A Vintage Wedding at Farbridge Barns in West Sussex

The moment I saw Emma & Tim dancing down the aisle of Farbridge I knew I wanted to share their wedding. Brimming with delectable vintage details, this is a wedding that oozes love and laughter, all perfectly captured by Neil Walker Photography.

Emma & Tim met at a quiz in the Barley Mow in Shoreditch for a mutual friend’s birthday. They all enjoyed it so much that we went every week for several months! But, eventually it dwindled down to just Emma & Tim. Then, one week Tim asked Emma if she would ever like to go out to do something other than the quiz, so they went for a bike ride and had chocolate cake in a café!

The couple married in August, they didn’t have a chocolate cake but their mutual love for bikes and the great outdoors was very much present.

Enjoy!

Notes from the Bride

Emma:

We looked at venues around the home counties, where most of our family and friends live, but didn’t find any venues that were quite right until we came across Farbridge.

We loved the rural location, although it is still very accessible from London and Chichester. The barns themselves are over 100 years old, made of beautiful flint with wooden beams – very simple but well renovated. It’s a very romantic, rustic setting but with all modern comforts – air con, under floor heating and Wi-Fi. We loved the fact that there were guest rooms on site too and lots of nice places nearby for our invitees to stay!

We adore vintage clothes, cars and music so this very much influenced the style of our day! We wanted a relaxed, inclusive event with an element of fun – something that all our family and friends could enjoy.

Guests were encouraged to wear 50s or vintage outfits. My dress was fifties-inspired and from the gorgeous Fur Coat No Knickers boutique. I was taken to the venue by Florence, an original 1950s VW camper van, driven by Steffi, my sister-in-law-to-be, along with my 3 bridesmaids and my Father.

Tim and I jive-danced down the aisle and out the door after saying “I do”, to “Reet Petite” by Jackie Wilson; before the dessert course we rode around the yard on a white tandem which my aunt had given us as a wedding present.

I made ration-book-style menus for each of the guests. I photocopied the cover of an old ration book onto 90 pieces of yellow-coloured card, blanking out the name, so that I could personalize for each guest, and I printed out the menus and stapled them inside. These doubled as place cards around the tables.

We had a mobile photo booth company arrive between the meal and the band. It went down really well and filled a gap whilst the band got set up. It was there for about 2-3 hours and was in a different room to the band so anyone who wasn’t up for dancing had something to do. Pretty much every guest visited the booth (at least once) and this resulted in an album of fun, slightly drunken photos which complimented the official photographer’s fantastic album!

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

Sussex Brides – Make the most of the beautiful countryside and proximity to the sea!

If I could do it all again, it would be exactly the same, except I would probably skip bringing along some of the props – like a vintage 1960s Dansette record player which never got used! But, it made the owner of the venue very happy just to see it, as he said it took him back to his youth!

Credits

I bet you’re smiling.

Thank you so much to Emma & Tim for sharing their wedding day and of course to Neil Walker Photography!

Lots of love…

A Vintage Wedding at Farbridge Barns, West Sussex