A Relaxed & Rustic DIY Wedding at Vallum Farm: Rachel and Steven

Our rustic DIY wedding was at Vallum Farm in Northumberland. We loved the country rustic feel, being out in the wide-open with so much land surrounding us. We really wanted to make it a family wedding with as much space and entertainment for the kids as well as the adults. It was perfect as we had all the outdoor space for garden games which was safe and enclosed.

Words by Rachel Images by Erika Tanith Photography.

A Relaxed & Rustic DIY Wedding at Vallum Farm: Rachel and Steven

Wedding Dress

I love the vintage/boho feel and I’d been eyeing up quite a few of the Wilderly Bride dresses online. Luckily there was a trunk show not too far from where I lived (at Bespoken Bridal in Sunderland) around the time I started wedding dress shopping. I’d shortlisted about 15 dresses but none of these was the one I chose!!

The dress I chose was from the “Wilderly Bride” Collection by Allure Bridals…

Wedding Ceremony

My Daddy ‘gave me away’ – Steven found a gorgeous string quartet cover of “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, played by “Simply Three”.

Wedding Photography

Erika Tanith was our wedding photographer. She was just what we wanted… friendly and casual, she felt like one of our guests and she adopted the natural, unposed approach that we were looking for. We didn’t want to stop and pause at every special moment just to make sure they were captured, but at the same time, we wanted the reassurance that every moment was captured. With Erika, every moment was beautifully captured in a raw and natural way.. just how we wanted it. Erika also ensured that Steven and I took time out during the day to take a breath and take some time to ourselves, with a glass of champagne in hand!!

Pre-loved DIY Wedding

The venue itself is stunning and anything that we could see we were able to make use of.

Most of the bits for the centrepieces were handmade by myself. I used Pinterest for inspiration and I was lucky enough to have some glass jars and bottles donated from a friend’s family wedding. Many of these were already decorated but I also decorated some myself using twine and I created labels to wrap around the necks of the bottles for the table names. I asked our florist for some extra lavender to put in some of the larger jars, and I filled the smaller ones with bubbles for the children.

We were also privileged enough to have a pre-loved vintage suitcase, decorated exactly how we wanted it, donated from a friend’s family wedding.

I have a very creative graphics designer friend who designed our “save the dates” and wedding invites. She also designed our table plan and “order of the day” and framed these in pre-owned and pre-loved frames.

Wedding Favours

Most of our wedding favours were purchased from independent sellers on Etsy. For our adult guests, we gave a personalised plantable seed favours.

For our children, we gave personalised wooden bees. We also provided activity packs for our older children and some crayons and colouring books for our younger children.

For our Fathers’ we purchased personalised hip flasks, and for our Mothers’ we purchased pearl bracelets/earrings. We purchased our Best Men and Groomsmen a watch each from TK Maxx.

Cake

We asked one of Steven’s friends to make us a cake although this is more of a hobby for her than a profession or career. She very kindly provided this as a wedding gift to us.

Neither of us is a fan of traditional wedding cake, and we again wanted to stick with the rustic feel and didn’t want anything too fancy. We also wanted a variety of different flavours to suit all of our guests, so we had three different tiers made of chocolate cake, almond cake, and lemon cake. We added some decorative flowers provided by our florist.

Words of Wisdom

Make sure that you take time on your wedding day to just step back, take a breath, and take it all in. Remember how much time, effort, and money you have spent organising it all and make sure you take some time to enjoy it. Don’t worry about “mingling” with all of your guests.. they are there for you, not the other way around.

What a fabulous DIY wedding! I love that Rachel and steven re-purposed lots of their pretty wedding decor. Are you planning a pre-loved wedding? Let us know in the comments.