Floral Stephanie Allin Dress for Festival Wedding with Food Trucks

If this incredible floral Stephanie Allin gown doesn't make you want to send back your current wedding dress and speed dial Steph herself for a replacement, then I don't think we can be friends anymore. I mean just LOOK AT IT!!! Kate looks utterly gorgeous, like a flower fairy floating around her beautiful outdoor wedding. As well as being a total babe, Kate has some wonderfully honest words about wedding panic which I think will resonate with a lot of people and they definitely made us love her a little bit more. Images come from the lovely Emma at Epic Love Story, who has captured of the magic perfectly.

Our Wedding

Kate the Bride: When we got engaged I actually had a massive panic about being the centre of attention for a whole day, it absolutely terrified me. So I had to think practically about what we truly wanted from the day to kill my nerves. We wanted a day in the life of us for our guests to fully experience, from our love of the outdoors, our favourite food and our favourite music, everything we would want from an epic day. We wanted to make it a day that lasted longer than a day, flowers to take home by all guests, table settings that were magnets to use at home, lollies and chocolates to keep for the following day and for those who wanted it, the option to camp with us in mini tipis. I designed all the invites and stationary myself, a natural woodland design, tied together with rose gold ribbon and a little wooden disk. The save the dates were wooden disks which I stamped and popped a magnet on the back.

The Bride

My dress was an absolute dream, a completely unexpected find but perfect in every way. I wanted to look like a woodland fairy and it perfectly fit the bill. The colours in the dress inspired me to fill the whole day with colour. I donʼt wear jewellery so I didnʼt wear any on the day, I also wanted my dress to do all the talking. My shoes were converse with rose gold ribbons and I wore forget-me-nots in my hair for the people who couldnʼt be with us on the day.

The Groom & Groomsmen

The groomsmen and groom were easier to suit and boot, a classic blue suit with a bit of a twist. I didnʼt want it to be too ‘weddingʼ just simple ties and a nice waistcoat. To make Andy subtly stand out, I found sage green laces for his shoes, a sage green bow tie and pocket square and a slightly different waistcoat.

The Venue

The venue was a really nice compromise of being a beautiful field venue with the addition of power, water and lovely owners to help in whatever ways they could. We initially wanted to hire a field and completely DIY it ourselves but logistically having power and water supplied at Church Farm and the manicured yet rustic grass, flowers and trees sold it to us. We loved having the different areas to explore, a hidden area where we had tipis for camping, the top lawn for drinks and speeches and the breathtaking copse of trees where we had our ceremony. It was truly magical.

The Decor

I always knew I wanted sage green as my main colour, it's just beautiful and can work in so many ways. The multi colour aspects just kind of happened, the confetti, the wristbands we had designed and printed, the festival flags all inspired by the fact my dress had colour in it. I live my life in multi colour, as Andy described me in his speech, I am ‘anti boringʼ and I love all things rainbow. I kept the inside of the dome fairly neutral on the tables and went wild outside. Decor wise, we kept it simple, rose gold, creams and whites with lots of foliage and greenery. I decorated wooden cutlery by painting the handles in rose gold which complimented the palm leaf plates and the name pegs. Little hints of rose gold in the ‘fortune cookieʼ heart on each place setting, the rose gold lights in the jars on the tables. All the jars were decorated by my mum and myself with little hand stamped tags asking people to take the flowers home, make the beauty last longer than one day. Our florist, Suzy then went wild filling the jars with incredible flowers and foliage. The top table had a foliage runner, an absolutely dream. The stars hung from the ceiling were the first purchase we made and really drew your eyes up to the contours of the dome itself. We wanted to bring the outside in for a relaxing beautiful setting, whilst still keeping it a nice place to enjoy good food, and real napkins (all painstakingly ironed and folded by my Grandma).

The Flowers

Suzy was the absolute dream. She brought the outside in. She decorated the log in our ceremony area so naturally that no one realised it had been created and hadnʼt just grown there. My bouquet was a mix of around 27 different types of foliage centred around a beautiful airplant to keep after and Andys button hole mimicked this with his own mini airplant. Rustic greenery. We had a neon light created for the day to keep after with the two words we replied with when asked what we thought of our relationship, ‘Happy adventureʼ. I truly belive the whole wedding day was a happy adventure from start to finish.

The Wedding Party

My bridesmaids wore multiway dresses and my flowergirls wore little boho dresses from a seller on Etsy with rose gold shoes from Next. I just wanted them to be able to race around and play the games while being comfortable.

The Ceremony

The ceremony itself was my favourite part. We were positioned in a sunbeam within the copse while everyone sat around the edge on hay bales. A relaxed setting and really surrounded by nature. My favourite part was a traditional hand fasting using multi coloured ribbons, wrapping our hands together in the wishes of our Grandmothers. We had asked all our grandmothers to write a wish for our future, we then chose a colour for each of them and the wish was read out on this colour. It meant a lot to be able to bring so many special people into our special day. It is also nice to be able to keep the tied ribbons.

The Reception

Our guests, post ceremony, headed to the top garden lawn for drinks, popcorn and crisps and a mingle before early speeches. Something we didnʼt want to make too much out of and there were just a few nice words from the Bride's father and the Groom. During this time, people placed their food orders at one of 2 food trucks. We had a games arena by the dome where we had welly hanging, tug of war, sack racing, giant jenga and space hopper racing and later in the evening marshmallows for toasting. This kept everyone entertained all day and all night. Our band were incredible! Loads of remixes and really got people up on the dance floor. We had popcorn and crisps as canapés before dinner of either fish and chips, sausage and chips or mexican burritos. Tortillas and dips were on all of the tables. The dessert was a dessert table centred around our wedding cake, a three tier mountain of victoria sponge, lemon meringue pie cake and sticky toffee sponge cake. We also had completely gluten free and vegan donuts, homemade chocolate bars in 4 flavours, sweets and beautiful flower lollies. In the evening we had marshmallows for toasting and a pizza truck who went down a treat with 4 unusually flavoured pizzas. As the bride is gluten free, all food was either completely gluten free or had a gluten free option.

The Photography

Our photographer was the amazing Emma who captured the day perfectly and a lot of the time I forgot was there. We wanted chill vibes with no cameras in everyones faces all day and she did just that. From two people who hate having their pictures taken, we didn't even realise she was there snapping for most of the day! Her energy and excitement is contagious and I think it's clear to see we had the best time! I cried from start to finish seeing our gallery for the first time and they are photos we will treasure forever. The only issue I have, is I don't have enough shelves/wall space to get all of our favourites framed! We decided against a videographer and instead got the groomsmen to film on gopros and we had a drone. They did an amazing job.

Advice

As the bride I gave myself so many jobs which really stressed me out, hand stamping all the pegs for the tables and table plans, deciding they needed to be magnets then spending 2 hours the day before adding magnets, 16 hours painting wooden cutlery, hand making a photo wall, collecting, washing, decorating jars, having kids goodie bags and snacks on the tables, hangover packs in the tents, building 40 1metre wide stars, creating all the pallet wood signs and prints and building festival flags. Everything added to a bit of a stressful set up but on the day everything looked amazing and my advice to future brides and grooms would be that the little touches really do make all the difference to how it looks and how you feel about the day. I would do it all again.