We Wanted to Keep It as Country Bumpkin as Possible! Katie and Matt’s Tipi Wedding

The styling and gen­eral decor all looks fan­tas­tic. Katie and Matt have made it look easy — and the wed­ding tents are lovely and wel­com­ing, pretty and full of spe­cial touches which make their tipi wed­ding a very per­sonal one.

Con­grat­u­la­tions and big thank yous to an amaz­ing cou­ple. Matt, Katie — your wed­ding report is fab. Your pho­tos are bril­liant. You look beau­ti­ful (yes, both of you!) and like a match made in heaven. Thanks ever so much for shar­ing your wed­ding on the Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog today! With spe­cial thanks as well to wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Bar­rie Downie for shar­ing his lovely images of today’s tipi wed­ding blog too. Every­one — enjoy! Claire xxx

A very per­sonal tipi wed­ding — Katie and Matt’s coun­try wed­ding blog

Wed­ding venue:

The Church was St Mary the Vir­gin in Buck­land Vil­lage which is near Far­ing­don, Oxon. The Wed­ding recep­tion was held at The Dove­cote also in Buck­land, which is a build­ing that Matt’s par­ents ren­o­vated as a roman­tic hol­i­day let and had space next to it for some tipis.

Wed­ding photographer:

Bar­rie Downie – fantastic!

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Eng­lish country

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

We went online! Zazzle.com for the invi­ta­tions, RSVPs and thank you cards. We made the orders of ser­vice and table names our­selves, and we bought some bird shaped place cards from John Lewis

What did you both wear?

Bride: My dress was called Dita by Naomi Neoh. She has a beau­ti­ful stu­dio in West Nor­wood, Lon­don. It was the first dress I tried on and although I tried on lots more I went back to Dita.

My shoes were from Bhs!! I searched high and low for some sparkly kit­ten heels and I found the per­fect pair for just £22!

I wanted to keep my acces­sories sim­ple and pretty so I wore dia­mond stud ear­rings and a dia­mond pen­dant neck­lace. I fin­ished it off with a ten­nis bracelet from Swarovski.

The brides­maids wore Vivien of Hol­loway dresses with match­ing petticoats

Groom: I found a 2 piece suit with the right fab­ric in a high street store in Mel­bourne (where we live). It was navy with a faint pur­ple check – pur­ple was our main color amongst lots of others.

We’d like to say we tied it in with the Queen’s Dia­mond jubilee and the Olympics color but it was pure coin­ci­dence. I bought an extra set of trousers and had a waist­coat made with light cream silk lin­ing on the back.

My tie and pocket hand­ker­chief were a match­ing set and I found my shoes (with pur­ple laces) in a Ted Baker out­let in Melbourne.

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony:

The wed­ding cer­e­mony was held at St Mary the Vir­gin Church in Buck­land. The Vicar Joy was fan­tas­tic and got to know us well before the big day. It was this church where Matt had sung for 9 years dur­ing his time at the local pri­mary school – so it has a nice con­nec­tion for us. We chose some patri­otic hymns to belt out: “Jerusalem”, “I vow to thee my coun­try” and “All things bright and beautiful”

We chose a reli­gious and a non reli­gious read­ing for the cer­e­mony. The reli­gious read­ing was Solomon’s Song – Chap­ter 2. We chose it mainly because it men­tions “the coo­ing of doves” which tied in with our recep­tion at a Dovecote.

The non reli­gious read­ing which my twin brother chose was called ‘Love Mon­key’ by Edward Monk­ton — a story about how to find true love and how to make it flourish.

Tell us a lit­tle about your wed­ding venue styling and details:

Buck­land is a typ­i­cal Eng­lish coun­try vil­lage on the edge of the Cotswolds so we wanted to keep it as coun­try bump­kin as possible.

We con­sid­ered a mar­quee for the recep­tion at the Dove­cote but it didn’t feel right, so we were super chuffed when we found the tipis. We absolutely loved the arrange­ment shaped around the Dove­cote and although they appear small from the out­side they are actu­ally really spa­cious on the inside.

The din­ing area was flanked by a dance floor lit with fairy lights on one side and a bar on with an open fire on the other. We printed off pic­tures of each cou­ple in our fam­ily on their wed­ding day going back 3 gen­er­a­tions and hung them from string around the bar, which we loved!

There was plenty of bunting, hay bales and coun­try flow­ers dot­ted around but we didn’t want to overdo it as the tipis and Dove­cote looked gor­geous as they are.

We also had uplighters on the Dove­cote which looked fan­tas­tic as day turned to night. One of the ush­ers arranged for an ice cream van to pop down at sun­set too which was yummy.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

On arrival at the Dove­cote we had an acoustic jazz band play­ing who were absolutely per­fect for the set­ting. Whilst the music was play­ing we had Pimm’s and coun­try cider going around

In the evening we used MightyFine Enter­tain­ment. Mark was fan­tas­tic and really got to know our taste.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

The entire day was per­fect but here are a few of our highlights.…

• Watch­ing the tipis go up on the Wednes­day in tor­ren­tial rain as the lane turned into a river – that was emo­tional! Luck­ily the week­end was pure sunshine
• See­ing the best man bend over to pick some­thing up hav­ing just got into his suit and tear­ing a mas­sive hole in the rear of his trousers… luck­ily he had a spare!
• Hear­ing that Mrs A had arrived at the church! And then watch­ing her walk down the aisle
• Walk­ing back down the aisle as Mr & Mrs A
• Lis­ten­ing to hilar­i­ous and emo­tional speeches with the evening sun stream­ing into the tipis
• Steal­ing a moment alone to catch the last glimpse of sun­set and reflect on the day together

Wed­ding day advice:

We were given some very good advice before our big day. Here’s a few things to remember.…

1. Be calm and kind to your mum
2. Have at least 1 glass of cham­pagne in the morn­ing but no more than 3
3. Make sure you find a moment at the recep­tion for just the two of you to step away and take it all in
4. Don’t sweat the small stuff, savour every lit­tle moment, and have fun!

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Florist Flower Fac­tory in Swin­don http://www.theflowerfactory.biz
• Music http://mfent.co.uk/
• Pho­tog­ra­phy http://www.barriedownie.com/
• Food http://www.tailormadetopnosh.com/
• Tipis http://www.beautifulworldtents.co.uk/