Clinical Nurse Specialist Lottie, married Property Developer James, on 14th May 2022 at Hadsham Farm – a beautiful, traditional, family fun farm located on the Northern edge of the Cotswolds in Oxfordshire.
Lottie wore the most incredible, head-turning dress – the Audlyn design by & For Love, which she discovered at the wonderful Story Of My Dress.
Hadsham Farm Wedding Venue, Banbury
We got married at Hadsham Farm in Banbury. Hadsham is a beautiful lakeside tipi wedding venue, and it ticked all the boxes for the relaxed festival style wedding we wanted.
We also loved the fact we could have the venue for the whole weekend, and it was a dry-hire venue, meaning we could properly make it our own and choose which suppliers we booked. Our wedding guests were also able to stay on site after the wedding in smaller individual tipi tents.
Find a marquee, tent, tipi &/or yurt supplier
Audlyn by & For Love
I wore an & For Love Wedding Dress – the Audlyn design in natural white crepe, which I discovered at Story Of My Dress boutique in West Malling, Kent.
Cara, the owner, and Sammy, were so warm and welcoming, and also very responsive when I had questions.
Their seamstress extraordinaire, Gill, worked wonders on my bespoke dress, adding in extra panels of material to the back of the dress to provide more coverage in a diamond shape. I couldn’t have asked for a more relaxing, and enjoyable experience. I would 100% recommend them to other brides.
I had been swooning over the Audlyn dress for a long time. It is classic and simple, yet also modern in its style. It gives Princess Diana vibes with its puff sleeves. I also loved that it was bespoke and not like any other dress I had found.
Shoes, Veil & Accessories
I wore a simple, two metre length straight veil which was made by the Story Of My Dress team and my ‘something blue’ strappy block heels from River Island. For my party shoe, I wore white Converse trainers with embroidered red heart detailing and a pink platform sole.
My scent was Jo Malone’s Peony & Blush Suede. James helped pick this floral scent for me a few years previously for a birthday present.
The earrings and necklace were gifted to me from my mum. My gold chain, pearl pendent necklace was Orelia. I chose this simple, understated necklace to match my pearl earrings. I also wore a gold chain bracelet, the ‘Lucy Williams Square Snake Chain Bracelet‘ fromMissoma – also from my mum.
Colourful English Country Flowers
Our floral stylist was Rachael Ashton of Wild Rose Flowers. Rachael created the most beautiful bouquets for myself and my bridesmaids, and the button holes for James and his groomsmen.
Rachael also supplied summery stems for James’ mum to create two fresh floral arches & for my mum to assemble stems in banquet table bud vases.
Given the gorgeous countryside setting, we opted for bright colourful summery flowers, in a meadowy, country garden style.
The Inspiration
We’ve always loved going to festivals and listening to live music; we love Glastonbury in particular. We wanted to implement a festival theme into our wedding day which explains why we chose an outdoors tipi wedding venue and live band and DJ.
We are also big foodies, and love eating out. It was important to us that the food was delicious and presented beautifully. Lots of our guests commented that it was the best slow cooked lamb they had ever had, which was lovely to hear!
See more festival inspired weddings
The Ceremony
My father, Andrew, walked me down the aisle. We travelled together by taxi from the house my parents rented for the weekend, to Hadsham Farm. I don’t remember which song! We had a playlist playing of some of our favourite songs – all very chilled. I remember Khruangbin ‘August 10’ playing at some point!
As we had had our official registry office wedding ceremony eight months previously, we asked our dear friend Sue to act as our celebrant for the ceremony. Although not an official celebrant, she did the most amazing job and it was so special to have a close friend officiating our ceremony for us.
We had two readings, one read by my bridesmaid Imi and the other by my sister/maid of honour Millie. They were both beautifully written and summed up what love and companionship are so perfectly. They were ‘Apache Wedding Reading’ and an ‘Excerpt from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’.
As we had had our official registry office wedding ceremony eight months previously, we asked our dear friend Sue to act as our celebrant for the ceremony. Although not an official celebrant, she did the most amazing job and it was so special to have a close friend officiating our ceremony for us.
We had two readings, one read by my bridesmaid Imi and the other by my sister/maid of honour Millie. They were both beautifully written and summed up what love and companionship are so perfectly. They were ‘Apache Wedding Reading’ and an ‘Excerpt from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ (other readings can be found, with many others, here on Love My Dress)
We wrote our own vows as we had had our official registry office ceremony 8 months previously.
