Bethan & Adam's Bright & Colourful Barn Wedding on The Beach

Bethan & Adam's Bright & Colourful Barn Wedding on The Beach

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Afternoon lovely people,

We have such a wonderful wedding to share with you all today. Wonderful because the bride, groom and guests' smiles are just completely contagious and you can tell that everyone had such a brilliant day. If after viewing these gorgeous images captured by Alexa Poppe you do not have a smile on your face then I don;t know what will!

Bethan and Adam wanted to have a day that was full of fun, bright colours and lots of happiness. They don't take themselves too seriously so they wanted their day to be very relaxed and informal and for everyone to have a great time....

It's such an incredible thing to get so many people you love in one place and we really appreciated everyone's effort in coming so wanted to make sure they enjoyed themselves as much as we did. We wanted fun photographs rather than posed as we knew we'd both just look awkward. Alexa did a great job at making us feel relaxed and capturing some really lovely photos for us which make us smile every time we look through them.

Held at one of our recommended venues, The Barn at South Milton, a gorgeous rustic barn right on the beach in Devon, Bethan and Adam's wedding is full of so many fantastic ideas and personal touches. For example. their table names were photos of each of their guests as children making it all the more personal for their guests and their cake was a double decker bus as that was where they first met! They also has a travel inspired gifts table as they are going travelling for 7 months for their honeymoon. Its little touches like this that makes a wedding so unique and special. We love it!

Bethan and Adam talk us through their day, starting with a proposal in Marrakech!

Adam and I had gone to Marrakech for a holiday and on the second evening we'd had an amazing evening in Jemaa el-Fnaa the crazily busy and noisy main square. When we returned to the Riad we sat on the roof terrace and had some drinks while playing a very competitive card game we'd just learnt from our friends. The proposal came as a complete surprise and I initially thought Adam was joking. A lot of tears and laughter followed and it took me the rest of the holiday (and a few phone calls to friends and family) to calm down. Adam was offered 4000 camels for me the very next day but thankfully he managed to say no.

I'm not the sort of person who has always dreamed of a particular type of dress, or even knew what a fish tail was...I'm also extremely clumsy! My criteria for buying a dress was that I could dance, lunge and go in the sea (I managed all three!). We tried on a lot of dresses and my Mam came with me to every shop (poor thing). I finally tried on a dress at Vus Bridal in Wadebridge which instantly felt comfortable and I loved the leaf lace used. The owner Di was amazing and when I mentioned what I would have liked the dress to have to make it completely perfect she suggested I speak to a dressmaker. As a result I ended up taking a lot of the tulle out from the bottom to help with avoiding trip hazards and added some pearl beading detail into what had been an open back. As my dress didn't have a train I wore a cathedral length veil which was made by Bella Veils in Cornwall. It was very light and also came in very handy for some beach limbo. I also wore a pearl headpiece across my forehead as I loved the vintage look and it tied in with the pearls on the back of my dress.

I didn't want to wear heels as I live in flats and flip flops and wanted to be able to dance and walk comfortably. I also knew I wanted fun shoes so ended up with a pair of gold glittery sling back flats which I absolutely loved. They were so comfortable and meant that dancing and walking in a straight line wasn't an issue.

Adam bought me my earrings as a surprise from my favourite jewellery shop in Plymouth and my parents bought me a beautiful Clogau Welsh gold bracelet which they gave to me on the day. Mam made my garter for me which also featured some jewellery which had belonged to both of my Nannas.

Our ceremony was held at All Saints church Thurlestone. My older brother acted as our chauffeur and master of ceremonies. He decorated his camper van for us to use as our wedding car and got slightly carried away with the bow decorations. I wasn't keen on the idea of walking down the aisle while everyone stared at me so we decided to have my Dad's ukulele band ( Plymouth Queen's Dock Players) play for our guests in the church before I arrived and to play me down the aisle to Bring me Sunshine. This was such a great help as everyone was also singing along while staring at me and it made the walk far less scary when you have 12 ukulele players in Hawaiian shirts smiling at you. They played during our register signing and also played us back up the aisle to You are My Sunshine.

We chose hymns that are upbeat and that everyone would know and also one specifically for my Welsh family and friends.

Adam wanted something a bit less formal than other wedding suits which also matched the rustic feel of the day. He found some blue wool mix suits in Next and wore a blue checked shirt and blue waistcoat with it. Bright socks and ties were a must to complete his outfit.

My bridesmaids were four best friends, Adam's three little nieces and my 9 month old niece! The adult bridesmaids wore yellow and the little ones wore a purple floral dress. We all had fresh flowers in our hair and a mixture of bright flowers for our bouquets. My niece's bouquet was the smallest bouquet I've ever seen but she managed to keep hold of it.

