A PapaKata Wedding in Cheshire

Siob­han and Chris had a beau­ti­ful, indi­vid­ual wed­ding in Cheshire this year. With my friend and Cheshire wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Phil Drinkwa­ter to doc­u­ment their wed­ding day in pic­tures, this is such an inspir­ing story to share with you.

Before I leave you to enjoy Siob­han and Chris’s wed­ding report with all of those beau­ti­ful images, I need to men­tion the danc­ing. I’ve fea­tured PapaKata wed­dings on Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog before — but today is spe­cial. Watch out for the last few pic­tures, which show PapaKata by night… the sparkling lights and fes­ti­val atmos­phere is enchanting!

Enjoy.

Siob­han and Chris’s PapaKata wed­ding in Cheshire

What did you wear?

I wore an all-lace Lusan Man­dongus gown, with a sash ‘Lola’ by Sash and Co and Rachel Simp­son shoes ‘Mimi’ all pur­chased at the beau­ti­ful Cheshire bridal bou­tique, the White Closet.

Chris and his grooms­men hired mid-grey three piece suits with gray ties.

Who pro­posed, and how?

Chris pro­posed in Paris — we went there on our first hol­i­day together six years ear­lier so it was a spe­cial place for us. I did sus­pect he may be plan­ning to pop the ques­tion but after we had passed all the obvi­ous roman­tic land­marks I had pretty much given up on the idea.

We then arrived at a small park out­side the city and rented a row­ing boat where Chris ner­vously rowed us out to the mid­dle of the lake. He shyly pro­duced a beau­ti­ful engage­ment ring and asked me to marry him and of course I said yes!

A PapaKata wed­ding venue in Cheshire

The first thing we knew we wanted was the kata teepee style tents you can see at fes­ti­vals and found a com­pany called PapaKata to sup­ply these. We went to their open day and really liked the unique­ness of the amaz­ing tents and the cosy atmos­phere they created.

Find­ing some­where to actu­ally put them was the dif­fi­cult bit!! We trawled round every piece of flat land in the north-west until we had almost given up on the idea. How­ever, the very help­ful staff at PapaKata knew we were hav­ing trou­ble and emailed us with a sug­ges­tion of a pub with land they had used recently in Knutsford called ‘The Bells of Peover’.

We had actu­ally orig­i­nally dis­counted the venue from pic­tures we saw on the inter­net but fol­low­ing PapaKata’s rec­om­men­da­tion we did go and see it. We were imme­di­ately struck by the charm of the 170-year-old pub and were very pleased to see a big flat lawn with a huge wil­low tree at the bot­tom where the teepee could go!

A rec­om­mended Cheshire wed­ding photographer

The wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher was the first thing we booked. We stum­bled across some of Phil’s pic­tures while look­ing at pho­tographs of the teepees online. We were so impressed with the relaxed style of his pic­tures that we called him almost imme­di­ately as it just suited our vision of our big day so perfectly.

When we first met I told Phil I could never see myself hav­ing a big fancy wed­ding pic­ture on my wall which he imme­di­ately took as a chal­lenge and pro­duced so many that now I can’t decide which one to put up!

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Relaxed, infor­mal, indi­vid­ual, fes­ti­val.

The wed­ding ceremony:

Reli­gious or civil? Reli­gious. I’m Catholic and Chris is Church of Eng­land, so we got mar­ried in my Catholic church and Chris’ fam­ily friend who is also a C of E vicar offi­ci­ated the cer­e­mony along­side the priest. It meant a lot to us to have both fam­i­lies’ reli­gions rep­re­sented in our wed­ding ceremony.

Which wed­ding read­ings did you choose?

We chose read­ings from the bible that were read by fam­ily and friends; we wanted as many peo­ple to be involved in the wed­ding as pos­si­ble. One of my brides­maids Sophie sang Amaz­ing Grace as we signed the reg­is­ter, that was def­i­nitely an emo­tional moment!

The wed­ding reception:

The guests were trans­ported to our venue on a vin­tage red dou­ble decker bus. Our recep­tion got under way with all the guests hav­ing cham­pagne and canapés out­side on the deck­ing while we were hav­ing our pic­tures taken (luck­ily the weather was nice!).

