The Wedding of Lorna & Tom

A fabulous fun-filled summer wedding planned in just six weeks for Lorna and Tom. Whose number one priority on their big day was creating wonderful memories and a darn good time for their guests!

Rustic, laid-back vibes and an abundance of sunflowers for outdoorsy couple Tom and Lorna’s intimate summer wedding, following their romantic beachfront engagement.

An Epic Celebration, Pulled Off In Just Six Weeks

Following our engagement we booked our wedding at Tower Hill Barns for August 2022. However, in July 2020 Tom’s Dad was sadly diagnosed with a very aggressive form of brain cancer. Despite undergoing surgery and lots of treatment, we were told in May 2021 that the cancer had returned and was more aggressive than ever, it was at this point me and Tom had a hard decision to make. 

We decided to take the bull by the horns and just go for it, bringing the wedding forward to July 2021. THB were just incredible! They went above and beyond to accommodate a number of special requests that were necessary for Tom’s Dad to be part of our day. Nothing was too big of an ask.

It took six weeks of early starts and sleepless nights. But in the end, it was the best day of our lives and we live with no regret. Exactly four weeks after our wedding, Tom’s Dad sadly passed away in our local hospice. We will forever be in debt to the THB team, especially the wonderful Jo, for all their hard work and determination to make our special day as amazing as it was!

The Rustic Theme

Our theme was rustic: We love being outdoors so the idea was to bring the outdoors in. We chose to incorporate lots of wooden, natural decorations that represented us as a couple. And I absolutely love sunflowers so I was over the moon when our amazing florist, Vivid Floral Design said it would be possible to have lots of beautiful sunflowers included in the floral arrangements. I also wanted Gypsophelia for the bridesmaids, it looked beautiful weaved into their hair to match the groomsmen’s buttonholes. 

For the bridesmaid dresses I tried to pay homage to that outdoors feel with floor-length sage green gowns. Tom then chose a lovely navy check for the groomsmen and page boys. And it all came together beautifully in the end! We tried not to get too bogged down in the details, we wanted our wedding to have a really chilled feel, quite informal, to allow everyone to relax, take it all in and truly enjoy the day.

The Wedding Cake

An incredible family friend created a beautiful 2-tier rainbow sponge cake, iced with white buttercream for us! Of course, we couldn’t miss an opportunity to squeeze a few more sunflowers into the celebration so my (Lorna) mum added a few floral finishing touches to tie the decor together. The Brownie Box also kindly donated a batch of incredible flavoured brownies (you can’t beat free cake – am I right?!). Both were served with our evening food and went down a storm!

An Amazing Relaxed Start to The Day

My four amazing bridesmaids and I got ready in the incredible makeup and dressing room. It was a beautiful, relaxed start to the morning. We popped the fizz, opened up the lovely breakfast graze boxes that we had ordered and sat outside on the veranda just taking it all in for a while before the preening began.

Shortly after, our wonderful makeup artist Cassie and her team arrived to start glamming us up! It was honestly the most relaxed and chilled-out morning ever; I was fully expecting it to be chaotic but that couldn’t have been further from the truth! The whole thing started to feel a little more real once my mum and my mother-in-law arrived bringing my wedding dress with them. And after feeling totally zen all morning the nerves *finally* kicked in during the big dress reveal to my dad (the father of the bride).

By contrast, Tom got ready with his groomsmen at our house and was incredibly nervous, he said he was just overwhelmed by the enormity of the day!

A Beautiful, Outdoor Ceremony

Lorna walked down the aisle to ‘A Million Dreams’ (the Piano Guy’s Version) accompanied by her father. However, overcome by the emotion of the moment, and enjoying the walk down the aisle a little too much, Lorna forgot to stop. Walking straight past a bemused Tom, patiently waiting at the altar for his beautiful bride. We’re pleased to say that Lorna did eventually reverse, making it to her beau and the little faux pas well and truly broke the ice. Setting the tone for what turned out to be a magical celebration full of fun and good times.

Post-Ceremony Celebrations

After the ceremony, there was no time to waste! We immediately clicked into celebration mode as Tower Hill Barns passed out the celebratory bubbles and delicious canapės! While our guests celebrated Myself and Tom snuck off with our nearest and dearest for a couple of family portraits before sitting down to enjoy our wedding breakfast. Little did we know we were about to be thrown completely off course by a surprise singing waiter (arranged by Lorna’s mum and sister). We weren’t expecting it at all but it was one of the highlights of the day – he really got the party going!

After that, the day just seemed to fly – we’d arranged Dotty’s Ice Cream van to attend as dessert which went down amazingly with our guests. And we even managed to squeeze in space hopper races and a game of rounders on the lawn before the first dance. Before we knew it we were back on the dancefloor having a ball to The Song Pilots. We couldn’t quite believe it when they announced it was the last song!

The First Dance

We had our first dance outside on the terrace, and we’re glad we did! It was such a special moment. Our official ‘first dance’ song was “All My Love,” by George Ezra, played by our incredible band The Song Pilots. But Tom and I are also renowned for loving ‘Shotgun’ by George Ezra so we HAD to perform our own little dance – which we’ve perfected over the years – as the grand finale! Our friends and family joined us for this one, and it’s a brilliant memory we look back on fondly!

A Perfect Non-Posey Wedding Album

We saw a promotional video that Mike (AKA Capture My Big Day) had created for Tower Hill Barns and we instantly loved it, we immediately messaged him and were overjoyed to find out that he had our wedding date free which made the Photographer/Videographer decision a very pain-free and easy one!

We wanted a really natural, none posey wedding album! Photos that would give a true representation of the whole day, and that’s exactly what we got! Tom in particular had a whale of a time being thrown up in the air by his groomsmen and the images and video footage from this moment is simply incredible!

The Special Memories

There are truly too many special memories from the day to mention! The biggest highlight for us both has to be the incredible team at Clatterbridge Hospital arranging ambulance transportation to enable Tom’s dad to attend the wedding, along with two amazing paramedics who stayed the whole day and did an incredible job. They made our dreams come true.

The day was filled with fun, and we also have lots of hilarious memories to look back on: the singing waiter falling over as his starting point had the whole room in shock, a game of rounders which resulted in lots of falls, laughs, and one incredible catch! And Having our first dance outside was such a special moment too!

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