I have a treat for you and I’m so excited! This wedding is amazing and rainbowy (if that wasn’t a word it is now) and full of love and personality. Jodie and Joe are a gorgeous couple – their smiles are lighting up my screen, my desk, my entire little office today! With super lovely Cornwall wedding photographer Hannah Timm at Colehayes Park in Devon, the images are beyond brilliant.

Jodie and Joe planned their wedding themselves and made the whole weekend feel so personal and a reflection of their relationship. Their celebration was a mix of Jodie’s love of colour, joy and being with friends alongside Joe’s humour, love of great food, and passion for taking the dance floor very seriously(!) alongside friends. I have too many incredible photos to share with you – a bonus instagram carousel will appear over the weekend with lots of exclusives which wouldn’t fit on the blog!

Wedding photography

By Cornwall wedding photographer Hannah Timm Photography | Natural wedding photography for laid back couples at Colehayes Park, for weddings across Devon and Cornwall, and throughout the South West

Photographer’s website

Hannah Timm Photography https://hannahtimmphotography.co.uk/

Wedding photographer review

Hannah was truly excellent from start to finish. She has an incredibly organised process, with scheduled reminder emails, quick replies and a chat beforehand to get to know her before the big day. Her packages are super thorough, and above all, her photos are simply amazing! She was so helpful on the day moving through the key moments getting great snaps, and so many of our guests commented and how wonderful the photos turned out.

Wedding Story

Best wedding moment or memory

Jodie’s best moment: Listening to Joe’s speech as we sat outside just before dinner was such a big moment for me. We all laughed as Joe is not a man of many words day to day, but he blew us all away with his heartfelt words and warmth. Most of the guests, including Jodie, were left in tears after his beautiful toast and speech.
Joe’s best moment: Joe’s absolute highlight was the evening dancing in Colehayes’ oak-panelled hall. Once the sun went down and the band started, the whole space came alive. The Ridgeways were phenomenal and had everyone on the dancefloor all night, the energy was unreal. Dancing with our friends and family in such a beautiful, characterful room, with live music filling the space, is a moment we’ll never forget. We also had a great first dance to Gabrielle Aplin’s ‘Magic’, a song we both love.

Tell us anything you did differently – any NEW traditions (or if you had none at all!)

Without necessarily meaning to, we did quite a few things differently! Because our venue was DIY, it meant we could make the experience totally our own.

We had the whole weekend, and ran activities and celebrations from Friday evening to Sunday evening. We hired a fish and chip van the night before the wedding when guests arrived for the weekend, and hosted our own floral arrangement workshop in the dining room to help get all the flowers ready for the next day. It was great to have a mix of people in the bar, which my brother and his girlfriend were running for the evening, and then lots of people helping with finishing touches before the big day.

Jodie had always wanted to wear a jumpsuit style outfit on her wedding day, so opted for wide leg trousers and a lace long sleeve top.

Not only did the groom do his traditional speech, but the bride Jodie also did a speech. We had one of our groomsmen Steven MC the whole event, and had a suitcase style speaker follow him round pretty much the entire day, to many of the guests delight. We had speeches split up throughout the evening, and had them out on the back steps instead of whilst everyone was sitting down. Jodie’s mum even wrote a poem for each table, and we invited the tables to pick one person per tables to come up and read their poem after the speeches, which everyone loved!

In the evening, our bridal party had turned the ‘rave cave’ in the Colehayes basement into our own exclusive club, with a makeshift bouncer and stamps to match! It was a great way to keep the part going until the early hours.

The following day, we had a swim and relax down at the lake on site, and enjoyed the beautiful Kawaffle waffles from Sofie and Kieran who even had their wedding at Colehayes years before.

The decor was commented on the most by guests as it was based on a very retro bright colour palette of pinks, oranges and yellows. All the decor was hand sourced, particularly the mirrorballs that my Mum had sent all across the country to us via Vinted! We wanted a fun, last days of summer vibe but actually found it looked beautifully autumnal too, especially when the dining tables were laid out in the oak panelled hall.

Wedding hire and equipment suppliers: We used both Rustic Love Hire in Devon and Devon Bales (South Devon) for equipment like barrel umbrellas, deck chairs and chalk boards. Both were fantastic – such great stuff and really helped us make the place our own!

Wedding suppliers

Wedding venue name + review

Colehayes Park, Devon
The most beautiful, wonderful DIY venue we could have asked for. Colehayes is a DIY wedding venue with no corkage fees, and sleeps around 75 guests at the manor itself. So, we had a weekend long wedding event with the manor full of friends and family, as well as the cottage next door and local accommodation options.

