Magical Festival Style Wedding at Royle Forest Weddings

What an absolute treat it is to be sharing WWW readers Rachel and Paul’s day at Royle Forest Weddings in Staffordshire.

Their day was quite simply, magical. They had a festival-style wedding in the forest, with references to Lord Of The Rings, plus a gorgeous autumnal feel. Bright orange was the key colour of the day, which was evident in the decor, stylish outfits and flowers. Wow.

They DIYd so much of their day, from the 11 playlists to the signage, newspapers and even the confetti. Everything was so thoughtful and personal.

Huge thanks go to Bligh & Guy Wedding Visuals for sharing with us these tremendous shots of such a special day in the woodland. Be sure to take in every little detail and read the really thorough report from Rachel and Paul too.

Royle Forest Wedding

The Proposal

We’d been together a long time (8 years at this point) when Paul decided to get the ring towards the end of 2021. After a sea of unfortunate attempts to propose over the next 10 months or so including a trip to Italy and back for the ring, Paul finally decided to take the plunge the morning I was flying to America without him to see family for 3 weeks.

After working my way through a box of one dollar notes the ring was there at the bottom! The next minute I was in the airport with my parents about to tuck into breakfast without my new fiancé so I flashed them my new bling and we had a glass of champagne before we set off.

Our family favourite jewellers is a small antique place in Wigan where my parents (mainly Mum), always get their jewellery from. I’ve always wanted an engagement ring from here, and in my head it had to be gold and had to have a coloured stone. Paul, without any prompts, researched an antique jewellers and without knowing any connection he got the ring from our jewellers!

The Vision

I’ve been involved in weddings for years with photography so I’ve always pictured what a wedding would look like for us, and ideally what the setting would look like.

Our ‘thing’ has always been festivals so I had this vision of our own outdoor festival to celebrate with everyone we love. I’ve always had a creative brain so knew I’d be DIY’ing as much as possible to make it as personal to us as I could.

The Styling & Decor

I knew early on in the planning stage I wanted to DIY as much as I possibly could for our wedding. Being a crafty person since I was little I would often screenshot ideas and think, I can do that! Paying someone to decorate my tables would have been wasted.

I always knew I wanted to do a festival theme too and had seen so many ideas to make your own festival. We also got the venue the day before to decorate and add as much personal touch as we wanted. Knowing we had this freedom when we booked 12 months before gave me so much scope to DIY and make it as unique as I could.

The tables I had organised into boxes prior to set up day so it was easy to empty out onto each table. Each table had cheesecloth runners, foliage garlands in the centre, with candlesticks, upcycled bud jars, hessian place mats (all hand cut), and each name place was made from wire. This was something we wanted guests to take home as a favour. We also had QR cards for guests to upload photos to our gallery (Guestpix).

The colour theme was orange as the main focus, then dark green, and pops of colour here and there to keep the festival feel alive on top of what could have just been another autumnal wedding. Our florist got the memo and created an autumnal dream of a bouquet, plus another 8 dried flower bouquets for the bridesmaids and flower girls.

On the tables I had multiple bud jars I wanted to fill, so I’d been drying flower stems for months in the garage. With the dried flowers and a run to the local Morrisons the day before the wedding for fresh flowers, my Mum and one of my bridesmaids did a fantastic job of filling over 70 bud jars with the mountain of flowers and dried stems. Plus every jar had a mini disco ball on a stick that I’d made using BBQ wooden skewers!

There were also 2 huge urns in the ceremony area. I wanted to save on the florist budget here so had ordered some dried flowers on Etsy but they were tiny! Mum at the last minute saved the day and foraged in their garden, and their friend’s gardens and created an absolute masterpiece in the urns.

The wedding cake was one area which I wasn’t that focused on. I’d lost some interest after seeing the costs of cakes with 3 tiers and up. My Mum rang me one day and said their friend had offered to make our cake for us. Again I thought this was a great idea, yet another personal touch for our day.

I’d picked Paul’s two favourite cake flavours; carrot cake and lemon drizzle. Our family friend Maria added some sparkle and then I bought some cake toppers to add some personal touch to the top. I found a festival flag sign with our names on, a mini statue of the family dog with a party hat and balloon, and a big palm leaf in orange to sit behind.

