I’ve an absolutely lovely wedding to share with you today, a minimalistic, rustic farm wedding featuring a bride with short hair and the gorgeous imagery of Martin Cahill Photography.
Words by Emma. Images by Cahill Photography
Our wedding venue was Ghyll View Farm, Gill Lane. It’s the farm where I grew up. Until the age of 11, I lived down the road and played on the farm every weekend with my cousins whilst my parents worked. Then from age 11, I moved and lived on the farm. My grandparents lived on one side of our house, and my Auntie Uncle and cousins on the other. Family are important to me, even more so now that I live in London.
Both Sam and I are from Christian backgrounds. We wouldn’t consider ourselves ‘religious’ but church and community have been and continue to be important to us.
The church where we were married was once my grandad’s church – he was a methodist minister there in the 1970s. My parents got married there, and more recently, my grandad’s funeral was there.
I walked down the aisle to a favourite song by Olafur Arnalds and both our parents on both side stood up during the service to mark it.
During the service, mine and Sam’s siblings sang a song by Foy Vance, an Irish song-writer we love. Then my brother directed a choir (made up of family and friends from up and down the country).
When it came to our wedding decor, we kept things pretty minimal. We hired old vintage tables, and just added ivy, eucalyptus, candles in jars and lavender. The marquee was minimal too.
We hired a barrel as a stand for the cake and my sister made individual name cards for everyone by dipping cards in blue ink.
My bridesmaid, Kirsty, made bunting which we put around the church and across one of the barns, and dear friends, Eleanor and Ginny found scraps of wood around the farm and made signs and the table plan. Our friend, Raj, created a font for our wedding invites and Eleanor used this font for the signs around the farm,.
My dad’s speech (we weren’t expecting expecting one), was one of the most memorable parts of the day as well as our joint speech, our vows and walking into the church and seeing all our friends.
The meal time during the afternoon was also particularly special. The week leading up to our wedding was quite a difficult one for the Leigh side of the family, but the afternoon of the wedding brought us some relief. As my family – and friends from near and far – sat together and ate, we felt a real sense of warmth and love amongst us.
Martin Cahill was our wedding photographer. We felt a connection to Martin from early on. We met through a mutual friend / family member and talked early on about our values. Martin was a sensitive photographer who put us at ease. I think the results speak for themselves.
Our advice to other couples would be, share out the work between the two of you. Don’t work too hard on it – the wedding day can be enjoyable without life being miserable beforehand!
Have a serious think about what you and your partner care about – and prioritise that. For us, it was about having all our friends and family around us, and music was really important to us. Good food, too!
Don’t get too bogged down in the detail unless it’s really really valuable to you. A friend said to me early on that most guests only notice stuff that’s really well done or really badly done. So don’t waste too much energy on the stuff you’re not super bothered about.
A final thing to say is that after the wedding, I became overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends, and the sense that we’re surrounded by wonderful people. I think we were fortunate to have a lot of down time after our wedding to take this in and appreciate it. I hope others can enjoy that too.
wedding credits / photographer: cahill photography / wedding venue: ghyll view farm / brides dress: fairytale brides / grooms suit: john lewis / bridesmaid dresses: coast / hair: charis smith hair / florist: pamela jane florist / wedding cake: victoria cakes / catering: cobbled corner / chair hire: chairman-hire / marquee: shades-canvas / entertainment: gabriel and the winterleighs
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What an amazing wedding! lovely pictures taken and a beautiful view from this unique location. Congratulations to Emma and Sam!