Showing posts with label Sea-Side. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sea-Side. Show all posts

Monday 7 January 2013

Real Tipi Church Wedding: Jess & Alistair - Reception Details

With tonnes of colourful, bright wedding details, and a wedding reception set in a tipi {so on trend}, you're going to love Jess and Alistair's big day. After their church wedding ceremony, they head to the beautiful Church Farm on the Wirral, right near the sea, for their wedding reception. With the help of friends and family, they DIY decorated their wedding tipi with bright paper lanterns, handmade hanging hearts, jam-jar tea-light holders, and pretty green ivy. Jess even created her own wedding table plan out of a humble piece of mdf, plus blackboard paint! I love the countryside feel of the hay-bales, wood-fire and cheesecake, and it's all pictured perfectly by Victoria Phipps Photography. If you missed Part 1 click here, and don't miss Jess' answers to our questionnaire - she has tonnes of inspirational wedding advice.


We got married end of July 2012 in Thurstaston, on the Wirral Peninsula. The ceremony was at St Bartholomew’s Church and the reception was in Papa Kata tipis at Church Farm on the Wirral.



We had three different florists for my bouquet, the church and the reception. My bouquet and the bridesmaid’s corsages/groomsmen buttonholes were by Eden Florists in West Kirby, Wirral. Friends of Alistair's mother did the flowers for the reception, and members of the church did the church flowers.




Al is wanted quite a traditional wedding, and I wanted something fun and relaxed. We compromised by having a church wedding and a tipi reception. The church had meaning for both of us as it was where my parents had got married, and it's somewhere Al and his family had visited on Sunday walks.

We didn't have any wedding theme as such. We just wanted a colourful and personal wedding. Creating a fun atmosphere was important to us, as was throwing an amazing party with some seriously tasty food!


There were a few of DIY projects, and as the reception was in a tipi there was a lot of decorating to do. The blackboard table plan was some cheap mdf, that I painted with black board paint. We collected lots of jam jars for rustic tea light holders, and the green ivy was picked and put up by Al’s mum and a couple of her close friends.



As part of my hen-do we did a crafty session at a local artists studio where we made hanging hearts in different colours. We put these hearts up as part of the decorations. I painted numbers on white paper lanterns for hanging table numbers, and the hanging lanterns for the dance floor were bought and set up by us. 


I like to illustrate in my spare time, and we thought it would be nice to have an illustrated wedding invite. Jim Fleming, a local artist illustrated our cards. I added in the lettering, and drew a whimsical map, and I also wrote the place cards and the table plan.

We were lucky enough to have two cakes. We went for a cheesecake from the Liverpool Cheese Company, and Al’s mum baked a yummy fruit-cake wedding cake for us.


We spent a year planning our wedding, and tried to not let it take over our lives. We had creative control over every aspect, which made the day just what we wanted, but it was also a lot of work!


My advice for other brides starts with learning the art of delegation! We couldn’t have planned the day we had without the help of our parents, our friends and anyone else who offered assistance.


Our photographer was Victoria from Victoria Phipps Photography. We really liked her natural photography style.


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Real Tipi Church Wedding: Jess & Alistair

Brighten up your day with this fantastic colourful wedding day, set by the sea, on the Wirral peninsula. The lovely Jess and Alistair had two different visions for their big day, but compromised between traditional and quirky, with a church wedding and a tipi reception. With bright blue cornflowers, red roses, pink peonies and yellow daffodils, Jess' beautiful bouquet epitomises the theme colours for this gorgeous wedding, and I've completely fallen for her bridesmaids' floral dresses, and vintage-style corsages. Jess' lovely vintage gown was refashioned from her mother's wedding dress, and her blue wedding shoes were a bargain from a local supermarket! Don't miss all the gorgeous wedding reception pictures - due to go live later today. Huge thanks to Victoria Phipps Photography for her beautiful work - she captured every stunning detail.


My wedding dress had been my mothers wedding dress from the 1970s. I tried on lots of lovely dresses but none on them were what I had envisioned myself wearing. My mum was more than happy for me to customise her dress as it had been sitting in the attic for the last 37 years. A local dressmaker at Anna May Couture in West Kirby interpreted my ideas and made the dress.


The headpiece was borrowed from my bridesmaid from when she was married. I did want a floral head garland but once I put my friends headpiece on it just seemed right. 



We had three different florists for my bouquet, the church and the reception. My bouquet and the bridesmaid’s corsages/groomsmen buttonholes were by Eden Florists in West Kirby, Wirral. Friends of Alistair's mother did the flowers for the reception, and members of the church did the church flowers.

