How divine this special day was. Join me for Theshanka ‘Tesh’ and Callum’s dreamy Fawsley Hall wedding in Northamptonshire.
There is so much to love about their wedding story, from playing their guest’s first dance songs to their special DIY confetti and what sounds like an epic honeymoon! I also love their outfits, the florals, the beautiful cake, and of course, those sun-drenched portraits. Goodness me it looked like one incredible celebration.
Huge thanks go to Sky Photography for sharing with us these sensational shots.
Fawsley Hall Wedding
The Proposal
The previous year, we’d had a magical holiday staying at Quinta da Comporta in Comporta, Portugal. One especially memorable day of the trip, we cycled through paddy fields and climbed through sand dunes to find a secluded beach, Brejos. Because it is a bit tricky to access, there was nothing else around us but the dunes, endless sands and the ocean.
The following year, Callum proposed at that secret beach. We took an electric buggy through the golden paddy fields and sand dunes, then along the beach, where he’d organised a beautiful picnic set up. There were lots of cushions, pouffes and a spread of cheeses, iberico ham, bread, figs, chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne.
The lady from the hotel helping him snuck behind the dunes and captured the moment he got down on one knee. She left us to enjoy sunset together, just us on this beach, as the sun went down and our wedding adventure began.
The Vision
We envisioned an elegant wedding with lots of little details to make guests feel comfortable and have fun on the day.
Budget
“I didn’t know numbers went that high.” – Callum.
The Venue
Fawsley Hall, Daventry, Northamptonshire.
The Ceremony & Music
For the English ceremony, our string quartet played beautiful classical music and a few modern songs such as Taylor Swift (a bit like Bridgerton!). We came on to Pachelbel’s canon, and then left the aisle to ‘Stand by Me’ played on the strings.
Your Outfits
Groom’s Suit – bespoke three-piece suit tailored by Richard James, Savile Row, Mayfair.
Both Tesh’s wedding dresses were gifted by her sister Erasha (@thegardeningoc) as wedding gifts (very, very generous!)
Tesh’s daytime dress – the ‘Blisse’ dress by Milla Nova bought from Serendipity Brides.
Tesh’s evening dress – a Maggie Sottero dress with lots of subtle beading details, which gave it a little Asian flair for our afternoon Sri Lankan ceremony. It was bought as a never-before-worn dress from Willen Hospice charity shop bridal boutique. Tesh and her sister have both regularly donated to this hospice in Milton Keynes for years, so it felt special to give a nod to them in this way and it is a sustainable choice.
We hope more people will consider checking out charity bridal boutiques – we never thought we’d find ‘the dress’ at one, but we were happily proved wrong!
The Styling & Decor
Tesh had been keeping a dream wedding vision board on Pinterest for about 9 years before we got married. When she felt like love might not happen during her single days, she would go on the board and start saving ideas for decorations, sweet touches and scheme ideas for her dream wedding. There were about 450 ideas on that board!
Our wedding turned out to look just like the vision board – with ivory-draped arches, lots of greenery, candles and plenty of fresh flowers. Tesh, Erasha and bridesmaid Meetal made place names for each guest using canvas paper, chiffon ribbons and gold ink. Menus were all written in gold foil on vellum, ordered from Etsy.
Our florist, Selina from Jack Haddon Florists, kindly agreed to collaborate with Tesh’s sister Erasha, who is a keen gardener and hobby florist. Erasha created all the table flowers for the wedding breakfast using mixed flowers she’d grown from seed in her own garden. Jack Haddon Florists did the stunning arch flowers, bouquets, boutonnieres and table flowers. The colour scheme of whites, and creams, with accents of pale blues and light pinks worked beautifully.
Erasha also kindly made a bespoke doughnut wall from scratch. She let Tesh drill some holes, but she created the masterpiece! She painted on a few puns Tesh has saved onto her Pinterest board: “Put a Ring on It”, “Holy Matrimony”, and “Donut mind if I do”!
Signage was kept simple classic on natural woods by G&L Events.
The Honeymoon
We flew to Tanzania two days after our wedding. We had organised a once-on-a-lifetime safari through Topy Tours (topytours.com). We visited the Serengeti Park, Tarangire Park and Ngorongoro Crater Park. Our driver Hajji was so friendly and knowledgeable, and he managed to help us spot each of the Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhinoceros) and we even saw cheetahs twice.
Then we spent a week in Zanzibar enjoying some beach time and starlit dinners outside. Zuri Zanzibar was unforgettable.
Memorable Moments
- If you put our wedding bands together, you get the GPS coordinates for the spot where Callum proposed in Comporta. Inside Callum’s ring are the North coordinates, and the engraving inside Tesh’s reads the West coordinates.
- One of Tesh’s university friends commented that she’d always said she’d wanted to get married underneath a beautiful, big tree in a field since being a teenager – and that’s exactly what happened. Visualisation works!
- We made quite a lot of the confetti used on the day by drying flowers that had been given to us by our friends and family throughout the engagement period, and also drying flowers from the wedding bouquet that Tesh had carried when we had gone to sign our registry papers at Islington Town Hall. It felt very special having such meaningful petals to share with our guests on the big day!
- The coconut smash in the Sri Lankan Poruwa Ceremony. Traditionally the groom’s sibling smashes a coconut at the end of the ceremony. Callum’s sister Jaime tried to throw the coconut on the floor elegantly twice, and it wouldn’t smash. Then she decided to just go for it, and smashed it so hard on the grass that the coconut water sprayed everywhere! It was a very funny and very beautiful moment, where both families were joined in laughter!
- Tesh’s mother has quite advanced Parkinson’s disease, and she was having difficulty walking and standing. However, she got up and walked to the wedding stage to give the bride and groom traditional Buddhist blessings.
- During our wedding breakfast, our DJ sneakily played our guest’s own first dance songs from their own weddings. We had collected this information from guests when they RSVP’d – but we didn’t tell them what we were going to do, as we wanted it to be a nice surprise to help our guests really feel part of our wedding day. Our guest’s first dance songs came from all over the world, such as English, Indian, Greek and Irish songs, but all of them were romantic. There were some happy tears shed as guests suddenly realised their first dance song was playing during the meal!
- We felt so close and excited to do our first dance together – a Viennese waltz to “Somewhere only we know” by Keane. We had been having lessons with Bogdan from First Dance London, and it felt very romantic! Several of our friends came to join us on stage for the end of the song which was just lovely, sharing that moment with them.
- We still can’t quite believe that the song that got the most people onto the dance floor was Ginuwine’s “Pony”! …Probably a little bit concerning! Haha.
What a special day, from beginning to end.
Thanks ever so much to Tesh and Callum for sharing with us their joy-filled Fawsley Hall wedding story.