Creative & Intimate DIY Home Garden Tipi Wedding

Vicki and Gary’s divine wedding reception was held in a family home garden with a tipi tent, following a meaningful church ceremony. It was just so idyllic.

Vicki and Gary set about creating an intimate and relaxed day with a difference. Not only did they DIY much of their amazing wedding decor, but they also scrapped the dancefloor for the evening and had a buffet menu. I love it when couples buck tradition when it doesn’t suit them. Yes!

They of course both looked amazing in their chosen attire, their cute pup came along in a flower collar, plus they had a very special wedding car.

Kloe May Photography thank you ever so much for sharing these amazing images of a really special celebration indeed.

Home Garden Tipi Wedding

The Proposal

We’d always been very open and spoken about marriage so it wasn’t entirely a surprise but still so special nonetheless.

We had gone for a walk one evening, 13th July 2021 on beautiful heathland at Lord’s Piece with our young pup Scout @scoutochetrail. I sat down to look at the view on this tree that has a branch that scoops down to the ground.

Gary had crouched down behind me to give me a hug and I was too busy looking at the view to notice he was holding out the most beautiful salt and pepper diamond platinum ring in front of me! He had to nudge me several times and ﬁnally I gasped!

It was the perfect proposal for us and the most beautiful evening. He had some hints on the ring and had it made especially for me by Rust Jewellery and chose the diamonds himself too. We chose my ﬂoral engraved platinum wedding ring from Rust as well!

The Vision

Relaxed, small, intimate, creative and handmade. Traditional but with a bit of a twist that was more us!

Think a family get-together with garden games and no fuss.

The Venue

We had always wanted an intimate church wedding and had fallen in love with a tiny little church by the River Arun that we had met a few times for a walk back in the beginning!! Having lived in the Parish of Arundel, we were thankfully allowed to marry here but once given permission the ceiling started falling down and it was covered in scaﬀolding, inside and out… I was then having visions of a wedding like Ross and Emily’s in Friends! We were promised everything would be ﬁxed and ﬁnished in time and the last bit of scaﬀolding thankfully came down just a couple of days before the wedding!

When it came to a reception, we weren’t really sure what we wanted but my sister kindly oﬀered her garden. It’s huge and they had hosted a small wedding in a marquee there during lockdown and there is a lovely barn outbuilding there too. A big white marquee wasn’t really our thing and the barn not quite big enough, so I did a little research and found a local company, Tentario, oﬀering the most beautiful tipis which was so much more us!

We had originally wanted street food for the day but after researching lots of amazing local companies we love, we decided on a caterer, Kate’s Kitchen, who was able to oﬀer a buﬀet menu instead. This was much better value for money and with plenty of staﬀ they knew what they were doing and we didn’t have to worry. The food was incredible too!

The Ceremony & Music

St Leonard’s Church at South Stoke was just idyllic. It is an 11th Century church with no electricity, so there were hundreds of candles lighting it up and days before there were lambs grazing the churchyard.

I really didn’t want the service to feel rushed as I’ve found so many ceremonies can be. We decided on three hymns and two readings, one a bible reading read by my sister Charlie and the second a poem/song, ‘I Love You Because’ by Jim Reeves read by our best man Kane.

The hymns we chose were ‘Give Me Joy In My Heart’, ‘One More Step Along The World I Go’ and ‘Shine, Jesus, Shine’ – we wanted them to be cheery and upbeat and something everyone would know.

With just a Harmonium in the church and not a proper organ we were a little restricted on other music – I also wasn’t keen on the traditional ‘Here Comes The Bride’ style entrance!! We went through lots of music online and decided on ‘Canon’ by Pachelbel for my entrance, ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ by J.S Bach and for our exit, ‘Trumpet Tune’ by Purcell – which again all sounded far more cheery for our liking!

At the reception, we just had Radio 1 Live Lounge on in the background for acoustic covers!

The Styling & Decor

Gary and I are very much DIY’ers – if there’s something we like, we’ll make it ourselves! We had decided that we didn’t want a band or DJ for the evening and had opted out of the dance ﬂoor for the tipi, but knew we’d need some kind of entertainment. As we wanted the day to be relaxed and more of a family get-together we made a whole range of garden games! From a Coconut Shy, to Giant Jenga, Horseshoe Pitching, Tin Can Alley and Mousehole Golf – there was Croquet and Swing Ball too!

