Ash Barton Estate Wedding

I loved that Léonie and Leo chose me to be their creative wedding photographer for their Ash Barton estate Wedding – their day has to be in my top five weddings ever!

Wedding Venue

The setting was rustic but spot on – you kinda need to have creative vision to get married at Ash Barton Estate but that is the beauty of the place and it’s mega cool that you and your friends get to have the place to yourselves for the whole weekend. I would absolutely love to shoot at Ash Barton Estate sometime in the future please and thank you! It was pretty special that they were the first Ash Barton couple to get married under the huge Oak Tree…long may that custom continue it really was a magical setting.

Creative Wedding Ideas

Their day ticked so many of my boxes – colour lovers…hell yes / fun loving…absolutely / mildly idiotic…yep especially Leo / stylish, creative, outdoorsy and unique…yep yep yep yep. Léonie being the creative driving force having so many ideas that with the help of her friends and family pulled together such a rainbow bright, bonkers party to end all parties. She’s a terrifically talented girl and I’ll be honest (despite Léonie being a little younger than me) I wanna be her when I grow up!

Bride takes scissors to ASOS dress

I want more brides that take scissors to an ASOS dress; or a glue gun to add pompoms to her platforms; who literally swipes on a bit of lipstick rubbing a little on her cheeks and boom her make up is done. More brides to slip into slinky red numbers in the evening.Grooms that wear trainers and still look fly…more importantly I want more grooms that take off during the first dance. Also, not to be demanding(!), I want more brides to send me llamas through the post. Both her and Leo had put a hell of a lot of effort into the prep of their day but remained chilled throughout and grinned from ear to ear all day having such a fab time surrounded by a lovely bunch of friends and family.

Creative Wedding Style

“I knew I didn’t want to spend much on my dress, so I mostly looked at Vintage shops and ASOS and I ended up going with a beautiful lace floral dress from ASOS that I customised slightly by altering the neckline (which I did 3 days before the wedding!) The dress was paired with red platforms from Dorothy Perkins which I customised too by adding red pom poms to the ankle strap! My evening dress was a fabulous slinky red vintage dress by Wayne Clark that I bought from Etsy, which I paired with a Tatty Devine necklace and silver glitter shoes from ASOS. Leo had a lovely blue suit from J Crew, a colourful ditsy print shirt from Paul Smith and orange knitted tie. Not wanting to go down the usual route of blue suit / brown shoes he bought some really cool grey leather sneakers from Mr Porter. Both our outfits were quite last minute!”

Bridesmaids and Groomsmen Outfit Ideas

“I wanted my bridesmaid to be comfortable, and I’m definitely the girliest of the three of us, so traditional bridesmaids dresses were a no no! They wore bright pinks and red trousers with their own choice of jewellery and accessories, and looked so cool and gorgeous! The groomsmen wore their own suits with bright ties in pink and red to coordinate with the bridesmaids… we didn’t want everyone to wear the same thing (it kind of creeps me out) but everyone ended up matching so beautifully, even our parents!”

I loved it so so much I didn’t want the day to come to an end. 5 years and I reckon you should renew your vows in Mexico, deal yeah?! I’ll be there like a shot.

Loads of love to you guys and your colourful friends who made your day so memorable. Here are (too many) highlights from your wedding day…

“So lovely working with Jordanna, she made it so easy and relaxed and FUN! We booked her because her photos had so much life to them and she’s great with colour (very important!) We didn’t want formal pictures so even our group shots look relaxed and natural. She captured A LOT of laughter…”

Léonie & Leo

Colourful and Fun Decor

“Decoration was one of the most important aspects of the day to me, I wanted it be be bright and colourful and fun, with a bit of a Latin American vibe… lots of pom poms, streamers, balloons and lanterns. I made a lot of the decorations myself, from the paper tassel garlands to the neon signs (The cactus was my favourite). We had so much help on the day before from family and friends, for which I am eternally grateful!”

Creative floristry and table decor

“I found out about Hayley from Wilderness Flowers via a mutual friend and knew immediately that she would be perfect, she knew exactly what i wanted! Bright colours and flowers that looked like pom poms basically… (peonies, ranunculus, craspedia, alliums, protea…) I also had mint in my bouquet which I loved!

We loved travelling so our tables names and centre pieces were some of our favourite places we have been together (from Sardinia to Isla del Sol in Bolivia), we decorated the tables with snowglobes, souvenirs and spray painted bottles with flowers in. The tables names were little neon signs and everyone got a llama fridge magnet from Peru as their favour.”

The very special ceremony under the old oak tree at Ash Barton Estate

Tell us about the ceremony: “We loooooved our ceremony, it was in a gazebo under a beautiful big oak tree. We were actually the first ones to get married in that spot, as it only got licensed a week before. The whole thing was very relaxed and giggly, we tweaked the vows a little to bit to include the words friendship, and laughter and adventure! We had two readings, the first one by my school friend Eliza was “Your Laughter” by Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet whose house we visited in Valparaíso. It was so emotional and beautiful! The second one was I Like You by Sandol Stoddard Warburg, read with great comic timing by Leo’s sister.

Music is really important to us and we spent a lot of time deciding what to play… I walked down the “aisle” (was more of hill hanging on to my step dad, Ian…) to Glory of Love by Big Bill Broonzy and signed the register to Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, which we had sung the night before at karaoke!”

Entertainment was provided across the day for guests to enjoy

Did you have any evening entertainment at all? “The night before the wedding we had a fish n chip van and karaoke, so it was a late one….and boozier than we first envisaged – whoops.

On the day we had lawn games, a DIY photobooth, and an INCREDIBLE band Miss Hoodoo and the Delta Boys who did an outdoor Latin set while we drank margaritas and then an amazing bluesy soul set for dancing. Their cover of Proud Mary brought the house down! Afterwards our friend Kris DJed until the early hours, the sun just starting to come up when we finally went to bed…

The lighting and sound was provided by my step dad and his friend (who was his best man!) Ken and they did a fantastic job of transforming the barns.”

Wedding Wisdom

“If you’re planning on doing a DIY wedding think VERY hard if you can actually take it on… it is A LOT of work! I definitely understand the point of hiring a wedding planner now and in hindsight we may have done that. There were times we wished we had got married in a registry office and hired a pub instead! It was all worth it in the end and we had an EPIC weekend, which was exactly what we wanted. I’m not sure I would go through it again though…”

…Oh go on!

L&L’s Little Black Book

Bride dresses
Groom suit
Groom shirt
Jewellery
Shoes
Florist
Venue
Cake Maker
Caterer
Stationery
Entertainment 
Ring making workshop
Fish n chips
Ice cream van
Furniture hire

If you are looking for a Creative Wedding Photographer and you are a fun, colour loving couple then I would be thrilled to hear from you. Dates are filling up fast now for 2018. Get in touch here if you’d like to chat!