I knew I wanted floral bridesmaid dresses. The girls tried on dresses from Phase Eight and they ticked all the boxes!


I loved my blue wedding shoes, and even better, they were from a well know supermarket and didn’t break the bank. Everyone commented on them and thought they must have been expensive.

Al wanted to stay traditional and went for suit with tails, hired from Moss Bros. His tie was from Charles Tyrwhitt. He picked out the blue ties for the ushers and the camel coloured waistcoats.



We got married end of July 2012 in Thurstaston on the Wirral Peninsula. The ceremony was at St Bartholomew’s Church and the reception was in Papa Kata tipis at Church Farm on the Wirral.

Al is quite traditional and I wanted something fun and relaxed. We compromised by having a church wedding and a tipi reception. The church had meaning for both of us as it was where my parents had got married and somewhere Al and his family had visited on Sunday walks.

We met at a party - I was already friends with Al’s brother. We proceeded in bumping into each other at various gigs and nights out, and realised we had a lot in common {the-who-asked-who-out part is greatly contended!}. We had been together for 4 years when we decided to do a European road trip. We drove around Europe with the final destination being a day in Paris.

We spent the day touring the sights, and in the evening Al had booked a table in the wonderful restaurant. It was so busy, we were squeezed onto the end of a table almost on the laps of the couple next to us. We ate late and as the restaurant emptied out they moved us to a table of our own for our desserts and coffees. Al proposed over the crème brûlée.



Our photographer was Victoria from Victoria Phipps Photography. We really liked her natural wedding photography style.



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Monday 10 September 2012

Real Beachside Destination Wedding: Jiwon & Inki

Pure elegance are the two words I'd use to sum up this destination big day. Jiwon and Inki let the location do the talking and kept their wedding style simple and chic, with white as the dominant colour. I'm loving Jiwon's understated gown, which she glammed up with some serious diamonds, not least her huge engagement ring. Another favourite spot is the bridesmaids neutral dresses, which are so this season it hurts. The girls clearly share a love for shoes, because every pair is a work of art, and there was no compromising on heel-height, despite this being a beach wedding! The stationery fans, the all-white table-settings, the sculptural lily bouquets; we're talking a seriously classy affair all round. Huge thanks to Punam Bean for these gorgeous photographs.


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Friday 24 August 2012

Real Vintage Seaside & Sweetie Wedding: Kate & Iain - Part 2

Any bride planning to hire a 'blank canvas venue' will find huge inspiration from Katie and Iain's clever vintage theming of their local Town Hall in Part 2 of these gorgeous wedding. With the help of their florist, Foxtail Liley, they created a pastel and seaside wedding wonderland, with hundreds of pretty flower displays, pastel bunting, swathes of wavy fabric, a vintage suitcase for guests' messages and pretty birdcage details. With subtle seashells on the chandeliers, and vintage seaside postcards, Katie and Iain reflected their seaside location without going overboard and spending a fortune. Thrifty DIY ideas to steal include the vintage sweetie favour bar, the gorgeous Waitrose wedding cake and asking your florist to help set up, saving the cost of a full wedding planner. Big love to Laura Babb for sending over this fabulous wedding, don't miss Part 1 here.



Our photographer was Laura Babb. We found her after we had a difference of opinion with our previous photographer over our engagement shoot - which we just weren’t happy with. Laura was recommended by a friend and we knew as soon as we saw her work that she fitted our style – soft, quirky, fine art photography - exactly what we wanted.






Our wedding theme was 1950s Vintage Seaside with pastel colours.


My Uncle is a trustee of the newly refurbished hall so it was an obvious choice – it is also a five minute walk from the church! The hall needed a lot of work to make it look 'wedding' so we hired local Southwold florist Foxtail Lily and discussed a Vintage Seaside theme. 


After many meetings we came to the eventual vision – soft blues and ice cream colours, bunting, a vintage suitcase and lots of beautiful floral displays.





Our DIY projects included the vintage suitcase for guests' cards, which I created using ribbon and vintage postcards. We also designed the sweetie favour bar. Everything was set up by our florists, Foxtail Liley.



For our wedding favours, we had a pick-your-own sweetie bar, with old-style vintage sweets, bought by my husband’s parents from their local Olde Watermill shop in Lancashire. We bought glass apothocary jars online.


Our wedding cake was bought from Waitrose. We loved the vintage look and cream colour and thought it fitted the theme perfectly. We had layers of fruit and Victoria sponge. It was lovely.





My advice for future brides, is that in an ideal world hire a wedding planner! Other than that, try to relax – your big day will happen and it will be wonderful, so try not to get bogged down chasing suppliers. It all comes together in the end. Also – keep lots of lists!


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