Rosie & Paul's Large Festival Tipi Wedding

Rosie & Paul’s Large Festival Tipi Wedding

This week we are celebrating Rosie and Paul’s incredible big day. They created the most amazing Large Festival Tipi Wedding with nine giant hat tipis. They created different zones for in their celebration space with four giant hat tipis for a dining space. Another four giant hat tipis for their night time party space and an individual bar tipi. With gorgeous styling and florals throughout the whole space. It really was just the perfect festival celebration space.

They had an outdoor ceremony overlooking the lake, with a gospel choir singing the bridal party down the aisle. Music was a big part of their day. They had a roaming brass band, live music and DJ’s all through the daytime and long into the night. It really was a giant festival to celebrate their love with their friends and family.

Rosie talks us through the details here. Alongside photos by Nicki Shea Photography, and this incredible video from Hushabye Films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRwpjd3tb40

Festival Tipi Wedding with 9 Giant Hat Tipis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRwpjd3tb40)

What made you decide on an outdoor wedding?

It was never in doubt that we would do an outdoor wedding, as we both love festivals. We even met at Glastonbury festival! Outdoor weddings look so beautiful and laidback, but they are probably more work than an indoor wedding as literally everything in the space has to be ordered/ made and set up by you and the team. However we love a challenge!

We were very excited to really have our own stamp and style on the day and enjoyed choosing everything, from cutlery to ceremony arch, and from dance floor to bar area. When we found Horsley Hale Farm we fell in love. It is such a beautiful site with a lake, plenty of space for our large tipi set up, glamping, even alpacas! Stuart and the team were a joy to work with.

What did everybody wear?

Rosie wore a simple dress but made from the most incredible, shiny silk from Grace Loves Lace with the added beads on the back. And some bright green shoes from LK Bennett, chosen by her aunty. The bridesmaids reflected the multi-coloured theme of the day by wearing sage, dusty pink, coral and pattern. Most of their dresses were from Asos and two from JJ’s House.

Paul wore a custom suit from Tweed Addict on Brick Lane (green is his favourite colour so it was no surprise that he went with green tweed!). The groomsmen wore matching sage suits from Asos.

Tell us about your ceremony.

We weren’t sure if the ceremony would take place outside as planned as the weather forecast was terrible! But normally you can make the call a few hours before the ceremony and get the furniture shifted to work around the weather.

Our ceremony took place next to the beautiful lake – thankfully in the sunshine – and our friend Seb led the ceremony for us (we got legally married a week before in a town hall). We aren’t religious so the ceremony felt really personal to us: our ‘hymn’ was You’ve Got The Love, our reading was a poem chosen by a close friend, we had a ring warming and even a surprise choir to get the party going.

How would you describe your theme / styling?

We were really inspired by festival decor, particularly one Wilderness festival where some of the tents had been decorated by Petersham Nurseries. Our very talented friend, Sashi, painted us a festival site map which encompassed the different areas we had created.

We had a ‘day time’ tipi decked out with floral displays that the bridal party put together the day before, long tables named after each festival we have been to, multi-coloured glassware and beautiful table setting hired from CMA. I love crafts, so I bought a Cricut machine and made the table plan myself using old doors, all of the name places and signage too. It was a bit of a faff, but I was really proud of the floral chandelier that we created using fake flowers and a big thank you to the Sami Tipi team for hoisting that up to the ceiling for us!

Then the night time tipi was full blown festival decor with masses of ribbon bunting and borrowed plants to create a jungle disco vibe. Sami Tipi were a great help to work out the lighting for both of these tents – good lighting is crucial to create atmosphere!

How did you feed your guests?

We went for family sharing style dishes for the main meal with lots of middle eastern and fresh flavours. We were keen to start dancing as soon as possible so we opted for espresso martinis and a dessert station on the dance floor rather than a sit down dessert.

In the evening there was Mexican food, but we are so gutted as both of us managed to miss the evening food! There is so much going on during your wedding day, and you want to catch up with everyone so sometimes you do miss stuff. But anyway, we were told it was delicious!

How did you entertain your guests?

Like any good festival, there needed to be a full line up of music. We kicked things off with our surprise gospel choir. Then the next surprise was Mr Wilson’s Second Liners who are an epic walking brass band that play old school rave. They popped up out of nowhere on the jetty and then took us for a walk around the site. The dancing had begun by 2.30pm!

Later in the day we had another favourite band of ours who many of the guests had seen at previous festivals, Thrill Collins. Thrill Collins are a three piece band who do a huge range of medleys and covers of all the classics. Then finally, we have lots of talented DJs amongst our friendship group so a big thanks to Tashan, Jordan, Hayden and Pritch who all jumped on the decks. And even the groom managed a closing set at the end of the night, ha ha!

What are your Top Tips for planning a Tipi wedding?

Partying late was a dealbreaker for us, but we found it a little challenging to find a venue that would let us party past 11pm, as noise travelling to neighbours can be a problem with outdoor weddings. So, you could consider a shuttle bus to prevent lots of taxis coming and going and disturbing neighbours, and also hire some silent disco headphones for the early hours!

Weather is something to consider, so make sure you have a back up plan for anything originally planned for outdoors.

A few more Top Tips

As we mentioned already, think about lighting for the night time tipi as it is so important for atmosphere.

Maybe not for everyone, but if you do fancy crafting some decorations yourself then a Cricut machine is so great for personalisation and can save you money on expensive signage.

Finally, don’t forget you will need some recruits to help you set up and decorate the space the day before. It can feel like a lot of work but it is such a fun project to do with friends and family.