Decorations in the tipi were minimal as the venue spoke for itself. I’d just added hundreds of Polaroids of us, our guests, holidays, festivals etc. We hung them up around the tipi on min pegs. We also included any missing relatives so they could be with us in spirit. We hung up bunting and paper pom poms as well around the venue.

We had three main festival signs also. I’d ordered large wooden letters off eBay to spell ‘Birchfest’ and painted them in the colour theme. We had them outside the tipi and made sure we had some photos by the sign. We also had a neon ‘Birchfest’ sign made to sit behind the top table. We hung this over green foliage panels which the ushers hung up on set-up day and then I added in more orange flowers to bring in the main colour.

The seating chart I’d designed also, using a festival poster style, with wildflowers round the border and images of things from our festival at the bottom of the sign. I’d matched the table name signs to the seating chart design as well, each table being a band or DJ that we’d seen live.

All décor by me – acquired décor, homemade or from Shein, Etsy, Amazon, Primark, Ikea and eBay.

Budget

Paul’s always been good with money so after using up his savings on our house renovation, he spent some time to save up again before proposing. He was convinced we wouldn’t be going into debt for a wedding.

Luckily we also had very generous donations from our parents too. I’m very organised with admin so everything from napkins to the cost of the venue was logged on a spreadsheet.

We didn’t stick to a specific budget but I knew any décor I would try to sell afterwards and after the way we went about renovating doing as much as we could ourselves, I knew the wedding would be no different.

The Venue

We began the search while I was away, and viewed about 6 other venues before we found our one. We even went on an open day hours after I’d landed from America. After viewing the 6th venue one Sunday, something wasn’t quite right.

We were googling similar venues and came across Royle Forest. We watched one drone-fueled video and we were sold. There had been an open day that same day so I knew we’d be at the end of a long line of enquiries now. I don’t think I slept that night with worry we wouldn’t get this venue.

We called Fraser the owner the following day and asked what availability he had. We were faced with 1 date in April or our October date if we wanted 2023, otherwise, we were looking at another year which wasn’t an option for us. We wanted the venue there and then, so we paid the deposit that day before we even viewed in person! Luckily Fraser was confident that we would love it and we arranged to view it that week in which we said 100% he could keep our deposit!

There are trees everywhere and the majority of the venue has been built by the owners, lots of woodwork around which we have a lot of at home, Paul’s built our dining table so we really resonated with the venue and Fraser. He told us he built the venue around everything he doesn’t like about weddings. And we nodded in agreement to everything he said. We needed this venue! Everything just fit.

The venue is so unique and like you are walking into a Lord of the Rings set in the forest. Being my favourite film as well I wanted to incorporate subtle nods to the franchise on the wedding day too.

The Ceremony & Music

For the ceremony, we’d picked all covers or acoustic versions of dance songs and some from musicals.

I walked down the aisle with my Dad to Fix You by Coldplay, but from the band that cover the Bridgerton soundtrack. Fix You was first played out on a gig in Bolton where they filmed the music video, which I’m on for a split second. As this was years before I met Paul when Coldplay were touring again in 2016 I printed off a photo of me from the video for Paul to tell him I’d bought us tickets!

We had some background songs during the signing of the register, including themes from The Lord of the Rings and the theme from Paul’s favourite film Gladiators. We exited the ceremony to Tiesto, one of our favourite DJ’s.

Our two readings were also personal. The first one was the very last monologue from One Tree Hill. The words were those I’d heard when we were the age of the characters the very first time of watching, so I knew it would resonate with our age group; our closest friends. The second reading was a poem I found online written about our favourite TV show Friends. Again the words resonated with us, our friends and family.

Again from going to so many weddings over the years, one of my least favourite parts is unfortunately the DJ. Paul agreed early on neither of us wanted a DJ to pick the songs for us or to talk over the music. We didn’t want any strangers announcing us into the room either, we wanted our ushers to jump on the mic and invite us to the dancefloor etc.

After helping my friend set up her playlist for her wedding a few years ago I knew I was always going to do this again when it came to our turn! We ended up with 11 playlists for the day, as we needed each section to have its own playlist, i.e. our first dance needed its own playlist to keep to the timings.

The New Year’s Eve after our engagement, we asked the singer in the bar locally to us if he’d like to sing at our wedding. Amazingly he agreed to travel an hour and a half to sing at his first wedding gig. He did an hours set after our meal, and then again following the first dances.

