Trevenna Olivia and Ethan

Trevenna - This venue is beautiful

Olivia and Ethan are from Devon and both knew they wanted to get married near to where they grew up, so they started looking at venues in the southwest online. They narrowed their search down to three venues they wanted to view in person.

“While the first two were nice, the feeling we both had the moment we arrived at Trevenna was unmatched.”

They both loved the gorgeous cluster of charming barn conversions, the grounds and the accommodation.

“The venue itself is beautifully kept - all the cleaners do a fantastic job, and the gardeners make the setting look absolutely exquisite. Who needs to fork out thousands on extra wedding flowers when you're already in the middle of stunning Cornish countryside?”

Another thing they loved about Trevenna was the fact that it was a blank canvas. Being creative people they were really excited by the prospect of making the venue their own for the weekend.

“In fact, while we look back on our actual wedding day with fondness, we keep talking about how great the day before was - we spent the whole afternoon decorating and preparing, to end the evening sharing a BBQ with some of our guests. While being hands-on with prep may seem stressful for some couples, it was the opposite for us and it helped set the scene for the relaxed wedding day we wanted.”

Olivia and Ethan wanted a fairly intimate wedding with 55 guests in total, and having both left home for university and moved away for work, their friends were scattered around the world as far-flung as North Carolina.

“We wanted to enjoy their company for longer than just the afternoon if we could, so finding out we could have an exclusive wedding weekend with most guests staying with us at Trevenna overnight on both the night before and night of our wedding sealed the deal for us.”

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Trevenna Wedding Catering

“The catering was especially great - from the delicious scones in each room to welcome our guests and the delicious BBQ the night before, to the bridal breakfast, canapes, wedding breakfast and evening buffet of pasties and cheese boards...everything was homemade and delicious.”

Olivia and Ethan attended the Trevenna Food Festival several months before their wedding.

“It was amazing and helped us so much when it came to deciding our menu. The chefs were very receptive to small recipe tweaks, such as adding ginger to the lemon meringue pie and a couple of extra vegetables to our main course. All dishes were perfectly balanced - not too frilly, but certainly not pedestrian either. Exactly on brief for an intimate, relaxed wedding with our closest family and friends.”

Planning guides

“All the planning guides Trevenna provided us with were so helpful. Thinking about food, accommodation, lighting, seating, table plans, evening entertainment and more all at the same time...it's very easy to let it get overwhelming. But the individual guides Trevenna had prepared for us helped us stay on track.

The wedding host team were fantastic throughout the entire planning process - thank you so much for being so patient with our endless questions and keeping us on track with friendly reminders! On the day, our wedding hosts, Sam and Andy, were the most amazing pair. They were there for every little thing we needed and worked tirelessly to be on hand for the entire weekend.”

Enchanted Brides Photography

“Our photographers were Jo and Patrick. We could not have asked for better photographers for both our wedding and engagement shoot. When we booked, it was just Jo at the time. She was the one we arranged everything with and she singlehandedly did our engagement shoot - we then created an album of these to use as our guestbook. Patrick joined our wedding as a secondary photographer and we're so glad he did because each special moment was captured from different angles.

They are such free-spirited and beautiful people inside and out and worked with passion. This is what everyone should look for in a photographer, especially a wedding photographer - avoid anyone too stiff and robotic (think of that classic school portraits! Yikes).

Jo and Patrick put us both completely at ease. We barely even noticed them throughout the ceremony and wedding breakfast and yet they managed to capture incredible shots that we'll treasure for years to come. Everyone who's seen the photos has commented on how beautiful they are - a true testament to their amazing photography skill and style.”

Theme? Not really

The colours selected were in keeping with the venue's aesthetic as well as the season Olivia and Ethan married in September, but as far as 'themes' go, they were not lovers of them.

“One thing we were sure of was wanting to inject meaning and significance by mirroring what makes us who we are with the decorations. With this in mind, we used portraits of our parents and grandparents on their wedding days as centrepieces. Our favours were delicious pistachio cannoli to reflect our love Italy and support our favourite local Italian cafe, Gusta.

