Beautiful & Relaxed Nature Inspired Garden Tipi Wedding

Get ready to channel some lovely summery vibes on this winter’s day! We’re in Cheshire, Stonyford Gardens to be exact, for WWW readers Tim and Katie’s beautifully nature-inspired outdoor wedding. Their special day took place on the 4th August 2018 and I think you’ll agree that it was simply stunning.

Our pair really wanted everything to be personal and meaningful for them. As nature lovers, they knew they wanted to be married outside and for the day to be relaxed and not too stuffy. Surrounded by the gorgeous greenery and rare flowers of their venue, they held their reception in a tipi and really made the most of the outdoors.

Tim and Katie are lucky enough to know Jessica O’Shaughnessy Photography who also just so happens to be a WWW Supplier Love member. She has captured their whole day so wonderfully and we’re ever so grateful to be sharing these images.

Look out for the cute touches inspired by the couple’s beagle and I really hope you enjoying reading all about all the meaningful details that were included, I know I certainly did!

The Proposal

We had decided to go away for Christmas 2015 with our beagle Cooper and rented a freezing, quaint, stone cottage in Snowdonia. Despite the torrential rain and wind, on Christmas morning all we began walking up Mount Snowdon to ensure we would fully appreciate our Christmas dinner afterwards. Upon coming across Ceunant Mawr Waterfall, Tim got down on one soggy knee! Kate emotionally accepted and turned around to find Cooper, sat shivering on a mound of moss (how he remained quiet and calm for the entire time, we’ll never know!) The Heavens well and truly decided to open with a festive vengeance then and the trip up Snowdon was abandoned in favour of dry socks and a piece of Christmas turkey. It turns out that Kate’s Grandparents, as well as her younger sister also got engaged on Christmas day!

The Vision

We are big nature-lovers and wanted more than anything to have an outdoor celebration surrounded by nature at its best and its simple beauty! A formal wedding was our idea of a nightmare, so we wanted to aim for relaxed, casual and personal; including lots of home-made touches that guests would be able to recognise as meaningful to us as a couple. We wanted everyone to feel the love!

The Planning Process

We started planning almost straight away (nearly 3 years before the big day!), to stretch out the planning process and to minimise the stress and rush of organising a wedding. Kate still had nearly 2 years left of midwifery training to complete and we wanted to get married within a year of qualifying (it’s just far too exciting to wait any longer!)

We attended wedding fayres early on, where we met several suppliers just starting out and therefore offering great introductory offers! It was great as by the time our wedding eventually came around, they had gained lots of experience since we booked with them and many of them had gone on to work at events with each other and therefore knew each other! This gave our wedding an even more relaxed and friendly feel knowing that many of the suppliers were also friends! Given the length of our planning process, we got to know many of the suppliers well; with several of them tell us how excited they were to see finally see all of the plans in fruition, though also expressing sadness that it was like a break-up having spent so much time together to then part ways!

Some of our highlights from the planning process include; wine tasting in the venue’s gardens after hours with Karen and Julian from Horsebox Bar 65, numerous crafting productions lines in our kitchen with friends to make ‘save the dates’, pompoms, bunting, etc. and going to bridal shops and giving my friends free rein to choose dresses for me to try as I had no idea what I was looking for!

Budget

There was one once. We blew it! Totally worth it!

The Venue

Kate loves forests, Tim loves gardens and we found the most perfect combination of the two! Stonyford Cottage Gardens in Cheshire are hidden on the edge of Delamere Forest; founded by Tony who trained at Kew Gardens and maintained by his children. We fell in love with its tranquillity, in a sheltered valley full of mature trees, rare plants, meandering streams, wild life, hidden woodland paths and its beautiful pools and bridges. Having to enter through an arch in a brick wall, it had a very ‘Secret Garden’ feel to it. We felt that the little grassy clearing by the main Monet-inspired pond, cocooned by tall trees would be the perfect setting for our ceremony and low and behold, standing underneath the willow tree in front of the water we had our hand-fasting ceremony and said our vows!

A short stroll through the trees brought us to a small, festoon-lit woodland clearing, where we had our reception. We had a beautiful tipi with bark-edged furniture as the focal point of the field, with the horsebox bar, summer games, scone table, hay bale seating and cable reel ‘coffee tables’ dispersed about to create a chilled atmosphere where people could do and be whatever and wherever they fancied!

