Get ready to be inspired by Emma & Rob's celestial-themed wedding at Higher Holcombe. This stunning woodland, DIY venue in Devon was the ultimate setting for a laid-back weekend celebration, rain or shine (and they got a bit of both!). With every stunning detail carefully planned for and crafted by themselves, friends and family, the love and effort put into this day shines through. I asked Emma to chat about how they pulled off such a magical event...
THE VIBE
We originally considered a festival theme. We love the outdoors, camping, nature etc. We ended up with a celestial theme instead. We wanted to be outdoors as much as possible but thought it would be a great idea to bring the night sky inside too! The site we chose luckily had camping in amazing bell tents, festival flags, a campfire and lots of beautiful trees and outside space.
Our main colour was blue and we had gold accents, the stars and our flowers gave our venue a soft romantic feel. I’m really glad we chose to not do a full festival theme as we had some bad weather that would have made celebrating outside in festival style more difficult.
PLANNING & STYLING
Our wedding was completely DIY, with lots of ideas sourced from Pinterest! (Every bride’s best friend) once we found the venue the rest of our ideas started to make sense.
We used hitched, Pinterest and created mood boards using a free trial of a website. I also created all of our signage in canva.
IMPORTANT ELEMENTS
We really wanted live music, that was important to us. We found a great band called the generations who did an amazing job. We also wanted to go away from the traditional 3 course sit down meal and go for more festival themed food. We found Big Pan Parties, who let us choose three different dishes which they cooked in big paella pans. One of them was my signature dish that I’ve cooked many times for friends, they learnt the recipe so they could serve it for us.
DIY ITEMS
I made all of my bridesmaid gift boxes with wax seal labels, hanger labels, seat reservation signs (which we didn’t use due to weather!), photos to hang at ceremony, a blanket basket, all our signage, my denim jacket, snack baskets with welcome signs for guests staying on site in tents with us.
I also bought a flat-packed post box for cards and assembled and painted it. My dad made us a wooden confetti cone holder and my mum printed book pages onto vellum and rolled them into cones. I dried my own flower petals for confetti from my garden
HIRED ITEMS
I hired the moongate, neon and brass candle sticks (from Rustic Love) and I hired bud vases from my florist Ivory Rose.
The wedding took place on quite a big site at Higher Holcombe, so we hired a golf buggy to help out our guests with mobility issues. The buggy was a hit with all guests and it was rarely stood still all day!
MISHAPS
Most of the things that went wrong were down to the weather. We thought with a July wedding we would be lucky with rain. The day we arrived on site to set up it poured, the site was saturated and we all got soaked. Joanna and Gary at Higher Holcombe were amazing at adapting things so we stayed as dry as possible on the day. Amazingly the majority of the water drained away overnight and we luckily got a dry afternoon to do our ceremony outside in the willow cathedral as planned.
Drizzle arrived again in the early evening and rained off our plans to do marshmallow toasting around the fire pit and sparklers. Our garden games were forgotten too, probably down to weather being unpredictable. reality I don’t think any of our guests missed these things and everyone commented how nice everyone was, it seemed everyone was happy chatting, eating and drinking.
ANYTHING YOU WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY
I tried to be too prepared! I was prepared for every occasion it seemed! I bought fans in case it was hot (it wasn’t), but we went to a friends wedding three weeks before and fans were a god send. So I had to get some! I bought umbrellas in case it rained (it did, but we didn’t use them! as the venue had loads!) I did a blanket box in case it was cold (it was later on and this was a hit). In reality I’ve sold the bits I didn’t use, so it didn’t really matter, but I spent a lot of time stressing about covering every eventuality and making sure guests were comfortable.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY
Our beautiful intimate ceremony, going ahead as planned in the gorgeous Devon countryside. Everyone looking a million dollars, all the guys matching in their blue suits and my handsome husband to be.
But mostly I remember seeing all my friends and family, some who had met and some who hadn’t, all chatting, dancing and enjoying each others company.
Everyone said how well catered the event was, we had a huge graze table for nibbles and the three cooked choices later in the evening.
Our cake, made by our lovely friend based on Pinterest pics I shared with her, was incredible (in taste and appearance!) Everyone also said that the site was ‘so us’, which we knew as soon as we arrived to view it!
ADVICE
Be true to yourself, don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you how your day should look and don’t be afraid to steer clear of tradition. I was led down the aisle by both parents, my husband was walked down the isle by his mum, we had a small ceremony with less than 20 people, there was no first dance, no cake cutting, no speeches. We all still had the time of our lives! Your wedding can be anything you want it to be :)
SUPPLIERS
Venue - Higher Holcombe
Photographer - Ellen Sear
Cake - Our wonderful friend Hannah Culley from Hannah Culley's Cakes
Shoes - bought on ASOS and sent off to a lady on Etsy to bling them up!
Bridesmaids dresses - ASOS
Jacket - Bought the jacket cheaply and added the embellishments myself
Dress - Madi Lane Bridal
Signage - designed myself on canva and had them printed
Bouquet and table flowers - Betty at Ivory Rose Florist
Moongate, neon, candlesticks - Rustic Love
Moongate flowers - DIY with mix of flowers bought from the range, SHEIN, ikea etc put together by one of our wedding volunteers to match a Pinterest pic I liked!
Thanks for sharing your beautiful wedding with us Emma & Rob, you created a truly magical day!
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