Herefordshire Tipi Wedding

Liz and Chris, married on a September day, on Liz’s beautiful family farm in rural Herefordshire. They had a stunning tipi set up looking over Herefordshire hills, and a personal highlight pie and mash from Pieminster! oww no forgetting the Colin the Caterpillar wedding cake, it really is the best cake, you just cant beat it. All the guests where surprised during the drinks reception as they were joined by Alpacas, which where super cute, but a little stubborn when we took them on a little walk, I think they had been looking forward to the canapés.

It was such a joy to capture Liz and Chris’s day, it was filled with so much fun and laughter, a massive thank you to Becky Birch-Hayes for helping me shoot to day, you might be able to spot me in a few photos, but little Rex was on board for this wedding and was getting rather large 🙂

Where did you meet?

We met skiing in Bulgaria 10 years ago through a mutual friend.

The proposal

Chris actually proposed on my family farm in the field next to where we had our wedding reception. He put on a treasure hunt which ended in a proposal in the horse shelter!

Wedding planning

We both absolutely loved wedding planning, were very organized and had 100s of ideas! I think that’s the attitude you need to have if you are doing a “DIY” wedding – as it really is a lot of work! We knew we wanted the reception to be on my family farm and we wanted to incorporate many aspects of the farm into our day such as into the stationary and using lots of farm props! Our essential items were having Pieminister as our caterers (after many years enjoying their food at Glastonbury festival), having our reception in giant tipi tents and alpacas! Everything else built up around these vendors. We also involved many family and friends in helping us make things and prepare for the wedding for the whole year, including Chris’s dad making damson gin from damsons grown on the farm, Chris’s mum and godmother making miles of bunting and my dad making a cake stand out of an old tree from the orchard. Our very talented designer friend Carly also offered to do our stationary – which was absolutely beautiful and captured so many details of the farm.

How did you pick or decided on your venue’s?

The only place we ever considered for our ceremony was the village church. This is the heart of the village community and holds many memories for me and my family. It was so nice attending church in the run up to the wedding and getting to know many members of the congregation. The reception at the farm was then only a short walk down the lane.

What was the most memorable part of your day?

I don’t think that I could name one part of the day which was my favourite. It was just amazing seeing all your friends and family in one place and also seeing the wedding unfold after all the months of planning and seeing everyone else enjoying what we had put together. It was great seeing how excited people were about our Alpacas, as we had tried to keep them secret!

Outfits

My dress was by Rembo Styling – I literally loved all their dresses – and it was hard to choose, but in the end I chose “wild wonder” as I loved the warm colour and all the little details. I really wanted myself and my bridesmaids to wear flower crowns, as this really added to the country/festival wedding vibe – Issy & Bella did such an amazing job. My something borrowed was a gold bracelet from my mum. Chris had his blue suit tailor-made on Saville Row, at least he can wear it again!

Advice for future couples wedding planning?

If you have loads of ideas, start early! Make sure you involve family and friends. Don’t worry about tiny details on the day – your vendors will know what they are doing – and you won’t actually care. Decide early on what things are the most important to you, and build everything else around this.