The Wedding of Hannah & James

A DIY autumnal wedding with an authentic rustic twist for this innovative local farming couple from Mold, Flintshire.

The Before…

James stole the limelight with a surprise proposal at my mum and dad’s celebratory 30th Wedding Anniversary meal. After announcing he had a surprise for us all and giving a little speech he dropped to one knee and, of course, I said yes.

My family is very close, and James thoughtfully chose this moment to pop the question to ensure that my mum and dad could witness their little girl getting engaged. He knew they’d be the first people I’d want to tell. And luckily, my mum and dad didn’t mind sharing their limelight one bit – they were so touched that James thought to include them in such a special moment in my life. (Smooth move James!).

The Perfect Rustic Luxe Wedding Venue

Once the excitement of the engagement was over we swiftly began our search for the perfect wedding venue. Luckily, we both agreed that we wanted a naturally beautiful, rustic venue that was just ‘us’. And that’s exactly how we felt when we found Tower Hill Barns, just a 30-minute drive from our home in Mold, Flintshire.

Upon visiting, we fell irrevocably in love. We just *knew* it was the perfect venue for us. From its stunning, rustic good looks to its easy-going luxury vibe – from that point on, only THB would do.

Wedding Planning

We began our wedding planning journey by drawing up an absolutely ginormous to-do list and then methodically attacking one task at a time. Luckily, we have lots of amazing friends and family who helped along the way. And we actually quite enjoyed the process of planning, designing and making things together in the end!

One thing is for sure, we wouldn’t do anything differently if we could plan it all again. We had THE most perfect wedding day, and we wouldn’t change it for the world.

The Theme and Styling

The first time we entered the Barns we agreed that it was naturally beautiful and we wanted to keep its authentic rustic feel. Naturally, we went with a rustic autumnal theme, adding our own subtle decorative touches here and there.

For an added personal touch, we included a few tributes to farm life in our décor bringing a little more ‘us’ into the proceedings as we live on a dairy farm. For example, we positioned some wellies containing flowers and two little bride and groom highland cows at the entrance for guests to walk past as they arrived – our guests loved it!

The Florals

My (Hannah’s) mum is super crafty and (bravely) decided she fancied a new challenge ahead of the wedding. She spent many hours and sleepless nights binding artificial bouquets, button holes and floral arrangements together and subsequently undoing all her hard work if she didn’t think it was perfect.

She made beautiful bouquets and enough buttonholes/flower bracelets for each of our guests to wear. The best part is I can now keep my bouquet forever. She also made an adorable flower wand for our flower girl and mini bouquets for the children. They were perfect.

A family friend kindly donated an artificial flower garland for the top table and a cake backdrop, which finished everything off beautifully.

Rustic DIY Décor and Accessories

We designed and made most of the décor and wedding stationery ourselves. Using the design for our wedding invites as inspiration we made signs for the selfie station, sweet cart, bubbles…etc. And (not suffering enough with the florals), my mum Wendy made some rustic place names for the table settings using wooden Scrabble letters. Many of our guests took theirs home as a memento.

We also made all of the table centrepieces and a few smaller decorations to dot around such as fairy light jars, candles and rustic wooden crates with flowers.

To say our wedding was a team effort would be an understatement – the whole family got involved to help us design, make and decorate these items to match our theme and we are eternally grateful!

Calm Vibes And Perfect Makeup

The girls and I arrived at Tower Hill Barns to begin getting ready in their luxurious makeup and dressing room just after 8 am. Thankfully, we were able to drop off all of our decorations the day before so we only had a few bits to bring with us on the day.

At the Barns we were met by our wonderful hair and makeup team for the day – Poppy Michelle & her assistant Sue. They both brought a very calm vibe to our wedding morning and our hair was perfect, exactly the way we each wanted it and it lasted all day! (despite it getting a bit blustery at times).

Poppy also doubled as our makeup artist, tailoring her work to suit each of us individually. Amazingly, it lasted throughout the day – despite being put through its paces by lots of happy tears from us all!