They were enter­tained by gui­tarist and singer Chris Fletcher who was a last-minute book­ing but turned out to be one of the best things we did — he was amaz­ing and sang a lot of our favorite songs with­out us even hav­ing to ask!

We then moved inside the teepee for our sit-down meal which was a bbq, accom­pa­nied by sal­ads and side dishes on the table so peo­ple could share, fol­lowed by a deli­cious trio of desserts. Chris’s Dad pro­vided the wine and Cham­pagne as he is his an expert in this area — we even went to France before the wed­ding to pick the Cham­pagne up directly from the supplier!

Din­ner was fol­lowed by the speeches and cut­ting of the cake and then the party started!

PapaKåta wed­ding highlights

The evening recep­tion was so much fun and the dance floor was full ALL night! I put a dressing-up box at the side of the dance floor full of hats, nov­elty sun­glasses and inflat­able gui­tars — peo­ple headed straight for it, and the result­ing pho­tos of every­one in silly hats are absolutely hilarious!

Wed­ding styling and details

I started col­lect­ing vin­tage china from char­ity shops early on and in the end all my fam­ily and friends were help­ing with the col­lec­tion. We had a favour table rather than indi­vid­ual favours, with lit­tle bas­kets filled with Chris’s Mum’s home­made mar­malade and minia­ture bot­tles of Jäger­meis­ter we bought online. I put them on a table with some pic­tures of our grand­par­ents’ and par­ents’ wed­ding days.

I trusted my won­der­ful florist to design the top table flow­ers which were all in lovely pretty vin­tage vases, bot­tles and jars. The cen­tre pieces were can­de­labras with pearl and lace gar­lands hang­ing on them, it was a cheaper alter­na­tive to flo­ral cen­tre pieces but com­pleted the look perfectly.

Our cake was made by my mom and dec­o­rated by a fam­ily friend. Hav­ing watched in awe over the years at Karen’s Christ­mas cakes I had always had her in mind to make my wed­ding cake. After much per­sua­sion I man­aged to con­vince her (she didn’t want the pres­sure) and she did a fab­u­lous job — it was stun­ning and tasted deli­cious!

Wed­ding music and entertainment

We had a live band fol­lowed by a DJ. I met the band ‘The Bet Lynch Mob’ in the pub through a friend and when I men­tioned my wed­ding they offered to pro­vide the music.

They sent me through a set list of indie/rock songs which were all bril­liant (we added a few more favourites) and they were booked. I had never heard them play before so it was a bit of a risk but it paid off, they were/are an actual band rather than a wed­ding band and the crowd loved it!

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments

Say­ing our vows in front of our fam­i­lies and friends was the most spe­cial part of our day.

Arriv­ing in the sun­shine, being handed a glass of cham­pagne and see­ing our teepee for the first time!

Hav­ing an impromptu dance-off with my dad to ‘Pump it up’ by Elvis Costello as it was played by our band is some­thing I won’t forget.

Wed­ding day advice

Don’t give up on your orig­i­nal thoughts and ideas along the way, they are the ideas that excited you at the begin­ning, it’s easy to be swayed by other people’s opin­ions or reactions.

Always try and remem­ber to have a moment to take it all in with your new Husband/Wife. Later on in our evening we stood out­side our teepee while the party was in full swing and looked in think­ing wow we did it!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers

Our florist Vicky from ‘Hearts and Flow­ers’ in Den­ton, Man­ches­ter. Vicky is THE nicest per­son I came across dur­ing the wed­ding plan­ning process-nothing was too much trou­ble and she knew exactly what I wanted, a true pro. http://www.heartsandflowers-denton.co.uk/

The White Closet in West Dids­bury, Man­ches­ter. Beau­ti­ful Bridal bou­tique with gor­geous dresses and acces­sories and very help­ful staff. http://thewhitecloset.co.uk/

PapaKata sup­plied our teepee tents, a very help­ful team that went the extra mile. http://www.papakata.co.uk/

Brides­maids dresses were altered and cus­tomised by Lucy Lock­ets Attic http://www.facebook.com/LucyLocketsAttic

And of course our fab wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Phil Drinkwa­ter who as you can see has taken some stun­ning pic­tures!! http://www.phildweddingphotography.co.uk/

Our hair and make up was by pro­fes­sion­ally trained free­lance makeup artist Jen­nifer Perry http://www.jenniferperrymakeupartistry.com/