Our first dance was Yellow by Coldplay, we always wanted a Coldplay song and this one had the nicest lyrics! We had a second song to follow which was the TV theme from Friends where we knew the guests would fill the floor. It helps that the dancefloor was 3D and the owner Fraser had acquired this from a car showroom!

After the singer’s second set our ‘Birchfest Banagers’ saw the night out until midnight, ending with 90’s dance classics; Scooter, Sash!, Cascada etc.

Your Outfits

Paul’s only ever seen in navy (or the occasional green jumper) so the suits were always going to be navy blue. With us having my two nephews it was hard to find somewhere to get matching children’s suits. After some research, we came across Empire Outlet. We found a navy tweed herringbone 3-piece suit and had to order eleven! The ties, bowties and pocket squares were from a seller on Etsy all in burnt orange.

The bridesmaids were all in paprika orange from Azazie. After hunting down various orange dresses I found Azazie had the biggest range of styles and colours. You can filter on your chosen colour and then all style dresses come up for you in your colour. I sent the link to my girls and let them all choose their own styles. I do like things to be matching but always with a subtle twist!

My Mum has been watching ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ for years and instantly booked me an appointment at Ava Rose in Colne where Gok Wan used to film from. The experience was amazing, the staff are very helpful and treat you to a glass of bubbly on arrival. I was able to browse the dresses and could pull out any I liked the look of.

We then did an elimination process where you had to ditch one every time you tried the next one on. After 4 dresses I said to our host Grace that I just needed something with a patterned lace all over. I am not one for anything plain! She brought out a Madi Lane strappy dress and as soon as I put the lace on I saw the lilies on the print. Paul’s Mum had passed away well before I ever had the chance to meet her and I’ve always known her favourite flowers were lilies. I looked down at the dress and was like ‘I have to have this print’.

But after looking in the mirror I knew I didn’t want my arms out and my vision of a dress with sleeves wasn’t looking back at me. Grace added on a jacket from a previous dress which helped me visualise the dress with the balloon-style sleeve. It helps Mum has worked with fabric through all her career so instantly jumped at the chance to make the sleeves for me.

I said yes to the dress and ordered extra lace for Mum to work on the sleeves. It wasn’t until another 10 months later where we eventually got to work on the dress together and design out sleeves to attach on and add the lace to the bottom of the veil. We also added in some coloured cuffs to tie in the orange and green colours of the day. A dress you’ll certainly never see customised the same way again – now Mum has just retired!

I teamed the dress with orange heels and orange Nike Jordans for the evening. I wanted pops of orange everywhere I could. I also wanted to tie in the forest/Lord of the Rings style by hunting out a flower crown. Again I wanted orange to stand out and I’d been following Luna & Wild for months. Her hair vines are something I’d never seen before and they weren’t your typical flower crown. She hand designs them once you tell her your desired theme. I honestly think that was my favourite touch to my outfit.

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

Being a part-time wedding photographer this is the one area I wanted to really research and pick the best that I could find. I’ve always shown a keen interest in videography too so having a video made was high on our priority list. After getting some prices in, I was shocked to see what others were actually charging so I quickly got frustrated and couldn’t find ‘the one’.

My now husband was the one to find Bligh & Guy online and pretty much said – ‘here, will these do?’ I took a look at their social media pages and thought their photos and video style was right up my street. They were local to the venue too! Husband-to-be at the time had zero interest in having his photo taken so was happy for me to take the reigns once he’d found their page!

We arranged a call with Danny and got everything set up for payment, future planning calls etc. When we got close to the wedding date we had a final call and went over the running of the day. On the day us girls had Danny with us and the boys had Tim in the morning. Both guys were great and took on both roles of photography and videography. They chatted away with both sides of the bridal party and were really chilled and relaxed like they were always meant to be there.

From the ceremony onwards Danny took on the photography and Tim went on to filming. We even had some drone footage thrown in which they got an amazing view of the forest and venue. They got all the key moments and all thanks to the loud voice of an usher, the group shots were smooth sailing.

All our portraits in the forest are just stunning, the setting is incredible to capture. The guys have been great post-wedding too, keeping in touch, getting our gallery sent out quickly and even printing out a batch of the photos for us to keep. Couldn’t recommend them enough!

