Lauren Alexander
- Feb 21, 2019
- 5 min read

Featured on Bride & Tonic: A QUINTESSENTIALLY ENGLISH WEDDING // DAVID + LAUREN

january 25, 2019

This summer was one of the best Britain has seen in some years and today we bring you a very quintessentially English countryside wedding from a beautiful summers day! Not only this, the bride herself is a wedding planner at Lauren Alexander Weddings so we are in for a total treat and wedding dream with this gorgeous wedding! Lauren tells us more about her and David’s big day…

David + Lauren’s Story

We first met over 7 years ago at a friends party, I was with someone at the time, but thought David was very handsome. We got on so well, chatting about everything, but then the party ended and so did our time together.

Fast forward and 3 years later, I saw him on Facebook as ‘People you may know’, feeling brazen I added David and we decided to meet in Bristol for a quick drink, a week later, I went to Bath to meet him and we saw each other every single weekend for 5 months before I upped my life in Cardiff and moved to Bath to be with him.

We love travel, and have gone all over the world together, it became a running joke that each time we went away people thought we would come back engaged. It wasn’t until 3 years into our relationship and on a trip to Venice that David popped the question.

The Venue

We got married in a lovely small church in Milton on Stour. We chose Larmer Tree Gardens as the reception venue as it encapsulated everything we wanted in a venue. It was open, private and historic.

We love nature and walking, and it felt like a mini Stourhead, another favourite place to visit. With all the different hidden places to walk, explore and enjoy we thought our guests would have a really lovely time. It gave us the opportunity for people to do lots of things whilst the photos were being done, and with the badminton, croquet and boules it was quintessentially English which again is very us!

The Theme

Our theme was a little mixed, we love greenery and were also inspired with our loves. Our love of gin, our love of travel and our love of the outdoors… and mine of craft! We felt that choosing a theme of loves was ideal for our wedding, as we love sharing this with others.

The Dress

I had a mare with my dress and even had a second one to change into in the evening – yet never actually wore it! My dress was Enzoani and bought from a shop in Taunton, Somerset.

The Maids

These were beautiful deep blue Biba dresses that we got in the sale a year before, they were so floaty and the girls really enjoyed dancing the night away in them.

The Cake

The cake was Indulge Catering, a four tier semi naked lemon cake with lemon buttercream. This was sat on a piece of wood cut and waxed by my uncle.

The Florals

Our flowers were a mixture of our florist Twig and Twine and DIY. We had beautiful hanging foliage of asparagus fern, eucalyptus, ivy and soft ruscus from the chandeliers and an archway made from ferns, monstera and lots of tropical leaves. We also had foliage garlands to tie around our vintage ladders we had bought from a Brocante and vintage French markets.

The bridesmaids had waxflower bouquets with eucalyptus and ferns, and mine was a mixture of wild flowers and eucalyptus, light blues , whites and foliage. I used Kate Cullen silk to tie around my bouquet and this hung down as I walked which I loved. We had thistles with white flowers as buttonholes, and we were given a big bucket of wild meadow flowers so that we could fill our own table centre pieces and the jam jars. My mum did the centerpieces and we bulked out the flowers with gypsophelia and foliage from around Larmer Tree.

The Photographer

Ben Goode and Josh Goode took all our photos.

The Transport

We had a lovely vintage cream Rolls Royce Cloud, we found the car through Premier Carriages and Harry, the owner and driver was so lovely keeping me calm on the way to the church, and stopping off on the way to the venue for a quick cheeky drink of bubbles after the ceremony.

Stationery

Our save the dates were vintage postcards we had collected on travels as well as ordered a few extras from Zazzle. We created our own stamp using the English Stamp Company and the theme looked like a luggage tag.

Then our wonderful and so talented bridesmaid Hannah Reilly, and my now sister in law, studied fine art and she created our amazing designs as well as our monogram. Jennifer Kirkham of Jennifer Kirkham Illustrations digitalized these, and created our amazing invites including the map using Hannah’s drawings, the RSVPs and our order of service. They both made our dreams a reality and we got them printed via Printed.com onto thick Fresco Gesso paper.

Wedding Favours

We love gin and we love crafting so we enlisted family and had a fabulous day picking sloe berries in the countryside near my father-in-laws house. He then made our sloe gin, which we then decanted into small bottles and we used then had custom stickers made by Sarah Burns Prints with our names and the year the sloe gin was made.

The Best Bit

I really loved the butterflies before entering the church and together our favourite part was the car drive over to the venue, having that little time together as newlyweds, and reliving our vows.

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The Ethical Bit

We asked people to collect and recycle jam jars and gin bottles for vases for the flowers, and table decorations and candles.

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We grew our own flowers and dried them for confetti, we made our own favours from harvested sloe berries and we love supporting small indie sellers and designers and this was so important to us and so we did this for a lot of our little pieces. We had wooden circles on the middle of the table that had been from a tree that had fallen down in a storm. My uncle cut it up and waxed them to create centrepiece plinths for the jam jars and gin bottles to sit upon. We also used old books from charity shops, old candle sticks and upcycled with paint and varnish and lots of pinecones from last winter for added rustic charm.

The Advice

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Try and delegate if you can, be that to your friends or family if you feel like you are able to. As a control freak I was quite happy to do things myself but having others input puts things into perspective, as well as gives you another way of looking at your perfectly planned day!

Enjoy it, it is a cliché, but it really does go too fast and before you know it you are married which is great! But you will miss the planning.

We love a traditional British countryside wedding, and adore all of the pops of colour throughout! Thank you to Lauren for sharing and all the amazing suppliers who featured. See more of Lauren’s planning on her Instagram page here. For more real weddings head here on the blog.