Find fun pennant decor ideas from this charming UK wedding

Charming & Personal Clock Barn Wedding | Amber Marie Photography 7

It’s amazing how a few simple and easy design elements can make a raw wedding space sing. For instance, the classic and fun white pennant banners in this sweet English wedding are everything! Adding a few cafe string lights, and wildflowers and call it a DIY wedding win.

We love to celebrate labor of love weddings here on Bridal Musings, and this charming fete is no exception! Filled with personal details, the couple was spoiled by their family and friend’s help arranging flowers and executing DIY projects. The whole wedding was even styled and planned by the bride herself, bravo!

The rustic Clock Barn served as the perfect raw space for all their DIY details. With exposed beams and warm feel, the space was absolutely filled with charm, all captured so sweetly by Amber Marie Photography.

Our Love Story

We worked together at a theatre in London for five years and were good friends, it was only when I (Francesca) left my job to pursue other things that Marco decided to tell me he had feelings for me!

We’d been together four and half years when he booked a trip to New York after a stressful work period for me. I’d never been and it was my dream trip, he proposed on our last morning in our hotel room with a view of the Empire State Building.

The Wedding Style

It was really important to us that our wedding was personal and relaxed. Therefore, despite only booking the venue six months before the wedding date, we wanted to do as much as possible ourselves and make sure the personal touches reflected our rustic beautiful venue, our families and heritage and our love of travel.

We wanted to keep the colour palette neutral – rather than pick one colour we just went with an overall tone of nudes, blush, grey, lavender and brown.

For example, I wanted all the bridesmaids in different dresses as they are all very different people but kept an overall nude and blush tone for the dresses and shoes.

“Walking down the aisle with my Dad gripping my hand and seeing Marco cry.”

– Francesca’s favorite moment

The Ceremony

In keeping with the personal theme I walked down the aisle to a harp version of “Dafydd y Garreg Wen” (a Welsh hymn that’s close to my family) and we signed the register to “Entre dos Aguas” and “Calon Lan” – reflecting our different nationalities.

We both wrote personal vows and had a cousin from either side of the family choose a poem about love and marriage to read.

“After we got married we walked back down the aisle and had a moment alone together. Our first moment as husband and wife.”

– Marco’s favorite moment

The Photography

We met Amber at a vintage wedding fair in Chiswick about four months before the wedding. I was attracted to her amazing albums and natural, candid but completely beautiful shots. When we got chatting we clicked and got on really well. It was like chatting with a friend about our wedding. On the day she instantly became part of the wedding party – from being pulled into selfies to helping my mum get her shoes on!

We loved the fact that she suggested splitting our portraits session into two so that we could not only capture the beautiful surroundings of our wedding in the sunshine and also at the golden hour before dusk. It was great to not disappear for a long time and miss a big chunk of our own party but also meant that we got two very different sets of shots. We were also really keen not to have cheesy posed couples shots. Amber found great locations around the farm – from in front of a pile of chopped logs to in a field of long grass to make our pics that bit different.

The Reception

Music is really important to both of us as we work in dance and theatre. We found Blue Juice via the Function central agency website and loved their tracks. They were brilliant and really made the party. From funky covers to a DJ set that included our (many) recommendations the dance floor was packed all night.

The DIY & Details

It was all about the personal touches for us. My Aunt Helen created ceramic hearts with our initials or names on and tied to recycled glass jars and pots as decorations. My mum and dad collected huge amounts of wildflowers and pots of lavender and then the day before the wedding we had a team of bridesmaids (and boys), aunts, cousins, family and friends assembling and flower arranging.

We bought fairy lights and paper lanterns to decorate the space – as we work in theatre we have a good team of technically minded friends who set this all up for us on the morning of the wedding. We also borrowed drapes from another friend and created an archway in which we could get married under.

Our table plan was a vintage map of the world with each table name a country or city we had visited together – we bought the map from Etsy and got the table names and seating lists printed from Creationery.

The place names were handwritten brown luggage tags and we added personalised badges for the bridal party that were printed from Wedding in a Teacup.

For our guestbook, we bought a 1950’s vintage children’s suitcase and then lots of vintage travel postcards from places we have been to and places we wish to go to. We asked our guests to write a message on a postcard for us to open on our 1st anniversary and then place in the suitcase.

For a wedding card post box, we ordered a custom-made wooden box with our names, wedding venue and date of wedding painted all four sides in the languages our families speak – English, Spanish, Welsh and Catalan.

Advice for Other Couples

Do what you want to do and don’t try and please anyone else. The important people in your life will be there for you and will want to see you happy.

Don’t sweat the small stuff and don’t fall into all the wedding traps of ‘you must have this or that’ there are no set rules with weddings and the one thing we wanted from the start was to make it about us – as that’s why we were doing it.

At some point, you have to let go and let everything happen. It’s the best feeling to just start enjoying your day.

The Honeymoon

We took a mini moon – five days in Lisbon and Cascais immediately after the wedding so we got some down time together which felt so important.

We then took a full two weeks off four months after the wedding and went to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. It gave us a bit more time to save and meant we could go on the trip of a lifetime. We booked Portugal ourselves but did Sri Lanka through Kuoni who we would definitely recommend.