Officially spring has arrived! Even if the great British weather didn’t quite get the memo! Today’s wedding from Miki Photography will brighten things up. Oli and Danielle had a gorgeous summer’s day for their tithe barn wedding with a very cool ‘RumCam’ home video that got all their guests involved in the celebrations.

Danielle and her bridesmaids got ready from her parents home, I love the images of her dad getting the car dressed to go to church, her parents look so proud as they both see her. Oli got ready with his groomsmen and managed to squeeze in some pub grub and pint before walking to the church, well why not. I love the relaxed and authentic feel to their day and the fun and laughter just shows throughout all the beautiful images captured by Ash from Miki Photography.

So let me hand you over to Danielle and Oli to tell us all about their gorgeous tithe barn wedding;

Danielle and I met on the first day at Durham University, in October 2007. We both went to St Aidan’s College, and our rooms were next door to each other. We quickly became great friends, but it wasn’t until midway through second year that I plucked up the courage to break the friends zone and tell Danielle how I felt.

After university we both spent some time abroad; I was in Chicago on an internship; Danielle travelling across Central and South America. We both ended up in London, moving in together in March 2014. Some of our best times together were spent on weekend breaks to “Tinkerbelle Cottage” in the Scottish Highlands. It was somewhat inevitable I proposed to Danielle besides the wood burner in the cottage in December 2014.

We didn’t really have a theme, we pinned a lot to our Pinterest boards. We were both really impressed with weddings we’d read about where a lot of personal touches had been made. We wanted to make sure people felt that everything about the day was authentically ‘Danielle and Oli’.

It felt a natural choice that the reception was at a Tudor manor house and tithe barn (I studied Medieval History at University), and the wedding itself was at St Michael’s Church in Basingstoke. It’s the Church where Danielle’s parents got married and where Danielle was Christened. We also wanted the day to feel relaxed – more a giant party than anything else!

The couple chose Ufton Court for their wedding celebrations;

I love all things old and traditional and this space just exudes character and honesty. It’s also a charity, which was attractive to us. Danielle loved the quirkiness of the barn and the opportunity to personalize it (with very few rules!). Ufton Court assign a Wedding Coordinator to you to make sure the planning and the day itself goes smoothly. We had Verity Rickard-Lawrence – she was amazing, especially with coordinating all the suppliers.
We were so so pleased we put an open sided marquee from Magnifitents outside the barn too. It created a whole separate space in the evening with incredible up-lighting and twinkle lights. We had blankets available and this is where we placed our cigar and whisky trolley.

Ash from Miki Photography captured the day for Oli and Danielle;

There were two main reasons really why we picked Ash, his photos were awesome and interesting and he could he take a great classic wedding shot – tick! But more importantly, the samples of his work we saw were just so COOL. We didn’t want a thousand soppy close ups of us two!

Secondly, we clicked when we spoke to him on the phone and during the engagement shoot – he came across as someone who could have been just another one of our friends. This was really important as you want the photographer to blend in during the day and for the photography aspect to be enjoyable!

Danielle’s dress came from Anya Bridal and was by Essence of Australia.

I really loved the experience at Anya Bridal. I booked a luxury appointment, which means you get the entire ‘barn’, full of dresses, to yourself. I went along on an October Sunday with my Mum, Nan and friends. I just fell in love with the first dress I tried on. It fitted so well and had all the detail I was after (including intricate lace and low key sequins for shimmer).

I wore a vintage-style hairpiece from Anthropologie and a fingertip-length veil with small pearls sewn into the edging ( which worked well with the hairpiece). The shoe choice chopped and changed quite a few times before the wedding day! For the day I ended up wearing the same shoes as the bridesmaids from Vince Camuto. Sparkly heels! I wore ‘Diamond’ tear earrings by Carat London, Selfridges. I didn’t want anything to distract from the neckline of the dress.

Danielle chose hair and make up artist Kirsty Fraser to create her lovely natural look with a with a French pleat. The bridesmaids had a similar hairstyle with small pearl topped pins. Kirsty also did the Mother of the Bride’s makeup (again a natural look).

The bridesmids wore Little Mistress beaded top maxi dresses from House of Fraser in grey. All the bridesmaids went shopping together in London (Grace, Danielle’s cousin, flew over from Ireland). The flower girls wore dresses from Monsoon.

