Ross & Sarah’s unique & eclectic Silchester Farm wedding, with Libra Photographic

Published by Claire Gould on

Breathtaking floral styling, vibrant gem colours and an art history theme – this is an unmissable wedding we’re THRILLED to be sharing with you! Stunning bride Sarah and handsome hubby Ross were married in Hampshire and chose lovely Nathan, Dorset wedding photographer at Libra Photographic, to capture their day. The review they give him is as unmissable as the photos we’re about to share! If you could fall in love and marry an actual wedding, this would be The One for us!!!

Wedding photographer’s website

https://www.libraphotographic.co.uk/

How did you choose your photographer?

We found Nathan via Google – I searched for documentary-style photographer in Hampshire and came across his website.

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

We were absolutely delighted! The photographs have blown us away with how they captured the vibe of the day – something that I think is truly really difficult to do. Nathan was brilliant from start-to-finish – he was responsive and friendly at the beginning, he understood absolutely what we wanted and on the day, he was a wonderful presence to be part of the wedding, putting everyone at ease! I can’t believe the photos he got – they are creative, unique, jawdroppingly beautiful and we will be eternally grateful!

What’s your fondest memory of your wedding?

I absolutely loved coming down the aisle! To go from being cloistered up waiting in the morning to suddenly bursting out and to have everyone you love there is intense and wonderful!

We hired the event illustrator!

We didn’t have a videographer – decided we would never sit around and watch that – but actually a few friends took their own videos of the speeches and some fun party ones in the evening and I admit we have sat around watching those!

We did however have a wedding illustrator. Aaron Jacob Jones is a very talented artist who illustrates for events. He paints guest portraits for people that they can take home from the wedding. He can turn around a portrait of a couple in 6-8 minutes but they aren’t caricatures like you might get on holiday – they are done in watercolour and ink and are absolutely gorgeous. When I spoke with Aaron I immediately knew we would get on – he’s such a lovely guy. On top of the guest portraits, he did the most wonderful illustration of us during the ceremony that he presented to us in the evening framed for us to keep as a souvenir of the day.

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

Our venue was Silchester Farm, in Hampshire – it’s a glorious place – converted barns with really rustic tables and industrial style lighting. It’s got a very relaxed feel. It was actually the first venue we visited and we booked it straight away!

Did you love wearing your outfits? How was your shopping experience, was it fun to find your wedding gear?

My outfit finding experience was very easy. Booked an appointment at Farnham Boutique after I liked the style of a lot of their dresses on their website. First dress I tried on is the one I ended up getting 😀 Either I’m not very fussy or it was meant to be!

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

We discovered the most incredible venue stylist – Ever After Weddings – who did our flowers as well. It was a brilliant idea because Sarah and Jo took care of everything, making it so easy. The flowers were the main reason I wanted to get married so we went big. The colour scheme was jewelled pink, purple and orange so the scope for the flowers was incredible. In the end we had sweetpeas, dahlias, aliums, tulips, roses, ranunculus, peonies – they were unbelievable. So many people came up to me and said “Oh, the flowers! Oh, the flowers!” My advice on flowers is to go high impact rather than lots of little bits and reuse them where you can – for example, we had urns with flowers spilling out for either side of the aisle that our stylist moved through to the wedding breakfast by the entrance. We also had a dressed archway with fabric swag and flowers that we then could remove the fabric and use as a frame for the cake. My favourite flowers were on the top table

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

Emma Page Cakes made our cake – she specialises in floral sculpted buttercream decoration and was brilliant at designing the cake to match my flowers and colour scheme. The flavours were Lemon, Lemon and Elderflower and Chocolate Orange and it was so delicious – whatever was left we ate in the morning and it was all gone by the afternoon!

My aunty very kindly also arranged for some vegan rose-petal cupcakes in lace cases for our vegan guests from Ruby’s Cupcakes. The flavours for those were lemon and elderflower, rose & pistachio and classic triple chocolate. They looked spectacular and tasted wonderful – you’d have no idea they were vegan!

Tell us about any special personal touches, or creative projects you made yourselves (we love that stuff!)

We love art and history and so I had the idea to make the theme of the wedding, Love through time, told through floral art from various eras. The ceremony I decided to theme with Ancient Rome, inspired by the floral frescoes from Villa Livia in approx. 39 BC. These frescoes are famous for their beauty and are special because the flowers depicted would never flower at the same time in real life so they symbolise joy. The drinks reception I took the guests through to Ottoman-era Turkey, inspired by Sultan Ahmet’s tulip garden and the wedding breakfast was Victorian Scotland in 1879. I handmade a lot of the props including getting a large Victorian frame and handmaking little escort cards made of rag paper that I hung on string for the seating plan. For the confetti, I sourced a Victorian atlas in Latin with maps of Ancient Empires from eBay and cut it up to make confetti cones.

Did you have any wedding readings? What were they?

We had 3 wedding readings – the first was a very personal one written by my dad who died in 2015. It is called The Head vs The Heart and is all about embracing joy in life and love. The second reading was Wedding Day by Robert Palmer, which is light-hearted and funny in places but also moving. The third was The Art of Marriage by Wilferd Arlan Peterson, which really sets out how you have to intentionally build a marriage up, it doesn’t just happen. My favourite line in that one was “It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.”

As Ross is Scottish, we wanted to have an element of his heritage in our day – I discovered there’s this ‘Quaiche Ceremony’ where the bride and groom drink from a loving cup, called a quaiche as their first act as bride and groom. To fit with the historic theme, I sourced an antique Victorian silver and glass quaiche and on the day, after the speeches, we filled it up with wine and took turns sipping it whilst the guests said the following verse all together:
“Strike hands with me. The glass is brim. The dew is on the heather. And love is good, and life is long and friends are best together.” We also gave every guest a miniature bottle of either Jonny Walker Black whisky or elderflower Edinburgh gin liqueur that they could drink at the same time.

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

We wanted the first dance to kick off the party so we went with Get Down On It by Kool & The Gang.

Favourite wedding suppliers

Venue stylist and Florist: https://www.everafterevents.co.uk/
Photographer: https://www.libraphotographic.co.uk/
Illustrator: https://weddingillustrator.co.uk/
Bridal dress boutique: https://www.thefarnhamboutique.com/
Bridesmaid dresses: https://wearerewritten.com/
Venue: https://www.silchesterfarm.co.uk/
Stationery: https://www.papier.com/
Cake: https://www.emmapagecakes.co.uk/
Vegan cupcakes: https://rubysoflondon.com/


Claire Gould

Claire spends her days writing - either in beautiful calligraphy or online. She lives on the edge of the English Lake District only minutes away from the beach, where she loves to escape and unwind. Claire's calligraphy can be found at www.byMoonandTide.com. Claire launched the English Wedding Blog in November 2009 - it's been a top 10 UK wedding blog ever since, with a regional focus we hope you LOVE.

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