Catherine and William's Intimate Last-Minute Micro Wedding at Swallows Nest Barn

Mr + Mrs  Howe 

Swallows Nest Barn │ 4th November 2020 │ Guests: 9 

Instagram: @thecandidcate │ Photography: The Vedrines

This wedding  was perfect from start to finish; the gorgeous neutral tones, stunning Suzanne Neville embellished veil, the cutest bear-dog ever, and a pizza reception - Wedding of Dreams! Catherine and William were wed in an intimate ceremony with their closest family and friends in attendance. Due to having to scale back their day they also live streamed their ceremony so that nobody missed out, and will be saving the party for their 1st wedding anniversary. The now Mrs Howe tells us all about their special day...

Tell us about your wedding theme...

Our original plan for our day was to keep the theme fairly neutral with dark green and celestial accents. My friends had a running joke that the theme for the wedding was pretty much the theme for the interior design of the house we have been lovingly renovating for the last couple of years! Not being much of a fan of fussy florals or bright colours, we wanted to have this reflected in the flowers and decorations and chose to have mostly greenery and grasses with as many candles as we could get our hands on!

Did you have have anything unusual at your wedding?

Sharing our lives online isn’t really our thing, so we never anticipated that we would live stream our wedding! However, as we approached the date and it became clear that restrictions weren’t going to be lifted and vulnerable members of our close family weren’t going to be able to make it, we decided to set up a Private Facebook Group for our original guest list and we live streamed the ceremony for everyone to watch.

What was the most emotional moment of the day? 

The most emotional part of day for me was walking into the room with my lovely Dad to the piece of music that he has always said he would like to walk me down the aisle to. Seeing Will waiting for me at the other end of the barn felt almost surreal, we had finally made it to the day and all the anxiety and stress was worth it!

Tell us about the ceremony...

We had a registrar ceremony at our beautiful barn venue Swallows Nest. We had planned to have some lovely readings, but due to Covid restrictions, our ceremony had to be as minimal as possible. We were so worried that this would detract from the day and somehow make it feel less personal, but the Registrars were amazing and the ceremony was one of our favourite parts of the day. It felt so intimate and special to be sharing that moment with just our closest family and friends.

Song you walked down the aisle to: La Fille aux cheveux de lin - Debussy
Ceremony Songs: To Build a Home – The Cinematic Orchestra / Bluebird – Alexis Ffrench
Song for walking back up the aisle as a married couple:  Lover’s Carvings - Bibio

What was your favourite part of the day? 

Honestly, we loved the whole day! After a super stressful few days after the announcement of Lockdown 2.0 and the decision that we were going to try to bring the wedding forward, the anticipation of the morning getting ourselves and the venue ready felt so exciting as we knew that it was actually happening and we could finally relax and enjoy the day without all the worry and anxiety. 

Special moments throughout the day were; our short but perfect ceremony, having the most fun with Tina our amazing photographer who captured all of the happiness and laughter so perfectly, retreating to our local pub for pizza and espresso martinis with everyone for the whole afternoon and finally, being clapped and cheered out of one of our local restaurants in the evening following a lovely meal just the two of us.

Advice for future brides…

For fellow “Covid Brides” – just go for it. Marry now and party later. We were so worried that our decision to carry on with our ceremony in 2020 would somehow make the day less special with all the restrictions, but we absolutely do not regret it. We had the best day with our closest people and now can’t wait to party with everyone else who couldn’t be with us. (The most boujie 1st Anniversary Party in history is pending!)

Tell us all about the dress...

I went dress shopping with a very set idea of what I wanted and it turned out I HATED it! Also the more I looked, the more I realized that I didn’t feel comfortable spending thousands of pounds on a dress which I would still want to make significant changes to (I am that person with a very strong vision that usually doesn’t actually exist…). Once I had tried on a few styles and knew what I was looking for, I started searching for pre-loved or sample dresses which fit the bill. My first dress was a Suzanne Neville sample which is patiently waiting for her debut at Wedding 2.0 – with some alterations of course!

The dress I wore this year was originally(!) the Iris Slip from Halfpenny London which I found pre-loved and had planned to wear for our evening reception. However, as it became clear that Wedding 1.0 was going to be significantly scaled back, I decided to have Genius Mega Babe Gemma @stitchedupwarwickshire make some tweaks and I wore this for the day with an embellished Suzanne Neville Veil and then changed into a pearl crown and leather jacket to go to the pub!

What was the worst wedding planning moment?

The weekend before our initial date, I was with one of my bridesmaids making flower crowns and sipping prosecco and hadn’t seen the news all day. That evening, it was announced that Lockdown 2 was being implemented on Thursday 5th November which would mean that our 7th November wedding would not be able to go ahead. After months of uncertainty, we had just allowed ourselves start to get excited as the date was only a week away and we thought we were over the line, so gutted doesn’t quite cover it – we were so close yet so far!

However, after a good cry and a large glass of wine, we made the decision that we would do everything in our power to move the date forward to “Lockdown Eve”. After a very anxious weekend waiting for the registry office to open on Monday, all of our suppliers and guests came together and we made it happen just in the nick of time. 

What was the funniest moment of the day?

Our bear-dog Augustus steals the show on every occasion and our wedding day was no different. From sending glasses of fizz flying, photo-bombing, standing on the veil, eating the flowers and generally being a lairy hairy legend, he kept everyone laughing and on their toes for the entire day! He also got more than the daily recommended amount of pizza (for a dog) snuck under the tables at the pub once everyone had had a few drinks, so he had a pretty great day all round!

Tell us about the food...

We chose not to have a meal at our venue following our ceremony and instead booked a couple of tables at one of our favourite local pubs for pizza! Will and I then had a special meal booked in the evening at another local favourite for just the two of us.

Tell us about the cake...

My amazing Bridesmaid and oldest friend Hayley had offered to make a small cake for our celebration this year and we had been pinteresting like mad in the weeks running up to it. The weekend before the original date of the 7th November, Hayls was happily planning out her week to make the cake ready for the following Saturday. However, following the date change, she worked tirelessly to have our beautiful cake ready for the Wednesday! As we only had 9 guests, we chose a one tier design of lemon and elderflower sponge with a dark green fondant icing and gold accents.

Tell us about your wedding favours...

My Bridesmaid’s mum is super crafty and made all of our guests face-masks that matched the colour scheme of the wedding…only in 2020!!

Photographer: The Vedrines 

Venue: Swallows Nest Barn

Stationery:  HCH Creations

Flowers:  Green And Wild Flowers

Dress: Stitched Up

Shoes: “Lucy” by Jimmy Choo 

Bridesmaids dresses:  Ted Baker / SilkFred

Suits: Reiss

Wedding Rings: Hamlingtons Fine Jewellery