I hand-painted all the signs for the games onto pallet wood and direction signs for the wedding too – which was all really therapeutic and enjoyable to do! I also painted a sign on a piece of rusty old scrap metal for outside the tipi to welcome everyone.

All the invitations and order of service I designed myself. I drew a quirky little portrait of us both on ProCreate in our wedding outfits and little drawings of the church and tipi which everyone loved – the vicar said they were the best he’d ever seen!!

My mum handmade all the bunting in the tipi and we decorated the tables with empty wine bottles ﬁlled with water and a sprig of eucalyptus and topped with a tapered candle. We had hessian table runners we cut ourselves and ﬁnished oﬀ the ends of the tables with raﬃa and then sprinkled with some leftover rose petal confetti which smelt incredible!

When it came to the barn, this is usually used as gym area – we’re bought in all my sister’s comfy garden seating and hid everything we couldn’t move with the biggest balloon garlands ever and colourful streamers. We used this space as a drinks area and extra chill out!

The ﬂowers at the reception were all put together by my sister who has a natural ﬂare for it and is currently doing a ﬂoristry course, we had milk churns and galvanised buckets full of the most beautiful arrangements and simple vases of gypsophila on the tables.

My mum and her friend Sharon did all the ﬂowers at the church – they’ve both done church ﬂowers for years so knew exactly what they were doing. The pew ends I wanted something simple and opted for bunches of gyp tied on with raﬃa.

My bouquet, however, and my ﬂower girls posey and the buttonholes were created by my friend Abigail at Albert & Arthur. They were stunning – I gave her free range and was so happy, especially when I noticed she had used peonies!

In regards to the cake, this was another Pinterest idea. My sister’s friend Chrissie makes the most amazing cakes and will replicate any idea you have! In the end, we ended up with three tiers, slightly excessive but the fruit layer we’ve kept to enjoy at a later date. The middle was vanilla with raspberry Chambord buttercream and the top a chocolate fudge cake with Baileys buttercream. All absolutely delicious and decorated with a tint of pink icing and gold leaf.

I got ready at our little cottage but we needed some kind of vehicle to get me to the church and us both back to my sister’s half an hour drive away. A fancy wedding car didn’t really ﬁt with our theme and we wanted something a little more battered and who doesn’t love an old Land Rover Defender. We borrowed an old 1980 blue Landy from someone Gary does work for – fun fact, it lives in the Old Rectory garden just behind the church wall!

It needed a whole lot of love and cleaning up, but we decorated it in bunting and faux ﬂowers and it was one of the coolest things about the day! We had permission to drive it on to Lord’s Piece where we got engaged for photos and had everyone waving at us and beeping their horns on the drive to the church and reception.

Your Outfits

Pinterest obviously played a big part in this – I had seen an image of a shoot with a bride wearing a grey tulle skirt and lace top and the groom wearing grey trousers and a black jacket. I loved this looked and began researching, the thought however of going to a bridal shop and trying on big white dresses was my worst nightmare!

Eventually, I found just the right grey tulle skirt, with a metre train on Etsy – it was handmade for me back in November in Kyiv, Ukraine – so felt lucky I was able to ﬁnd it and as the vicar said it was quite poignant to be wearing it with everything going on here at the time of the wedding.

Having found the skirt, I really struggled to ﬁnd a top to go with it. I had wanted something three-quarter length but fancied something sparkly rather than lace – which made it hard! In the end, I gave up and we asked a family friend, Mary – she’s studying a fashion degree and has always made her own clothes! I chose the most beautiful fabric, covered in iridescent sequins – but what a nightmare fabric to work with!! The top was ﬁnally ﬁnished two weeks before the wedding but I ended up sewing a lot of sequins back on myself!

When it came to jewellery I kept it simple with some silver dot drop earrings from Fawn & Rose, a silver disc bracelet we found on Etsy and my rings I wear everyday. We decided I needed some kind of necklace but anything special I had got lost on the fabric – so I borrowed a silver ingot pendant from my mum which used to belong to my Great Aunt.

My shoes were Irregular Choice – I had always wanted to wear a pair of these for my wedding but looking out of season there wasn’t much of a selection. I loved their Meow boots but they didn’t have my size online – until we popped to their Brighton store who found the last pair left in the country in my size at Carnaby Street and had them sent straight to me!

