DIY Rustic Tipi Wedding at Riverhill Gardens, Sevenoaks

To quote the bride "we had a bit of a hotchpotch of things, but it worked!" Oh my did it! And the results are spectacular. We love it when couples really go for it and incorporate everything they love. Even more so when we hear they've had a go at creating some of the beautiful displays you see before you themselves. RMW recommended supplier Frances Sales Photography did an amazing job at capturing all the decor and emotion of this DIY Rustic Tipi Wedding at Riverhill Gardens, Sevenoaks. So make sure you're sitting comfortably, you could be here pinning for a while.

DIY Rustic Tipi Wedding at Riverhill Gardens, Sevenoaks

Alice & Ian the Bride & Groom: We decided very early on in our wedding journey that we didn't want a prescriptive wedding where someone told us what menu we could choose from or what time we had to get married, so that meant a DIY wedding was the only option for us! As a PR and Marketing Manager and Graphic Designer couple, we wanted the day not only had to be fun for us but all of our guests and also look good too. We choose a venue local to us called Riverhill that gave us enough of a rustic feel to satisfy what we wanted the general theme to be, but also a bit of formality by way of their beautiful walled gardens. We hand-picked all of our suppliers, often selecting those just starting out, trying to do their thing a little bit differently, which we loved. We had a lot of friends help us along the way and made a lot of the props and signage ourselves - lots of effort but we were delighted with the end result. Our wedding was everything we hoped it would be and more.

Wedding Décor

Being (now married) to a graphic designer, décor was always going to be a big deal. We didn’t have a theme, but instead just picked stuff that we liked and thought was cool. I guess it was rustic authenticity that strung everything together – we made as much as we could and tried to avoid any of that ready-made wedding paraphernalia that so many shops sell these days. It meant we had a bit of a hotchpotch of things, but I think it worked in the end. We made most of the props and signage ourselves using salvaged scaffold boards and some liberated pallets from work. It’s amazing what you can do with a bit of Swedish wax and chalk pens! I loved the result and was actually really sad when we had to get rid after the wedding. For some of the bigger ticket items like our beautiful vintage banquet tables and chairs, our bureau ‘photo booth’ and doughnut wall, we rented these items from a company called Hire Love. Hire Love is an absolute gem of a company; their warehouse contains no end of treasures that you can hire and the owner Rachel really is a styling wizard!

Photography

Ian and I both hate posed photography and some of our favourite pictures from our relationship are weird action shots of our friends and family where I’ve taken a snap without waiting for everyone to stop what they’re doing. We selected Frances Sales for two reasons – one, her documentary-style photos that really capture the heart and soul of a situation, and two, because of the depth and warmth of colouring in her photos. The final album looked stunning and we’re so pleased with them. And, because they’re done in a documentary style, it’s almost like having your own video of the day, without a costly videographer!