A glorious May wedding in Cornwall, with lovely couple Sophie and James. The pair chose wedding venue Carwinion House, Falmouth, and booked English Wedding member and Cornwall wedding photographer Hannah Timm to capture their day. With a stunning dress from Lily Jacobs Bridal Boutique, a tailored Savile Row suit, and the loveliest local flowers from Rose Valley Farm (which had me smitten the second I saw them) – this is a glorious wedding I’m thrilled to be sharing today!

Sophie, James – happy wedding anniversary(ish!) and thank you so much for the feature! (I’ll share more images from this beautiful wedding blog on instagram @englishweddingblog)

Wedding photography

Photographer’s website

Cornwall wedding photographer Hannah Timm Photography https://hannahtimmphotography.co.uk

Carwinion House wedding photographer review

Hannah just seemed to click with both of us from the start. She’s laid back and made us both feel right at ease. We wanted our day to be effortlessly joyful and Hannah helped make this vision come true. She was great at capturing the organic, natural shots whilst including a few group photos but there was no pressure and she fitted everything in seamlessly. We’ve had so many lovely comments about our photos and how great Hannah was on the day from our guests so I couldn’t recommend her highly enough!

Wedding Story

Best wedding moment or memory

Oh this is a hard one, because it was all such a great day! For me, it was probably the last moment before the ceremony where I had a cheeky glass of champagne with my two best friends. It all of a sudden felt very real, exciting and I was just really looking forward to seeing James at the end of the aisle. I think as well the moment when you turn around after you’ve got married and just see all your closest friends and family smiling and celebrating. It’s such a special moment and one you’ll never forget.

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

As we got married in Cornwall (James is from Falmouth and we now live here), our registrar gave us a few options to add a Cornish flair to our vows. We had a traditional ‘tying of the knot’ where we’d bought some boating rope and the two parts symbolised us both and tying them together, symbolised the start of our relationship as one. It symbolises strength and unity. We hadn’t mentioned to any of our family or friends that we were doing this so it was a lovely surprise for everyone (and an important nod to James’s childhood here).

Wedding suppliers

Wedding venue name + review

Carwinion House – Mawnan Smith

We went to view it 16 months in advance and completely fell in love with the place. It’s located about 10 minutes from where James grew up so he knew the village and area well. The house is situated in stunning gardens and the couple, Laraine and Paul were so welcoming and really listened to what we wanted our weekend to be like. We had regular check-ins with the venue in the lead up to the wedding which helped keep the organisation running smoothly and Laraine also introduced us to our fantastic florist, Sarah. We kept all the food & drink in-house and the team did such a fantastic job. The bar staff were incredible, so friendly and helpful. The booking included the cottage which is in the grounds of the property so we were able to host our closest friends which made the Friday feel like a mini party.

Florist name + review

Sarah – Cornwall wedding florist at Rose Valley Farm Flowers

Sarah is located about a 15 minute drive from the venue and was introduced to us by Larraine. I’d had a couple of phone calls with Sarah to discuss what we were thinking of having and because we were outside, we didn’t need to go crazy on the flowers. All the flowers that come from Rose Valley Farm are grown locally so again, was a great touch to our Cornish connections. Her usual style is quite wild and natural which fitted in with our outdoorsy theme so well. We’d ordered three DIY buckets which were filled to the brim of flowers which we used for our milk churns for the end of the aisle and the table decorations. She’d pulled together some amazing colours of purple to match my bridesmaids, nice bright oranges, yellows and whites. Me and the girls assembled in the milk churns and they turned out incredibly! Even Sarah was pretty impressed with our skills! She also did our bouquets and the guy’s buttonholes which again looked lovely in their wild and natural state. I’ve had some of the flowers from my bouquet pressed and framed so I can keep them!