Gary’s suit and his best mans’ was a whole lot easier – as much as they probably didn’t think so. They spent a day going round Southampton and with a lot of ordering of who knows how many trousers online, they decided on a jacket from Next and trousers from John Lewis and a light pink tie from Burton. Super easy in comparison, I’d say!!

Finally, there was my ﬂowergirl’s outfit for my niece Mia, which was another Etsy ﬁnd. A beautiful blush pink tulle skirt with a white lace top – she looked so beautiful and just like a princess!

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

I used to be a photographer so choosing the right person and right style was one of the biggest things for our wedding. I had originally asked a friend who was sadly already booked up and being very out of the game I felt a bit overwhelmed with where to look, so got in touch with a family photographer I know whose style I love and she kindly recommended Kloë.

Kloë was so chilled and was already taking shots before I even opened the front door! I have always preferred being behind the camera but she made us both feel so completely comfortable and I swear, I don’t remember half the photos being taken! Kloë was open to everything and the way she captured our day was beautiful – every image has the most incredible lighting. And one of the most impressive things – 4-day turnaround on all our photos… surely that breaks a record!

We opted for a shoot before the wedding which we’re so glad we did. It allowed us to get to know Kloë a little better and Gary, who hates his photo taken more so than me, a feel of what it’d be like. I’m so pleased we did this as we also don’t have a huge amount of photos together that aren’t selﬁes!!

The Honeymoon

Just after the wedding we spent a couple of nights in a Shepherd’s Hut with our Working Cocker Spaniel, Scout in East Sussex. It was in the middle of a ﬁeld with no one around and the perfect little getaway straight after all the build-up to the wedding.

We even had a wood ﬁred hot tub which we spent the evenings in! At this point we still hadn’t booked a honeymoon – we had originally planned to spend a few weeks travelling around Canada but decided something relaxing was much more preferable. We did a lot of research and booked a last-minute trip to Mauritius, ﬂying a month after the wedding. We’re very excited for all-inclusive and cocktails on the beach but not so much for the 12-hour ﬂight!

Memorable Moments

Just how relaxing the whole day was! Except for the panic in the morning when we tried to move the old Landy – we parked it in the stables behind our house for the night and obviously, it decided it didn’t want to work a few hours before we needed it. Thankfully, Best Man Kane to the rescue hitting the starter motor with a piece of metal!

I was also ready super early and worried the Landy was going to play up again, my Dad and I left early to get it going and sat at the top of the High Street at the Castle gates in Arundel before it was time to head down the lane. My Dad also forgot to help me get in, but we had some rusty steps and my neighbours gave me a helping hand!

Walking down the aisle was another moment I won’t forget – I was really struggling not to lose it, I couldn’t look at anyone then caught my sister’s eye and immediately had to look away. There were a lot of deep breaths and holding back tears! Gary on the other hand had been panicking too and didn’t look up until the very last minute. He later told me had seen a woodlouse on the ground and had been focussing on that to keep himself from losing it!!

After the ceremony and when we came through the doors, it was a lovely surprise to see some of my old neighbours outside on the bench. But I was looking around for Scout who our current neighbours were looking after for the day, we couldn’t see her and were worried we’d given the wrong timings! But it was the best thing a few minutes later, seeing her come through the gate wearing her ﬂower garland!

We were so lucky to get so many couple shots of the day, especially in the place where we got engaged. I had bought a couple of smoke bombs to use at my sisters too and we wandered down the lane and found bluebells which I was very excited about – though I did manage to mush my skirt in bluebell juices!!

It was just a really special day, with immediate family and old friends. It was everything we had hoped and dreamed of and just wish we could live it all over again and again!

Advice For Other Couples

Just do what you want to do and don’t feel pressured into anything that’s not you. We said from the start we wanted our wedding day to be small and relaxed and I had always wanted to get married in a tiny little church which personally has always felt more meaningful and special – not focussed on a big glitzy party which is totally not us!

Our biggest regret of the day was not booking Kloë, our photographer for longer. We were so unbelievably happy with our photos, just wish there were more and we had some special ones of the evening. The tipi looked so cool and magical lit up with fairy lights and festoon lights at night – we’ve just had to rely on guest photos (which is lovely) – but we just wish Kloë had been there to capture it too.