Caz & Craig

How incredibly romantic to have your Husband-to-be playing your favourite song on his guitar whilst you walk down the aisle towards him. I bet there wasn't a dry eye in the house. It's actually giving me goosebumps thinking about it. As you can guess Caz and Craig didn't follow tradition and opted for a relaxed boho wedding in The Eden Valley of the Lake District. Having the twinkliest of humanist ceremonies with hand fastening in a rustic barn, followed by a delicious afternoon tea served by Polly's Vintage Caravan, and a lively reception in one of Special Events Tipi's. I love all the succulent and moss decor and Caz's wild thistle, grass, berry and cabbage flower bouquet is truly gorgeous, the perfect accompaniment to her gorgeous Jenny Packham Bardot gown and Tesoro headdress. Groom Craig is also rocking a pair of Tartan trousers & tails in homage to his Grandfather.

The Dress

Caz the Bride: I always knew that I didn’t want a typical wedding dress and I as soon as I started looking I loved the Jenny Packham Dresses. The Bardot dress was the last dress I tried on and my mum and my bridesmaids all started crying so I knew that was the one – it was amazing! The Tesoro head dress was just so delicate and pretty that as soon as I tried that on I knew I had to have that as well.

The Grooms Fashion

Craig, his 3 brothers and his dad all wore ancient Lamont tartan which is their family tartan. His late grandfather always used to wear tartan trousers rather than a kilt so Craig has always said that he would get some trousers made for our wedding in his memory. He then wore these with tails and his brothers and his dad wore their kilts. The other groomsmen wore tails.

The Venue

The High Barn in the middle of a field near Penrith. It was a stunning location with views for miles across the northern Lake District. We used the old barn for the Ceremony and then Special Event Tipis put three fabulous Tipi’s together next to the barn, where we had the wedding breakfast [I.e. in the tipis). After this there was dancing back in the barn. As neither Craig nor I are religious, we knew that we didn’t want the ceremony in the church and we didn’t want anything formal, we just wanted a relaxed day with all our family and friends, and a ceremony which would match our personalities and beliefs.

Colour Scheme/Decor

We wanted the décor to fit in with the surroundings, lots of greens and wild flowers. Flower Design did a fantastic job and both the tipi and the barn were decorated beautifully. We told them our vision and after consulting our many boards on Pinterest they brought our vision to life. There wasn’t a strict colour scheme as such.

Flowers/Florist

The Bridesmaids had smaller versions of my bouquet which again were filled with wild/ countryside flowers with all very neutral colours.

The Wedding Party Fashion

My three beautiful bridesmaids wore maxi dresses from ASOS. My maid of honour, Sarah, wore royal blue and Lucinda and Larlie’s dresses were nude. My adorable flower girl wore a white leotard with gold tutu and gold sparkly shoes, and proudly wore little fairy wings. The little page boys wore white shirts and Chinos from Zara and navy Blue Converse shoes.

Ceremony

The ceremony was a humanist ceremony and was carried out by John Topping (a humanist celebrant). He was fantastic! We met with him a couple of times before the wedding and put together a service completely personal to us. Craig plays guitar so he played me down the aisle to my favourite Take That song, Want You Back, and he also played us “With a Little Help from My Friends” as the ‘hymn’ which our guests all sang together. We had two readings from close friends. The first one was read by Gemma called ‘When your hair has turned to Winter’ (author unknown) and the second one was ready by Kate called “Friendship", by Judy Bielicki.

Entertainment

We had a great band called the Bad Cats. They did an acoustic set whilst people were chatting, drank tea and prosecco after the ceremony and then they played whilst are guests danced the night away after the wedding breakfast. They also DJ’d after the band had finished. They played our first dance for us as well (Everywhere – Fleetwood Mac).

Food

We had Polly the Vintage Caravan after the ceremony. Polly comes with a group of lovely ladies who serve the most delicious afternoon tea of sandwiches and cakes. Polly was situated just outside the tipi and provided people with yummy treats and tea along with the prosecco for a few hours. For the wedding breakfast we had a sharing platter of yummy cold meats, burrata, roast tomatoes and bread followed by either a chicken or beef individual pie and gravy with green veg and pickled red cabbage. We wanted something different rather than typical wedding food and we both love a good pie. We then had pulled pork and coleslaw buns at about midnight for those that were still there.

Photographer

The wonderful Kelly Green at Lola Rose Photography. We were adamant that we didn’t want anything cheesy and we didn’t want hours of formal photographs. Kelly got exactly what we wanted from our first skype call and we couldn’t be more happy with our photos. She was amazing throughout the day, she didn’t get in anyone’s way and captured everything we wanted her to.

Videographer

Jumping Spider Films. We didn’t really know what to expect from a videographer but we were thrilled with what we got from these guys. They were so professional and most of the time we weren’t even aware of them filming. There were two of them so they could be filming two different areas at the same time. The film they did for us captured the whole day perfectly which is probably why I have watched it 100’s of times since our wedding day. They captured both close ups and drone footage from a hundred feet in the air, so all angles were covered. We were mic’d up for the speeches so nothing was missed!

Final Thoughts

Special thanks has to go to my mum who had so many wonderful ideas right from the start. She was amazing and worked so hard on making the day perfect. The videographer and the photographer were the best and I would highly recommend them to everyone that is getting married. The team from special event tipis were incredible on the day, especially Kate who co owns it with her husband Dave. She was in charge and made sure that everything ran smoothly on the day, she was amazing. Nothing went wrong at all and everything went exactly how were hoping. All of the Special Events Tipi team were charming and nothing was too much trouble. The Tipi’s really were very cool and just what we had been looking for.