Hair + makeup name + review

Make up – Orchard Bridal Artists, Penryn (covering Cornwall, Devon & the South West)

We just clicked instantly and I could tell Sally was as laid back as I was which was fantastic. I’m not a huge make up girl but she was really good at explaining to me what would work well on my skin, the colours that would compliment my complexion and nothing seemed too much trouble. I had a trial with her a few months before and she gave me some tips on how to hydrate my skin before the wedding day. On the day, she was cool, calm and collected and did the make up for me, my two bridesmaids and both mum’s. Really pleased she was free on my date and couldn’t recommend her highly enough!

Devon & Cornwall Hair Stylist Paris Hilton @parisiumhair

Paris was a great hair stylist and set me at ease from the very start. I had a trial with her a few months before and instantly knew she understood my chilled vision and made me feel completely relaxed. On the day, she was brilliant at managing all 5 of us and went above and beyond. Couldn’t recommend her more!

Wedding cake maker name + review

Clare Burnett – Clifftop Cakes (Newquay wedding cake designer)

So the cake was actually the only argument we had about the wedding. James was adamant he wanted fruit cake and I hate fruit cake. So poor Clare had a bit of a job on her hands of coming up with a happy compromise! She gave us the option of having a smaller tier being fruit cake with the larger tier being (my choice) lemon & raspberry. It was a semi naked cake and had beautiful detailing of fruit and roses to decorate it. It went down a treat and we had some left over so managed to enjoy it post wedding too!

Wedding wear

Tell us a little about your outfits – both of you!

I ordered my dress from Lily Jacobs Bridal Boutique in East Grinstead. It was from the White Rose collection. I’d had one bridal dress fitting and took my two bridesmaids and my mum.

They were brilliant in there. There was no rush, they listened to what I (thought) I wanted to wear and let me try on a range of different styles and colours so I could see what really suited me. The dress I chose had incredible beaded detailing on the bust and over the hips. The top of the back was sheer which I thought was such a different touch and it just seemed to tick all the boxes! I had a couple of alterations on the design where I removed the original sleeves and added beaded dropped shoulder sleeves which looked great on the day. They were also detachable so if I wanted to, in the evening I could remove them!

Lily Jacobs also recommended their seamstress Abi, who again was just brilliant. I had two fittings with her and she was so experienced and knew every tip and trick to make me and the dress look fab. I knew we were going to be outside so knew I wanted a block heel. Also being 5ft 10, knew they had to be quite a low heel! I found the range on Monsoon were fantastic for this and ended up choosing the Kia Lace Bow Heeled Sandals in Ivory.

James wore a two piece navy blue suit which he’d got tailor made from a shop on Savile Row. It fit him so well! He also ordered his shirt from there and they added a beautiful stitching of his initials on the left cuff which was such a lovely addition. He wore black italian leather shoes. As a wedding present, I’d asked my Dad (who’s a jeweller by trade) to make cufflinks for James with the same emblem which is on James’s signet ring. Again, just a lovely family touch!

Some very special personal touches

My parents have been married for 51 years and they got married on 11th May so when we’d secured the date of the 10th May, my Mum very kindly gave me her veil. It had a small tear in it but we managed to get this fixed and it looked absolutely perfect. The veil has rose petal details on it which (incredibly!) matched my dress and the whole garden vibe. It felt so special to wear something so important from my parent’s wedding day and with the date nearly matching, it was just the best touch.

Wedding ceremony and readings

We wanted to keep the ceremony to 30 minutes as neither of us overly like being the centre of attention so knew we wanted to keep it quite simple. We had Caroline & Lydia from the Cornwall Council marry us and they made us both feel so at ease. As my parents got married on 11th May 51 years ago (ours was 10th May), Caroline mentioned this in her speech at the beginning which was such a lovely touch as I’m really close to my parents and was wearing my Mum’s veil. It was also Caroline’s idea to do the fisherman’s knot which was a great surprise for our guests and the perfect nod to Cornwall.

Our Cornwall wedding entertainment

We hired the local band Bow River to perform and they were so much fun. They got everyone on the dance floor taking part in line dancing and just really injected energy into the reception/evening!