We’re moving into June for our spotlight this week, a time in the garden where you seem to have the best of both worlds with the spring rhododendrons still in full bloom but also the start of the roses and a real sense of summer on its way.
Johanna and Andy lived in Hull at the time of their booking and Tavistock definitely took on a Yorkshire flavour for the weekend of their wedding with their guests filling the local accommodation. The venue was booked 14 months before the wedding. After the booking came the lovely news that there would be an additional guest at the wedding, Johanna was pregnant and the baby would be 5 months old by the time of the wedding day. So as if Johanna didn’t have enough to do organising the wedding, she was also dealing with her pregnancy and a lively toddler, the gorgeously named Amber Lily who was going to be a flower girl at her parents’ wedding.
In the months before the wedding I would often wake up in the morning to find Johanna had been doing some midnight wedding planning whilst she was feeding the new baby!
Johanna stayed overnight at the honeymoon cottage with her bridesmaids although they were a bit bleary eyed the next morning, a teething baby may not be the best overnight companion the night before a wedding!
The team from Gem Ryder swooped in to do their magic on Johanna and her 5 bridesmaids doing hair and make up all round.
Johanna hired Deborah of Dartmoor Flowers to create a flower arch as the ceremony backdrop for the wedding barn. Deborah also provided the bridal and bridesmaid’s bouquets, flower girl wands, buttonholes, flowers for the Registrar’s table, petals for the aisle and jars of flowers for the wedding breakfast centrepieces as well as hair and cake flowers and thank you bouquets for the mothers of the wedding couple. Johanna’s colours for the day were blush and peach tones with touches of bright coral. This was carried through from the bridesmaids’ and flower girls’ dresses, to the flowers and the cake.
The weather on the day was unsettled and although it didn’t actually rain during the wedding ceremony, we kept the wet weather awning up just to be on the safe side.
We talk through the wet weather plan with the wedding couple on the morning of the wedding if the weather outlook is uncertain. In this case Johanna opted to keep the awning up so she didn’t have to worry about what the weather was doing.
To avoid being seen by guests, Johanna and the wedding party were driven by Steven in his trusty Range Rover from the back of the honeymoon cottage down to the bottom of the waterfall garden where they could having their wedding procession along the stepped path to the wedding barn – it’s got to be one of the shortest car journeys to a wedding ceremony!
Johanna had plenty of company as she walked into the wedding barn with her Dad, her 5 bridesmaids’ and 3 flower girls. The bridesmaids had smaller bouquets to match Johanna’s flowers and the flower girls had flower wands with ribbons from Dartmoor Flowers.
Once I was sure everyone was in the right place and we were ready to go, I signalled to the Registrar that the bridal party is about to start walking to the wedding barn, cued the wedding processional music to start and with a final reminder ‘keep your heads up and walk much slower than you think’ – they were off!
Photographer David Stubbs somehow managed to be in lots of places at the same time to capture it all…
including some lovely moments of hard man Andy nervously (and a little tearfully) waiting for his bride to the sound of live music from Matt Ball of Gourmet Music.
It was a wedding ceremony filled with emotion and plenty of tears all round – of the good kind of course.
Johanna had provided wands with bells and ribbons for all the guests to wave as she and Andy came out of the wedding barn to more live music from Gourmet Music
and led guests down to the lower lawns for a drinks reception.
Taylors of Tavistock provided blush signature cocktails and plenty of chilled beer and guests savoured scones with Devon clotted cream made by the mother of the bride. Johanna and Andy took a bit of time away from their guests for some gorgeous couple photos in the gardens
plus a snuggle on the giant deck chair which is hard to resist!
After the drinks reception guests moved into the wedding marquee for the wedding breakfast. Guests were sat on round tables with our pale sage green table linen and matte rose gold table runners and ghost chairs still with the organza bows from the wedding ceremony. Johanna and Andy opted for a sweetheart table just for the two of them and we moved the ceremony arch from the wedding down to be the backdrop for their table.
The wedding breakfast menu started with mezze sharing platters of selected cold meats followed by slow roasted Devon Ruby beef brisket served with Maris Piper chips, roquette and Parmesan salad and roasted sweet potato and figs. For dessert there were sharing platters of tiny desserts; pannacotta with rose petal jelly, chocolate pots, passion fruit tart and tiny creme brûlées with lavender biscuit hearts. Speeches were toasted with blush prosecco.
After the wedding breakfast, guests moved to the terrace for tea and coffee and the cash bar provided by Taylors of Tavistock was officially open. The wedding cake made by the mother of the bride was cut just before the first dance and evening entertainment was provided by the full complement of Gourmet Music who had earlier played at the ceremony.
The wedding cake and a cheese cake were served between music sets and a DJ provided by Gourmet Music played out until the end of the evening. The bar closed at 12.15 am, music finished at 12.30 am and guests were off site before 1 am.
One of the big surprises of the day was groom Andy booking Baxter and Ted to film the wedding as a surprise for his bride – how romantic is that? You can see the lovely emotion packed film of this day by clicking below:
Johanna + Andy | Wedding Film in Devon from Baxter and Ted Films on Vimeo.
All still photos by David Stubbs.
You can read more details of one of our other 2016 weddings here and here. If you would like more details about having your wedding here at Ever After or you would like a copy of our digital brochure, you can email me at [email protected]
