'Wedstock' 70s inspired Summer of Love Festival Wedding Inspiration

Happy Friday everyone, I hope it’s a good one for you all! How has your week been? Mine has been super busy as we are away for the weekend. We are traveling down to London tomorrow morning for our nephews 21st birthday party! It will be lovely to have the family together and to be able to celebrate with everyone (as long as the rain stays away!) Then on Sunday we are taking Dexter to LegoLand, I’m not sure who is more excited! So a fab weekend hopefully for all of us! I would love to hear form you if you are off to a wedding, or even getting married. It is so good to see weddings finally popping up on my timeline again, I can’t wait to share some of this years’ weddings on the blog! On with today’s styled shoot which took place on 18th August 2020 at Brenscombe in Wareham, Dorset. It has been put together by Roka Bella Rose Weddings. Carly wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Woodstock by putting together this 70s inspired festival wedding themed shoot and the results are marvelous! So much amazing detailing, so much care and attention has gone into each and every element few this shoot, it really has been a labour of love! Well done to all the suppliers involved!

Wedstock, a 70s style festival shoot to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Woodstock

Carly from Roka Bella Rose Weddings tells us more about the shoot

I started planning this shoot on the 50th anniversary of Woodstock to mark the occasion as it’s an era I love. When I started planning it was for it to be a venue open day to show off what an amazing Festival Wedding venue Brenscombe can be as I’d just taken it on to manage it as a wedding venue alongside it being an outdoor activity centre. Due to all the restrictions, it wasn’t possible to have our first open day so instead, I decided to change the plans and make it a styled shoot. I wanted to show couples who had been planning a Tipi Festival wedding that they could still achieve that look with fewer numbers without it looking empty. It’s all about how you layout your tables. I arranged the tables in a square so that guests would only sit on one side of the tables all facing each other. I made the centre space a feature area by designing a huge boho chandelier adorned with dried lemon, orange and grapefruit slices and gave the fantastic wedding cake centre stage under the chandelier.

My inspiration was drawn from colours that make me think of the 70s, burnt Orange, ochre, browns and creams. Macrame, terracotta, wicker, pampas grass, citrus, and coloured glass are all things that bring about a sense of nostalgia for me. I wanted to capture all these feels in a festival vibe for boho couples. I designed two sets of panel backdrops to show how you could choose to have your ceremony either indoors or outdoors, and I wrote a super fun Gin & Tonic ceremony for our real couple to have some fun on the shoot with. As a kid, I remember after a wedding there would be a car with tin cans attached to the bumper. This was another piece of nostalgia I wanted to capture. I sourced a vintage rat style VW Beetle bumper and made a neon ‘Just Married’ sign a got a Californian style Love Bug number plate for my bumper. I rusted some tin cans and sprayed some gold and we hung some flowers and the tin can from the bumper as a posing prop for photos. I’ve been designing some hireable welcome signs so I designed silk painted Wedstock one for this shoot to try and capture the essence of the shoot. Keeping in with the reusable vibe I used pieces of broken terracotta pots to write the place settings on and terracotta saucers attached to a bamboo screen for the table plan. Both can be wiped clean and reused as well as being upcycled in the first place. I hand-dyed table runners and used wicker placemats I’ve been collecting to hire out which look awesome against the glasses I chose from the Fabulous Company, pink and textured for the wine glasses teamed with smooth tumblers with a hint of yellow glass to shine up through like sunshine. I think the gold cutlery looks great with the colours of this setup. I hope you enjoy looking through all the photos of all the other elements of this shoot from dreamy florals, to beautiful stationery and hand-painted jacket, gorgeous tipi marquees, a boho dream of a cake, and that magic golden light to capture our couple and show off a dashing suit, stunning dress, hair makeup and jewellery. No festival wedding would be complete without homemade marshmallows to toast around our campfire whilst listening to guitar after the dancing is done. The perfect end to a perfect day.