Meg and Dan’s Sailcloth Celebration at Lavender Lake
Meg and Dan’s wedding at Lavender Lake was everything they had dreamed of—relaxed, rustic, and filled with love. Surrounded by the beauty of the lake and the warmth of their closest family and friends, their sailcloth celebration was uniquely them. From sharing pizza with their guests to heartfelt vows under the open sky, every moment felt personal and magical, making their big day truly unforgettable. Put your feet up, grab a cuppa and take a peek into this incredible day!
What made you decide on an outdoor wedding?
We’ve been together since we were 16 (10 years), so we’ve spoken about what we’d like for our wedding many times and always come back to the idea of something outdoors/rustic. We both knew that a more chilled vibe would be something we wanted so with Sami Tipi being pretty local, we knew that was the way to go for us!
Where did you choose to celebrate, what helped you to make that decision?
We knew we’d have to do the ‘legal bit’ somewhere, so we decided to get married in front of 20 of our close friends and family at our local registry office in Hinckley. Our 2nd ceremony & evening party was at Lavender Lake in Kirkby Mallory. My family have lived in Mallory for 12 years and we got engaged in a restaurant there (Mallories) so when we found out that there was a gorgeous lake and wedding venue perfect for a sailcloth tent just up the road, we immediately booked a visit!!
What date did you celebrate, was there any reason for your date choice?
We had our wedding on August 3rd 2024. With me working in a primary school, I wanted time to get everything ready before and also be able to go on a honeymoon straight after, so the summer holidays were the perfect time, and having an outdoor wedding, we wanted a summer month to hopefully get some sunshine.
What did you both wear, what about the rest of the bridal party?
I wore a beautiful dress by Kelsey Rose from Silver Sixpence Bridal Boutique in Towcester. As soon as we got engaged, I saw this dress online and knew I had to have it. Dan saw a 3 piece suit at a wedding fayre that just so happened to be from a local suit shop, so he bought them for him and his best man.
My sister and sister-in-law were my bridesmaids and they wore moss green bridesmaids dresses from a local bridal shop. After our blessing ceremony, me and Dan changed into matching personalised Converse!!
How would you describe your ceremony, where did it happen, how did it happen?
Our blessing ceremony was held at Lavender Lake on the hill with a celebrant called Tracey. It was a really relaxed ceremony consisting of our ‘love story’, traditional vows and our own vows. It was the perfect ceremony for us, as we wanted it to be very personal and capture our relationship. We decided we wanted to have a bit of fun, so we hid our rings under one of the chairs and had our guests look for them and they became our surprise ring bearer.
How did you feed your guests in the day and then evening? What influenced your menu choice?
When planning the wedding, we both chose a meal that we’d like to eat and that’s what we fed our guests! I chose pizza and Dan chose hog roast. We had unlimited buffet-style pizza from a pizza van that was served for two hours after our 2pm blessing ceremony, then we had a hog roast with rolls, wraps and potatoes in the evening.
As a surprise, we had an ice cream van arrive at 5:30pm to serve our guests 99’s as a little snack and even had a crisp wall for our guests if they felt peckish!
How would you describe your theme/styling? Did you DIY this, work with a stylist or dry hire items?
We knew we wanted to do some of the decorating and styling ourselves but we’re not that good at DIY, so decided that dry hiring props would be good for us. I ordered our cake topper, table runners, eucalyptus and blankets online. We used Rustic Wedding Company to hire all the disco balls, chair drapes, crates and glass jars and DIY’d the crisp wall and wedding favours.
How did you entertain your guests?
Both of us absolutely love music, so it was a no-brainer that our DJ would have to start at 4pm and play all our favourite music right into the evening. We also hired limbo, giant Jenga, corn hole and sack races from a local games hire, these were all a massive success, especially after a few drinks!
What are your Top Tips for planning a Tipi / Sailcloth wedding?
I would say our top tips are…
Definitely go to a Sami Tipi showcase if you can! We’d already booked our sailcloth, but it gave us a real idea of the space we’d be working with, we were able to map out where we wanted everything to be, and the cake samples were delicious!!
Don’t try and please anybody else! We’re a very relaxed couple, so when we were looking at traditions and what other people did, we only chose the things that were relevant to us. We are most comfortable in trainers, so we wore trainers, we didn’t want anything too formal, so we didn’t have a sit down meal, we chose our wedding playlist because that was the music we liked and everybody had a great time because the day was ours and everything WE wanted!
Have fun planning it! It can get stressful trying to stay in touch with so many vendors all at once, send invites, practice your ‘soft smile and try and make everything perfect that you can end up forgetting what the day is all about… you!! If you like an idea you see on Instagram, do it. We had an F1 style champagne spray at the end of the night, ‘bog baskets’ for the toilets and a deck of playing cards for our guestbook, all ideas we’d seen online and knew they would be fun and easy to do additions to our wedding without it being much extra work for us.
Suppliers You Used, Loved and would trust to recommend?
Sami Tipi, of course! The communication was incredible throughout, nobody tried to make us have anything we didn’t want and Beth and the set-up team were so friendly!
Artisan Pizza Co. Abbey and the team were brilliant the whole way through and their pizzas were delicious. A real crowd pleaser!
Our photographer, Tom Beynon Photography was just unreal! The whole day, he worked so hard to get every shot we could’ve possibly wanted and most of the time you barely knew he was there! So kind and professional and really thorough with everything that he did.
Lastly Lavender Lake. Not only are the grounds beautiful, but the family/team that come with the grounds are fantastic! They made sure everything was done on the day, even without asking, they helped set up, clean up and are so friendly and easy to deal with.
If you could relive one part of your day, what would it be and why?
The whole day was a complete success, start to finish! For us, having our golden retriever, Buzz join us after our ceremony was the highlight. He loved seeing everyone and sharing a pizza with us and all of our guests were so happy to have a cuddle with him. To have all 3 of us together on our wedding day was really special!
