Beautiful Tipi Wedding With Lovely Personal Touches

I think you’re really going to love today’s fun, laid back, rustic, and very outdoorsy wedding. Bride Emma is not only WWW reader but she is also a member of our Supplier Love Directory with her gorgeous stationery, Blush & Blossom Paper. Of course, you will be able to spy that her beautiful work features in their day, amazing. 

Emma and Elliott tied the knot on 20th July 2019 with a church ceremony and a brilliant tipi reception held at High Barn, Edenhall. As well as Emma’s wonderful stationery, there are lots of other really special touches like the polaroid wall and brilliant signs and props. The florals are to die for and the tipis looked just magical laden in fairy lights by night.

Our pair knew that they wanted Bloom Weddings to photograph their wedding before they had planned anything else and of course they weren’t disappointed with the results! Thank you so much Chis and Annie for sharing your incredible work with us today.

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The Proposal

The proposal was unreal and so unexpected! We were in Thailand for my 30th birthday and we were surrounded by elephants after a day trekking through the Chiang Mai highlands. It was towards the end of the day and it was just us and the elephants when Elliott got down on one knee and popped the question! I was on such a high after the incredible day we had just had that it totally took my by surprise and literally made it one of the best days of our lives! We then had the most incredible three weeks travelling around Thailand!

The Vision

We both knew we wanted a laid back and relaxed style of wedding where everyone could just have fun and not worry too much about formalities. From the moment we stepped inside the tipis, we knew that was the kind of vibe we wanted with the gorgeous fairy lights and rustic details. We are both fairly creative so we wanted to be able to have control over the decor and both our venue and the tipis were perfect for allowing us to do this.

The Planning Process

The first thing we decided on was a tipi, then we found the most magical venue – High Barn at Edenhall. Then once those two things were decided, everything started falling into place. We had just over a year to plan, so we focused on the big things first, then all the finer details and DIY elements happened throughout the year. We wanted to use a mixture of local suppliers from the Lake District, then a few from Yorkshire which is where we both live now.

The Venue

High Barn was the first venue we looked at in the Lake District, we had looked at a few in Yorkshire but quickly decided it made sense for us to get married up in the Lake District which is where I was born and grew up. As soon as we drove up to the barn and saw the beautiful views of the mountains and woodlands, we both knew straight away this was a special place. We got shown around the venue and from the beginning, we both knew this would be the perfect place.

High Barn allows tipi weddings so we hired Special Event Tipis and placed these behind the barn. The guys at High Barn gave us total control over the day, which is exactly what we wanted. There is plenty of outdoor space, as well as an indoor barn just incase the Cumbrian weather turns! We were optimistic and planned to have people outside most of the day enjoying the views, luckily it paid off as the clouds cleared to see the mountains later in the day. There is also a ‘bothy’ attached to the main barn which is where we stayed the night of our wedding. It was so lovely being able to stay at the venue, and we can even go back and stay for anniversaries as they have it on Airbnb!

Your Outfits & Accessories 

I did the typical thing of choosing a dress which I never in a million years thought I would! After trying on a few dresses in the style I thought I’d originally go for and not really loving them, Allyson from The Harrogate Wedding Lounge pulled out a ‘wildcard’ dress. As soon as I tried it on I instantly loved it and I could tell from the look on my mum and bridesmaids face that this must be the dress! It was called Juri by Enzoani, and had a beautiful lace bodice with an illusion lace train and a low illusion back. I paired it with a full length veil and ivory heels, and got some gorgeous Moonstruck earrings from Liberty In Love.

My bridesmaids and bridesman then bought me a beautiful silver bracelet with a blue stone to wear as my ‘something blue’ for the day, along with a sixpence for my shoe. My parents then gave me a little silver jewellery bag which contained a blue button, a lucky horseshoe and a sixpence – these were all gifts that had been given to both my grandparents and parents when they got married and my mum pinned these to the inside of my dress so I could have them with me on the day. As well as wearing my own engagement and wedding ring, I also got my nanna’s engagement ring resized so I could wear this on my other hand. This was left to me when she passed away a few years ago and I wear it every day now and love that it reminds me of her and the wonderful marriage that her and my grandad had.

Beauty 

I chose a local make-up artist from Penrith called Lauren who had lots of experience doing bridal makeup. I had my make-up trial a few months before, and wanted it to be quite natural with a pop of colour on my lips. She did an amazing job and made me feel at ease straight away. She then did make-up for my bridesmaids and my mum on the wedding day, and again did a fabulous job of making everyone look stunning. 

