Matt & Melissa’s Romantic Multicultural Wedding at The Old Rectory Estate

Aug 27
6 min read

Some venues make you completely forget you're in England, and The Old Rectory Estate was one of them.

With its beautiful gardens, warm summer weather and relaxed outdoor setting, Matt and Melissa's wedding had moments where it genuinely felt like we'd been transported somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Add in a mariachi band, Ecuadorian influences, beautiful styling, incredible food and a bride who casually made her own three-flavour wedding cake, and this was always going to be a memorable one.

I was involved in both the planning and styling of Matt and Melissa's wedding, so seeing everything we'd discussed and worked on finally come together on the day was particularly special.

From Planning the Details to Styling the Day

My involvement with Matt and Melissa started well before the wedding morning.

I helped with elements of the planning, working with the couple on some of the practical details and suppliers while we also developed the styling for the day.

And I always enjoy this combination.

When I'm involved in both the planning and styling, I'm not looking at the décor in isolation. We can think about how everything will actually work on the wedding day, from supplier deliveries and tableware to when spaces need to be ready and how the styling fits around the wider timeline.

For Matt and Melissa, we went for a soft, romantic look with light pink running through the tablescape.

Fresh flowers were arranged in bud vases across the tables, paired with tapered candles at varying heights to add warmth and dimension. The overall styling was romantic and elegant without feeling overly formal, which worked beautifully against the surroundings of The Old Rectory Estate.

There was something about the combination of the pinks, flowers, candlelight and venue that just worked.

A Summer Church Ceremony

The wedding day itself started early, with hair and makeup underway from the morning while flowers and bouquets were being prepared.

Matt and Melissa married in a church ceremony at 2:30pm.

Flowers and pew ends had been arranged at the church earlier that morning, ready for guests to begin arriving from around 2pm.

After the ceremony came photographs before everyone made their way back for the reception.

By 4pm, the champagne was flowing and the celebrations were properly underway.

And this is where the whole wedding started to take on that gorgeous summer-holiday feeling.

A Little Taste of Ecuador

Melissa is Ecuadorian, and I loved that their wedding incorporated elements of her culture rather than treating the day as though both sides of their story had to look the same.

One of the highlights was the mariachi band.

At around 5pm, everyone moved down into the main garden and the mariachi music began.

Honestly, sunshine, beautiful gardens, drinks and a mariachi band is a pretty good combination.

It's one of the things I love about multicultural weddings. You get these moments where families, traditions, music and food come together, and even guests who may not share that cultural background get to experience a little piece of it.

And selfishly, I also love getting to try the food!

The food at Matt and Melissa's wedding was so good. Trying dishes and flavours connected to different cultures is genuinely one of my favourite perks of working on multicultural weddings.

The Cake Deserves Its Own Section

Now, normally this is where I'd mention the cake supplier.

Except there wasn't one.

Melissa made the wedding cake herself.

Not only did she make her own wedding cake, she made three different flavours, with each one decorated differently.

Three.

As someone who had already been planning a wedding, making styling decisions and preparing to actually get married, deciding to add "make an entire multi-flavour wedding cake" to the list is impressive.

The cakes were displayed together before the cake cutting in the late afternoon, and the different finishes made them feel like part of the styling in their own right.

It was such a personal detail and one that couldn't have been more unique to their wedding.

Dinner, Speeches and an Evening Celebration

Guests sat down for the wedding breakfast at around 6pm, and rather than grouping all of the speeches together, Matt and Melissa spread them between courses.

The father of the bride spoke alongside Matt and Melissa after the starter, with the maid of honour and two best men speaking after the main course.

I really like timelines like this because it allows the evening to flow rather than making guests sit through one long block of speeches.

Then it was time to move from dinner into the party.

Their first dance and live band kicked off the evening celebrations at around, but another particularly special moment came later.

A Traditional Dance to Finish the Cultural Celebrations

Later in the evening, Matt and Melissa performed a short traditional dance.

It was important enough to them that Matt specifically made sure their videographer knew beforehand that he wanted the moment captured.

And I think that's what multicultural weddings do so beautifully.

Culture doesn't have to be confined to one part of the day or turned into a theme. It can appear naturally throughout a wedding.

It can be in the food.

It can be in the music.

It can be a dance.

It can be something your family recognises immediately while other guests get to experience it for the first time.

Those moments make a wedding feel personal rather than simply beautiful.

Styling The Old Rectory Estate

The Old Rectory Estate itself gave us such a gorgeous backdrop to work with.

There was something about the venue on a summer's day that felt almost Mediterranean, and I didn't want the styling to fight against that.

The light pink colour palette kept everything soft and romantic, while fresh flowers in bud vases brought the gardens onto the tables. Tapered candles gave us different heights throughout the tablescape and added that extra bit of warmth as the day moved into the evening.

My approach to styling is always to look at what's already there first.

A beautiful venue doesn't necessarily need more. Sometimes it just needs the right details to bring everything together.

For Matt and Melissa, that meant romantic florals, soft colour and candlelight against a venue that already had so much character of its own.

Planning, Styling and Bringing It All Together

This wedding was also a lovely example of what partial wedding planning can look like.

You don't necessarily need someone to plan your wedding from the very beginning to benefit from planning support.

Matt and Melissa had already made decisions and organised parts of their wedding themselves. I came in to support them with other elements, help coordinate suppliers and logistics, work through the styling and then bring those plans together for the wedding itself.

That continuity makes such a difference.

By the time the wedding day arrived, I wasn't walking into a plan I'd never seen before.

I knew what we'd discussed.

I knew how the tables were supposed to look.

I knew which suppliers were involved.

I knew the timings.

And I knew what mattered to Matt and Melissa.

It meant that while they were getting married, having photographs, drinking champagne, listening to the mariachi band and enjoying dinner with their guests, I could concentrate on everything happening around them.

A Wedding Full of Personality

There was so much I loved about this one.

The venue.

The food.

The mariachi band.

Melissa's THREE homemade cakes.

The traditional dance.

And, of course, seeing the styling we'd planned come together.

But what I probably loved most was how naturally everything blended.

It wasn't a wedding that felt as though cultural elements had been added for effect. They were simply part of Matt and Melissa's story, alongside all of the other things they loved.

Beautiful, romantic, relaxed and full of personality.

Exactly the kind of wedding I love being part of.

Matt & Melissa's Wedding Suppliers

Venue: The Old Rectory Estate

Catering: Fire Made

Band: Opulence

Videographer: The Wedding Video Guys

Photographer: Elizabeth Jayne Photography

Wedding car: RNG Classics

Crockery / tableware hire: TT Hire

Event staff: Activ8 Live

Champagne reception singer: Toya Music

Hair & makeup: Holly Ann Bridal

Mariachi: Mauricio Castro

MC: Melissa's brother, Michael Gargaro

Church: their church team included the vicar John Peter Scott, organist Robert Cooper and Christine Elliott as the admin contact

Wedding cake: Melissa herself

Planning Your Own Multicultural Wedding?

Multicultural weddings are some of my favourites to work on because no two are ever the same.

Whether you're bringing together different cultures, planning a traditional ceremony alongside a modern reception or simply want your wedding to properly reflect who you are as a couple, there doesn't have to be one "right" way to do it.

At Koso Kreates, I offer wedding planning, coordination and styling, whether you need support with the whole process or simply want someone to step in and help bring the final pieces together.

You create a wedding that feels like you.

I'll help make it happen.