I would absolutely recommend Poppy and her team to any and all brides-to-be. They MADE our wedding morning and Poppy even brought me a bar of chocolate, remembering that some of the milk James farms is used to make a well-known brand of chocolate! (Well played Poppy – there are always brownie points available where choccie is concerned!).

Throughout the morning I felt a mixture of nerves and excitement – but somehow, at the same time, I also felt very calm. Georgi our wedding co-ordinator was absolutely amazing and made sure everything went to plan so I couldn’t have stressed if I’d wanted to – we can’t thank her enough!

The Ceremony

Hannah walked down the candle-lit aisle of our rustic indoor ceremony area ‘The Old Barn’ to a piano cover of “You Are The Reason” by Callum Scott. Wearing a figure hugging, lace wedding gown and accompanied by her 2 bridesmaids dressed in floor length burgundy chiffon dresses she looked simply phenomenal.

Our indoor ceremony was perfect, everything we had imagined it would be. The registrars were lovely, guiding us through the ceremony with ease. And our talented musician Ron Saunders played beautiful piano covers of our favourite songs during the ceremony, including a surprise favourite for my Dad called I Giorni – which brought a tear to his eye!

The Good Stuff (Food!)

We absolutely loved the food taster experience! I (Hannah) have coeliac and have had many negative experiences eating out over the years – but not at Tower Hill Barns. I knew I was in very good hands being catered for by very knowledgeable chefs and staff. Although we didn’t actually try the food we ended up choosing during the food taster it was still very helpful. It gave us the confidence that no matter what we chose, it would be phenomenal.

In the end, we opted for tomato soup to start, with a gorgeous roast beef dinner for the main and served our wedding cake for dessert. Everyone raved about how amazing the food was – very tasty and filling too!

It’s not just the food that stands out though, the bar was fabulous too! Lots of our friends told us that they’ve been ordering our signature ‘bride and groom’ drinks – Rhubarb Gin & lemonade for Hannah and Southern Comfort, lime & lemonade for James – can’t go wrong!

The Wedding Cake

We displayed our three-tier, rustic-style, semi-naked cake on THB’s rustic wooden barrel in front of a circular cake backdrop which was lent to us by a friend. Each tier of the cake, made by our talented supplier Samantha Jones – Mum Who Bakes was made from vanilla sponge with a jam and cream filling. It was amazing! And delicious to boot. Sam sourced all of the artificial flowers herself, along with the cake topper and the end result was just perfect.

Incredible Evening Entertainment

For the evening, we hired DJ Danny and his saxophonist Rory (through Jonny Ross Music). All we can say is WOW. These guys were incredible, and the dance floor was never empty!

Rory is an amazing saxophonist and did a brilliant job of getting everyone dancing. We’d even bought some inflatable saxophones for our guests who had a great time ‘playing’ along – resulting in some amazing videos!

So many of our guests commented on how amazing the saxophone was and how well Danny and Rory put the sets together. The party was everything we wanted and more – thank you both!

Wedding Photographer & Videographer

We looked online and researched lots of different photographers/videographers. We chose ours as we liked their style and as an added bonus they had both worked at Tower Hill Barns before and knew the venue well.

From the moment our talented photographer Samantha James walked through the door we felt like we’d known her for years. She is bubbly, chatty and a generally lovely person to be around – we couldn’t have felt more at ease. She’s also an amazing photographer and captured the essence of our day perfectly – we couldn’t love our wedding album more!

You can never have too many memories, so we also hired a videographer to capture the day. Adam met with us at Tower Hill Barns prior to our wedding to talk about the details we’d like to include in our video footage – we knew from our first meeting we’d chosen the right man for the job and the results speak for themselves! On the day he blended into the background perfectly, we almost forgot he was there! As a result, we have some beautiful, authentic moments captured on film to look back on that we will cherish forever.

Guest Feedback

Many of our guests have commented that the atmosphere was lovely and relaxed throughout the day. Everything just flowed so nicely and everyone noticed how friendly and attentive the lovely THB staff are.

Another thing we keep hearing is how beautiful our venue was! For many of our guests, it was the first time they’d been to Tower Hill Barns and they all found it absolutely stunning.

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