Our Wedding Day at Stratton Court Barn

Following on from my last blog post on how we planned our rustic barn wedding at Stratton Court Barn, I thought I’d share with you the more exciting bits of the day! I spent a long time researching the suppliers, decor and everything we’d need for our big day so it was so amazing to see it all come together. Pinterest was my best friend and I tried to come up with some unique ideas too.

So here’s some photos and details of the day itself along with all the suppliers we used to make our day extra special!

Follow me on Instagram for more photos @victoriajane6

The wedding morning at Stratton Court Barn

In the morning I got ready at the venue with my four bridesmaids in the bridal preparation room of Stratton Court Barn. We all had our hair and make up done by the lovely MUA and hair stylist Kerstie-Ann. Kerstie did the hair and make up for all five of us on her own.. I was a bit worried we wouldn’t have enough time but she made it happen!

I mentioned in my previous post that we fell in love with the venue as soon as we saw it online, and it really was the perfect venue for us. It’s so beautiful and the ideal size for an intimate wedding. And all of the staff at Stratton Court Barn and our wedding planners Katy and Karin were so great and helpful both in the run-up to the day, and running around on the day itself too. Katy was the one who actually had to help me get into my dress in the morning as no one else knew how to lace up the corset back. Not sure what I would have done without her!

I had my hair in a curly half-up, half-down style with a braided halo and finished off with a sparkly hairpiece. I highly recommend places like Ali Express and Shein for wedding hair accessories, where they’re only a few quid each. I also bought my wedding jewellery from Ali Express as they are exactly the same as the ones people are selling on Etsy for 10x the price. I loved the jewellery set I bought and it only came to around £10 for the necklace, bracelet and earrings, and the hairpiece was £3.

My wedding dress alterations were all completed by Lisa Carrington Couture who was amazing! To read about the wedding dress I bought from Wed2B, take a look at my previous blog post. I absolutely loved wearing it and Lisa customised it for me so that it felt a bit more ‘me’! I also had another dress which I planned to change into in the evening, but I loved wearing this one so much that I never wore the evening one! It’s the only day of my life I could wear a big princess dress so I thought I may as well make the most of it.

It was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies so I was very relieved as we planned for a lot of the day to be outdoors! Whilst we were getting ready our stunning flowers were delivered from the florist and I went to take a peek! For my bouquet I had pink roses, eucalyptus and gypsophila, and the bridesmaids had white roses with gypsophilia. We used Flower Petals of Bicester for all of our wedding flowers and I can’t recommend her highly enough, but she appears to have sadly closed down now.

The ceremony at Stratton Court Barn

I was feeling quite emotional in the morning whilst getting ready, but then when my Dad walked me down the aisle I was just overcome with happiness! I picked a rock song as my walking down the aisle music – a slow version of Bring Me The Horizon – Can You Feel My Heart. But unfortunately the wrong song was played, so the bridesmaids ended up walking to a Blink 182 song! I was a bit miffed about it at the time, but we can laugh about it now at least!

We had a short and sweet ceremony – we didn’t want it to drag on for too long. Gav had two best men and we each had of our favourite aunties as our witnesses. It all went so quickly, I can’t remember much! But Gavin did have a little cry (happy tears… I think!). As our recessional song (the first song you hear as a married couple) we had The Cure – Friday I’m in Love, which we walked out of the ceremony to.

The drinks reception

After the ceremony we walked outside for the confetti throw! I loved this part of the day, I could finally relax as the ceremony part was over and it was so fun to walk out and see everyone cheering. I also handmade my own confetti, which made it even more special!

I was surprised by how expensive it was to buy real flower petal confetti, so I decided to make my own. I started collecting flower from our garden and also keeping the petals of any flowers Gavin had bought me. I collected them for about a year, dried them out and kept them in jars until the big day!

After the confetti throw we then had a drinks reception of pink prosecco and bottled beer in the courtyard. We also had a selection of lawn games out so the kids could keep themselves occupied whilst we had our photos done. Luckily the sun was shining so all of our guests could enjoy a drink and mingle outside.

It was so nice to go and say hello to everyone after the ceremony – I gave my best friends big hugs and caught up with cousins and family I hadn’t seen in years. It was all a little bit overwhelming and it felt a bit weird being the centre of attention, but we were so busy chatting to everyone and going to have photos taken that it went so quickly!

