Relaxed Fun & Outdoorsy Wilderness Wood Wedding

A woodland wedding is always one of my top wedding locations, I mean does it get any more magical? Luckily for us, Vic and Adam are here to share with us their dreamy Wilderness Wood wedding in East Sussex, which was nothing short of amazing.

Their whole day was held in the great outdoors beneath the canopy of trees. The weather played ball and enabled them to enjoy all the celebrations to the full. From a meaningful ceremony at The Meeting House, to a rustic picnic bench set up for their meal and dancing in the woodland clearing courtesy of a silent disco.

From their stylish outfits to the pretty blooms and sweet bunting, you’ll be left with a warm fuzzy feeling after reading their story below. Kerrie Wood Photography, thanks ever so much for sharing with us these stunning images of a really enchanting celebration at Wilderness Wood.

Wilderness Wood Wedding

The Proposal

Adam was initially meant to propose in Jamaica, but the airline lost his hold luggage where the ring was stored and so he instead waited until we were home.

On Valentine’s Day, we got up early to watch the sunrise, but as we got in the car it was unbelievably foggy and we couldn’t see a thing. However, as soon as we got up towards the cliffs the fog suddenly parted.

We walked up the Seven Sisters, one of our favourite walks around here and stopped under a beautiful tree up on the cliffs overlooking Eastbourne. He’d written me a poem and he proposed there, which I think was actually a much better proposal than the original plan!

The Vision

We both knew we wanted an outdoor wedding ideally in a forest, surrounded by lights and campfires in the evening. Where we would be able to have the ceremony and get legally married, as well as the after party.

A key planning point was getting the timing right so that no one got hangry!

Initially, we were planning on doing everything ourselves including catering and flowers. But faced with the practicalities involved we soon gave way of that notion. We knew that we wanted it to be fun and not to feel traditional or stuffy, and wanted to use local suppliers where possible.

Budget

We had just bought a doer-upper and a puppy, and we booked in our wedding for September in March of the same year (which wasn’t the original plan) so we were on a tight budget. Part of the reason we booked the wedding a year early was that we got a slight discount for the date due to a small event being on elsewhere in the woods on the same day.

When planning the wedding, we only bought the essentials that were going to make our day better, and didn’t bother with things like wedding favours or a printed seating plan.

One of our friends kindly did all of our place cards and decorations. We went for a silent disco rather than a band. We’d been to one before and loved it and went with a local florist that provided seasonal flowers they grew on their farm (rather than paying more to specify which flowers we wanted).

I did my own makeup (but in reality, I probably ended up spending the same if not more in buying all of the makeup!) and then my friend did my hair.

Despite all of this, we did go slightly over budget, but only minimally.

The Ceremony & Music

The ceremony was carried out in ‘The Meeting House’ at the woods. We were up on a stage above our guests, who were seated on haybales that had been positioned to create an aisle leading to the stage.

We started the ceremony in a less-traditional way and decided to have everyone in our wedding party walk down the aisle one-by-one to our chosen song (The Wonder of You by the Villagers). Starting with Adam, then his groomsmen, my bridespeople then finally me, which felt more authentic to us.

The Venue

As soon as we were engaged, we started researching venues in the area that fit what we wanted in a venue and wouldn’t take up all of our budget. Wilderness Wood was the first venue we went to see, but we immediately fell in love and booked in to get married only a few months later!

Wilderness Wood is owned by Emily and Dan and supported by a community of members and volunteers, and we really liked the idea of supporting a community rather than just adding to someone’s profits. Our friends also had the option of camping, which was important as some were coming from quite far away.

As we wanted to make the most of the forest, we didn’t want to get a marquee. This meant that our plans were very reliant on the weather. Had it rained, we would have been limited to a fairly small area and would have relied on a sheet of tarpaulin put up in the forest canopy to keep us dry during the ceremony and the meal, as well as having use of the shelter of the Cookhouse.

It was a big risk, but luckily for us we had the most perfect weather and were able to be fully outside all day and night. It did then rain for 10 consecutive days, though, so it very much could have gone the other way!

Your Outfits

I was initially just going to get a dress from the high street, but decided to see if there were any sample sale dresses that might work. I went to White Leaf Boutique in Brighton, which stores the most lovely boho dresses, and Blanka picked out a few dresses for me that were in my budget. One of which I immediately felt amazing in, the ‘Hamlin’ dress by Willowby by Watters.