Your Outfits & Accessories

Bride

In December 2016 after endless trips to bridal shops I thought I’d found the dress and brought it home. It was completely different to what I had expected to go for and what people would expect me in, which I think was part of the appeal. It was a strapless, oyster-coloured ‘princess dress’ with a very long train and a beaded bodice. However, I never stopped looking around on the internet or in magazines which made me feel a little uneasy that if it was the dress, I should be so in love with it that I would no longer be interested in looking. Eight WEEKS before the wedding I stumbled upon a website called Frock and Frill and instantly fell in love with Eliza; a light weight, simple, floor-length dress with very delicately beaded cape-sleeves, beaded chest and with beading along the bottom. There was only one left in existence in my size…fate!! I woke up on the 5^th of August and wanted to put it straight back on!!

Groom

Tim’s suit was from Marc Darcy (DION – Blue Tweed Check Three Piece Suit). It was blue, a firm favourite of Tim’s, however had some great features such as a subtle check pattern, contrasting trim details on pockets that just gave it that little something special over the majority of the other suits we’d seen. The suit was completed with a burgundy floral tie (from Next) that not only complimented the bridesmaids’ dresses but was also matched to the groomsmen’s bowties. Tim’s shoes were from Barkers (McClean Cedar Calf/Blue Suede) and stole the show! A wedding gift from his older brother (and groomsman) Rich, who wanted to make up for countless missed birthday and Christmas presents. Again, a splash of blue suede gave them an extra special look. (Just don’t mention that they were more expensive than the wedding dress!)

A wedding day gift was sneaked into Tim’s accommodation on the morning of the big day; wooden cufflinks with a carving of a beagle as a way of having our dog, Cooper, be a part of our special day, without the havoc of having him actually there! The wedding day gift also included a vial of Creed Aventus aftershave. After multiple compliments on how he smelt, Tim highly recommends this and thinks just one spray justifies the price!

Beauty

I cannot recommend highly enough the amazing skills of Holly Lander MAU and her assistant in making me look and feel more beautiful on my wedding day than I ever will again! I had a trial the weekend before the wedding and instantly felt at ease with Holly. I felt she truly listened to my wishes to stay quite natural and classic-looking, with the addition of my trademark red lipstick! Holly was lovely, professional and kept me calm and sane on the morning of the wedding! Everyone looked incredible and was so happy with their look (totally their own choices to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible)! Truly fabulous!

Bridesmaids

Similar to the groomsmen, we had the issue of having both quite tall bridesmaids and some much shorter ones; therefore, had to find something to suit everyone! An added complication being was that I really liked the idea of floor-length dresses with a floaty, informal feel to match the venue. Luckily, ASOS do many of their bridesmaids dresses in regular, tall AND petite ranges at reasonable prices (an important factor when we had 8 of them!). Throw in student discount (I was a student midwife at the time) and we had eight bridesmaids dresses for less than £50 each! My sister Hannah’s dress was also from ASOS, but a different style to stand out as Maid of Honour. ASOS do lots of different styles of bridesmaids dresses but many in the same colour material to make things like this possible!

In addition, we also had Tim’s little sister and cousin as flower girls too! As well as our two nieces who were less than a year old, as flower babies. We were able to find the cutest little matching dresses to fit all of their ages from Monsoon (again with discount as I had signed up to Monsoon’s email newsletter!).

Groomsmen

With one of Tim’s best men being his identical twin Phil, the decision was made (against Phil’s best attempts) to have the groomsmen in something different and more casual. To ensure everyone was absolutely clear who was who, Phil received a surprise item during the ceremony- a burgundy sash to match the bow ties with the words ‘Not the Groom’ splashed across it! A relaxed smart-casual mixture of burgundy braces (ASOS), white shirts (groomsmens’ own) and tan corduroy trousers (Marks and Spencer) was selected. T&K’s top tip – consider the number and height of your groomsmen when picking them! It’s not easy to find eight groomsmen matching trousers with 3 of them over 6”4. Luckily for us, Mark and Spencer have a great ‘Big & Tall’ range which allowed us to get the same trousers for everybody! In order for them to stand out further, Tim searched far and wide (on Google) and managed to find bow ties (Etsy) that matched his own tie that bought the whole ensemble together perfectly.