Instead of canapes we had a vintage ice cream van where guests could help themselves to ice cream. It was a huge hit – the guests loved it, adults and kids alike! We hired Lola the beautiful pastel coloured 1973 ice cream van which comes decorated with pretty bunting. Sarah ‘the ice cream lady’ served our guests unlimited luxury ice creams, and she even let Gav have a go inside so we got some cool photos with Lola!

The food at Stratton Court Barn

After the drinks reception and ice creams, we sat down in the main barn ready for our ‘wedding breakfast’. It was set up really beautifully with seven round tables and our long top table. Our caterers S&J Cuisine were recommended by the venue and they were truly amazing! They were very flexible with us so we were able to amend the sample menu to suit us, and the portion sizes were very generous.

We served our favourite foods – for starters there was a choice of BBQ chicken wings, garlic prawns, or goats cheese salad. Then for a main course we had a roast beef dinner, and then a dessert trio of chocolate brownie, NY cheesecake, and Eton mess. It was all delicious! Here’s a snap I took of the dessert trio… yum!

And as wedding favours we used heart shaped shortbread biscuits with our initials stamped into the icing. We made these ourselves using biscuits from Waitrose, and getting a custom stamper from Etsy to emboss the icing. Then we ordered some little plastic bags to package them in and added a satin bow to each one, and a ‘thank you’ sticker on the back.

I hired the clear acrylic charger plates with a gold beaded edge from a local company for only 50p each and I think they made the table decor look so much more luxurious! And I ordered the beautiful gold handwritten calligraphy name place cards from a company called JessLucyArt on Etsy.

We wanted casual evening food and Gav’s favourite food is pizza so we hired a really snazzy vintage pizza horsebox van from Hidden Gem Pizza! These guys came all the way from Leicestershire and served a selection of different woodfired pizzas for guests to help themselves to. This was such a hit, the pizza was so good! Our guests loved being able to just go up and grab a slice and enjoy it in the evening sunshine. It also looked really cool parked up in the courtyard next to the photobooth and added to the ‘rustic’ vibe of the wedding.

Our cake was a beautiful four tier, semi naked sponge cake decorated with fresh roses from the florist. It was made by the lovely Gemma at The Copper Kitchen – she makes the best cakes! We picked four different flavours – lemon, caramel, carrot, and Victoria Sponge. It was so delicious! And we had lots left over so I kept some in the freezer and it still tasted perfect even after defrosting. I bought the gold acrylic personalised cake topper from Ali Express for around £7, which was so much cheaper than anywhere else.

The entertainment

After our meal we had the speeches. We had FIVE speeches because Gavin had two best men, plus his uncle, and obviously my Dad and the groom himself. The guys all did a really great job and told some funny stories to keep everyone entertained. Luckily the speeches weren’t too long and they weren’t too embarrassing either!

Then our evening guests started to arrive and we begun the evening reception. We brought the cake out into the courtyard as it was a beautiful evening and did our cake cutting outside, followed by our first dance. Isn’t the outdoor space at the venue just so gorgeous?

I also did a bouquet throw as I thought it would be a fun tradition, but I didn’t throw my actual bouquet! I made one up using artificial flowers that looked just like mine and threw that instead. I didn’t want to lose mine because I intended on keeping it and having it preserved, but it turned out I didn’t have time before my honeymoon so it went in the bin anyway!

We had our first dance to an acoustic version of Bring Me The Horizon – Drown (my favourite band!). We hired a Blink 182 tribute band to perform in the evening as they Blink are Gav’s favourite band. We knew that this wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, so we asked them to keep the setlist short! But we loved it and it was so much fun for us.

Live music and pop punk bands are what brought me and Gav together in the first place, so it seemed fitting to have a bit of us on our wedding day! Then after the band had done their live set they did a normal DJ set where guests could request songs.

We also hired the Hoofbooth! It’s a super cute vintage horsebox with a photobooth and lots of fun props inside. It was great to keep guests entertained in the evening, especially the kids! They loved dressing up with silly hats and taking photos. Guests would get two printed copies of the photos – one to keep, and one to stick in our wedding guestbook so we had a copy too. We absolutely loved having the Hoofbooth at our wedding and was totally worth it! Also, it looked so cool parked up alongside the matching pizza van!

