Charming & Elegant Lavender Farm Tipi Wedding

One of the loveliest weddings of the summer right here. Right now.

Elegant and stylish couple; Kirsten and Rich had a summer wedding at the beautiful Hitchin Lavender Farm, Hertfordshire. They had the most gorgeous sun shining day, with tipis filled with pretty touches.

I so adore the white bridesmaid dresses and those peony bouquets which must have smelt divine alongside the lavender in the background.

Kirsten had a classic style dress by Lyn Ashworth which she accessorised with a lace edged veil and perfectly coiffed hair. Rich donned a dark blue three piece suit by Reiss. So much style.

Thanks so much to Rebecca Wedding Photography for sharing her delightful photographs with us today.

The Proposal

A complete surprise for Kirsten! Rich had been planning for months and had bought the beautiful ring which he took with us on a surfing holiday to Portugal… And proposed over looking a gorgeous beach in the evening.

The Vision for the Day

A traditional church wedding at Kirsten’s family’s church, where she grew up in Watford. Followed by a reception, which incorporated an outdoors/countryside feel, we wanted a relaxed reception with lots of personal touches.

The Planning Process

Took just under 12 months, we knew which church we wanted to be married in so we started to search for a reception venue nearby. In the meantime, we fell in love with Nordic Tipis! So we wanted to find somewhere lovely to site one.

The Planning was really so much fun – Kirsten loved choosing the flowers, the dress, making the candle holders tables, and other arts & crafts.

The Venue

Once we had chosen to have our reception in a Nordic Tipi we looked for possible venues with land on which to site one. We looked around a few houses with grounds and then came across the Lavender Farm.

As soon as we got there and saw the rows of Lavender disappearing off into the horizon we totally fell in love it, we knew it was the place for us!

The Readings + Music

We spent quite a long time looking at possible readings for the church service, We came across Dr Seuss’s book ‘Oh the Places you’ll go’ and really felt it captured some of our thoughts.

The Flowers

Kirsten loves flowers! So wanted lots of them, we chose a pale pink and ivory theme, with gorgeous peonies and roses in the bouquets and table arrangements. Plus we had the odd sprig of lavender in the table vases to tie in with the lavender farm venue.

The Details + Decor

We didn’t want to over decorate the tipi as we love its natural look, with the wooden beams, tables and benches. So we used floral bunting to decorate the cross beams, and we had lots of flowers on the tables alongside candles in jam jars, we also had little young potted lavender plants as the favours. It took us months to decorate the jam jars with polka dot ribbon bows – but the over all effect was really pretty and we knew we had put our own touch on the day.

The Cake

Kirsten made banana bread for everyone to have after the church service to keep them going until the reception – it is one of our favourites and reminds us of the year we spent together in Australia – surfing and eating banana bread!

We just wanted a simple traditional wedding cake, we taste tested a few (the family were please to assist) and Marks and Spencer’s was the tastiest. We decorated it with fresh flowers to match the rest, and it looked and tasted good!

The Outfits

Kirsten: I tend to wear quite simple pieces in my ‘normal’ life, and I wanted to look like me, so I went to quite a few shops with my mum, sister and bridesmaids and realised that a traditional waisted dress suited me best.

I had seen some pictures of Lyn Ashworth dresses, and visited a bridal shop on a day when the designer was present. She helped me build on the existing beautiful cut by adding small details, like the lace to the collar, and a stain waits ribbon, together we created my bespoke dress.

Rich wanted a smart look, but wanted to avoid tails, so we opted for a really tailored 3 piece suit in dark blue. Due to his long limbs we struggles to get the right fit but finally found one in Reiss, which just needed a few adjustments!

Beautiful Bridesmaids

My sister and two best friends were our beautiful bridesmaids, and they all looked so fresh and lovely in ivory tea length dresses from LK Bennett, which were accessorised with pale pink silk flowers at the waist. They were a brilliant support during the planning and much fun was had discussing the details of the day.

Your Photographer

We narrowed down our choice of photographer by looking at the online pictures of several local photographers – we wanted quite natural photos. We then met toe of them and fell in love with Rebecca’s enthusiasm! We knew we could rely on her to do her own thing, make our guests feel at ease and capture beautiful photographs. And we were not disappointed – it was a pleasure to have her at our wedding.

The Honeymoon

We spent 3 weeks in Sri Lanka, it was a brilliant mix of beautiful hotels, sightseeing, elephant spotting and surfing! Just our thing!

Memorable Moments

Seeing everyone we love together in the church. Looking at Rich as I walked down the aisle. Seeing the Lavender Farm under a bright blue cloudless sky! Our first dance… too many more too write!

Advice for Other Couples

Love the preparation and planning – it gave us the most memorable 12 months and then our perfect day!

Credit Where Credit is Due…

Venue | Hitchin Lavender Farm, Cadwell Farm

Tipi | Tipis 4Hire

Bride Dress | Lyn Ashworth at Cicily Bridal

Grooms Suits | Reiss

Bridesmaids Dresses | LK Bennett

Florist | Gill at Gilly Bean Flowers

Photographer | Rebecca Wedding Photography

Cake | M&S

Utterly amazing.

Thanks so much to Kirsten and Rich for sharing their beautiful wedding with us today XOXO Lou