Our wedding rings are from Jackson Jewellers in Watford. This long established, family-run jewellers has a special place in our hearts as both my and James’ grandparents were long standing customers of theirs.
Discover more readings here
Photography by Victoria Somerset-How
I found Victoria Somerset-How through Instagram, and absolutely loved her style – relaxed, informal, candid, natural photos.
Victoria made sure we got all the shots we wanted with our families/wedding party, without being pushy or in your face. She is so skilled at taking natural shots and I particularly like her black and white photos.
We loved every single photo she took and we would 100% recommend her to other couples. In fact some friends of mine have already booked her for their wedding in 2024!
How They Met
We met in 2012 through mutual friends. Although we went to different secondary schools, we socialised in the same circle of friends. A group of us went away to Dimensions festival in Croatia in 2012, and James and I have been together ever since.
We became engaged on a UK road trip which James had planned for my 30th birthday. It happened on our favourite beach, Saunton Sands in North Devon.
We were engaged for a year and eight months before our wedding day.
James’ cream suit was by Hugo Boss, from Bicester Village. He also wore a green tie and pocket square to match the bridesmaids dresses and a paisley pocket square from Eton Shirts.
James wore Tom Ford’s ‘Oud Wood’ – it’s my favourite scent of his and I bought it for him as a birthday present the year before our wedding.
Bridesmaids
I asked my bridesmaids to pick a dress of their choice in sage green or similar colour. It was so important to me that my bridemaids felt comfortable in what they were wearing and that it was a style that suited them. I thought sage green colour worked perfectly for our Spring wedding.
Everyone wore different shoes – there was no set style.
Our daughter Poppy’s beautiful green dress with white daisies on was handmade for her by her Grandma.
Our caterers were Kemp & Kemp who provided our canapés and wedding breakfast. The Wedding Pizza Company provided the evening food and the bar was provided by The Cotswold Bar Company.
We hired festival flags and potted foliage house plants from Hadsham Farm. We used fresh greenery and fake flowers to decorate the suspended flower rings which hung from the ceiling of the tipis.
We sourced rolls of hessian from Amazon for the long banquet tables. We used tealights in Bonne Maman jam jars with hessian ribbon or raffia wrapped around.
We used vases and milk bottles from Ikea, Amazon and Ebay that were used as bud vases. We also sourced some twisted willow in big galvanised metal urns for the entrance to the tent and decorated with wired fairy lights.
Stationery was created by Liv Whitworth. Liv also designed our Save the Date’s and wedding invites.
Our favours were Sloe gin in little cork topped bottles which we sourced from Ebay. James’ mum and my parents picked the Sloes themselves and added to the gin months before the wedding to flavour it.
James’ mum made our cake. It was beautiful and so delicious – four tiers of lemon and blueberry sponge with mascarpone icing and decorated with dried edible wildflowers.
Entertainment & Favourite Moments
We hired the Detroit Soul Collective – a nine piece band, who were amazing! Then our friend Stan DJ’d for the rest of the night.
Our first dance was to Mary Kinney’s ‘Love Me Tonight (Love, Love, Love)’. Our friend Ben Stanley introduced us to this song when he DJ’d at a party with all of our friends. It’s a song that a lot of our friends know and love, and it always gets everyone up on the dance floor.
My favourite part of the day was just after the ceremony when James and I walked back through our wedding guests as they threw confetti, whilst James held our baby daughter. Victoria captured this moment perfectly.
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Wedding planning can feel very overwhelming and stressful as you want everything to be absolutely perfect. But once the day is finally with you, you won’t notice any mishaps or mistakes, as it will have most likely been dealt with for you (hopefully!), or will pale into insignificance, so just relax and enjoy every moment. It goes by in a flash!
Our original budget was £25k, but we exceeded this by approximately £5k.
Love My Dress has beautiful pictures a vast array of suppliers and is informative. I loved reading wedding blogs and seeing what other brides and grooms chose for their wedding day. It gave me lots of inspiration for our day.
Annabel View all Annabel’s articles
Annabel is the founder of Love My Dress. She has a passion for photography, walking, yoga, nature, and loves to support talented artists and creative businesses. In 2013, she became a published author. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters Eska and Leanora and menagerie of furry hounds. Annabel supports Philip in the running of the family flower farm at at Moonwind Flowers. She is also co-founder of What About Weddings.