NATURAL ROMANCE

Danii and Andrzej celebrated their big day at Cider Mill Barns

Images courtesy of Heather Rees Photography

Danii and Andrzej met at their local pub. “I was working there at the time,” says Danii. “Andrzej often came in with his friends and we connected through that. He was going to travel around Canada soon after, so we thought there wouldn’t be a future, but we ended up speaking every day while he was abroad. He came back from travelling early, and the rest is history.”

Andrzej proposed during a trip to a Christmas market in Bath. “We were on a walk when he asked, and it was perfect,” shares the bride. “We booked our wedding for May 2020, but due to one of the many lockdowns, it couldn’t go ahead. I decided I couldn’t just let the day pass by sitting inside moping around, so I organised a socially-distanced street gathering. The rules stated we couldn’t party, but we could be in our front gardens, so we decorated the street with bunting and invited our neighbours to set up chairs in their front gardens and join in the celebration. Our neighbour, Ian, is in a band and kindly offered to sing for us with his guitar and sound system. We had live music, a first dance in the middle of the road and many smiling faces to help us celebrate our love.”

“We had moved the date to October and then again to May 2021,” explains Danii. “As the date approached, we could see that restrictions weren’t going to be open enough for us to have the wedding we wanted, so we decided to move the date again. However, I couldn’t go any longer without being married to Andrzej, so we decided to legally marry on 7th May. Our venue kindly opened up just for us that day, and we legally wed with our parents, my brother and our son Jacob. It was a short and simple ceremony, but it was magical. We had waited so long, and there was something so special about having no pressure from anyone around. Finally, wedding number three rolled around. It was the day before all the restrictions lifted, and the idea that I was missing out on being able to dance by only a few hours was hard to take. However, it turned out that the dancing wasn’t missed one bit. With the sunshine and heat, everyone wanted to be outside enjoying the weather and garden games, so everything worked out perfectly.”

Here the bride shares some of her favourite moments from their big day...

We looked at various venue and knew we wanted something very light and airy. When we came across Cider Mill Barns, we spoke to the owner, Adrian, who was still in the process of building the space. We visited the site, which was only a shell at that stage, and saw the potential with what he was trying to create. We could sense his passion and attention to detail and knew it was the right property for us. It was a risk that was well worth it as it turned out beautifully, with every last detail carefully thought out and planned perfectly to fit around the events of our wedding day. I’m a graphic designer, so I created the table plan myself and had it professionally printed with a forest green background. This was then secured onto a gold grid and decorated with wild botanicals from our florist.

I really wanted a wild botanical theme, so our centrepieces went all the way down our three long tables. They were overflowing monstera leaves, ferns and other tropical leaves. We had large candelabras that also lined the centre of the tables. Our florist, Wild Bunch Alcester, went to town with my request for wild tropical flowers and decorated the arches and signage with flowing greenery. With green and gold as the theme, there wasn’t much boldness in the colour scheme, so we decided to go bright with the bouquets, bringing in tropical blooms full of pinks and purples.

Deborah Guest Cakes created our three-tiered cake. It was decorated with buttercream, a personalised name topper, and finished with real botanicals flowing down. As this was our fourth wedding date, I wanted a statement piece that was present in the ceremony and around the venue. Our stylist, White Violet, handmade a large fabric display stating ‘love always wins’ to help remind us that yes, it was a long stressful ride to get here, but it doesn’t matter because the love was and always will be there.

Cider Mill Barns did all of the wonderful catering, and in the evening, we introduced a stall with large pretzels handmade by Butter Street Bakery. It was complete with white chocolate and salted caramel dipping sauces and was a huge hit with our guests.

For the favours, I handmade clay name tags with painted gold details. These became joint place names and favours as they could be taken home and hung in the guests home or on their Christmas tree as a personalised decoration.

My dress was from the Beautiful collection by Enzoani. The bodice was coated in stitched pearls and beads, which contrasted with the plain skirt. We amended the skirt to have a glitter tulle layer which sparkled in the sun. I was grateful for how light and airy the dress felt as it turned out to be the hottest day of the year! I borrowed a hair accessory from one of my dear friends as my something borrowed and had a plain veil to help the dress shine. Andrzej and the groomsmen chose grey fitted suits with forest green ties and floral pocket squares.

Andrzej’s cousin, Lucy, has a beautiful voice and kindly sang for our guests while photos were being taken and everyone mingled. It set the scene perfectly and was a nice touch having a family member involved. Due to restrictions, we weren’t allowed to have a live band or DJ in the evening. Instead, we had a selection of garden games such as sack racing, coconut shy, limbo and giant Jenga. It was a huge hit and people had a wonderful time getting involved.

Having a large dress wasn’t going to stop me getting involved with the garden games. Andrzej and I had a sack race and fell over at exactly the same time! I felt much calmer than expected, but I think that was because the legal part was already completed. We could just enjoy the celebration, knowing there was no chance of being stood up, because we were already married! Apart from feeling very warm, we were just so ridiculously happy that the day had finally arrived and that we could celebrate with all of our loved ones. After the past few years, it was clear that everyone needed to be together in a positive and wonderfully happy way, and we made up for the lost time.

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DANII AND ANDRZEJ’S CONTACTS Venue, Cider Mill Barns, www.cidermillbarns.com | Photographer, Heather Rees Photography, www.heatherreesphotography.co.uk Videographer, Raggtime Pictures, www.raggtimepictures.com | Hair and make-up artist, Claire Harmer Professional Hair & Make up Artist, www.claireharmerbeauty.co.uk | Cake, Deborah Guest Cakes, www.facebook.com/deborahguestcakes Pretzels, Butter Street Bakery, www.facebook.com/butterstreetbakery | Event styling and signage, White Violet, www.whiteviolet.co.uk Flowers, Wild Bunch Alcester, www.wildbunchalcester.co.uk | Celebrant, May Lily Ceremonies, www.maylilyceremonies.co.uk