Rosie and Robert’s Back Garden Tipi Wedding By Babb Photo

Todays wedding is just gorgeous! A wedding in two parts, totally relaxed and full of Boho charm. Rosie and Roberts started off the wedding with a small intimate church service and then moved onto Rosie’s Mum’s garden where they held a beautiful outdoor ceremony, followed by a gorgeous tipi reception. The whole day is filled with gorgeous flowers, so many smiles and some beautiful photography from Laura at Babb Photo.

‘Everyone being in the same place and them all being blown away by our amazing party.’

Rosie and Robert were married on 18th July 2015. They had a family Ceremony at Fyfield Church, Fyfield, Marlborough, a friends garden ceremony at Fyfield House garden and the reception was held at Fyfield House (Rosie’s parents’ house). ‘The venue itself was an easy choice. Rosie’s mum’s garden had hosted several family weddings, across several generations over the years. The other location was more difficult. Rosie is a committed atheist whilst Rob is a committed agnostic anglican (i.e. non-committal). Rob wanted to get married in a church, but Rosie didn’t. Eventually Rosie compromised and we got married in an (almost) empty church! But to make up for it we held a second ceremony in the garden to read out our own vows in front of all our friends and family. We had a total of 175 guests. We were engaged for for 14 months before we got married and it took all that time to plan the wedding.’

How they met
Together for 4 years, known each other for 16 (first snogged 14 years ago….)
After first noticing each other at school but losing contact over university, we were reunited at a mutual friend’s book club where Rosie refused to read the books but reliably turned up for the free meals. Inspired by her uninformed literary commentary Rob launched a campaign to win her heart.

The Proposal
On the morning of an epic cycling adventure from London to Brighton, Rosie noticed Rob was behaving very weirdly when he woke up an hour before her, a situation not seen before or since. When she noticed a small square object protruding from his lycra she managed to put two and two together. Upon making it to the top of Ditchling Beacon (in one attempt!) Rosie was rewarded with a ring, Rob was rewarded with hysterical laughter and Rosie’s friends were rewarded with a snapchat photo of the rock with the caption “totes engageballs”. Truly a fairytale story

How did you choose your photographer
Laura was just incredible and surprising from the moment we first contacted her. She was so professional as well as creative and original, start to finish. Her online presence is enormous, a lot of our planning and idea’s were derived from her blog posts, and her questions and suggestions about how we should run our day were all spot on (she obviously had much more experience than us!).
We decided to have an engagement shoot to help overcome Rosie’s natural camera shyness, and were so glad we did. Getting to know Laura a bit better and seeing her fun arty “style” was such fun for us as well, and when we got the photo’s we were blown away.
On the day, we really didn’t now Laura or Alice were there for most of the time, with the exception of the excellent crowd domination needed to get the “all the guests” shot. We then got to sneak off with her for half an hour for a quick couple shoot as the sun was setting, a time we now treasure since its the only moment it was just us.

The Dress
Rosie wore Willow Dress by Alice Temperley – a long, 1920s-esq dress embellished with pearls, which she managed to pick up in a sample sale 6 months beforehand, and ivory shoes from LK Bennett.

The Suit and Bridesmaids
Rob loves to look smart since he never gets to in his normal day to day life. He therefore elected to get married in a morning suit (moss bros) with a jazzy off-cuts waistcoat (SirPlus) but then get changed before dinner into a blue three piece lounge suit (the Cad and the Dandy) which his brother gave him as a wedding gift. To complete the look: blue shoes.
The many bridesmaids, aka flower things, all wore beautiful white dresses with colourful sashes matching the sweet-pea flower theme. The dresses were Mathilda by Nicki Macfaland, who lives in the same village.

Theme or Colour Scheme
The theme was Rosie’s choosing, sweet pea’s, with a few antique peach roses for the bride and groom.

Flowers
Our florist was Rob’s aunt, ably supported by Megan Jackson, a local florist. She (Rob’s Aunt) worked tirelessly for days to create beautiful table centre pieces in jam jars and milk bottles. However, the really impressive flowers were in the garden, which Rosie’s mum worked tirelessly for months to bring on. She was eventually dead heading roses with nail scissors.

Personal or Handmade Touches
Three of our friends will sing an acoustic version of Postcards from Italy by Beirut in the ceremony. Homemade raspberry vodka on tables

Food
Whole spit-roast lamb. Sophie Meredith (Foxy Ladies)

Wedding Cake
Made by Miranda Child-Villiers

Entertainment
We had a live band (Vintage Roots) who played two amazing 45 minute sets. The dance floor was packed and the music not too wedding musicy. The fun then really kicked off when our friend took over as a dj and played on to the very small hours. At 1.30am we switched to a silent disco, much to the relief of Rosie’s Mum.

Special Moments
The church ceremony was quick, we asked Rob’s father to read John 4: 7-12 which roughly translates as God = Love which helped Rosie overcome her objections to a church wedding.
 What was really the most special moments of our lives was a short garden ceremony with all our guests. A family friend introduced us, Rob’s mother read “captain corelli’s mandolin”, three of our mutual friends performed a love song based on “postcards from italy” by beruit. We then read our own vows together with tears rolling down our cheeks under a maple tree. Not a dry eye in the house.

Advice to other couples
If you can get married somewhere special to you, do it. The garden was just big enough, but it made the whole day feel personal to us. It was a lot more work and probably not any cheaper than going to a commercial wedding venue, but we definitely wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
 We wouldn’t change a thing! But if we wanted to save money, we wouldn’t have bothered with a marquee heater in July. Also, although we loved our wedding tent, we actually spent pretty much all of our wedding day on the dance floor, collapsed in the bed for 4 hours, and then were up again at 8.30am, so the special wedding bell tent was very expensive per hour!

Supplier Shout Outs

• Flowers – www.meganjacksonflowers.co.uk
• Suits – www.cadandthedandy.co.uk
• Bridesmaids – www.nickimacfarlane.com

• Brides Dress – www.temperleylondon.com/lookbook/15y
• Catering – www.foxyladies.co.uk
• Lamb – www.butcherland-lamb-roasts.co.uk
• Sound and Lighting – www.allthekit.com

• Band – www.vintageband.co.uk

• Bell Tent – www.honeybells.co.uk

• Reception – www.worldinspiredtents.co.uk

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