Kate & Ben's Rainy Outdoor Wedding

Kate & Ben’s Rainy Outdoor Wedding

Kate and Ben celebrated their rainy outdoor wedding in Two Giant Hats and Chill-Out Tipi on their family land. Despite the slightly unfortunate rainy start to the day, they still managed to have their outdoor ceremony as planned in a secluded area under the trees. Then filled up the tipis with all their friends and family for their reception. They were then super lucky when the sunshine appeared a little later in the day, creating some stunning golden hour photos.

This celebration is the perfect example of British weather, and how if you choose not to let it ruin your day, you can still have everything you had originally planned for!

Kate talks us through the details here, alongside photos from the brilliant Magda K.

What made you decide on an outdoor wedding?

We didn’t know initially that we wanted an outdoor wedding. However having explored several options, we made a list of the things that were important to us. Including price, location, flexibility on food and drink options, flexibility on end time and music cut off, style/theme and then compared the options. Sami Tipi came out head and shoulders above the rest!

What did you both wear?

I wore a 2nd hand jump suit, borrowed from a neighbour of my mum (great coincidence really as my mum was just chit chatting that I was looking at jump suits and she said her daughter had one that I could borrow!) Ben wore a blue velvet jacket from M&S.

Tell us about your ceremony.

Despite the rain, we still managed an outdoor ceremony in a spinney of trees. It had rustic fairytale vibes, featuring a few more umbrellas than initially anticipated! Katie from Rock My Wedding was an amazing celebrant. She developed a very personal and funny script, which went through the story of our relationship. Lots of people told us they loved it.

How did you feed your guests?

Food was very important to us. We wanted both quality and quantity. We found an incredible street food vendor called Mr Pig Stuff who were sensational. They took our pan asian request and turned it into a sensational multi course, relaxed, sharing style feast. They also did veggie and meat baps in the evening which were exactly what we needed after an evening of dancing.

How would you describe your theme / styling?

Relaxed and slightly boho. We did all the styling ourself with help from Pinterest. As well as talented family members who helped us with homemade pieces.

How did you entertain your guests?

We had the most incredible band, Abi and Marc, who got everyone on the dance floor all night. We decided not to do games as we knew our friends would all love the time to catch up and chat. Plus, as it ended up raining on the day, games wouldn’t have been needed anyway.

What are your Top Tips for planning a Tipi wedding?

Get inspired and get excited! Searching through Pinterest and looking at other weddings on Sami Tipi site gave us lots of ideas for what our big day could look like.

Think about how many suppliers you’re using and whether you’re happy organising lots of small suppliers, or if you prefer to consolidate services with fewer suppliers. Doing it all ourselves and using lots of local suppliers meant we were organising and managing lots of suppliers providing different elements (e.g. Cutlery/ crockery different supplier to catering; toilets different supplier to generator etc.). It also meant we had to return lots of different things to different suppliers the day after the wedding.

A few more Top Tips

Get creative. We loved making lots of things ourselves and we have some very talented family members who were happy to get involved.

Don’t worry about the weather! Our wedding weekend ended up being the only weekend of rain in between 2 heatwaves. Although it meant we had to do some last minute dashes to Mountain Warehouse to buy all their umbrellas, and ask our friends to bring spare blankets and scarves, it actually made for the best day. We decided not to change our plans, and still managed an outdoor ceremony in a spinney of trees. The reception was then inside the tipi rather than in the field – this ended up being fantastic as it kept everyone together and the energy was great. We adore our pictures with umbrellas too (thanks to our fantastic photographer, Magda).