Stacey & Matt's Three Giant Hat Tipi Wedding

Stacey & Matt’s Three Giant Hat Tipi Wedding

Stacey and Matt celebrated their Three Giant Hat Tipi Wedding back in May this year. After visiting one of our Sami Tipi Cattows Farm open events, they decided it was the perfect match and chose Cattows Farm as the backdrop for their tipi wedding.

With Tara Knott styling their tipis and an array of amazing food suppliers – Saffron Catering, Alpine Pizza, and The Old Manor House Bakery – they had a beautifully styled, relaxed, festival vibe to their day. With lots of laughter and children playing in all the outdoor space – it was just what they always wanted.

Stacey talks us through the details alongside photos from Inna Kostukovsky.

What made you decide on an outdoor wedding?

We both love being outdoors and are big festival fans so we loved the idea of tipis as soon as we saw them. Visiting them only cemented this choice for us as they really do feel magical with all the fairy lights on. It’s exactly the vibe we wanted! Neither of us see ourselves as particularly ‘traditional’ people. So we were excited to be doing something a bit different where we could feel comfortable in our own style. I (Stacey) love planning events and details, so the tipis were a perfect option for me. Allowing myself to get really involved and creative as they are basically a blank canvas!

What did everybody wear?

Matt pretty much knew exactly what he wanted from the start and only needed a little steering from me and my Pinterest board! The boys all wore dark navy tweed three-piece suits from Slaters. With crisp white shirts and champagne coloured silk ties and pocket squares. They also had white rose and eucalyptus button holes. They looked amazing!

I was certain that I wanted a really untraditional floaty festival-vibe dress. But I was really worried that the dress I had concocted in my mind didn’t actually exist and I was going to be disappointed. I went to The Dress Place trying to keep an open mind where they insisted that I try on all styles to make sure I had ticked them all off as ‘you never know’. As it turns out I fell in love with a beautiful full lace dress with a train. No one was more shocked than me! To make it my own I had the sleeves altered and some sparkle sewn in. I was super happy with the end result!

The bridesmaids were pretty easy. After a few options discussed over the group WhatsApp they all liked the first one we ordered! They wore dusky pink Maya dresses with sequins. This worked especially well as they also had a matching children’s option for my daughter Lily who had appointed herself, quite rightly, as ‘Chief Bridesmaid’.

Tell us about your ceremony.

Our ceremony was conducted by Jo at My Perfect Ceremony. She is just brilliant! We loved that we got to meet her beforehand and that meant that the whole thing was completely personalised. The fact that she took the time to get to know us along the process made the whole ceremony feel more comfortable. It also got rid of any of the nerves. We were unfortunate to have had our original wedding date booked for 2020. And we eventually had it in 2022, so that process was longer than most. But Jo and our other suppliers felt more like friends by the wedding day.

We held the ceremony in front of the big tree at Cattows Farm with the tipis behind. Everyone sat on hay bales and blankets with the sun shining and it was just perfect! Those hay bales were fully utilised into the rest of the day too. With some being moved to create a photo area with the ceremony arch, and the rest the children commandeered to build dens. They had the best time!

How would you describe your theme / styling?

For the styling we had Tara Knott who is just the best! She completely got the vision we were wanting and totally nailed it on the day. And to top it off she’s the nicest person ever. We opted for candles over flowers for the tables as we wanted to continue the ‘twinkly lights’ theme that we loved about the tipis in the first place. We also had lanterns and disco balls for extra sparkle over the dancefloor. The little details were important to me and I tried to get involved as much as I could with things like making the wedding favours and the menus/ table plan etc. Our house was covered in glitter for months!

I will admit I can be a bit anxious when handing over control of things like this but I completely trusted Tara.The fact that we had the tipis for longer than just our day too meant that we could go and look over everything and add the finishing touches that we had made ourselves. It was really great as I knew then that it was all sorted and I didn’t need to worry about any surprises on the day. Although I was not prepared for how emotional it would feel to leave the tipis after collecting up our props the day after!

How did you feed your guests?

This was important for us. We are both foodies and with Matt being a rugby player we knew we would need to keep the guys fed!

After the ceremony there were canapés and welcome drinks from Saffron Catering. They even saved us a plate of them so we didn’t miss out while we were off having photos!

Saffron did our day food too. We went for a 3-course sit down meal where we allowed our guests a choice between 3 options for each course. So many people commented on how good the food was. We also thought it was nice to have been able to give a choice. As you often just get what you’re given at weddings! The kids also had their own menu. They had a kids-only table where they all became best mates for the day!

Evening food was an easy choice for us. Pizza is our favourite and after meeting Sam from Alpine Pizza at a Sami Tipi Cattows Farm open day we signed him up straight away. It was a great decision! We also had Old Manor House Bakery (who also made our amazing cake!) with their crepe van which also turned out to be a brilliant decision. My daughter alone tried about 4 of their different flavours!

Alongside all of this we also set up a sweets table which we had a lot of fun putting together. I’m not sure who was more excited about this, the kids or the rugby team! We also hired Sami Tipis s’mores bar which went perfectly with the firepit and everyone had a great time making these. It made for some great photos!

How did you entertain your guests?

We always knew that we wanted a band over just a DJ. There just seems to be a bigger atmosphere with a band and we really enjoyed searching for the perfect fit. We went with ‘West Coast Heroes’ who were absolutely brilliant! We had an acoustic set played after the ceremony whilst guests were enjoying their welcome drinks and canapés.

They then played from about 7pm to midnight with a mix of live sets and DJ sets in between. They also offer an additional service to learn your chosen first dance song which we would really recommend as it made it so special (we just wish we had asked someone to record the whole thing! Oops!). We had ‘Stolen’ by Dashboard Confessional. The band called us to chat through it before the day and their original version ended up amazing.

We also had the outdoor games package from Sami Tipi to keep everyone entertained which went down really well with both adults and kids!

What are your 3 Top Tips for planning a Three Giant Hat Tipi wedding?

Top Tip 1

Definitely make the most of the open days! Not only to remind yourself of how amazing the tipis look when they’re all set up, but this was where we met a lot of our suppliers too! We also got a lot of ideas from seeing things in person so it’s definitely worth going to as many as you can. There are also a lot of food samples which were Matt’s favourite part!

Top Tip 2

Consider as many potential scenarios as you can to be prepared. We were very lucky that it was bright sunshine on our day but we had contingency plans already discussed just in case so there would be no panic on the day if things had to change. I would say too to make sure you have some heat sources for the evening. Even though our day was sunny it dropped cooler in the evening. We had some blankets and the fire pit but I think some people would have ended up uncomfortable if we didn’t. Perhaps suggest to your guests to bring a shawl or jacket just in case!

Top Tip 3

This is true for all weddings but if you are having children at your wedding make sure they have things to entertain them. Their parents will thank you and it makes the whole day run smoother! We had a lot of kids at ours, we sat them all together and placed their table in the middle with parents dotted around them. We made them some activity boxes too which helped!

The kids loved the tipis and the fact that they had outdoor space (and hay bales) to play in throughout the day where parents could still see them and they were safe was just amazing and not something you can always get at a more traditional venue. The fact that with tipis and outdoor weddings you have the power to create your own layout and position where everything goes you can control these sorts of things to play in your favour!