Alexa & Jamie's Festival Style Tipi Wedding
Alexa and Jamie's wedding had so many fantastic elements; a beautiful seaside first look, a four legged ring bearer, a helicopter and a party in a field. And all of it was done in the most stylish of ways. We're particulalry fond of the wonderfully styled tipi, by Events Under Canvas, which perfectly captured Alexa and Jamie's fun-loving spirit, and allowed them to dance the night away with all the friends.
The whole day was captured beautifully by Dan Sakal...
Here's Alexa's (beautifully written) round up of the day...
"Jamie proposed to me on the beach near home on Mersea Island whilst walking our black Labrador Roscoe in June 2015, and the planning all began soon after that! We were keen for the day to be more of a weekend, so we could make the most of having lots of friends and family in one place at the same time - and that was really the theme of our wedding, lots of laughter and fun and a relaxed thrown-together vibe! We wanted to join together both our families, so had a church wedding service in our local church near the beach where Jamie's family live practically next door, and had the reception in the meadow of my parents' farm in south Essex. Using my parents' land gave us free reign for making our wedding totally personal and unique, which was amazing but certainly created a lot of (fun!) work for us!
Tipis create the perfect relaxed boho-style atmosphere that we were looking for, and we couldn't have asked for more from 'Events Under Canvas' - they were brilliant throughout the planning process and did a great job, from setting up the tipis and kung, to stringing fairy lights through trees along the side of the meadow, to creating a fab glamping village in the meadow for our friends to crash in once they were down with dancing! We had a 'wild British flower' theme to the decorations and bouquets, with beautiful blue cornflowers, red geums and purple verbena and nigella, all looking like they had just been picked. Our florist, Patrick Cadman at 'The Country Flower Garden' (www.thecountrygardenflowercompany.com ) was fantastic at realising exactly what we were looking for and making it happen, even down to 60 lightbulb vases filled with pretty posies of flowers strung up from beams as if they were floating in the tipis. We wanted to bring different cultures into our wedding from places we had travelled together, so had prayer flags from Nepal strung up at the entrance to the tipis, hundreds of origami peace cranes that we'd made with friends hanging all around the chill-out kung and over the bar, and mehndi designs on my hands.
Since we wanted to make the most of our time with our friends and family, we started the day somewhat early with our service starting at 10:30am - but Jamie and I had a 'first look' at his mum's house overlooking the sea before the service which gave us a really magical couple of minutes to see each other for the first time that day and share a few words. During the service, our dog Roscoe was our ring bearer (as well as videographer through the rest of the day!) and we were all amazed that he performed brilliantly by running the rings up the aisle to us at the right time without barking at the Reverend! One of Jamie's best men, Ben, somehow managed to lose his trousers on the journey to Mersea from Dublin and, being about 6'2" and very slim, there was no one who could lend him anything that matched his outfit. It certainly made everyone laugh in the church when they saw him in his waistcoat and jacket but with a pair of shorts on and pulled up bright orange socks!
After the service our photographer Dan took some fantastic shots of us on the beach whilst everyone made their way to the reception venue at the farm. We can't rate Dan highly enough - he worked so hard throughout the day to create so many beautiful photos, and we were really glad to have found him. Jamie's stepdad then flew us down to the meadow in his helicopter, which was amazing! We got an incredible aerial view of the tipis and glamping village surrounded by festival flags and all our friends and family waiting for us with drinks in hands!
Linda Hamilton Catering created a delicious feast of barbecued thai-marinaded steak and ginger-soy-sesame salmon, with big sharing salad bowls on each table - a beautiful fresh salad of grilled asparagus, pea, courgette and goats' cheese, tabbouleh, and multicoloured tomatoes with balsamic glaze. Dessert was a raspberry pistachio meringue roulade or chocolate and Baileys cheesecake, both of which were gorgeous! So many people commented on how good the food was, and best of all it felt like it was really matched to our personalities and the sort of food we love. I made our wedding cake as a kransekage of 36 layers, made with a little help from my mum and my three-year-old niece! We decorated it with beautiful edible organic flowers from a great little flower company based in Devon.
We had so many plans for the afternoon, from games of rounders and 'human hungry hippos' to throw-the-welly and a paint balloon canvas - but the day just flew by in a blur of laughter and chatting, so the games had to wait until the following day! One of my brothers had secretly organised a jazz band to play in the afternoon with him playing in it which was such a thoughtful surprise, and later on we had a band, Cushti, playing some great tunes to get everyone on the dance floor pulling their best moves and lunges! We had a fish and chip van supplying our evening food (www.greensfishbar.co.uk ), and much later on we brought out a huge stack of Krispy Creme doughnuts to keep everyone's sugar levels topped up! We had firepit (supplied by Events Under Canvas) ablaze throughout the evening which created a focus point, and we accessorised it with heaps of marshmallows to be toasted, sparklers to be lit and powders to change the colour of the flames.
Eventually through the early hours of the morning, people could disappear to their glamping bell tents at the other end of the meadow, so no official finish time or taxi was needed! Throughout the following morning, people woke up in the sunshine to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and bacon baguettes being cooked on the barbeque, the tunes started again and we just carried on with the celebrating!
Tipis, furniture, lighting, dancefloor, bar, firepits and glampsite were all provided by the brilliant Events Under Canvas.
Events Under Canvas have just launched their range of sailcloth tents. These beautiful New England style tents let in loads of natural light and glow at night! Events Under Canvas is a one stop shop for anyone looking for a stunning alternative to marquees. Get in touch for a no obligation quote for your special day or a brochure.