Boho Dream Barn Wedding With Pampas Grass

What a dream! It’s time to share WWW readers Lauren and Graham’s boho pampas grass-filled barn wedding. Held at The Barns, East Yorkshire in Yorkshire, their day was oh so beautiful.

You also won’t believe that their day was a budget-friendly wedding. By marrying on a weekday, for instance, meant that Lauren and Graham could maximise their budget.

Onto their wedding day style. There were loads of gorgeous flower arrangements in bohemian style, hanging pampas grass, macrame and rustic wooden touches. The whole day looked incredible. Then there were the super stylish outfits, magical lighting and all the LOVE!

WWW wedding suppliers, Kazooieloki Photography captured the whole day in their awesome signature style. Big thanks to them for sharing these epic shots with us.

Pampas Grass Barn Wedding

The Proposal

It was actually on Lauren’s birthday 10/02/2018.

We were having a lovely relaxed morning, Graham and our two children (Isla & Reuben) made and brought me breakfast in bed and told me to get ready for a day out!

When I was ready and came downstairs they brought me some presents to open, Isla then brought me one in particular and upon opening it i realised it was a ring. And with that Graham got down on one knee and with the help of the children he asked me to marry him!

I loved that he had involved our children and they got to see it happen too, Isla was super excited! I feel like a relaxed and personal proposal like that just suited us perfectly.

The Vision

We both love quirky things and Lauren has always been a big lover of all things vintage so we knew that a traditional plain-style wedding wasn’t going to be for us!

We wanted our day to speak us and our style so we knew a relaxed, vintage/boho style day with some quirkiness thrown in was going to be our aim. We are both quite shy people with a handful of close friends so we didn’t want a “big” wedding as such, just close people around us and for it to feel family-focused.

Budget

We had already been together for 9 years when Graham proposed and had often spoke of wanting to get married, and all the ideas we had about our future wedding day. However due to us being together since school, moving out together at the young age of 17! Then going on to having two children and buying a house by the age of 23, we never really had a lot of money to think about a wedding.

We knew it would still need to be a low-budget wedding where we could help it so we tried to be cost-effective where we could. However, if there was something that we felt was just “us” and got us super excited we did end up compromising at times.

We purposely booked our venue on a weekday which saved us lots of money, it was just double the amount for a Saturday! We found this also helped with availabilty too when booking other suppliers as they had more weekdays free than weekends and some were even cheaper too during the week.

We decided against an expensive meal for the wedding and decided to go for antipasti type food for the main meal which was incredible and everyone loved it too! We also decided to source our own desserts and use the wedding cake as we found this was a cheaper option too.

I used downloadable templates off Etsy for our invites and place cards, bought card off eBay and had a friend print them for us which also saved us a lot of money!

We even made our own sweetie station, and temporary tattoo station! There are so many amazing DIY ideas online that are so easy and cheap to do it really is possible to save yourselves money and still have things that add to the day and make it unique to you both.

It’s also a great way to spend time together as a couple and both be involved in the process of planning for the day.

The Venue

We knew we really wanted a rustic/vintage/boho barn wedding with lots of twinkly lights and a really relaxed vibe so we began searching. We did start off enquiring at another venue initially which looked great but it didnt end up working out and we was gutted at first.

We then searched google for other barn venues and came across The Barns, East Yorkshire. It was very much a relatively untouched barn at first which we loved. We’d come across other barn venues which were lovely but they’d been modernised quite a lot and to us they just didnt feel very barn-like anymore.

We loved the exposed brick and beams and original windows etc it was just perfect! Our minds were already dreaming up ways we can make the most of the venue, how the photos were going to look and how the venue would just really set the feel of the day!

Kate and Ed (the venue owners) also had amazing visions for the venue. Throughout the leadup to our day they made little improvements here and there whilst keeping the rustic and originality of the venue that made the venue even more perfect.

The draped white fabric weaved through the beams, use of twinkly lights around the barns and the chesterfield sofas near the firepit etc just made the venue extra perfect and it really does feel so magical and intimate. Its a really special place.

Your Outfits

Lauren

Like many others, I have always imagined what my perfect wedding dress would be like and saved countless pins on Pinterest in my dedicated wedding folder!

I always knew I wanted something fairly unique and different. I went along to some wedding dress shops with some family and friends and tried dresses on but none of them felt right or particularly unique.

I just so happened to come across a dress shop called “Ghost Orchid” through browsing unique and boho dresses online and amazingly they were close by! I instantly booked an appointment and went along to try on dresses. I felt slighly overwhlemed as the dresses were all stunning and exactly what I’d been imagining but I’d not long had my second baby so felt quite concious of what styles would suit me.

Katey the shop owner pulled out some dresses she thought I’d like. After trying on a fair few and them not feeling quite right on me I tried “The One” on and it wasn’t what I thought I’d go for at all. But felt very me all the same. It was so beautiful and unique and a mix of vintage and boho!

