A Fun and Romantic Wedding at The Green Cornwall

Two beautiful ladies, two stunning wedding dresses, a handfasting ceremony, dream-catchers, tacos and two brides in the band… are you ready for this awesome wedding?

Have you ever been to a wedding where the couple got on stage and played with the band? That’s exactly what the beautiful Sera and Francesca did. Not because they had had too many glasses of bubbly, but because it was ‘their’ band! You’ll have to wait to see the pictures at the end of the feature but they totally rocked it… Sera playing the bass guitar and Francesca on the drums. So cool!

Sera and Francesca had a beautiful ceremony in the wedding barn at The Green Cornwall, followed by an intimate handfasting ceremony in the garden with friends and family taking part.

The styling details of this wedding are awesome. Sera and Francesca wanted wild and quirky flowers to complement their styling, and the flowers are all really bright and fun. A lot of the details were homemade giving a real personal touch.

I have loved looking at the pictures of this amazing wedding and smiling to myself as I look at how much fun everyone is having. That was a big thing for Sera and Francesca — to make their wedding all about their friends and family enjoying themselves and having fun.

I hope you smile too whilst you enjoy these fabulous wedding pictures by Matt Pereira Photography.

The Proposal

“We’ve been working together for many years, performing together in our band, Unsung Lilly. What started off as a working relationship blossomed into friendship, and then more!

“We had talked about getting married before — we both had a feeling after only a few weeks of being together we would get married one day. We’d always discussed it as being ‘Francesca’s job’ to propose, but I (Sera) started to think about proposing.

“There were many moments when it almost happened but things would get in the way. One time after we’d just moved over to LA we hiked to the top of this beautiful canyon. We sat looking at the view and I knew, now is the moment… I was just about to say it — I even started filming secretly on my phone so we could savour it forever — and Francesca said “This place is so beautiful. It would be a great place to get engaged, wouldn’t it?”. I lost my nerve!

“Things like that happened a few times, but eventually it happened one night, on our anniversary. We had this apartment that looked out across LA, and I proposed on our balcony as we were looking out at the beautiful lights of the city. She said yes!”

Lots of Fun and Romance

“Our style was very much a boho sort of vibe, and the theme we kept in mind when planning was we wanted it to be a combination of ‘lots of fun, and romance’.

“We looked at a lot of different styles of wedding and both loved the relaxed vibe of the boho look. Our venue, The Green Cornwall, used to be an old dairy farm so it has that relaxed hay-bales and fairy lights kind of vibe, which we loved. It was really easy to decorate because it’s already beautiful!

“We always have a lot of fun together and we wanted our wedding to be a day that everyone really enjoyed. We live in America now and don’t get to see our friends and family in the UK much, so we wanted to make it a day that brought everyone together to have fun. And the ‘romantic’ part… well that goes without saying.”

A Real Bohemian Dress

“We kept our dresses a secret from each other, somehow, and were amazed on the day at how well they went together. Mine was from a gorgeous shop in Wimbledon called Luella’s Bridal, made by Kite and Butterfly — a real bohemian dress! Francesca’s was from the Ozone in Brighton, made by Sophia Tolli. This was a real surprise as most people haven’t seen Francesca out of jeans before… but it was a beautiful, elegant gown with a long train.

“Our ushers wore suits hired from Debenhams and our bridesmaids wore infinity dresses that we got from Etsy. We used infinity dresses before for my sister’s wedding, and they are great because everyone can wear them in a style that suits them (they are convertible).

Wild and Quirky

“The Green Cornwall has such a cute style so we didn’t need to do much. Our florist, Kirsty, was amazing and put together a really wild look for the flowers. We were very keen to have something wild and quirky rather than anything too traditional, and she gave us exactly what we wanted.

“All the table names/table plan etc we made ourselves (a very silly timeline of our life together which went from the past, to present day, and into future predictions), and we designed all the stationery ourselves with the same boho/fun/quirky vibe in mind. We also had some fun signs made which were great and provided more of a personal touch.”

Lots of Music

“Having run MIB Music (a company that runs popular live music acts for weddings and other events) for many years, and both having worked as singers, we knew we wanted something a bit different. We also knew we wanted a LOT of musical entertainment.

