Michaela and Rupert’s summer 2020 countryside wedding, with Dom Brenton Photography

Published by Claire Gould on March 19, 2021March 19, 2021

A traditional summer wedding with pretty, feminine florals and a relaxed reception under canvas on the family farm. This is lovely: Michaela is beautiful in her Diane Legrand dress from Minster Bridal Boutique and Rupert looks fantastic in a classic wedding suit. Summer 2020 weddings were different; but we’re celebrating that they could happen at all – and this lovely day is both a reminder of those lucky couples who got to say their “I do’s” and an affirmation that summer weddings WILL happen again in 2020.

Wedding photographer’s website

https://dombrenton.com/

“Like so many couples this year, the road to the altar for Michaela and Rupert was strewn with disappointment. They had to reschedule their wedding from June to September, they had to scale back the size of their wedding party to a maximum of 30 and they couldn’t have hymns during the church service. Despite all these setbacks, they had set their hearts on getting married in 2020, and their wedding day turned out to be an absolutely beautiful and joyful occasion.

I was pleased to work with a range of first-class suppliers at Michaela and Rupert’s beautiful country wedding. Her beautiful dress was designed by Diane Legrand and purchased from Minster Bridal in Wimborne. She carried a bouquet of delicate pink and white roses, complemented with other seasonal blooms, from Willow Floristry.

Michaela travelled to the church, and from there with Rupert to their wedding reception in Lillie, one of Dorset DubHire’s oh-so-cute vintage WW campervans. Alongside me on stills photography, Fuzzy Kiwi Media made a video recording of the service for the happy couple and all their friends and family who couldn’t be at the service watched it instead on Zoom. Individually-packaged afternoon teas at their garden party reception – those Covid precautions again – were provided by Susie Ritchie. Their wedding cake was provided by a A Piece of Cake.”

How did you choose your photographer?

After our wedding was postponed by COVID-19, we had to find a new photographer as our original choice wasn’t available on our new date. We found Dom Brenton Photography on Facebook and were really lucky that he was available!

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

We couldn’t fault Dom! He didn’t push us at all whilst we were deliberating over the plans for our scaled-down day and worked around us. He is very experienced in country church weddings and so knew his way around the church and got some beautiful photos. As two of the least artistic people on earth, it was very easy to have someone who knew what would look good and so we followed his lead!

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

Fuzzy Kiwi Media did a video of our ceremony in case any of our friends and family were unable to watch via videoconference. He produced an absolutely fantastic video, but couples should be aware that, the better the video, the more invasive the videographer!

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

The ceremony was in the village church that Michaela had grown up in, and it was lovely driving through the village on the way to the church. We then held the reception at Rupert’s family farm, which gave us complete control over what we wanted, and it meant a lot having the family so involved.

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

I was lucky enough to find my dress at a sample sale at Minster Bridal Boutique, but this didn’t detract from the experience as Oxana really looks after her brides! We hired the suits from Moss Bros. who were very knowledgeable about what would help our party to look their best and were really accommodating when we needed to add extra items and when people’s weights changed during lockdown!

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

We had Willow Floristry in Verwood do our bouquets and buttonholes. Apart from giving them a general theme and colour scheme, we asked them to use their artistic licence and they created some wonderful things! The flowers at the church were done by their in-house flower team, which made it extra-special as they are people that we have known for years. We are also lucky enough to have some talented florists in the family, who helped us do our own flowers for the reception, which added to the personalisation!

Did you hire a wedding planner?

No wedding planner here except our families!

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

A childhood friend is just starting her career as baker, so we asked her to make a beautiful three-tier fruit cake. I also secretly commissioned a victoria sponge groom’s cake for Rupert, who isn’t a fan of fruit cake. The groom’s cake was Legend of Zelda themed for him and his gaming-mad brothers! Both cakes were absolutely delicious and we’ve lied to our families about how much is left over so we can keep them for ourselves..!

https://www.facebook.com/apieceofcakeamelia

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

Holding the reception at the family farm meant we could personalise the garden exactly how we wanted it, and our originally planned 18-month engagement gave plenty of time to plant the perfect flowers for a June wedding. Unfortunately, COVID-19 put a stop to the June wedding plans, so Rupert’s mum ran round planting September flowers in the lead-up to the wedding, which ended up looking beautiful on the day.

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

We had originally planned an evening reception, kicking off with our first dance to L.O.V.E. by Nat King Cole. We both liked the song and liked that it was something we could actually dance to rather than swaying awkwardly in the centre of the dancefloor. Like many of our original plans, COVID-19 prevented us from having our big evening reception, but we ended up having our first dance to L.O.V.E. played from an Amazon Alexa after a few too many drinks with our close friends and family – it was absolutely perfect!