Kirsty and Dan

Why Ufton Court?

When looking for our wedding venue there were certain things we knew we wanted, a barn style wedding, a venue where we could have the ceremony and reception all in one place, and somewhere that was flexible and affordable. Luckily Ufton Court ticked all the right boxes for us! The grounds are absolutely stunning, endless options for ceremony and reception depending on weather is great too. Not to mention the no corkage fee and the variety of caterers to choose from were also very appealing!

Wedding Style

We didn’t have a specific theme but the Tithe barn has a lovely rustic feel to it, so we decided to keep things simple and went for a lot of greenery and spring pastel colours.

We used Oakwood Events for our lighting and the lovely Victoria from Extremely Lovely Weddings did an amazing job to style the venue. We then added our own little touches with our wedding cake, seating plan, wedding favours and menus.

The Ceremony

We wanted to have an intimate wedding ceremony so thought the Archers Hall was perfect for this! With more lighting from Oakwood and rustic chair sashes from Victoria really added that extra something to make our ceremony special.

Our music throughout were all songs picked by us that we both love and helped made our ceremony more personal (Especially as our exit song was ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC, our guests knew we couldn’t be completely serious the whole way through!)

The Dress

I thought I would struggle to find my wedding dress as I am not a very girly girl, I didn’t want a typical dress and didn’t understand how people knew when they had found ‘the one!’.

I bought my dress from a shop called ‘Rock the Frock’ and the designer was Mila Mira. For someone who was dreading wedding dress shopping I surprisingly loved every minute of it! I was able to customise my dress by putting a different skirt to the top, adding pockets, a slit and changing the sleeves to ¾ length. This made the dress completely unique and exactly how I wanted it. I absolutely loved my wedding dress and felt amazing in it all day, I just wish I could wear it again!

The Flowers

We used a locally owned business called Stems of Beauty for our wedding flowers. Hayley was so helpful as we were a bit stumped when it came to deciding what we wanted. Hayley provided our bouquets, buttonholes, flower girl wand and table centrepieces and they were amazing!

Food and Drink

We chose Fosters Catering for our day and it is safe to say this was one of the best decisions we made in regards to our wedding. The options on their menu is endless and we were able to customise to suit what we wanted. Darren and his team are amazing!

For our Canapes we had mini cheese burgers, chicken satay, duck spring rolls and onion bhajis. We wanted to do something a bit different for our Wedding Breakfast instead of the standard 3 course meal, so we opted for a Cypriot BBQ sit down buffet where the food is bought to the table and everyone could help themselves. This went down a treat and we received so many compliments from our guests regarding how good the food was!In the evening we had the wood fire pizza oven, we loved this idea as guests were able to choose their own pizza toppings and they were cooked in less than a minute! Safe to say this went down well with our guests, and Daniel and I were even able to make our own pizzas which was an added bonus! (Daniel has since bought his own pizza oven)

The Cake

It took us a long time to figure out what we wanted to do with the cake, we didn’t particularly want to spend a massive amount on one, and apart from the tradition of ‘cutting the cake’ we weren’t really phased! In the end, we decided to construct one ourselves. We tied it in with the rustic theme by having a wooden log stand, we then decided to have a mountain of Krispy Kreme doughnuts with a small cake at the top! (We thought this way, guests would be more inclined to take a doughnut as we also provided personalised bakery bags)

We were so happy with the end result as it was unique and didn’t break the bank. All doughnuts got taken home because lets be honest, who doesn’t love a Krispy Kreme dougnut?!

couple walking through dell spring blossom.jpg

The Entertainment

For entertainment during the day, we hired several of the garden games from Ufton Court including a ping pong table and space hoppers! We were really lucky to have lovely weather and was glad to see everything we hired was used a lot by our guests! We knew we wanted a DJ for our evening entertainment, we used Live Events and were able to customise the playlist fully and also add songs our guests had requested which was great!

The Photographer

We chose Benjamin Stuart Photography for our photographer, and we highly recommend him and his wife Zoe. Ben is one of the nicest, most down to earth people I have ever met. He instantly made us feel at ease when taking our photos

Ben went above and beyond his job of being our photographer, from giving us advice regarding all aspects of our wedding to making sure I didn’t miss out on the chance to try all of the canapes at our drinks reception. We had so many compliments from our friends and family on how nice and approachable Ben was, a lot assumed he was a guest as he blended in with our day so well!

Advice to future couples

Try not to stress over the little things, you will be having too much fun on the day to even notice
Make use of Ufton Courts suppliers list on their website, this is where we found most of our suppliers and they are all lovely!
Take a few minutes to step back and spend with your new husband/wife. The day really does go by so quickly. Take the time to watch how much fun all of your family and friends are having!