Great Barn Weddings – Camilla & Tom
Well, the weather has finally taken a turn for the wetter and so we are now concentrating on jobs that need doing inside the Barn, the cottages and our ‘soon to be available’ accommodation to allow even more of you to come and stay for your wedding weekends. Keep an eye on our Facebook and Instagram feeds as we will be sharing lots of images over the next few weeks, of what we have been doing during lockdown. We hope you are all keeping safe and well and we can’t wait to host weddings here as soon as it’s safe to do so.
In the meantime, here is a look back on the wedding of Camilla & Tom. They got married last December and what a day it was! Let’s hand over to Camilla to talk us through the highlights…
How did you meet? We met in London when we both lived there – two gingers from Devon!
Tell us about the proposal. It was a surprise birthday weekend away. We went on a cliff top walk near Salcombe, Tom had packed a picnic and when we sat on a rock to look at the view, he got down on one knee! We celebrated with a bottle of bubbles and then realised we had to walk down quite a steep cliff path to get back!
Tell us why you chose The Great Barn. We decided pretty quickly we wanted a Christmas wedding and being from Devon already had The Great Barn as our first choice and couldn’t believe our luck when we found out the only weekend free was the one we wanted in December! Our only problem was that we wanted a church ceremony – so when we visited the church just up the lane it all came together. It was so beautiful, with no electricity and the idea of having a candlelit ceremony with everyone then in a procession down to the Barn was just perfect.
Tell us about your dress and accessories. I had only two criteria when I chose my dress – sleeves as it would be chilly and something that wouldn’t restrict me dancing! I wore a dress by Richard Designs… although I customised it a fair bit and shoes by Rainbow which were so comfy! Although I had to last minute swap for some trainers to walk down the steep hill from the church!
Tom wore traditional morning dress with a duck egg blue double-breasted waistcoat. The ushers were also all in morning dress and had different coloured stripy socks from Morrows.
Which other suppliers would you like to mention? We used Joanna Game for our flowers, and they were SPECTACULAR! The huge wreaths with foraged greenery, ethereal lichen and then some small lights were just stunning, as was the trailing ivy in the church. She was perfect at creating an effortless winter wonderland!
Did you have a theme or colour scheme? We wanted winter with just a nod to Christmas and so kept it simple with seasonal foraged greens and whites and lots of candles! We had two huge Christmas trees with just fir cones and a dusting of snow, candles with trailing ivy in the church, candles on the lane and sparklers to send us off! We also had a tower of croquembouche with sparklers for our cake!
What were your special moments or highlights of the day? The ceremony was magical – marrying Tom, in a church lit by candles, with a Christmas carol, followed by a sparkler send-off was just perfect – I will never forget the procession of everyone walking down the lane after, with a homemade Blackberry gin in hand to the Barn!
Walking into the Barn as husband and wife, to beautiful Violin music by Holly Chapman and seeing all our most favourite people in one place. The barn looked so spectacular with low lighting, candles and Joanna’s flowers and I just remember for a second being totally mesmerised by the scene in front of me!
We did a rendition of 12 days of Christmas during the meal and sitting in the middle watching all the different tables do their part (with actions) was hysterical – and the perfect festive start to the dancing!
Please can you tell us, in a few words, if and why you would recommend The Great Barn to other brides and grooms. For us it was first choice and we didn’t look at anywhere else! We already knew it and it lived up to everything we have heard. John and Emma run it to perfection, going above and beyond to ensure it runs smoothly and John’s lighting made it just so magical.
Images by the very talented Mel Roach from Maxi Photography
