Luca and Michael were married at Bradstone Manor Farm in Tavistock, a beautiful Devon venue surrounded by countryside and steeped in history.
Their wedding was captured by photographer Emma Stoner, whose relaxed and natural style suited the day perfectly. From the start, the couple knew they wanted a celebration that felt easy and enjoyable, with the focus on time with their family and friends rather than ticking off traditions.
The farm’s mix of rustic charm and heritage provided the perfect setting, while the midsummer season inspired wildflower style blooms and thoughtful personal touches. Music, laughter and good food were at the heart of it all, with a ceilidh later in the evening bringing everyone together.
Wearing E&W Couture, Luca looked completely at ease. The dress reflected her personality and worked beautifully within the relaxed countryside backdrop. Enjy!
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The one word we focused on for the wedding was ‘relaxed’. We wanted absolutely no stress in planning the wedding or on the day itself, so didn’t try to cram too many activities or wedding traditions into the day itself.
Bradstone Manor Farm
We leant on the location for inspiration, with historic buildings nestled into the countryside. We also took inspiration from the time of year, just after midsummer with local wildflower-esque flowers.
We only viewed one location and Bradstone Manor Farm was it! We instantly loved the relaxed atmosphere, the countryside feel mixed with the heritage of the buildings. Romilly, our main contact in the lead up to the event and on the day, was so helpful and kind throughout the whole process.
It also helped that it was a five minute drive away from my sister’s dairy farm, so her and her partner didn’t need to miss a day’s milking to be able to come to the wedding.
The Ceremony
My father walked me down the aisle to the sound of ‘Concerning Hobits’, a verion by Aramis String Quartet.
Michael wore a kilt he had bought a few years earlier from Ben Wyvis Kilts, and rented the rest of the outfit.
Michael included a surprise line that I wasn’t expecting. At the end of his vows he said “I think you are important and I look forward to seeing you later”. This might sound bizarre out of context.
The context is: one morning when Michael wasn’t fully awake, he said this to me, probably to stop me talking to him when he was trying to have a lie in. It became something we say to each other, and it was really lovely that he included it. No one else had a clue what he was on about but it got a laugh anyway!
I was nervous about the idea of standing in front of everyone for the ceremony so wanted it to be as quick as possible so we could enjoy time celebrating with friends and family!
We got flower confetti from Bunny Bistro as flower petals are far cheaper if you’re buying them as rabbit food!
Photography
Our photographer was Emma Stoner. We chose Emma because of her natural and documentary photography style and her focus on the whole wedding party. We got so many amazing photos of both ourselves and all our guests, which are something we’ll cherish forever.
Emma was wonderful both in the lead up to the wedding and on the day itself. She gave great suggestions for photo ideas as this wasn’t something we had a clear idea on. She was super friendly the whole way through, and I would certainly recommend her to others.
How They Met
We met through the dating app Bumble. We almost didn’t meet- as women have to message first on the app, and I hadn’t messaged in the first 24 hours, Michael used his extra 24 hour credit to keep us matched for another day and I then started the conversation.
We went for cocktails in a secret bar in Bristol, and six months’ later moved in together. Another six months’ later the Covid lockdown meant we were sharing a very small flat together 24 hours a day. It definitely brought us together and made us even closer, and we agreed that if we could survive that, we could survive anything together.
We got engaged a couple of years’ later in 2022 and started wedding planning towards the end of 2023.
The Reception
Claire at Wildmoor Flowers was our florist – my sister recommended her and I’m so glad she did. She was so organised and calm, and after showing her a couple of inspiration photos she grew and delivered flowers that exceeded all expectations.
She grows all the flowers on her farm in Cornwall, so everything was seasonal, had the smallest carbon footprint, and lasted an incredibly long time. We had beautiful, romantic, wildflower-esque flowers.
We also made individual name tags as table place settings from air dry clay (bought from Hobbycraft). We pressed flowers and letter stamps into the clay before letting it dry and tying these labels around our napkins.
Instead of a first dance, we lead a ceilidh! The ceilidh band were Ceilidh Tree.
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Your wedding is a day for you to celebrate your love for each other and for your families and friends to get together to celebrate love too. That’s the most important thing. It’s easy to get sidetracked from this with all the adverts and ‘must buy’ advice you get bombarded with when wedding planning.
When you reframe it as a party with a wedding ceremony to celebrate love, suddenly the colour-coordinated candles or expensive napkins seem less important, and you no longer feel the urge to buy them.
We decided that if anything about wedding planning, or the wedding itself, was going to make either of us stress, then we weren’t going to include it.
As soon as we made this decision, we found we started to just look forward to the day, rather than worrying about little things that, in the grand scheme of things, do not matter.
Michael’s word of advice was that no one really remembers what you eat at a wedding unless it’s particularly atrocious. There’s too much other wonderful things happening on the day to remember the food! With this in mind, we went for a tasty but value-for-money hog roast and arranged for a pancake van to turn up later in the evening during Celilidh to keep guests going. Everyone enjoyed it and it meant we didn’t spend an eye-watering amount on food.
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