“We had a fantastic string section for the ceremony, Sue Aston and her Classical Strings. They did some really fun arrangements of well known pop songs whilst guests were arriving.

“For the entrance piece we were lucky enough to have a very musical bunch of ushers and bridesmaids. The ushers joined Sue and the strings (on guitars and percussion), and we had a very elaborate and dramatic entrance where our bridesmaids walked down the aisle and then joined them by singing!

“At the drinks reception we wanted something fun musically, and something that people hopefully hadn’t seen before. We decided to go for a bluegrass style band that performed bluegrass versions of pop songs. We searched high and low for this — its hard to find, but we discovered Bluegrass Cover Boys. They created a really fun atmosphere! We had worried that it was a little OTT to have a band in this section of the day but we are really glad that we did.”

Finding a Taco Van in Cornwall is Tricky

“The Green Cornwall’s food was delicious! In the drinks reception we had mini Cornish pasties, and for the wedding breakfast we decided on a sit down meal. We chose three options for each course, and all of them looked delicious. It took us about three months to personally choose what we wanted to eat — it was a tough choice!

“One of our dream suppliers to find was a taco van for the evening. Living in California our go-to late evening snack these days is always tacos, and we really wanted to incorporate that into the wedding. However, finding a taco van in Cornwall was tricky. We found the amazing Wild Food Kitchen, with their quirky old French van, who put together a taco menu for us, and their food was delicious! We should mention though — tacos are somewhat messy for eating in a wedding dress!”

Pub Classics

“We work with many talented musicians, and originally wanted to give our friends and band mates a night off so they could just enjoy themselves. Some of our favourite nights out have been in pubs watching bands play music by Dire Straits, Eric Clapton etc, so we tried really hard to find a band who could do that. However, we couldn’t really find one we liked, so in the end we hired our own band, MIB, who performed an awesome set list of pub classics. We absolutely loved it! We also had a good friend Mike Butcher DJ, who is such a lovely person to work with!

“For our first dance we chose ‘She Keeps Me Warm’ by Mary Lambert, a song we used to listen to a lot when we first got together.

“We also had a fun Photo Booth, run by Caz and Laurence from Yellowbooth. They were such lovely people to have around and created a fun, silly atmosphere. We got some great photos! The booth was in the shape of a VW campervan, which we thought was adorable.”

Amazing Memories

“It was just an amazing day from start to finish. We are so glad we made such great choices with all our suppliers. Our family and friends were all amazing, helping out with everything, and the venue was just perfect.

“After the main ceremony we wanted to have more of a spiritual ceremony, so our good friend Anna Taylor led us in the most beautiful handfasting ritual. We worked together with her to create something bespoke and it was just gorgeous. It was very meaningful to have Anna there as she’s been a great friend and teacher to us for many years.

“Our favourite memories include our bridesmaids singing us down the aisle, the beautiful spiritual ceremony, and the band in the evening playing all our favourite songs. It was so special to have people there that we’ve worked with for so many years. Also, seeing each other for the first time!

“Our photographer, Matt, is an old friend and by far the most talented photographer we’ve ever met. He’s been our band photographer for many years and there is no way we would have had anyone else! Matt’s photos are amazing. He somehow makes us look so much better looking — not sure how he does that!

“We had our friend (and super duper professional MUA) Gina do our hair and make-up. She transformed us completely — even giving Francesca hair extensions as a surprise.

“Also our bridesmaids put together an amazing video for us as a surprise, featuring clips of our life together, friends who couldn’t make it, etc. That was really special.”

Go with the Flow

“It all goes by so fast, so try to be in it throughout the day… mindfulness techniques were very helpful. I kept reminding myself what I was doing in that present moment, i.e. ‘I am walking down the aisle’, ‘I am eating my wedding cake’. That was really helpful to keep the day from running away too quickly.

“Also, having worked with brides for so many years you’d think we would know this, but it’s so important to forget about the timings on the day. I always say this to our clients but still forgot this with our wedding — it was the one thing that was on both our minds throughout the day — worrying that things had run late. Lots of planning beforehand is a great idea, and then once the day comes let it go, and go with the flow.

“Finally, if you get the chance to go around the room and say thank you for coming to as many people as possible, try to do that. Francesca didn’t get a chance to, and I fell into it and somehow got around only half the room; we regret not being able to speak to everyone.”