In keeping with the colour and feel of the day we wanted bright flowers. We purchased a mixture of flowers from a local wholesaler and then we made our own bouquets, button holes and displays for the church and The Barn. This kept cost down and also meant that we could create exactly what we wanted.

Our reception venue was The Barn at South Milton. We knew we wanted to be by the sea and wanted something rustic that we could really put our own stamp on. We looked at a couple of barns but when we visited The Barn at South Milton and met Paul and Paula we were instantly sold. We fell in love with the gorgeous view of the sea and the fact that everyone could camp outside. When I reeled off our hopes for the day, nothing seemed to be a problem or concern at all for them, including stocking Welsh beer and our favourite rum.

The camping available on site was right next to the Barn itself. Some of our guests brought their own tents (and campervan) and some guests hired bell tents through the Barn. Some guests even went all out and hired the luxury bell tents which included beds, bunting and fairy lights - I was very jealous! The Barn has on site facilities for the camping guests and along with the tents being only a stumble away from the Barn, it made a good option for lots of our friends. We also stayed on site in the bungalow which was great as it meant we could stay with our guests until the very end of the night.

As well as those camping, lots of our friends and family came back to the Barn the following morning as well so we ended up lighting the BBQ again for bacon and sausage rolls and all had breakfast together. This was a really lovely way to spend more time with our guests and an opportunity to speak to some people we didn't feel we'd had much chance to so far.

My brother is an artist so we chose the background that we wanted (bright yellow and floral) and he cleverly designed the invitations, orders of service and table name cards. We love music and had a quote from our favourite bands on each page of the invitation and order of service. We also named our tables after our favourite bands.

Our order of service included a 'history of us' covering how we met, the dating period and the proposal and also a 'Who's Who in the Wedding Party' to give our guests something to read while waiting at the church.

Our wedding cake was a double decker bus as Adam and I first met on the school bus when we were 12 years old (despite not dating until we were 22). Mam made the cake and also made two figures for the top of the cake to look like Adam and I in our school uniforms.

In keeping with the 'bright' vision of the day our colour theme was yellow, purple and bright pink.

We had a team of helpers decorating, flower arranging, hay bale arranging and sign making in the days leading up which was great fun. We made hessian cutlery holders and hessian bows with flowers for the chairs. We made the seating plan from a frame and fake flowers and we collected fun photos of each of our guests and used polaroid photos for our name places.

For favours we had colourful sunglasses - it was a big risk that the weather would actually play ball enough for guests to use them but we were very lucky in the end. Some great photos were taken with everyone wearing them and our friends keep turning up wearing them now.

Inside The Barn we had paper pompoms and lanterns in the wedding colours hanging from the ceiling and photos of friends and family hung around the room. My uncle made us a Bon Jovi and Dolly Parton cut out with matching wigs which created some of my favourite photos of guests.

After the church ceremony we went to Thurlestone beach with close family for some photos. Back at The Barn the ukulele players had set up and we had lots of Pimms and lawn games available for guests including space hoppers and bubble guns. My dad was desperate to join his band so very quickly grabbed his ukulele and joined in. My Dad had also surprised us by arranging for an old friend (an amazing magician) to be there and he performed lots of magic tricks for the guests while they had drinks in the courtyard and one big trick for Adam and I just before dinner.

The speeches were quite long! Both my Dad and Adam quite enjoy the lime light so I knew I wouldn't be let off easy. Without us knowing, my Dad had re written some verses from our favourite songs to fit in with mine and Adam's lives. As part of his speech he made us stand up and sing these verses, the guests all joined in with parts as well and everyone loved it.

After dinner Adam and I went to South Milton Beach for some more photos. The evening consisted of a lot of dancing, a big scale lunge off and good use of the photo/karaoke booth. I love glitter and so we had some glitter available for guests - I don't think anyone escaped having glitter put on them!!

We had I Love Amp play in the evening who are a fantastic band based in Plymouth. They played a real mixture of songs and the lead singers vocals are incredible. They had everyone dancing and even let our three young bridesmaids perform a dance routine on stage while they played. Adam loves Bon Jovi and they invited him up on stage to perform Living on a Prayer...another dream fulfilled!

This is really difficult as there were so many special, touching and hilarious moments of the day. I laughed the most during my Dad's speech especially when the whole room joined in with the singing and we both loved having time out on our own at the beach later in the day as well. A part of the wedding weekend we particularly enjoyed was actually the next morning and having a chance to see so many friends and family again and to hear about their favourite parts of the day over a bacon sandwich and mug of tea. This was completely unexpected but something I'd recommend to anyone.

The best advice we were given was that we will never please everyone so just make sure that the decisions you make are for you.

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