A Beautiful Wedding Tipi in a Picturesque Valley Setting

A Beautiful Wedding Tipi in a Picturesque Valley Setting

I love weddings that really reflect the bride and grooms personality. Andy and Gina’s love of the outdoors led them to have an incredibly beautiful wedding in a Tipi, set in the picturesque Ashworth Valley in Lancashire. A stylish two day event with a laid back vibe, gorgeous wedding fashion, Jimmy Choos, a camp fire and a relaxed barbeque after party - this wedding has it all!

"In all honesty the way that Andy proposed wasn’t that romantic, but it was perfect!! It was part of our everyday lives & this is actually what made it special; we’d been to the gym after work, had dinner and then I’d jumped in the shower. As I came out of the bathroom, donning a fluffy dressing gown and a towel on my head – not my best look I have to admit, Andy was anxiously waiting. I genuinely didn’t think he was going to propose at that moment in time, so he definitely succeeded with catching me off guard – the one thing he assured me would happen if I was patient enough and wait for him to ask me (just over 6 years!!)! Not only had Andy selected my gorgeous engagement ring, he’d been extremely traditional and spoke to my dad and asked for my hand in marriage. He’d also bought my favourite champagne and chilled it in the snow, so my eagle eye wouldn’t spot it!!

For our wedding it was really important that we had great photograohy, so we chose the amazing Brett Harkness!! A true master in his field who captured our day perfectly; not only are his pictures a genuine representation of our day, but they tell a story of it from start to finish impeccably. We just love how moments from the day have been captured in such an amazing style. Brett’s signature and relaxed approached is just faultless. We can’t thank Brett & Kristie enough for producing us such an amazing collection of photographs and an album we just can’t put down!!"

For our wedding reception we chose a location close to home. We wanted it to be as easy as possible for all of our family and close friends and we really didn’t want our day to cost everyone a small fortune in hotel bills, taxis and extortionately priced drinks. So we married at St Michaels church, less than a mile from home and in the church that Andrew and his family had attended for over 30 years. For our reception we had two spectacular tepees erected at the Scout campsite in the picturesque setting of Ashworth Valley, located less than a mile from the church.

Andy has been involved with Scouts in one way or another for over twenty five years and his family connection to the group remains strong. Andy’s dad is also the Scout warden at the campsite that would host our special day! With such a picturesque setting and the opportunity to give something back (we ran our bar as a charity bar, with all proceeds being donated to the Scouts) it seemed the perfect solution. We looked at about a dozen traditional white marquees, but something just wasn’t right and it didn’t feel very ‘us’. So when we saw the PapaKata tepees we just knew we had to have them! We didn’t tell anyone, other than our parents, about the tepees as we wanted some surprises for our guests and we wanted to create a wow factor when everyone arrived. Plus the tepees fitted the surroundings perfectly. At the end of the evening a few guests even stayed behind to sing camp fire songs around the open fire we had in the tepees!! Our beautiful tepees were supplied by PapaKata in Yorkshire. The tents were so atmospheric and Amanda and her team are so passionate about what they do.

For our colour scheme and wedding theme we chose Navy, with elements of English country chic. Our little house is surrounded with hydrangeas, so from the day Andy proposed I knew I wanted to introduce them into our day. They actually became a strong theme, featuring on all the wedding stationery, in the church as pew ends and as the centre pieces on the tables.

I embraced being a bride to be and cherished doing every single little job – even making 120 navy linen napkins for the tables and hand stitching all the place settings! Andy was also great; we literally made every decision together (with the exception of my dress!!). We both had the attitude of ‘we hope that this is the only time we get married, so we want to enjoy and experience every single aspect’.

We can honestly say our food was incredible and we felt not only lucky to have met the team at Andrew Southcott catering, but honored to have them cater for our wedding day as they were so accommodating. It was the little touches, such as allowing us to serve different deserts for our male guests and female guests – me and Andy couldn’t agree on which we wanted, so they allowed us to serve both! You could hear are guests ooh and aghh and many trying to convince their partners to swap!!

Our flowers were supplied by a brilliant florist in Norden, called Funky Floral Design. I wanted to use flowers from the garden at home in the church and Alex was more than happy for us to use a mix of her flowers and ours. My contemporary hand tied bouquet consisted of pure white arum lilies with aspidistra leaves and steel grass. Whilst the bridesmaid’s country chic bouquets contained mini calla lilies, beautiful large white roses, elegant purple veronica, fragrant white freesia, white hydrangeas and midnight blue eryngium.