The Readings & Music

Music

We had two awesome duos at the wedding. Firstly, an incredible acoustic couple, Ben & Ash from Kick Back Sundays to create a chilled vibe as guests arrived into the gardens, then picking it up as guests grabbed a drink and played games after the ceremony. Ben & Ash were so lovely and accommodating, composing a lovely rendition of “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles for Kate and the bridesmaids to walk down the grassy aisle to. Our evening band were the amazing (and recently engaged couple) Sophie & Mat from The Distance. There may have been only two of them but they sound like a stage full of artists with the help of their loop machine! At the end of the night, everyone was asked to vacate the tipi for the final song- once everyone was out under the clear night sky, Coldplay’s “Sky Full of Stars” was played! Some danced, some hugged, some lay down and stargazed whist holding hands- it truly was the perfect end to a perfect day!

Readings

We took an excerpt from ‘A Love Letter to End All Love Letters in the World Combined’, from Lemony Snickett’s ‘The Beatrice Letters’, expertly read by our friend Stefan (best dressed guest). Some of the words may seem a little silly and random to guests who have not read ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’; however, we wanted to keep the ceremony light-hearted whilst retaining the sentiment. One of our favourite parts of the reading is: “I will love you until all such [secret] compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled”.

Tim’s mum Lesley read a beautiful poem named ‘Thoughts in a Garden’ as suggested by our celebrant due to the garden setting and the parallels between caring for nature and your relationship (unfortunately the author is not known).

The Cake

Kate’s Aunty Barbara made the wedding cake! One on our favourite parts of the wedding was a little figurine of Cooper our beagle we had made to sit on top of the cake.

We also had chocolate cupcakes made by Kate (in a mad rush the day before the wedding) and Lemon & Poppyseed cupcakes made by Kate’s sister-in-law Sarah – all decorated with edible flowers!

The Details & Décor

The aim of most of our décor was to make people smile and to celebrate nature! Hopefully the personal theme would shine through by so much of it being very much home-made! Wood featured heavily in our décor; from a huge cake stand made from a section of tree trunk and log slices, big wooden cable reels used as tables outside and a branch full of different ribbons as a photo back drop, to some beautiful signs hand painted and decorated by our wonderful bridesmaid Beci onto wooden pallets. Our friends hung a variety of hearts from the bridges and trees in the woodland and gardens for people to spot as they explored. Some of our favourite details and items were:

We named all of the tables with different gins from around the world (as a nod to our favourite spirit and to the friends and family who had travelled from all over the globe to celebrate with us!). These bottles held candlesticks and were an interesting talking point for the guests. We had Welsh, Hungarian, Australian, Swiss, French, Canadian gins- to name a few! For our table plan we pinned polaroids of each bottle in various settings onto a pallet with the heading “Take Your Seats and Let’s Be-Gin!”

We made a little candle display under one of the trees by arranging logs of various sizes and covering them in long-life candles. It looked so magical and created a fab photo setting (who doesn’t look good in candle light, right?)

Kate’s Dad, Fred has a vintage Land Rover that has not worked for several years; however, he poured his blood, sweat and ‘gears’ into restoring it for the big day to personally drive Kate to her wedding in style! The vintage off-road vehicle was a perfect, personal touch in keeping with the outdoors theme and looked amazing in the field beside the tipi!

The Flowers

We had been looking for something a little different and less ‘polished’ for our flowers. The venue being woodland gardens meant that there were already flowers everywhere so we really only wanted bouquets and button holes! When looking at local florists, we found artisan florist Denise at Ginger Lily near Telford, with her beautiful rustic, natural looking creations and knew she was the one! The flowers included lots of green foliage, blush, ivories, and whites, consisting of Lisianthus, Roses, Hydrangea, ferns, Eucayptus, olive leaves. Each of the button holes were different and the bridesmaids each had a single stem white hydrangea wrapped with ribbon used to decorate the venue. My favourite (Kate) was my flower crown of olive leaves and white roses! I wanted something to tie in with the venue but also quite simple to compliment my dress! Denise also crested a beautiful decorated log for our table at the reception, and Tim had spent months painstakingly growing and watering (in the hottest Summer ever!) pots of herbs for the tables in terracotta pots. Simple but perfect!