To keep the kids busy throughout the day we also set up some garden games on the lawn. They were a hit with everyone and helped to stop the kids getting bored. I had bought all the games second-hand from charity shops and Facebook Marketplace. I even got the homemade wooden sign off Facebook Marketplace from another bride who made it for her wedding!

I also made up some little kids activity packs so they didn’t get bored during the meal. I designed an activity book with colouring, word searches, games etc using Canva and got them printed. Then I added a pack of colouring pencils, stickers, sweets, bubbles, balloons etc for them to play with. We had 7 kids at the wedding, most of them age 5 and under, and they were all such a delight to have around! I know some people opt for a kid-free wedding these days, but it wouldn’t have been the same without them. They were all so well behaved, especially as it was probably a really long day for them. They all played so nicely together and it was just so cute to see them all dressed up and running around!

The wedding decor at Stratton Court Barn

We didn’t have a specific theme for our wedding, but I wanted to keep it rustic with lots of fresh flowers. The flowers were a really important part of the wedding for me as I absolutely LOVE flowers! Our florist made us a beautiful huge flower arch made of pink roses which went behind the ‘alter’ during the ceremony.

The ceremony decor was quite plain otherwise, so the arch was the focal point of the room. After the ceremony, we then reused the flowers by attaching them onto a copper frame and having it sit behind us during the meal. I also used pretty white metal lanterns to line the aisle to add a bit of interest, but the simple and rustic style of the barn was what we fell in love with, so I didn’t want to add too much ‘stuff’. The stone walls and wooden beams are so lovely on their own.

We also had three big vintage milk churns filled with flowers – they were so stunning! I bought the milk churns off Facebook Marketplace for about £50 each and then the florist filled them up. We placed two on either side of the entrance door and also one by the welcome sign.

I made this welcome sign myself using a kids blackboard. I cut the legs off and then painted on the writing myself using a stencil. I wanted to make a lot of the decor items myself, partly to save money, but also because I thought it’s more personal than just buying something.

I also made the table plan myself, which was really simple and cost almost nothing! I used a large picture frame that I already had and sprayed it gold. Then I just used some twine string to go from one side of the frame to the other, and then pegged on the table cards. The table cards I designed myself in Canva using the same design elements as our invites. I then had them printed out using the Free Prints app and added an artificial rose garland. And then I added the table plan to a wooden artists easel that I bought on Facebook for £10.

I used the clear plastic front from the same frame to make another DIY welcome sign. I stuck a personalised gold vinyl sticker to it that I bought on Ali Express for around £10, and then painted the back of the plastic white using acrylic paint. I think it turned out really nicely!

Some other wedding decor bits I made included the centre pieces (which I am very sad not to have a single photo of!) that were made from a wooden log slice with clear vases of pink roses, eucalyptus and gypsophila with battery powered candles and gold table numbers.

In the little entrance hallway of the venue we had a cute little set up using vintage apple crates and an old wooden ladder – both of which I bought off Facebook. I used the ladder to hold some favourite photos of our friends and family, and the apple crates made a nice rustic display.

On top of the crates was a vintage suitcase filled with flip flops that guests could take if their feet got tired from heels! I bought all the flip-flops from Primark for 90p each – my Mum thought it was a silly idea but all of them got used!

I bought almost all of our wedding decor off Facebook Marketplace – I highly recommend browsing if you’re a bride to be. I started collecting bits a year before our wedding which helped to spread the costs out and keep costs low. You may often find brides selling off a few different bits and pieces so you can get a few things in one go!

Another thing I DIY’ed was our post box, so guests could drop their cards somewhere. I bought a big plain cardboard postbox from Hobbycraft for £10 and then painted it white with a gold lid. I bought some post box wooden letters, sprayed them gold and glued them on then wrapped some artificial roses around it. I thought it looked pretty good!

I also made an ‘order of the day’ sign which was a bit pointless but I thought it looked nice and didn’t cost much to make! I bought the frame for £3 from Facebook and put it on an easel. I designed the order of the day using Canva and then had it printed off poster-sized from Snapfish. It was a nice extra personal touch!