A very talented friend of my mum’s made the cake; a fruit base with sponge tiers, and the florist decorated it so it fitted with the theme perfectly.

Andy designed the hydrangea graphic that was applied to all wedding stationery and a very good friend of ours, who is an amazing graphic designer, then creatively incorporated it onto everything required. We then printed the invites through a local printer.

We didn’t really do wedding favours, but as we both work in the fashion footwear industry we did leave an A to Z quiz on each table, where we asked people to name as many footwear brands starting with each letter of the alphabet as possible. The winning team got well over 200!! And up for grabs was a bottle of champagne!! So people could fill out the quiz, we left pencils embossed with Gina & Andy’s Wedding 04.09.10 on each table! We also supplied flip-flops for the ladies, so that they wouldn’t have to totter in heels on the grass! These were a huge hit. I found the most perfect wedding dress at Caroline Castigliano in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Not only did they make me feel special, but they made my mum feel incredibly important too! Their relaxed, no pressure approach teamed with incomparable professionalism made every visit a pleasure and extremely exciting, whether this was prior to purchasing the dress or at every fitting. The team actually made me feel like I was the only bride they had to worry about!!

I didn’t have any preconceived ideas of how I wanted to look walking down the aisle, just how I didn’t want to look!! Though when I stepped into my Caroline Castigliano gown I just knew and when I walked out of dressing room all my mum could say was “this is the one, this is the one!”

With both me and Andy working in the footwear industry, the shoes were just as important as the dress to me!! I fell in love with the most sparkly pair of Jimmy Choos that I just had to have. As my dress was minimalist, the shoes added that extra touch of glamour. I was also a very lucky girl, as the night before the wedding Andy surprised me with the coordinating clutch. Whilst my headdress was by Deepa Gurnai..

With all my bridesmaids having completely different personalities it seemed slightly unjust to ask them all to wear the same dress. I wanted them to be comfortable and not feel self conscious, so all I asked was that they wore the same colour and they picked a dress from the same designer so that the fabric would be identical. Luckily the Dessy collection allows for this flexibility and all of them looked amazing on the day! Whilst the adorable flower girl dresses were from Next.

We also bought 3-piece charcoal suits and navy ties for each of the groomsmen from the Autograph collection at M&S. Andy treated himself to a Thomas Pink shirt and pair of Hugo Boss shoes.

Straight after the wedding we headed to the Lake District for two nights of pure relaxation and luxury at the incredible Samling, where we were pampered, fed and watered like royalty. The perfect get away after a week of chaos!! Then on Christmas day evening we flew off to Australia to spend three weeks taking in the renowned spectacular sights that this country has to offer; Sydney for New Year, followed by a visit to the magnificent Ayers Rocks and Kings Canyon, three days sailing around paradise in the Whitsundays, driving the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, indulging in amazing food in the Grampians and getting all arty in Melbourne! We organised everything ourselves, combining luxury retreats with small boutique B&B.

If we could share anything that we learnt, this would be not to be afraid to ask your suppliers for what you really want and shop around to get the best deal!! You really don’t have to sacrifice the finer things to stay within your budget. So working with suppliers that truly do understand what you want to achieve, really does work in your favour. If it means seeing a dozen different suppliers for the same product, then do it!! We met 10 different caterers and the difference between all of them was unbelievable and some of the things we were told was ludicrous!!

My top tip is to shop around, it a simple little thing that actually didn’t take any time in reality and really did help us to save money.

Also, we never thought we’d be so tired and nobody warned us that we would be!! So if we could do anything again, we’d either go on honeymoon a couple of days after the big day or take at least a week off straight after! So although our three weeks in Australia at Christmas were amazing and we loved every single minute, we were both exhausted by the time Christmas came round.

We really loved our wedding day, the best thing was it was so very us!! We were relaxed and so were all of our guests. We wouldn’t have asked for anything more."

Photographer www.brettharknessphotography.com
Tipis www.papakata.co.uk
Caterer www.outsidecatering.co.uk
Wedding dress www.carolinecastigliano.co.uk
Bridesmaid dresses www.dessy.com
Florist www.funkyfloraldesign.co.uk/
Band www.thecoolers.co.uk