Lucy & Chris's Buckminster Barn Tipi Wedding

Lucy & Chris’s Buckminster Barn Tipi Wedding

Lucy and Chris celebrated their Buckminster Barn Tipi wedding with Two Giant Hat Tipis at Buckminster’s barn location. With their daytime reception space within the tipis, and the dance floor and band space in the barn, with lots of gorgeous outdoor space around both, it provided the perfect combined space.

Lucy talks us through the details here, alongside gorgeous photos by Gina Fernandes Photography.

What made you decide on an outdoor wedding?

We wanted our wedding to be fun and one big party. As we both love going to festivals, having a festival themed wedding seemed perfect and so being outside was a given. We loved the idea of having a tipi as they are a main feature at festivals.

What did everybody wear?

My wonderful lace wedding dress was from Love Spell Design, a boutique wedding shop that sells modern boho wedding dresses in London. I visited a few different wedding shops with no luck and then this was the first dress I tried on in there and straight away I knew it was the one! My dress really captured the festival theme and I also had a flower crown to finish my festival look. After our first dance I changed into a shorter party dress and white cowboy boots from Free People. Chris got his suit from Charles Tyrwhitt.

I wanted my bridesmaids to feel comfortable and have a bit of a say in what they wore. I went with dresses from Wed2be as you could have the same colour dress, but it came in six different styles, which was lucky as they all choose a different one (I had 5 bridesmaids altogether) in a sage green colour.

Tell us about your ceremony.

We both really wanted a traditional church ceremony and lucky for us, our venue at Buckminster meant we could get married at the church and then walk a short distance to our tipi for the reception. We had beautiful wildflowers by Pickleberry Flowers in the church and in wheelbarrows and wellies as you walked in.

How would you describe your theme / styling?

We styled the day ourselves and carried on the festival theme with festival wristbands for name tags, bunting, fairy lights, lanterns and festival flags. We had disposable cameras on each table with a jar of props for people to take fun photos of each other and act as a bit of a conversation starter if needed! For favours we gave everyone a scratch card and voucher for a free drink at the bar.

How did you feed your guests?

We used local catering company Dimblebee Catering feeding our guests a selection of canapes to start. Then a relaxed buffet of handmade kebabs with a selection of sides for main. We wanted something you could find at a festival.

We didn’t want a traditional wedding cake and we both love cheese and so we had a wedding cake made of cheese from The Melton Cheese Board. Then a selection of different flavoured cupcakes by Sugar Shamrocks so there was hopefully something for everyone.

Later in the evening we had a pizza van serving wood fire pizzas from The Peelwood Fired Kitchen to feed those hungry after all the dancing and drinking.

How did you entertain your guests?

During our reception drinks we had wonderful Harpist Harriet Flather, who we met at a wedding fair and instantly loved her music. We wanted something a bit different while guests were enjoying a drink. She let us choose a few songs which she learned ahead of the day and then played a great selection of music that everyone knew.

In the evening we had a local band called Mansfield Avenue. They let us choose our songs in advance and did two slots with us then playing our own music via their DJ in between which worked really well.

What are your Top Tips for planning a Tipi wedding?

We knew we wanted a tipi for our wedding straight away and Sami Tipi came recommended to us. If you are perhaps unsure on size or whether you want a tipi or sailcloth then I would suggest going to one of the open days. Our main bit of advice is just talk to Jodie and the rest of the team as they are so helpful and can answer any of your questions or queries.

We were grateful for all the help/advice we received in the run up to our wedding from Sami Tipi including some lovely guides on planning an outdoor wedding and the Sami Tipi newsletters with lots of inspiration. We were also sent a really useful wedding planner sheet which showed us when to book certain things.