Victoria & Jon’s Big Chief Wedding, Dorfold Hall, October 2018
Following on from our last Blog Post all about Victoria & Jon’s tipi setup, below they share their Black Book of contacts to help you plan your outdoor tipi wedding…
Who was your photographer?
Why did you chose Steve?
We spent such a long time choosing a photographer and searched hundreds of websites looking for the right person. But the minute we came across Steve we knew he was the right guy. His pictures stood out from everything else we had seen, always choosing different angles and providing a different perspective. Then when we spoke to him he was so easy going and wanted to just fit in with our day, not imposing a million rules and strict timeframes like you hear from other photographers. Choosing Steve was without a doubt the best decision.
Tell us all about your flowers…
Our florist was Laura at Green Earth Flowers and she was amazing. We don’t know anything about flowers, so after briefing Laura about the kind of day we were aiming to achieve and the style of wedding we were hoping for, we completely left her to her own devices and this was absolutely the best thing we could have done. We thought we had been so vague, but Laura understood our personalities and hopes for the day perfectly and created the most beautiful designs. The saddest thing was going straight on honeymoon and not being able to enjoy them for longer – luckily our parents/grandparents were able to enjoy them for us and we donated some of the flowers to Jon’s Nan’s nursing home which were gratefully received.
How did you decorate your tipis?
Jon and I are both analysts and don’t have a creative bone in our body, so luckily the tipis don’t need too much hard work to look amazing for a tipi wedding! We purchased a tonne of bunting that matched our colour scheme, along with ribbons to tie on to the back of chairs (both from Etsy). With the exception of spray painting some pumpkins gold (this was way more effective than we ever could have hoped!), we left everything else to the amazing Laura at Green Earth and Amanda our stationery designer who between them, created the most stunning tables while keeping it simple and ensuring our guests could still see each other and chat across the tables!
Who did you use to make your cake?
Again, we gave completely free reign to Rachel from Marie Antoinette cakes as we really do believe everyone working in this industry can create complete magic if you let them. Like Laura, Rachel totally understood what we were trying to achieve and created two gorgeous cakes – they tasted fab too. Rachel worked with our florist and stationery design to incorporate elements of both into the cake and it all came together perfectly.
What did you do for entertainment?
Music was really important to us and we put a lot of thought into how we did this. For us, music can make or break a tipi wedding and we wanted to ensure that the music we played reflected the fun and informal atmosphere we were trying to create. We created a playlist for before the ceremony which consisted of mainly soul/dance anthems which still had the right message for day – things like The Way You Love me by Ron Hall & The Muthafunkaz and the Reflex remix of Celebration by Kool & the Gang. While a little unconventional, it meant our guests were partying before Victoria even walked down the aisle which was amazing. We then had The Mixnots DJ for us during the reception drinks, with a 7 piece band New Power Soul Club playing in the evening, before The Mixnots DJ carried on the party. Our first dance was to Hannah Grace’s version of Praise You by Fatboy Slim which got everyone dancing from the off.