Memorable Moments

Wristbands

You can’t go to a festival without a wristband! I contacted a company and gave them the brief to design our wristbands. Now the proof came back and my 5-year-old nephew could have done better! I went into creator mode again and designed the wristbands and sent them off for printing. I had the ushers hand them out to guests on arrival. This would be one of our favours rather than having something in every place on the table.

Newspapers

One of my favourite creations of the day was our wedding newspaper. I’d made this myself and included a story in there to cover the last 10 years of our relationship, the order of the day, what was on the menu and cocktails available, crossword, QR codes for our photo gallery, Spotify scan code for our playlist, taxi numbers; to name a few sections! We also had the ushers hand these out with the wristbands so guests could read over while they waited for the ceremony to start. I’d enjoyed creating the newspaper that much I even made a hen weekend newspaper and have now begun to create them for other couples!

Confetti

In the January of 2023 both our Grandfather’s sadly passed away so I wanted something incorporated into the wedding where they could be with us. I hadn’t bought any confetti yet and I began with drying some funeral flowers to start the confetti mix. Over the next 6 months or so, I was able to dry enough confetti for our guests. I’d dried petals from bouquets, from our blossom tree in the Spring, from roses in my Grandpa’s garden, and our friends and family would also start saving any flowers for us. I’d also made some confetti cones from book pages. I’d ordered a Lord of the Rings book and a Game of Thrones book from a second-hand website. I cut the pages out and glued them into cone shapes.

Bingo

This was one of the first ideas I had and stuck to for the day. As a family, we often play bingo, more so in recent years, picture versions of the game (we have a themed James Bond Bingo game). The idea came to me that I wanted to create our own version, so with the pictures on the players bingo cards would be items, places, people, TV shows, etc. of anything to do with us as a couple, or just personal things to me or to Paul separately. I created the game, printed out 120 cards, plus 1 huge Bingo poster with all the pictures on. As we weren’t doing starters and had various caterers throughout the day I thought Bingo would be good slotted in between the main food and the crepe van starting for dessert. Our good friend Ian is a showman, so he jumped at the chance to be our bingo caller. I had our page boys and flower girls help with handing out the cards and ticking off what had been called out. Little jobs like this helped them feel important! The best moment when I realised my sneaky plan to rig one of the cards to win backfired and all 15 tables had the winning card all at once. We certainly didn’t give out 15 free cocktails like the winner’s prize stated!

Gavin & Stacey (or Byrn & Nessa)

Paul’s cousin Nic does the best Nessa impression from Gavin & Stacey and often joked about singing the famous duet with our usher Mike at our wedding. So, when we met with our singer to discuss song choices for his set, we asked if he could learn ‘Islands in the Steam’. We put the idea to our duo and they pulled it off! They handed out lyrics cards and had all the guests singing along.

Glow Foam Sticks

We held the infamous foam glow sticks back until a certain song came on. I had the bridesmaids hand the sticks out the song before and then when Macklemore came on, the tipi went off! I was told ‘it went off’ on the stag do so was a perfect song choice to get the dancefloor moving.

The Honeymoon

We spent 3 weeks in Australia and Bali.

We flew out to Sydney on a very long flight via Singapore. We spent our 2 weeks in Sydney, Byron Bay, Melbourne, and then we flew to Perth to spend some time with family. I’d been there when I was 10 so to experience it again as an adult and go back to places like Rottnest Island to spend time with Quokka’s was amazing. Something I never thought I’d get to do again.

We then spent our last 5 nights in Bali trying to relax more and make the most out of our private pool and the cultural experiences. Apart from the jet lag in Sydney the trip really gave us time to unwind from the 12 months of full-on wedding preparation and was the perfect amount of time to be away for. And after the Bali heat, we were finally glad to touch down with the Manchester November rain.

Advice For Other Couples

Everyone says the day flies by and that you need to take everything in. And that’s exactly right. At one point you think there is loads of time left of the day so you suddenly start to let go and then the next minute you’re spinning your dress round on the dancefloor at midnight while everyone chants ‘one more song’.
If anyone is like me and likes to be in control and wants to DIY everything, do remember not everything has to be perfect. Whatever your day turns out to be was meant to be your perfect day anyway.
You are also never going to get chance to speak to everyone there. Do not feel guilty if you want to spend your entire night on the dancefloor. Everyone has the best time whether you speak to them for a minute or an hour.