighters, the bar, sofas and end tables for us.

I got my bridesmaids’ dresses from The Sailaway Dress Company, who create bespoke dresses made from recycled sari material, and the money goes towards the tailors in India that made them.

We had some delicious coffees throughout the day from Rural Coffee Project. The baristas were so friendly, and also monogrammed some eco friendly coffee cups with our initials.

For the craft beer lovers, we ordered kegs from a local brewery called Three Blind Mice (who own the Drayman’s Son pub in Ely) which everyone loved.

Did you personalise your vows or have any wedding readings? What were they?

As the venue is not licensed, we were legally married off site, so the ceremony didn’t have to be religious / include any legalities.

This meant that we could have my Aunty Jo as our celebrant (she was so good she even got her own chant!) She spoke about how we got together, told surprise childhood stories from my mum and Mat’s mum, and created her own exchange of rings. We then wrote our own vows, which we kept as a surprise from each other until the ceremony.

We chose three of our friends (Jon, Annie & Christian) to deliver readings that they chose themselves – they didn’t tell us what they were reading which was a lovely surprise.

Our friend Jon read “The Day the Saucers Came” by Neil Gaiman, Annie read a poem that she wrote herself, and Christian read Huey Lewis’ “The Power of Love” lyrics. they all did a superb job and ensured that we had a ceremony to remember.

What was your first dance song? Why did you choose it?

Our first dance was Joni Mitchell’s “Case of You” – because we’ve always loved it. We did consider the James Blake cover as we are huge fans of his and loved seeing him together sing it at Glastonbury, but the Joni Mitchell version was easier to dance to!

Mat’s childhood friend is in an amazing band called Los Lads, who perform fun Spanish covers of pop songs, so we had to get them onboard as our wedding band. As the weather was glorious, we said they could pull the stage outside so our first dance / dance floor was al fresco!