Elliott’s sister and fiancé, Natalie and Ben are both hair stylists, so having them in the family was perfect as they kindly offered to do hair for the whole bridal party. I’d had my trial and decided as I wear my hair down pretty much all the time, then why do something different for my wedding day. Natalie added some soft curls and a plait around the back of my head, perfect for my veil to sit into. They then did soft curls for my bridesmaids and an updo for my mum. It was so lovely having them both around the morning of the wedding, Ben was even helping with prosecco duty!

The Readings & Music

We chose two readings for our church ceremony. Corinthians was our first reading and this was read by Elliott’s sister, Natalie. The second reading we chose was a passage from ‘The Amber Spyglass’ by Philip Pullman. This was read by our friend, Lisbeth who did such a magical job that the reading was used as the intro for our wedding highlights film!

“I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again…I’ll be looking for you every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you…We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams…And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight…”

We had created music playlists for certain parts of the day as we wanted each to have a slightly different vibe. We had playlists for welcome drinks, during dinner and then in the evening our friend Owen who is a DJ busted out the tunes until the early morning! There were a few songs we’d specified but then left it up to him to create a party playlist – it’s safe to say the dance floor was full right until the end, and we loved that our friends could play such a key part in our day too.

The Flowers

We both wanted quite wildflower looking flowers, nothing too prim and proper we decided. We met Laura from Greenwheat at one of High Barn’s open days and we loved her rustic style and booked her straight away.

We didn’t have much of an idea of flower-types, but we knew we wanted pinks, purples and soft blues, along with some ferns as they always remind me of the Lake District. Laura then did all of the bouquets, buttonholes, milk churns and a basket full of flowers for our ‘welcome to our love story’ vintage bike. For the tables we used Cumberland Flower Farm and bought some buckets of mixed wild-flowers. My sister-in-law, Ceara, then helped the day before and split all of these out into individual milk jars to sit on the tables. We also had a hanging edison bulb chandelier as part of our tipi and we used Roseberry Floral to create a stunning foliage hanging centerpiece for this. It looked stunning when it was hung up in the tipi among the lights! 

Your Photographer

We knew who we wanted to use as our photographers before we even got engaged! They are called Chris and Annie from Bloom Weddings and had already done a few of our friends weddings, so we knew how talented they were. We love their relaxed documentary style of shooting and how amazingly they work as a couple. We liked the idea of Annie spending the morning with me, and Chris spending the morning with the boys, so that we could capture every part of getting ready. There were times during the day where we went to get some couple shots, and the photos taken in the woodland in the evening light are just stunning, we can’t wait to get some framed! Both of them made us feel totally at ease throughout the day, and we were over the moon when we received our photos. 

Groomsmen

Elliott went shopping with the boys to choose their outfits and they decided on a navy blue textured suit from Next. We wanted things to feel laid back so the groomsmen and bridesman wore trousers, waistcoat, shirt and tie, all with matching brown brogues and polka dot Happy Socks.

Your Filmmaker

Bloom Weddings also offered a highlights video and I am so happy we chose to get this! It’s the most magical thing (maybe I’m biased!) but they captured the whole day from start to finish in the most natural way, telling our love story perfectly. It captures all of the little details and decorations that we’d worked so hard to pull together, and all of the key moments throughout the day. Both of us were in tears watching it! You can watch it here. 

Bridesmaids

We didn’t really have a particular colour scheme, but we matched the bridesmaid dresses with the groomsmen and bridesman ties. Both the ties and dresses were from ASOS, which was perfect as my maid of honour lives in Australia so it was ideal for her to try on dresses over there. I absolutely love how everything came together on the day.

The Cake

Although, we both love cake, we both really love cheese too! As we’d already decided to have a grazing board for the evening food, we thought a tower of mixed cheese for our wedding cake would work perfectly with this. We wanted to use a local supplier so we found a deli based in Penrith called JJ Graham. They were great at advising us how much we needed and even invited us in to do a cheese tasting one afternoon which we both loved! The cake was delivered the morning of the wedding and decorated by our caterers, Bears Pantry, with grapes, figs and ferns. It was delicious!

The Details & Décor 

As I’m a wedding stationery designer, I have an attention for detail and so wanted to include lots of personal touches throughout the day. From the beginning, I wanted to save the dates to be something different that guests could have fun with. I designed a ‘build your own tipi’ which allowed guests to build these into an upstanding tipi structure to reveal the save the date details. These went down a storm and I now offer these as a product in my Etsy shop for other couples having a tipi wedding! I then went on to design matching invitations – I designed a folded invite which included custom illustrations of us both, along with a handy map to find the venue and tear-off RSVP. I wanted the stationery on the day to match so I designed the order of service, name cards, menus, and little tags to tie around our gin-bottle favours. I absolutely loved designing my own stationery, even though I do it a job there is still something special about getting to design your very own wedding stationery.