I debated whether or not to go see other dresses as that was the first ‘wedding dress’ store I’d been to. But I hate shopping and wanted to avoid having to go to London and back for fittings, so decided to just go for it.

Blanka then tailored it for me so that it fit perfectly and added some additional details that I requested. I felt amazing in it on the day, though I hadn’t quite considered all of the twigs and leaves that would be on the floor in September, which were carried around with me and became my ‘forest bouquet’.

Though the venue advised not to wear heels, I paired it with the ‘Gloria sandals’ (gold block heels) from Sezane, which were really comfortable and I was able to wear all day.

Adam wore a khaki Donegal tweed suit from Moss Bros paired with a brown low-cut tweed waistcoat and bowtie, with a practical choice of tan leather chukka boots to withstand the woodland floor.

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

We initially approached another photographer who had photographed a another wedding at the woods, who wasn’t available but kindly agreed to put a call out for us. We got hundreds of responses. But Kerrie’s message immediately stood out as she seemed really relaxed and friendly, and had also got married in the woods a few years before.

We had a quick chat with her on Zoom and booked her in. A week before the wedding (when we were somewhat stressed) we met her for a walk in the woods and she immediately made us feel much better.

On the day she was incredible, blending into the background and all of the photos just felt really natural and easy.

The Styling & Decor

The venue being such a beautiful woodland meant we really didn’t need to do much in terms of decoration. We just made sure that there were some festoon lights for when it got darker and we did add some strategically placed homemade bunting, which added a personal touch and complemented the natural vibe.

Friends did a beautiful order of the day and seating plan in chalk on a big blackboard in the forest, which they added some beautifully drawn wildflowers to.

For flowers, we found the Sussex Cutting Garden, where Caroline and Kate grow beautiful, seasonal blooms. It did mean that we couldn’t guarantee our preferred colours (autumnal oranges and peachy pinks) would be available, as it depends on what grows. But I loved their relaxed, wildflower-inclusive approach and everything turned out even better than I expected!

We let our bridespeople and groomsmen wear whatever they wanted, as we wanted them to wear something they’d wear again rather than be thrown in landfill. The only guidance was for the bridespeople to try to match the desired floral colour scheme.

For the meal, we decided to push together several picnic benches to create two long tables for dinner, and then again kept the decoration quite minimal. We had purchased some hessian cloth to act as a long runner the full length of the joined-up tables, floral-design place cards designed and printed by our friend and flowers in upcycled wine and beer bottles.

We did a very quick, unannounced cake cutting with a naked chocolate and salted caramel cake from a local bakery. But the real star of the show was the vegan brownies we ordered, which were delicious.

The Honeymoon

On the Monday after the wedding, we went for a 5-day trip to Sardinia to enjoy some much-needed relaxation, great food and sunshine, which was just what we needed. We plan to do a longer trip next year travelling around either India or Japan.

Memorable Moments

The day was full of memorable moments, but a few that stand out are:

After dinner, most people joined us for a wander through the woods to the giant swing that Wilderness Wood have built. Most people had a go, which created a lot of laughs and some really great photos/memories.

The silent disco in the evening was also a real highlight, getting everyone dancing and really throwing themselves into the spirit of the day. The lights got turned off at 10pm (the cut-off time for music at the woods) and we have some amazing videos of everyone carrying on dancing and singing in the dark with their headphones acting as a sea of lights.

Advice For Other Couples

Everyone is going to have opinions on what you should and shouldn’t do or have views on who you should invite. It’s your day though and it really does go so quickly, so just do what you want to do and only invite the people you actually want to spend time on the day with.

If you are doing a lot yourself, in particular, if you don’t have anyone at the venue on the day responsible for organising, get all of the information out of your head and allocated to friends or family members. I wrote out a full order of the day with bulleted tasks. We did a run-through with all of our bridespeople and groomsmen the day before, which helped us to relax on the day and know everything would be taken care of.

Also if you are getting married outside in England and not having a marquee, accept that the two weeks before (when weather forecasts are shown) are going to be stressful, and try to avoid checking the weather multiple times a day as we did…