Colourful & Fun DIY Festival Vibes Highden Estate Wedding

Get set for all the colour and fun today, with Ria and Reece’s super beautiful Highden Estate wedding in West Sussex.

Their day was a feast for the eyes, think colourful wildflowers, mismatched DIY decor, stylish outfits, delicious Spanish cuisine and an epic party to name just a few. They had a tent ceremony with views of the pretty gardens, a sweet confetti throw moment and Reece hit the decks as the party started.

What a day! Thanks so much to Sasha Weddings for sharing with us these incredible images. Enjoy them all.

Highden Estate Wedding

The Proposal

I (Ria) went solo travelling around the world from 2022-2023 and Reece came to visit me in Japan for 3 weeks.

We got engaged in Tokyo, in our hotel room in our PJs – it was very low key, cute, and perfect for us!

The Vision

We knew we didn’t want a typical barn wedding with your usual wedding food! We started with food and knew we wanted paella so when looking at venues, a lot that had packages where you had to use their in-house catering were out and we needed a DIY venue!

We wanted Spanish vibes (tapas, paella, sangria) and it to feel informal, colourful, festivally and fun more than anything.

The Venue

We went with Highden Estate’s walled garden in West Sussex. It was completely DIY and the owners were so relaxed that we could really do whatever we wanted in there!

The garden itself was so pretty so we didn’t need lots and lots of extra flowers and décor, and it also quite nicely had natural sections. There was a kind of leafy archway where you turned and walked down the aisle under a stretch tent, little sections between flowers where we set up lawn games, and a big marquee for dinner and dancing.

It has a capacity of 200 but we went with half capacity so that we didn’t have to move any tables and chairs – half the marquee was set for dinner, and the other half way set up for the party already. We didn’t want the day to feel like we are following an itinerary (even though you are!) and everything to have a nice flow and here, the set up of the garden and marquee really helped us with that.

There was also lots of parking and more space outside the garden where we had a food van of loaded chips in 3 flavours that we could choose (we went for the Japanese-inspired one as we got engaged in Japan, the Mediterranean-inspired one as our wedding was Spanish food and drink, and the curry inspired one as a nod to getting a curry at the end of the night!).

The Ceremony & Music

I walked down the aisle to Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles, we signed the docs to Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder, and exited the ceremony to Everlasting Love by Natalie Cole.

Music was on throughout the entire day, my brother performed 4 songs with his band during the sangria reception drinks (3 originals and 1 cover), and into the night, we had a DJ with a strong do not play list of anything cheesy (e.g Adele, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift) and Reece (the groom) did a 30-minute Garage DJ set himself too which was amazing!

Your Outfits

Reece’s suit was from Gresham Blake in Brighton – he wanted a bottle/forest green suit however, when we were looking, a lot of them were a light greeney-grey or were tweed which isn’t what he wanted.

We were looking in Brighton and a few of the sales assistants in the shops recommended Gresham Blake for what Reece wanted so we went there and tried 1 one that wasn’t quite right, and then the sales assistant brought out another suit as a wild card to just try on and it turned out to be the one!!

I (Ria) had seen a halter neck dress online that I was absolutely obsessed with and I sought out a bridal shop to try it on and as soon as it was on me, it was just a no!

I tried on about 15 dresses in a shop in Hitchin but none were quite right. Last minute, I booked into a bridal outlet store in Northampton as my best friend actually just got her wedding dress from there a few weeks ago so I thought I would give it a go. It’s an outlet so you by the dress directly off the rack and I tried quite a few on in loads of styles to see what worked and found the one.

I always have liked off-the-shoulder on me, with an a-line to nicely glide over my tummy! It had a corseted top half which I didn’t think I would go for but actually, I really liked the structure and it meant I didn’t need a bra ☺

My veil, pearly sleeves and hair accessory were from Etsy – I found the hair accessory on Pinterest and tracked it down to the Etsy store. And my shoes were Loeffler Randall dupes from Amazon – they were so comfy!

The Styling & Decor

We didn’t have a wedding cake and I made or sourced some of the wedding décor myself.

We had a big ceremony arch where my brief was a wildflowers vibe, I wanted it to look mismatched and whimsical, lots of colour! Unintentionally, the colour scheme was orange, green and pink (I’m only just realising this now though after the wedding haha) but we weren’t going for a colour scheme.

In the venue, we had paper lanterns above the dinner area in pinks, greens, oranges, and yellows. The tables had mismatched candlestick holders (some glass, some brass, some gold) with mismatched candles (different colours, some twisted, some patterned), small flowers in clear bud vases, mismatched napkins in 3 prints (blue and white striped, lobster print, and lemon print), and table talkers on there which I designed, printed and made myself at home with the order of the day, menu and table name on it. The name cards were dried oranges with names printed and pinned into the dried orange slices that I also made myself.

Over the dancefloor, I had 7 or 8 disco balls up that I made myself. And surrounding the dancefloor was the DJ, bar and an open photo area with a gold heart backdrop and orange and pink streamer – I also made this!

There were also lawn games set up and fire pits on outside in the evening.

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

I liked the style of videographers Big Day had on their portfolio, nothing too cheesy but intimate, personal and fun!

For photographers, I was searching for someone who matched my style – we wanted candid, real photos, documentary style, and I was looking for an ‘alternative’ photographer. I loved Sasha’s photos and editing style with the muted colours and fine art style.

The Honeymoon

We are going to New Zealand for 3 weeks in December/January; a road trip around the country with a campervan for some of it too and we will be there for Christmas and New Year.

Memorable Moments

All my most memorable and best moments were the moments I was the most nervous about and was dreading in the lead-up – the ceremony, the speeches, and Reece’s DJ set. I was so nervous to have all eyes on me, what people would say, and that the DJ set would be good but I loved these moments so much!

We also got married on our 7-year anniversary which made it more special and as Reece said in his speech, instead of the 7-year itch, we got the 7-year hitch!

Advice For Other Couples

It’s just a day – try not to get too hung up on every detail and everything will be great regardless. Everyone is there to celebrate you and wants to have the best day. If something goes wrong, no one even knows but you so just roll with it and have fun – you set the vibe!! As long as you’re happy, everyone else will be too.

Also, getting an on-the-day wedding coordinator was honestly the best money we spent and I don’t know how we would have done it without Precious and the team at Green Lily! They were incredible and made the whole day an easy breeze.

I did not have to worry about anything and trusted them entirely with it all, they just got what I liked and wanted, made it perfect, and pushed us on some things in the best way; we really didn’t want to be announced into dinner but they asked again on the day just before and we said ah why not! And it ended up being a great moment. My parents were raving about them afterwards of how incredible they were.