Fun & Colourful Forest Lodge Weddings Festival Wedding

Colour lovers, brace yourself, you are in for such a treat with WWW readers Tom and Pam’s Forest Lodge Weddings celebration in Norfolk.

Their day remarkably was achieved for £12,000 thanks to their enormous DIY efforts. Just wait until you see the festival-style wedding decorations. They are stunning. From the tambourine bridesmaid bouquets to the colourful ribbons, wildflowers and gorgeous outfits, you are going to fall hook line and sinker.

Huge thanks to Sian Richardson for sharing with us these sensational shots of the most fun day. Don’t believe me? Check out their film at the end and tell me you don’t wish you were a guest!

Tom and Pam on WWW

We found WWW an amazing place to find creative and quirky ideas that we were able to adapt to suit our vision.

Forest Lodge Weddings

The Proposal

We love a random road trip, so Tom had planned an afternoon out. Once in the car, he gave Pam some clues that led us to significant and special places from our relationship.

The last place we stopped was a bridge near Ferry Meadows in Peterborough, we used to go there for hours when we first met and it was a great place to sit and plan our next adventure! Tom asked Pam to pass him something out of his bag, where he had hidden the ring and a note asking her to marry him, luckily she said yes!

The Vision

We knew from the start we wanted to get married outdoors and decided a woodland ceremony would be perfect. It was important that the day was informal, relaxed and lots of fun!

We decided to have a festival-style wedding, with no set colour scheme as we didn’t want everything to match. We also added links to our travelling experiences as we wanted our day to reflect us.

Budget

Our original budget was around £6,000, but we ended up spending double (luckily this included our honeymoon) but it was completely worth it in the end!

The Venue

Forest Lodge Weddings in Brandon, Thetford.

We both love being outdoors and in nature so this venue was perfect for us. We also loved that the venue was a blank canvas, we could decorate it how we wanted and our guests had the option to camp so we could extend the celebrations!

The Styling & Decor

To save money and help make our day personal to us, we decided to DIY decorations where possible with the help from family and friends!

We chose countries we had visited together as table names and collected colourful glass bottles and jars throughout our engagement which we then filled with wildflowers from Dutch Flower Parade.

We cut log slices and used them for place names. In the tipi, we hung paper lanterns from the beams and homemade rag bunting around the front of the tipi. Outside the tipi, Tom made massive letters saying TPFEST which we painted bright colours.

To fit into the festival theme we also had festival flags spaced around the area. We hired a firepit and haybales to create a seating area and Tom’s mum made colourful blankets to sit on.

We restored a wooden ladder and used suitcases to create a merch stand which had a range of things on including sunglasses, flower crowns, glow sticks and tattoos for our guests to help themselves to. We also collected loads of pallets and pieces of wood which Tom and one of his best men Scott used to make different signs and games.

Pam made dreamcatchers using doilies and ribbon. We collected loads of photo booth props and created an area in the wood for guests to have fun snapping some pictures. In the woods, we also hung loads of bunting which Tom’s sister had made for us which added more colour to our day.

Pam’s bouquet had a bright and colourful mix of wildflowers with sunflowers arranged in a wild and unstructured way. We had buttonholes which had a thistle in to represent Tom’s Scottish background. For the bridesmaids, we made tambourines with different mandala patterns on them instead of using traditional flower bouquets.

Our wedding cake was kindly made by Tom’s sister, Sarah. She made a three-tier naked cake, decorated with colourful edible flowers. Each layer was a different flavour and everyone loved it. The cake was presented on a log slice which Tom’s dad had made especially for us. Toms’s mum also made fudge, shortbread and cupcakes for dessert.

We had loads of decorations and things to set up before the wedding and we were extremely lucky and grateful that loads of our friends and family came to help. We couldn’t have done it without them!

The Ceremony & Music

Pam arrived at the venue in our friend’s VW campervan. The ceremony took place in the woods surrounded by close family and friends.

We chose the song ‘Anywhere’ by Passenger as it reminded us of travelling for Pam to walk down the aisle to. We were very lucky that our friend played his own version of the song on the guitar and sang it for us.

After the ceremony and food, we had a festival-style line up with our friends on the decks and partied the night away in the tipi. Our friend Ryan from Elusive Audio very kindly provided the speakers and one of Tom’s best men provided the lasers.

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

We used Sian Richardson photo and film as we loved the unique and natural style of her photos. Sian was absolutely amazing from the start.

On our pre-wedding photo shoot, Sian made us feel comfortable and took some awesome photos. Sian was in communication with us in the lead-up to the day and throughout the wedding day, her and Tiahne were incredible!

They captured lots of photos/videos and made us and all our guests feel comfortable. They captured the fun, colourful and relaxed themed wedding and waking up the next morning to some sneak peeks was amazing.

Your Outfits

Tom and the groomsmen wanted a relaxed outfit and went to Next for some brown chinos and a white shirt. They wore matching grey vans and braces and a bow tie which matched the colour of the bridesmaid dresses.

Pam chose a Stella York ballgown dress from Gowns & Garters and wore a Cathedral-length veil brought by her sister Charlotte. Pam was gifted a Pandora bracelet as her something blue to wear on the day. Pam wore white sandals and her friend Carmen drew a beautiful henna design on her foot.

The bridesmaid dresses were from Dorothy Perkins, we decided to get different styles but kept the colour the same.

The Honeymoon

A couple of days after our wedding we went to Norway for 3 weeks on our honeymoon. We wanted something a bit different and ended up enjoying the midnight sun in Svalbard, road-tripping through the Lofoten Islands and exploring Oslo.

It was an amazing experience and one of our favourite places we have ever been.

Memorable Moments

Pam and her bridal party getting ready together on the morning of the wedding. Paula and Abi from Glowstylist were amazing.
Pam, her sister and her niece Scarlett’s campervan ride to the wedding. It was really emotional seeing all the little touches our friends Harry and Kelly had added to the campervan and the drive to the wedding was really special.
Our friend Pete playing and singing Pam down the aisle.
Being silly and laughing so much during the smoke bomb photos!
Getting our ice creams at the ice cream van!
Loads of our guests taking part in a dance off after the first dance.
Seeing so many of our guests glitz by the amazing ladies at the glitter bar.
Our friends including Rachel, Dave, Birdy and Jamie playing different sets for us so everyone could dance the night away!
Sitting up to early hours around the tents surrounded by friends.