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A Relaxed Wedding Under Canvas: Gwen & Ali

February 2, 2012 in British Brides, Wedding | 9 comments

Without wanting to start off this blog post by sounding inappropriate…How smokin’ hot does Gwen look her her Fairy Goth Mother corset and skirt combo? VERY is the answer to that. Have you seen her teeny tiny little waist!?

Anyway, enough perving…let’s get along with the formalities shall we?

Gwen & Ali wanted a unique and personal wedding, and to achieve this they chose to hire tents from Beautiful World Tents which they erected on the grounds of Knepp Castle in West Grinstead. “After looking online at lots of venues and land hire this place looked perfect,” Gwen told me. “This was actually the only venue we went to see and the decision was made! Woodland, a lake, less than an hour from Brighton where we live, full kitchen facilities and more importantly stunning! The other added benefit was free roaming animal, pigs, deer and much more besides. It was incredibly beautiful and also very reasonable on costs. We found the location through the tent company and added bonus this being their headquarters which meant no delivery costs to get the tents to the venue. On the land we had 2 giant hat tents joined together facing down to the lake. You hire the land and facilities for the whole weekend, really handy for set-up and take down.”

“Also essential to the day was we wanted a very special friend of ours to marry us. Being so important to us we asked our friend Steve to perform the ceremony. OK it wouldn’t be legal but having someone you love perform the ceremony has to be better than a stranger, the words were personal to us and spoke directly to us as people rather than the one size fits all traditional ceremony. So we decided to get married at Brighton registry office in the week and then throw a big party with our friends at the weekend. Having the wedding this way did mean we had 2 weddings to plan as we had to legally get married at the registry office. At first we were apprehensive that the registry office wedding would detract from the big day, but actually when it was all over to quickly we were delighted at the prospect of doing it all over again! It did mean 2 weddings, 2 dresses (which is no bad thing), 2 dinners etc! Double the work but 10 times the enjoyment.”

“Before we even thought about where or when to get married thought about food!” the bride continued. “Being massive foodies there was no other choice than a hog roast, this helped shape the plan for an outdoor wedding, somewhere beautiful in the countryside that was relaxed and inspiring.”

“I’m also personally not a fan of cake (I also appreciate that makes me a total freak in the eyes of the world!). Ice cream on the other hand is my favourite desert. So instead of a wedding cake we had an old fashioned ice cream bike with loads of tasty flavours and toppings. Desert was provided by a Sideshow Snacks, the beautifully decorated bike and decadent ice creams were the perfect way to end the meal.”

“We wanted something unique and special to us, something that really epitomised our characters and relationship,” Gwen concluded. “Not being traditional or religious we were really seeking a day that was truly of our making. Having not been to many weddings personally a lot of the normal wedding traditions have passed me by, which in a lovely way left the vision free of constraint. The plan was to create something quirky and original and totally unique to us. Most important of all was for it to be fun, stress free and a wonderful way to spend the day celebrating with friends and family.”

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Tags: Corset, Gothic, Outdoors, tent, UK

Jon & Evey’s Lakeside Tipi Wedding

February 10, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | 12 comments

Jon & Evey’s wedding certainly verges on the pretty, cute n quirky side of what makes a great Rock n Roll wedding. As I’ve said so many times before, I love seeing how my kind of couples let their personalities shine through their big day and this pair have certainly done that in spades!

This September wedding was held at Cornish Tipi Holidays, a unique venue choice (and a brave one I might add – UK outdoor weddings always make me fret – what if it rained?!) The choice was perfect for them and their English country garden style affair though…and the weather was perfect. “We tried to do most of the organising ourselves,” explained Evey. “We had a blank canvas at the Tipi village so could decorate it in our own way. We used mostly natural items or reused bits and pieces – e.g. corks, old material, children’s books. We spent a lot of time making sure there was enough activities for the children to play with therefore parents = happy.”

The guests were all able to stay on site after the wedding which also worked out great as people could catch up the next day too. The couple organised a BBQ by the lake for everyone. “We all had the same experience staying under canvas, a short walk home and a beautiful lake to swim in the next morning. We organsied a BBQ brunch the next day so we had the opportunity to chat and catch up with people properly,” the bride said.

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Tags: British, cornwall, DIY, tent, tipi, UK

Sarah & Chris’ Handcrafted Tipi Wedding

October 28, 2010 in British Brides, Wedding | 16 comments

Sarah & Chris got married at Croft Castle, Herefordshire followed by a Tipi reception in Sarah’s Father’s field. I have a serious wedding crush on this ‘venue’!

The whole wedding was a locally-sourced and handcrafted affair as this was very important to the couple. The tipi was decorated top to toe by Sarah and her Mother (her Mum is the lady wearing the fabulous handmade patchwork coat!) “We wanted our wedding to have a handcrafted feel and it was important that our friends and families were as involved as they could be” Sarah explained. ”My inspiration for the feel of the day came from that, from getting those peoples input and spending time with them. My mother made the amazing patchwork coat that you can see her wearing, from thousands of small squares of lovely fabric, and she announced just after we got engaged that she was going to turn it into a quilt for our first baby after the wedding – this pretty much encapsulates the feel I wanted of the wedding.”

“I wanted to make as much as I could myself and took immense pleasure in spending hours stitching and crafting, using old family photos or random things picked up over the years to make everything as unique as it could be – it was so important to me that it all came, well, from the heart. Is that too cheesy? I don’t care, it was my wedding day and I loved every second of it.”

