Judith & Jake's Northamptonshire Tipi Wedding

Judith & Jake’s Northamptonshire Tipi Wedding

Judith & Jake celebrated their Northamptonshire Tipi Wedding back in July. They celebrated in Two Giant Hat Tipis and created a stunning rustic, DIY styling look. By creating a lot of the decorations and special touches themselves, they made their day so much about them and what they love. With lots of pink colour splashes from their florals and rag bunting!

Judith talks us through the details here, alongside photos by Corrine West Photography.

What made you decide on an outdoor wedding?

When planning our wedding we immediately both knew that we want a relaxed outdoor wedding. This just fits who we both are! We are very fortunate to have a field, and I have always dreamt of having our wedding there. It is such a special place to us and we dreamt of having all of the most special people to us gathered there altogether!

We had imagined the field with a marquee of some sort, but when we saw the tipis they blew us away with their magical feeling and rustic look.

What did everybody wear?

I wore my sister’s wedding dress! Passing this down the family felt so special, with a few minor adjustments it fitted perfectly. I then found the perfect veil to match on Etsy, it had a beautiful lace edge and was just what I had imagined.

The bridesmaids wore dresses from Next, the lace detail on these tied in beautifully with my dress, they were light and floaty, and we found a flower girl dress to match!

Jake wore a navy woollen suit (on the hottest week of the year!) but it was exactly the style and colour he wanted and luckily there was quite a breeze through the tipis with the front completely open!

Tell us about your ceremony.

Our ceremony was at our village church, it was really important to us to get married here. This is a 2 minute walk from home, so I got ready at home and then we walked to the church. There happened to be a vintage car rally passing by so you can imagine all the horns tooting! The ceremony was a traditional church wedding and we then went to have some photos at a view point nearby, whilst our guests made their way to the tipis. Jake’s best man kindly provided the transport for us in his bright orange VW camper!

How would you describe your theme / styling?

Home made and DIY! We wanted it to be personal to us and embraced the imperfections of making things ourselves. It was great fun making the decorations with family and friends on the run up to the wedding and I treasure these memories a lot more than if everything was just brought and looked perfect!

A loose theme was the colour pink to tie in with the bridal party dresses and grooms’ ties, but we mixed things up and liked the mixture of colours too. We supported local businesses as much as possible too which was really important to us.

How did you feed your guests?

Our guests had canapés and Pimms on arrival to the tipis. We then had sharing BBQ boards with sides for our main meal. We chose to do sharing boards as we felt this was a much more relaxed style whilst still having a ‘sit down’ meal. It also got all our guests chatting and mixing, and allowed people to eat as much/little as they wanted! We then did a sharing board of desserts, with 4 different puddings so there were lots of options. The sharing boards worked perfectly with the long table set up we went for.

In the evening we had a hog roast because it’s our absolute favourite! We also had a little sweet station to keep up the energy levels for guests and this was a big hit!

How did you entertain your guests?

We had outdoor games; giant jenga (found on Facebook market place), tin can alley and golf putting (both home-made) and we borrowed a skittles table from a friend. All kept guests entertained in the day and evening. Skipping ropes and bubbles were a great hit with the kids as well as plenty of room to run around!

In the evening we borrowed speakers and made our own playlist. It was great fun putting the playlist together, with requests from guests on their invites, and we are still listening to the playlist now!

What are your Top Tips for planning a Tipi wedding?

Attend an open day! We went to one after we had booked the tipis, but it was invaluable to see the space in real life and really helped us imagine how we would use the space. It was also great to meet some of the Sami Tipi team at this.

Ask friends! Ask friends for suggestions/help/support. It’s amazing what hidden skills people have, things they have hidden at the back of garages, people they know etc!