Charlotte & Jonathan

Get ready to get your groove on at this brightly coloured festival themed wedding. I guarantee it'll be the perfect start to your weekend. If there's one place you feel totally at ease it's at home, and bride and groom Charlotte & Jonathan just knew this would be the perfect place to celebrate their wedding day in style. They hired a fabulous tipi, decked it in wonderful DIY decor and wild flowers, and all this pretty culminated in a full dance floor and fireworks display. It sounds like the ideal day and I can just tell from all the emotion filled captures by McGivern Photography it really was.

Dress

Charlotte the Bride: I got my dress from The Mews Bridal in Notting Hill. Living abroad we had to be time savvy, so I researched all the boutiques in advance and made notes on the dresses. As soon as I put in on I loved it and knew it was fun, relaxed and elegant. I was sure that in years to come I would look back and love it. It was fashionable without being 'over-the-top'.

The Grooms Attire

Jonny knew he wanted to wear a morning suit. We went to Marks & Spencer where he found what he wanted and ordered it online. Super easy and simple.

The Venue

We got married at my parents' house in Shropshire, where I had grown up. For us it was the obvious place.

Colour Scheme/Décor

We knew that we were not a white wedding couple. We loved the idea of a festival style wedding so a tipi was the way to go. We found a great tipi company, World Inspired Tents, they were fantastic and very helpful. We opted for two large hat tipis, matted walkway and bar structure. We decorated it with colourful bunting, fans, plenty of greenery and huge paper flowers. It looked really fun and individual. All our guests commented on how this was really 'us'. We also wanted a nod to Switzerland so named the tables after Swiss cantons, alongside the canton flags and pots full of Toblerone. We decided to make things (menu cards, names tags etc.) together, which was fun, especially with a glass of something in hand. This way it also meant we could create exactly what we wanted and take pride in what we had done. It really makes the day so personal, and is something that guests really notice.

Flowers/Florist

The flowers were simple; we had colourful wild flowers on the tables in jam jars, quirky bottles and teapots. We also had some milk churns at the entrance of the tipi. My mother, grandmother and a couple of friends created the flower arrangements in the church. We had a professional florist do the bouquet, my flower crown, bridesmaid posies and buttonholes. Gilliflower is a local Shropshire florist and listened so attentively to our wishes. The flower crown completed my look, I felt like and looked like a Roman Goddess, that's going a bit far but we adored it!

The Wedding Party Fashion

Our four bridesmaids have very different styles/ shapes and there was also a ten-year age span between them all. Two of the bridesmaids, my sisters, loved the Reformation dresses but the other two felt they didn't flatter their figures. For the other two we found some beautiful silk jumpsuits with a flowery pattern and huge bow on the back from Whistles. They loved them! The two outfits were both very different but complimented each other really well. All four of them wore a flower crown, which looked beautiful and tied all the outfits together. For the groomsmen it was simple, they all wore morning suits and their choice of tie. They each wore a buttonhole, and as little nod to our Swiss life again, they were given a coloured mini Swiss Army penknife each! We also had Jonny's five-year old nephew, Stanley, as our pageboy and his thirteen-year old niece Vicky as our flower girl. They both wore simple, traditional outfits, teamed with white Converse. Comfort is key when the little ones have a role at a wedding!

Ceremony

Our ceremony was very traditional in the end including our vows. We had an order of service that was primarily influenced by my mum, who is a professional organist and arranges music and wedding ceremonies as part of her daily work life. This meant we could call upon the services of a professional trumpeter, world-class organist and a fantastic professional soprano singer to add extra wow factor in the church. We had three readings in total, one Shakespeare, one from the bible and a poem we both loved. Three very good friends shared two of the readings, and did a wonderful job. Jonny's 94-year-old grandfather read the Shakespeare reading and he performed it admirably.

Entertainment

Aside from the wonderful music in the church, we had a live band, DJ and fireworks. The DJ and live band were local to our wedding in Shropshire and had been recommended. Known as The HMV Band, we could not recommend Mike and his team more. They came fully prepared during the church service, set-up seamlessly and brought with them the best BOSE audio equipment, lights and smoke machines!

Food

We used a local caterer, Goose on the Loose, as we really wanted to use local produce and suppliers. We had mini burgers and sausages teamed with some more refined starters as canapés. For main course we opted for Shropshire ham glazed with Canadian maple syrup, as a nod to Jonny's French Canadian roots, accompanied with sauces, new potatoes and summer salads, all using local produce. We decided to eat our wedding cake for our dessert. Our caterer added a delicious ice cream lollipop with popping candy to the plate and some edible flowers. It elevated the cake to a fancy dessert and was absolutely delicious. We also found these wonderful guys called FizzFellas who are a trendy Prosecco based cocktail outfit. They were one of the stars of the show.

Photographer

We were delighted when Oli McGivern agreed to be our wedding photographer. We were convinced by his style, and the reassuring feeling we both had when we met him. On the day itself, Oli worked tirelessly for 12 hours, capturing everything in the brief and even adding on some of his own ideas. He made everyone feel at ease and somehow, he got everyone's 'best' side every time! The photos are stunning and we love every single one. What we liked most was his ability to melt into the background when required and then pop out into the foreground and control the situation when he needed to. The results truly speak for themselves.

Advice

Our advice would be to organise your time well, ask for recommendations and/or spend time searching the Internet and make it fun (bubbles for your troubles!) Remind yourself constantly that this will be the best day of your life so far.