The flowers were all picked from the surrounding fields and local gardens (with permission of course!) and the bride made the bunting and 100 pots of jam! The linens and lace table runners were all found at local charity, antique and vintage shops and Chris built the campfire which everyone gathered round at the end of the night.

The bride made all the stationary and paper goods from the invites – which were little books made from wallpaper and hand stitched together, to the save the dates, the table plan – which was made with ribbon and luggage labels and service sheets – which were hand printed and hand stitched. Sarah has since decided to start her own wedding stationary company and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with. This is some seriously gorgeous and creative stuff!

Another thing that was really important to the couple was charity. After dinner, they held an auction to raise funds for ZAMCOG. They included included art from the brides art gallery www.blackrat.com, a hamper from Scotland and a dance with the bride. For their honeymoon, the pair plan to cycle across Africa, also in aid of this charity.

“For our not so romantic honeymoon we plan to cycle across Africa, from coast to coast – starting on the East coast of Tanzania, biking through Malawi, Zambia, Botswana and ending on the West coast of Namibia,” Sarah told me. ”This covers about 5,000 km and we aim to do it in 30 days. Given that we haven’t done much cycling before (not counting the 12 minutes it takes me to get to work, and the 12 minutes it takes to get back) this could be quite a challenge!”

“Chris and I are fundraising for a school in Zambia that provides education, care and shelter for orphans, street kids and other vulnerable children. Through a stable and caring environment Shitima school aims to build a self sustaining route for children to create a better future for themselves and their community. There are at present 230 children in the school and it costs approximately £300 a year to feed, clothe and educate a child. The charity that funds the school also runs a feeding programme at a nearby drop in centre for street kids. The website explains it all in full but in short its a wonderful place where children are cared for and given new opportunities. We are aiming to raise £25,000 to contribute towards new facilities that would mean that the school could take on more pupils and which would also create more jobs within the local community.”

If anyone wants to donate to help Sarah & Chris, their charity site is: http://www.justgiving.com/africacoast2coast

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Tags: British, Campfire, DIY, Field, tent, tipi, UK, Vintage

Quirky English Summer Festival Wedding

June 19, 2010 in British Brides, Wedding | 10 comments

This quirky, laid back British wedding with a cool festival vibe was sent over to be last week and you guessed it, I couldn’t wait to feature it. Rachel & Dan really did it their own way and I love the idea of a chilled out party in a tent to celebrate a wedding.

The couple were officially married at a registry office but has an ‘unoffical’ church blessing at St Peter’s Church, Weston, Suffolk. They didn’t make a big deal about the registry office part as they didn’t want this to feel like their actual wedding – in fact Rachel was still at work half an hour before their appointment! The reception was held at Marsh Farm which was just a holiday property when they found it. However since the couple got married there and Rachel published an article in The Guardian newspaper about the wedding, the owner decided to change it to a wedding venue.

The couple were pretty much given free reign at the venue and were able to organise however they wanted. They hired two kata tents and they supplied the furniture and tables. They also diy’ed everything from the flowers (which they bought at 5am on the morning of the wedding from New Covent Garden Flower Market) to the centrepieces and the cake. “We got up at 5am to get decent blooms and we chose flowers that were in season, luckily for me these were peonies and sweet peas which are my FAVOURITES!” Rachel told me. ”We went back home on the bus with these massive brown boxes of flowers and got funny looks from all the early morning commuters in London! We collected mismatched vases from charity shops and interesting glass bottles to put them in. My mum made the cake – the lace cases were made out of doilies. She spent a long time with scissors and a Pritt Stick doing those. Catering was courtesy of a friend of a friend of a friend called Sylvain Jamois. He used to work as sous chef at a restaurant called Moro in London and he came highly recommended. He did a great job – the poor man had to contend with cooking a 60 kilo pig on a stick over an open fire in strong wind and occasional showers. He did it from 5am to 7pm. It must have been a nightmare yet he delivered what the bride and groom had requested: crispy crackling.”

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Tags: British, Budget, DIY, Flowers, Outdoors, Photo booth, tent, UK, Vivienne Westwood

With a Little Help From Our Friends…{Part 1}

March 17, 2010 in Wedding | 2 comments

It’s unlike me to split a wedding up into 2 parts but Anita & Alan’s really was a wedding that deserves more than one post. You’ll see why.

Being a photographer based in Chile means that the wonderful Kyle Hepp gets to photograph some truly unique and individual weddings. Being a third world country, weddings that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds are out of the question and for Anita & Alan’s wedding in particular everything was set up with love, devotion and with help from friends and family.

“The event started the day before, with everyone coming together to set up and organise for the next day’s festivities. “On Thursday, after Seba and I spent two days on vacation exploring Castro, we met up with Anita, Alan, and about 30 of their closest friends.” Kyle told me “We carpooled from Castro to Quicavi, another little seaside town, where we would take a boat to Voigue. But first, we had to load that bad boy up. When all was said and done, I was nearly certain that we would sink. I have never seen so much stuff packed into such a small space. I mean, pretty much the entire wedding, minus the tent, was being transported. As soon as we arrived on the island, everyone set up their tents, we ate lunch and then we got right to work — and by “we,” I mean everybody else worked really hard and Seba and I photographed them working really hard.”