Oli’s morning suit comprised a of a smart jacket made by “A Suit That Fits” and a cream doublebreatsed waistcoat, trousers and tie by Favourbrook. Oli also wore silk braces by Turnbull and Asser, shoes by Russell and Bromley and the finishing touch,vintage lucky sixpence coins cufflinks.

The groomsmen hired their morning suits from Debenhams and we all wore the same black and white stripy socks.

Daneille’s Dad Terry gave away her away and they walked down the aisle together to Mendelssohn’s Wedding March.

We got our wedding rings from Channing’s in Hatton Gardens – the same jeweler where I got Danielle’s engagement ring. These were some of the first things we bought on a very exciting Saturday morning. I have a plain platinum band, Danielle has a platinum band with a twist and Diamond shoulders.

One of my favourite moments of the day was driving off in the Land Rover from the Church to Ufton Court – just the two of us. I think we just kept repeating ecstatically “Holy Sh*t we’re married!!”

We used my family Land Rover Defender as the wedding car. My sister also used it for her wedding so it only seemed fitting. I used to give Danielle lifts to the university library in it during our time at Durham University.

Danielle chose Miss Mollies Flowers for her stunning wedding flowers;

Our florist Miss Mollie’s Flowers were recommended by a friend. Claire was fantastic – so relaxed and personal. I met her with my Mum. Claire showed us round her workshop (at the back of her garden) and we just loved her ideas.

The cake was kindly bought for us by my (Danielle’s) grandparents. It was made by a friend of Nan. It was a beautiful, four-tiered cake with Victoria Sponge, Carrot cake, Lemon, and fruit cake. There was an intricate lace design along with flowers made out of icing.

My best friend Steph is an incredible designer (she works for Boden) and designed all the stationary for us and my Dad Terry is a printer and printed them all.

Our style was shabby chic to a certain extent, but not over the top. We had wood log slices for the cake stand and for the centerpiece flowers to go onto. With festoon lighting from Lex Marquee Hire. We picked up an old suitcase that we lined with custom “D&O” paper and placed that at the entrance to the barn for wedding cards. We also had hurricane lamps dotted about the place. Oli’s favourite piece was the Whisky and Cigar trolley. The trolley was a vintage desert trolley parked under the open sided marquee outside the barn. A humidor and whisky decanter sat on top.

The couple gave their guests some lovely favours, including gorgeous baked cookies by Danielle’s Mum Pauline;

My mum made beautiful baked cookie favours and  these were on everyone’s place mats in custom-made bags. We also had sugared almonds at the entrance to the barn, along with little chocolates with “D&O” on them. We also wrote handwritten, personalized thank-yous and tied them to everyone’s forks.

We didn’t have a film on the day but we made a RumCam ourselves. We bought a 1.5 litre bottle of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum and strapped a camcorder to the bottom of it. Oli then edited the footage using MovieMaker 2012 and put it up on YouTube;

We got married on the Friday, had a family bbq on the Saturday and went on honeymoon on the Monday for 3 weeks. Singapore for a couple of nights, then Bali and neighbouring islands. It was sheer bliss. All arranged through Kuoni. Our favourite places were The Elysian Boutique Hotel in Semanyak (Bali) and the Alila in Ubud . Going diving off Gili T island was a major highlight.

For our first dance we had Ho Hey by the Lumineers. We just really like it. We saw them at Glastonbury a few years back.We had a 5-piece band (with a DJ set in breaks) all supplied by Under The Covers. These guys are just awesome. The whole experience from enquiry to end of the wedding night is just so easy and fun working with them. Can’t recommend them enough.

The only thing we’d do differently was we needed to factor in more time for speeches! Dinner was a little rushed as we had speeches before dinner.

If we have any advice for others it would be don’t leave the planning to the last minute otherwise you won’t enjoy it. Take time off before the wedding (we took the full week) – it was so much fun doing the final preparations with friends and family. On the day – don’t worry about anything. It’s too late to worry!

Such a beautiful wedding at a totally stunning tithe barn setting, I particularly love the ‘RumCam’ totally genius idea!

My huge congratulations to Oli and Danielle, wishing you both a wonderful future together. Big thanks for letting us share your day and to Ash too from Miki Photography for these awesome images.

with love