We used a company called Wilde & Romantic, who are again a local supplier, to hire some of the decorative items we used throughout the day. We met the lovely Janet who invited us to her unit which is a treasure trove for anything vintage and unique! We chatted over a brew about what we could use for our day and what kind of style we were going for. We ended up hiring several items including whiskey barrels, gold-framed chalkboards, fruit crates, a vintage bike, candlesticks, rustic blankets and some slate signs which were beautifully written on by the talented Jill Lilley who is a local calligraphy artist. Finding Janet was an absolute dream as it would have cost a fortune to source and buy all the items we wanted, so it worked out perfectly that we could hire them all instead. There was such a fabulous collection of items to choose from and what we picked fit in perfectly up at High Barn.

I also can’t forget to mention Special Event tipis as they were outstanding in terms of wedding suppliers. They were so helpful during every part of our planning, and I’m not going to lie, planning a wedding in a tipi is stressful as there are so many extra elements to think about. They provided us with the most stunning tipis and the flexibility to choose our own layout, furniture and props which was exactly what we wanted. We got items including an outdoor fire-pit for toasting marshmallows, moroccan lanterns to create a cosy vibe and a carnival ‘dance’ sign for the dancefloor, as well as what felt like a million fairy lights strung around the tipi poles – these really made the tipis look so magical in the evening! The Special Events team came to set up on the Thursday before the wedding and it was one of the best parts seeing everything come together after months of planning. The team were an absolute dream to work with from start to finish, even Beatrice the team dog!

We wanted the day to feel personal, so we created a polaroid photo wall which included photos of all of our friends and family, mixed with some of the amazing holidays me and Elliott had been on together. We also had an area set up for cards and our guestbook and chalkboards displaying the order of the day and seating plan, as well as some slate signs with ‘welcome to our love story’ and ‘best day ever’ displayed around the venue. The tables included details such as wildflowers in jars, hand-dyed table runners, gold candlesticks with tall candles, menus and a mix of rhubarb and passion fruit flavoured gins which we had as our favours.

The Honeymoon

We went on our honeymoon a couple of days after our wedding – we’d both decided we just wanted to stay on top of that wedding cloud for as long as possible! We both love travelling and experiencing new cultures so decided we would travel around Indonesia for three weeks for our honeymoon. We’d set up a Patchwork fund page for our guests to be able to treat us to our honeymoon experiences – this way they could see what their money was going towards, everything from a fresh coconut to a cooking class, boat trips and sunset cocktails!

Starting in Singapore, we spent a few days there before heading over to Bali. Whilst we were in Bali we travelled to Seminyak, Ubud and Nusa Penida over a couple of weeks. We then spent the last week relaxing on the Gili Islands where we swam with turtles and watched the sunset every night. It was the perfect ending to our wedding and the best start to married life!

Memorable Moments

Oh my gosh, so many! My absolute favourites were getting ready in the morning with all of my favourite people around me, getting chauffeured to the church with my dad by Elliott’s uncle in his fancy golden Jaguar, then seeing Elliott’s face as I was walking down the aisle.

After that I just loved seeing and chatting to everyone that had came to celebrate with us, then my dad’s speech just blew everyone away, a lot of people saying ‘that was the best dad speech I have ever heard’! Then I loved sneaking off with Elliott to get photos in the woods and just spending some time together, then literally dancing the night away with all of our friends and family. The final bit was when all of our guests had left and me and Elliott sat outside on the Chesterfield sofa under a blanket looking at the stars and the fairy-lit tipis, just in awe of everything that had just happened! It was so nice to be able to take that time at the end of the night together and take it all in. It really was the best day ever!

Advice For Other Couples

It’s your day so just go with what you feel is right for you as a couple. Have as much fun as you can and try and make it as personal as possible. Also try not to do everything at once, we had just over a year to plan ours, but remember that everything doesn’t have to be sorted from the beginning, rope in friends and family when it comes to the tiny details and setting up the day before. 

Most of all, and everybody says it, but try to step back on the day just to take it all in – it really does absolutely fly by! Finally, just enjoy yourself and don’t stress about the details on the day, it will all be perfect whatever ends up happening!

Credit Where Credit Is Due

What a beautiful day, with so many personal touches. Thank you ever so much Emma and Elliott for sharing everything with us. Rachel x