Jenny and Callum's Bright and Summery Fun Festival Themed Wedding by Matt Wing

As we ease ourselves gently into the week, I have the most gorgeous festival themed wedding from Matt Wing. I featured Matt’s work a couple of years ago with Camilla and Joseph’s stunning Preston Court wedding, this time it’s the turn of Callum and Jenny. Callum and Jenny loved Browning Brothers – Chalkney Water Meadows as it had everything they wanted in a wedding. A glamping spot so their guests could camp, a stunning area for their tipis’ which meant they could hold their ceremony outdoors. But most of all the freedom to hold their wedding their way, with face painters, dogs, children, great food, lots of cocktails and a kick ass party!

Our day had the perfect mix between a casual get together of friends and family, and a celebration of our commitment to each another. With a fun festival theme full of tipis, ice cream bikes, food stalls, face painting, live music, hula hooping, space hopping, dancing, fire pit singing, children, dogs, white Russians, rope-swinging, friends and family!

Callum and Jenny were married on 7th July 2018 at Browning Brothers – Chalkney Water Meadows. ‘It was the only venue we visited. As soon as we arrived and walked around the lake we got a really good feeling and we could imagine all our friends and family there celebrating! The venue was perfect for us as guests can glamp in the tipis on site and it is all in one area. There is a beautiful lakehouse where I stayed with some of the bridesmaids the night before that is a short walk to the ceremony. We felt it had everything – and they allow dogs! We had 170 guests and it took a year to plan.’

How they met
We met at a pub in London – Dirty Dicks on a night out with mutual friends, then that night we all went to a gig!

The proposal
Callum proposed on the day we moved into our first home, we had been renting in London and decided to finally move out and buy in Essex. We had spent the day unpacking and unloading boxes then we ordered a Chinese take-away. Callum gave me a red leather copy of my favourite book (Alice in Wonderland), he’d cut out a square inside that he lined with red velvet and hid the ring in. He had written a poem in the front of the book, he gave it to me in disguise as a moving in present – I had no idea what was happening!

How did you allocate your budget?
Carefully!

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
We tried to be careful with money throughout and saved by not having a formal sit down meal, we also hand-made all the favours, signs and table decorations. We did splurge on Glastonbury festival flags but they looked great heading to the glamping area!

How did you choose your photographer?
We met 3 or 4, this is the only area I was really picky. You spend so much of the day with the photographer nearby it was important that it was someone who made us feel comfortable. When we met Matt I knew he would be great and we couldn’t have been happier.

The dress
Enzoani, Shoes from Monsoon

The suit and bridesmaids
The suits were hired from the Grooms Room in Colchester, They had a suit called “The Shrewsbury” by Peter Posh. The bridesmaids all chose their own dress I just gave them a vague colour scheme – I had 9 bridesmaids!

Theme or colour scheme
Not really, the bridesmaids all dressed in shades of pale pink, everything else was bright festival colours. We gave a rough guide of smart casual and everyone turned up smart, bright and summery.

Flowers
Dried flowers by Florence and Flowers. They were so much cheaper than fresh flowers and they last forever! They worked really well with the rustic feel.

Decoration
Bunting and Glastonbury style festival flags. We decorated the tables with candles I made myself and wooden tree trunk table centres that were made by a family friend. My mum collected wine bottles and jars and decorated them too.

Food
Hog Roast from Hogit catering in the day, Ice cream bike, Pizza van “little red” in the evening. The bar was awesome from Chin Chin, it was a converted caravan and they did amazing cocktails (all of them sold out they were so popular!)

Wedding cake
We had two giant Colin the caterpillar cakes and lots of cheese!

Entertainment
In the day we had a band called The Harriers that we found on Entertainment Nation. They were wonderful, music was so important to us and they fit in perfectly they even learnt a new song for us. In the evening, we had a DJ – Fox and Braces they were brilliant and also took polaroid photos for us late into the night! They took a lot of care to cater to our music taste and gave us online access to a music database for us to give them an idea of what kind of genres to play.

Who supplied the stationery
We made them ourselves

Personal touches
Our ceremony was very personal – Nichola Collinson our celebrant was fantastic and met with us to come up with the wonderful wording. We made the favours – candles, invites and save the dates. We made a photo board with pictures of all the guests so that they could stick their photos next to the notes they left in the guest book. We also made the wedding signposts. We decorated the main tent and made a kids area called “Kidchella” which had books, games, a small tipi, bubbles, hula hoops and colouring things for the little ones.

Special moments
The whole day was fantastic and everything that we had hoped for, around 70 of the guests stayed over in the glamping tipis or in their own tents and after the DJs had gone home one of Callum’s Irish uncles got a guitar out and starting singing for us all around the fire pit!

Advice for other couples
Make sure you get enough time on the dancefloor!

Biggest surprise
It was the day that England got through to the quarter finals of the world cup (I couldn’t get away without mentioning that)… when Callum and I were off walking around the Lake with the photographer we heard the band start playing “it’s coming home” and heard the cheering, we could tell the beers would only flow faster from there!