It was by a designer called Daughters of Simone and one of the designers Brit actually designed it specifically for her to wear at her own wedding, hence why the gown is called the “Brit” gown! It made me feel amazing and so excited. It was very much over budget but my lovely mum offered to help pay towards it as she knew it was the most “me” dress we would find!

Graham

After Lauren had shown me a photo she had found of some groomsman in tweed suits and flat caps looking very peaky blinder-eske! I just thought they looked awesome and began looking for tweed suits.

Me and Lauren spoke about what colour suits would look best with all the other colours and themes of the wedding so I knew what would be best to go for. We came across Tweed and Groom I think after they’d been tagged on a photo on a wedding blog on instagram and we loved the suits.

I decided to book an appointment and go try some on with the groomsman and it didnt take us long to find the perfect suit! We ordered them all there and then.

Lauren then came across some beautiful velvet amber coloured bow ties on Etsy by a seller called Belfast Bow Company and after creating a bit of a mood board with them alongside the flowers, bridesmaid dresses, colour schemes etc we decided they’d be perfect! I think the suits just really complimented the rustic/vintage style of the wedding.

The Ceremony & Music

We knew we wanted a relaxed and modern ceremony and didnt want a traditional church wedding with neither of us being religioius too. So we was pleased that the venue had a license for registrars to marry us in the barn. We opted for a short service that was quite straight to the point so we could just be married after all this time and go and enjoy the day together and with our loved ones!

Lauren is a big lover of acoustic music so the idea of having a singer playing an acoustic guitar was always something we’d spoken of. We then went to a wedding fayre where we came across Michael Mulholland who was singing beautifully whilst playing his acoustic guitar, but also had a harmonica too and it sounded amazing.

We held off booking for a while as we was unsure we could afford it however we then went on a date night at our wedding venue in the midst of covid times and he was there singing. It just felt like he was meant to be there, his voice just suited the venue so much and really made it feel extra romantic and magical so we knew we had to book him!

He sang City & Colour – Northern Wind as Lauren walked down the aisle as this was one of her favourite songs and the lyrics were lovely and perfect for that moment. And then Maggie Rogers – Love You For A Long Time as we left after the cermony which again just fit the moment perfectly.

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

We actually came across Kazooieloki by Lauren adding pins to the wedding folder on Pinterest and coming across a photo of some very peaky blinder looking groomsman! The photo was beautifully taken and a very candid style which is exactly what we wanted, they all looked super cool!

We found out the photographers and then realised they were actually local to us and we was so excited. It was meant to be! We hadnt even found our venue or set a date yet but we knew we wanted them to be our photographers!

Lauren gave them a message and after chatting we was even more sure that they were perfect for us. Once we had a date we booked them straight away and since then Richard and Christine actually moved to the same village as us and we became friends too. We even had a couple of family photoshoots with them, they are so lovely and so so talented – the best in the business for sure!

We felt very lucky and in very safe hands having them photograph our wedding.

We came across the videographers when we saw they’d done a video for a shoot with Ghost Orchid where Lauren purchased her dress from. We knew from the video that they had a similar style to us and would be perfect for our wedding! It was really important to us that we had a video of our day for us to watch and look back on to re-live the day but to also have moving footage and audio of our loved ones.

The Styling & Decor

The venue itself is beautiful as it is however Lauren had dreamt up the day with a touch more vintage/boho character added in. We were looking everywhere for a stylist/prop hire that offered this vibe and finally came across Claire’s Born Boho and it was the perfect match!

She and Lauren were constantly in contact planning the perfect touches for the day. Lauren said she just really felt like Claire totally got her and knew exactly what she was dreaming up! She was amazing and made the day feel like it spoke of us completely.

Zara from Floral & Lace was also amazing and created the most incredible flowers for the wedding. They really added those vintage colour tones to the day and Lauren is a huge floral fan so we knew we’d need lots of them and a florist who just got us and that was Zara! Even our home is filled with dried florals from Zara, she’s amazing.

We sourced our wedding signs off Etsy, and used lots of wicker/bamboo trays, furniture etc to keep in the boho theme.

We are both a lover of autumn colours too so the brown suits and rust bowties were perfect.

The Honeymoon

No honeymoon planned as of yet! We wanted to make sure we could make the actual day perfect first – and neither of us had in-date passports ha ha!

Memorable Moments

The whole day was just honestly the most incredible day! It was totally laid back which is exactly what we wanted.

I think one of the most memorable moments would be when Lauren’s family had secretly brought along and hidden their tv for a surprise video they had made which had little clips of lots of special people leaving us messages and well wishes.

As well as lots of Lauren’s family in a music video dressed up in ABBA costumes dancing around the garden and cleethorpes seafront!! (Lauren’s hen do included lots of dancing to ABBA). It had us laughing and crying, its something to treasure thats for sure!

Advice For Other Couples

This day is about you guys above anything else so just enjoy it, take a moment now and again to just stop and look around and soak it all up. It goes so quickly!

What a special day indeed!

Lauren and Graham, thank you both so much for sharing your pampas grass-filled barn wedding story with us.

Further Reading

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