We're both fans of craft beer, so our table flowers were mostly presented in brown bottles we started collecting several months before. A lot of our finishing touches were handmade by us; I painted a couple of peg dolls to look like us, we made confetti cones, name cards and reserved signs, and we created the table plan from an old barn door.”

Stacey Louise MUA

Olivia does like wearing makeup, but never liked the sensation of too much of it on her face.

“I wanted to be able to feel and see my skin”

Olivia’s bridesmaids found makeup artist Stacey Louise on Instagram.

“The finished result was exactly what I wanted and lasted all day. Stacey is such a warm, lovely person and really helped to put me at ease on the morning of our wedding.”

DIY Flowers

By doing it herself Olivia got the bug for floristry!

“We made the decision to handle all flowers ourselves. The thought of doing it all ourselves was quite nerve-wracking at first, and we only placed the order with Triangle Nursery SIX DAYS before our wedding, but in the end, it was one of the most fulfilling experiences; so much so that we hope to help our friends with their own flowers when they tie the knot.”

Cake

“A family friend of ours made the cake for us; a lemon and poppyseed drum cake with a citrus buttercream and bergamot glaze. The log slice it sat on was chopped from a tree in our family friend's garden, and Ethan has since made a side table out of it.”

Stargazey Wedding Hire

They hired giant Jenga and Connect Four, along with lots of other decor items which included a tall vintage ladder they decorated with flowers and lights, hanging jars filled with flowers to line the aisle, and voile to decorate the arbour outside.

“Lawn games - always a big hit with guests of all ages, especially the little ones!”

Light Up Weddings

Alex and Cassie Darling at Light Up Weddings provided Olivia and Ethan with stunning Edison bulbs which hung from a suspended oak plank which they decorated with flowers - their show-stopping wedding breakfast centrepiece.

“It was something that everyone commented on”

Beautiful festoon lights were also used to frame the grounds after dark, and more Edison bulbs were placed under the arbour.

Tell us about your dress(es)!

“I'd tried on quite a few dresses way in advance because I wasn't entirely sure what shape or style I wanted. I definitely had an overall vibe in mind, but so often dresses that I'd gone mad for on Pinterest just weren't the right shape on me.”

Olivia also bought the shoes way before the dress, so she needed the dress to work with them. She had bought Orabella Wish by Clarks and a low-heeled pair of Mary Janes in emerald green velvet.

“I adore Temperley Bridal's coloured Bibi Gown, and flirted with buying a Needle and Thread wedding dress, but in the end, I chose Catherine Deane's Harley Gown. I loved the silhouette, the pretty chiffon bows on the shoulders and oyster silk under the beaded top - but letting loose on the dance floor wearing that was an impossibility, so I changed into a Ghost jumpsuit for the evening.”

The T Tones

One supplier that their guests had incredible things to say about was their band, The T Tones.

“They have a fantastic repertoire, brought all their own lighting and had amazing stage personality that helped our friends and family get on their feet. The T Tones were spot on.”

Top Tips

Tip number 1: Take the time to savour being with all your guests. When I was writing my speech, it dawned on me that all our nearest and dearest would be in one room together for what was most likely going to be the only time in our lives. It was such a lovely feeling to introduce different groups of friends and family to each other for the first time, and finally connect the different pockets of both our lives together.

Tip number 2: Pinterest can be your friend, but it can also be your enemy. We had a rough idea of the vibe we wanted, but in terms of style, we pinned things of SO.MANY.DIFFERENT.STYLES. We loved each one equally but knew we couldn't blend them as seamlessly as we hoped. This was particularly challenging with the flowers. Just be decisive by picking one particular reference you like and stick to it. It will save you a lot of faff.

Tip number 3: Don't lose sight of what you're doing. Planning a wedding can be very overwhelming, and it can be easy to fall victim to pressure, but try not to forget why you're doing it in the first place. When making your plans, think about what's important to you as a couple. Don't feel pressured by societal norms and conventions. Remember, it's YOUR day - just because someone might encourage you to invite a distant relative you hardly see, it doesn't mean you have to!

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• Photographer: Enchanted Brides Photography
• Venue: Trevenna
• Wedding Decor and Styling: Stargazey Wedding Decor