Your Photographer

The amazing Jessica O’Shaughnessy! She is actually Kate’s sister’s best friend from school. It was great to have someone we knew taking the photographs as it removed any awkwardness we felt about having such intimate photos taken. Despite knowing Jess beforehand, it was a no-brainer who would be our photographer as her work speaks for itself!

Your Filmmaker

The wonderful Rebecca Reville and her assistant Kevin. Rebecca had filmed Kate’s hairdresser’s wedding and we couldn’t believe how amazing the trailer was when we saw it! We hadn’t originally planned on having a videographer; however, the idea of watching our wedding back when we’re older with our children seemed too magical to miss.

The Honeymoon

We went on a mystery mini-moon a few days after the wedding where we had no idea where we were going until we got to the airport! It was organised though a company called Mystery Break. When we got to the airport we opened the box they had sent us and found out that we were heading to Prague! The hotel (Hotel Pod Vezi) was gorgeous and each day left us local champagne, chocolates and macaroons in our room! It was so exciting to go somewhere unknown and actually a relief to have the trip planned by someone else after all of the wedding planning!

We are planning to go on a full honeymoon next year to Bali (via Tim’s Dad in Singapore and Kate’s sister in Australia) when it will also be Tim’s 30^th birthday! In Bali we’ve booked to stay in 2 different hotels; The Kayon Resort built into the stone hills alongside the Petanu river in a rainforest reserve and Pramana Watu Karung, poised above the Ayung river on the edge of a small Balinese village surrounded by rice fields. Each hotel offers honeymoon packages, daily yoga, massages, Balinese cooking lessons and what sounds like amazing food!

Memorable Moments

Kate: The most memorable moment for me was one only a few people knew about until recently. During the evening reception when the sun had set, Tim led me back into the gardens to a circle of candles besides the lake, followed by our photographer and unofficial videographer Amy (our best man’s girlfriend). Tim got out his phone and showed me a video message from one of our favourite singers Joshua Radin! After the message, Joshua Radin then sang ‘our song’ “The Bring Me To You” into the camera. Tim put his phone down and we had a (second) first dance, just for us, with Joshua singing in the background. It was truly magical! To quote the lyrics- “The rest of my life can’t compare to this night”. Absolutely!

Tim: Without a doubt, the moment I saw Kate’s beautiful smile as she started walking down the aisle. Not normally one to show Kate my emotions (having only cried once in our 9 years together), the overwhelming feeling of love and pride I felt at that moment is something that I will never forgot and I’ll openly admit that I was tearful! After 2 and a half years planning, the wedding dress was the only thing that I had no idea what it was going to be like, and my dreams came true! The most beautiful sight I have ever seen and for the remainder of the ceremony I could not take my eyes off her.

Advice For Other Couples

1. If your wedding is DIY like ours and you haven’t got one included, definitely hire a wedding co-ordinator for the day! We’re both quite organised and always like to know that things are going to plan, so we needed to find someone just as organised and whom we could trust to run the day like clockwork. This allowed us to relinquish control and fully enjoy the day! We have some very organised friends that we would have trusted entirely, however, we wanted them to fully enjoy the day as guests!
2. Do what you like! Your grandparents may look at you like you’ve grown two heads when you tell them that you’re not getting married in a church, but they’ll enjoy it anyway. Don’t want a top table? No worries! Your mum will get over it. It’s lovely to sit amongst your guests rather than feel like you’re constantly put on show. (This one is particularly handy if you have split parents and want to avoid any awkwardness).
3. The planning process can become a bit all-consuming, you may start to bicker out of pure tiredness and nervous anxiety- please please make the time to put the laptop down and go out on a date with a ban on wedding talk. You may feel like you haven’t got the time, especially the closer you get to the big day, but you both need it as you probably need a good laugh and amongst the inevitable stress it’s easy to lose sight of the reason you’re doing this!
4. Microsoft Excel all the way!

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Katie and Tim, what a beautiful outdoorsy wedding. Thank you ever so much for sharing everything with us today. Rachel x