If you fancy putting a personal touch on your day then today's real wedding of Roxie and Derek should give you some great ideas. They managed to do loads of work themselves - from gathering hundreds of jam jars to making their own ceremony backdrop. They had lots help from their family and friends and […]

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If you fancy putting a personal touch on your day then today's real wedding of Roxie and Derek should give you some great ideas. They managed to do loads of work themselves - from gathering hundreds of jam jars to making their own ceremony backdrop. They had lots help from their family and friends and everything came together beautifully on a sunny day at Minstead Study Centre. Victoria JK Lamburn was there to capture every moment of the day and we're delighted to share it with you... including one very special guest of honour...

Pretty English Country Wedding by Victoria JK Lamburn Photography // onefabday.com

How gorgeous is Roxie's hairpiece!? She found it on eBay for only €2...what a steal!

The lovely couple was on holiday in the highlands of Scotland when Derek popped the question. After watching a Christmas parade in a quaint little village covered in a soft blanket of snow and the village choir sweetly singing Christmas carols he proposed. How romantic!

One of the most important things to the couple was choosing the right venue. Roxie says, "We wanted somewhere outdoorsy and a little bit different. We had to be able to bring our Japanese Shiba Inu dog - Koko too! Minstead Study Centre doesn't hold many weddings a year so it was very unique! We loved the grounds including the roundhouse and the people who run the venue were so accommodating and were brilliantly helpful."

Roxie started DIY projects right away, which kept their costs very low. One of the biggest projects she worked on was the fabulous backdrop for the ceremony. "The backdrop for the ceremony room was lovingly (and painstaking!) put up by myself and the bridesmaids and mums and dads the day before. Strips of crepe paper streamers - we didn’t have set colour theme (yellow was the most prominent). We needed to hide the wall where we were saying our vows and this was a very cheap way of doing so!"

How cute are these decorations!?

Roxie describes the feel of the day as, "Rustic/vintage feel with a laid back festival type feel. The whole day was amazing so it’s hard to pick out any highlights. I think for us it was having our friends and family celebrating with us. I can’t describe how overwhelming it is to feel the love and happiness from everyone there."

There he is! Koko is Roxie and Derek's pride and joy, so he had a special place of honour at the proceedings.

Thanks to the hard work of Roxie's bridesmaids, she was able to tackle lots of DIY projects to make her wedding day look extra special. One thing she asked her bridesmaids to help her with was collecting and decorating jam jars. "It was hours and hours of glue guns and lace! I bought off cuts of lace from eBay and ribbons and buttons wherever I went. Lots of cups of tea and chocolate later my bridesmaids and I had made over 400 jars to decorate the venue. We overestimated but I wanted the tables to be covered and we had more than enough to do this. I then put tea lights in them and balled up strings of battery powered led lights which also looked really pretty once it got dark."

Having a hard time choosing what suit to wear, Derek traveled to Brighton and looked through some vintage shops to get some ideas. After finding some inspiration, he found the perfect suit on eBay.

For the reception, Roxie and Derek used their own sound system and playlists that they created themselves. Roxie tells us, "Derek is in a band so music was an important is very important to us. Our table names were named after guitar makes - another nod to the music side of things."

It's incredible to think that Roxie did most of this DIY herself but fair play to her, she was determined to put a personal spin on things, and enjoyed every minute. Looking around there are almost too many projects to count...

But those details are exactly what gave the celebration the the rustic/festival feel they wanted... Roxie explained about all the different things she did.... "We had bunting everywhere! The bunting in the ceremony room was made by me and the bridesmaids out of paper doilies and twine and then I collected lots of old music note paper to make more bunting (getting our music theme in there again). For the marquee we used fabric bunting which was another bargain eBay purchase and paper honeycomb lanterns from Ikea. They were quite pricey but it filled out the empty space really effectively. I saved a lot of money and hassle but not having a set colour theme - this meant I could get bunting etc. in any colour that was a good price!"

As with all wedding couples, Roxie & Derek learned plenty of lessons along the way, so we asked them for some tips for anyone else planning..."First, decide what your budget is and don’t beat yourself up - there were things I couldn’t do because of our budget but actually on the day it didn’t matter at all. Second, DIY - Honestly it is time consuming and you will wonder what you did in your spare time before but it saved me hundreds of pounds and also gave me the unique feel I wanted. Plus on the day looking around at everything coming together gives you an amazing feeling! Get everyone involved and make it fun. Third, For us another important thing was our photographer - there was a particular style we were looking for and we knew exactly that style we wanted. We found Victoria Lamburn at a wedding fair and loved her style and personality. We absolutely love our photographs!"

Straight after the wedding the couple headed to a cottage in the New Forest for a week - to relax and recover from all that hard work and merriment! Once they'd collected their thoughts they organised the trip of the lifetime - a road trip in the US for 3 weeks, starting in mid-west, where a highlight was Yellowstone National park before going up the west coast from Las Vegas to San Francisco.

A huge congratulations to you both, and thanks so much for sharing your wedding day with us all! A big thank you also to Victoria JK Lamburn for sharing her work with us. To see more from Victoria JK Lamburn