One of the absolute highlights was working with the Helping Hands at Colehayes, an unbelievably kind, hardworking team who truly go above and beyond to help on the weekend of the wedding. We booked them both for our wedding day and the day after to help with packing down, and they were honestly incredible. If you’re planning a DIY wedding at Colehayes, we couldn’t recommend them more, they made the whole experience feel calm, supported and joyful.

Florist name + review

Our wedding florist was Sophie from In Bloom Devon, and she was amazing and so talented in picking perfect arrangements. The flowers were absolutely beautiful, with the most gorgeous mix of colours, and Sophie was so flexible and supportive throughout the process. We opted for a combination of DIY flower buckets alongside pre-prepared bouquets, which worked perfectly for us. Her flowers really brought everything together and exceeded our expectations, especially in how lovely and bright the colours were!

Hair + makeup name + review

Hair: Brigitte Fisher – so fantastic with 6 of us to do on the morning. She’s SO good at gorgeous braiding and boho style wedding hair, and was a real delight to chat to on the morning.
Makeup: Justine Olver – would definitely recommend, she worked super quickly and was fantastic at doing various different natural looks that really suited each person she was working with. Very good at what she does!

Wedding cake maker name + review

Our close friend Mike made our wonderful colourful wedding cake. After Mike featured on series 15 of The Great British Bake Off, we knew it was only right we’d ask him to make our wedding cake. In his true Mike fashion, he was up late into the night before the wedding decorating and creating a wedding cake that left us speechless. And of course, it tasted fantastic.

Colehayes wedding caterers: Astrid’s Catering

We’d love to shout out our fantastic caterers, Astridges Catering – such a popular choice at Colehayes and we can see why, what an incredible meal with so many people coming up to us after saying it was one of the best meals they ever had! Paul Astridge did a full wedding breakfast for us, including pasties and cheese for the evening spread.

Wedding stationery

Jodie made all stationery and signage via Canva. Jodie’s a marketing manager in the charity sector, so she knows her way around Canva and making lots of fun designs on a budget.

Wedding wear

Tell us a little about your outfits!

Jodie wore a bespoke wedding outfit designed and made by Kim at Abide Bridal. From the very start, the process felt incredibly special and collaborative. Kim has such a talent for creating modern, personal wedding outfits that still feel timeless, and everything was made specifically for me. I’m so grateful for her creativity, care and skill. I genuinely couldn’t have asked for a better experience or a more ‘me’ outfit. I have always loved modern looks for brides, and although I love a dress now and again, I’m at home in a stylish pair of wide leg trousers. It was a no brainer therefore when I asked Kim to design me a trouser and top bridal separates, and she did so beautifully and with such warmth.

Styling and personal touches

Something we and our guests loved/found hilarious is that we named all our tables for the dining portion of the day after our favourite Taylor Swift songs. We both love Taylor Swift and actually bonded over our love of her acoustic tracks when we first met. So we had to bring her music into the day somehow. We wanted it to be subtle yet memorable, so Jodie designed table number signage with a new song for each table and a graphic that added to the decor. Ranging from All Too Well to August, having some of our favourite songs on the table was so much fun.

Joe and Jodie’s mum handmade every single wedding favour, which were floral resin coasters with each guest’s name on. These turned out beautifully, and Jodie’s mum, Cath, is now starting her own small business in resin coasters and keepsakes off the back of the success of the wedding!

Our friend Kasper (and usher) also drew our welcome sign image of the venue, which was such a lovely touch. We had wooden signs that our friends Christie and Steven had handpainted from our ‘hag do’ all around the venue.

Wedding ceremony and readings

We had an outdoor ceremony in the Colehayes rear garden in front of their beautiful pagoda and next to the UK’s oldest known cork tree!

We had a duo from The Ridgeways band sing whilst guests were being seated, and then they performed an acoustic version of Lady Gaga’s ‘You and I’ as Jodie walked down the aisle. We both love that song and always sing along in the car, so it seemed like a solid choice for walking down the aisle.

We both wrote our own vows, and had our ‘bridesmates’ read poems they had picked for us during the ceremony (Wendy Cope’s ‘A Vow’ and Love is a Temporary Madness, Captain Correlli’s Mandolin) as well as Jodie’s mum reading a bespoke poem.

After the ceremony, guests rose and Jodie and Joe exited to an all time favourite: Where you lead by Carole King.