Emily and Dom's Homegrown Tipi Wedding in Wiltshire by Kristian Leven Photography

Happy Monday everyone, I hope you had a wonderful weekend? How was your bonfire night, did you manage to get out and see any fireworks? Mine was great, we went to a fabulous display on Sunday, along with some amazing light shows. For me now it’s all about the run up to Christmas, yes it’s only November but it’s only a few weeks before the decorations go up, I can not wait! On with todays wedding and it’s the turn of Emily and Dom who were married in Wilshire in Emily’s parents back garden. They had a Tipi reception filled with lots of home grown flowers and DIY details. A laid back rustic day, bursting with fun, laughter and so much love. Big thanks to Kristian Leven Photography for the gorgeous images.

Emily and Dom were married on 4th June 2022 at St Michael & All Angels Church, Winterbourne Earls in Wiltshire (same church that Emily’s parents got married in) Reception in Emily’s parents garden. ‘Emily has lived in that house for the whole of her life and always wanted to get married there. We had 150 for the ceremony and canapés/champagne, then 50 went home and we had 100 friends and v close family for dinner and dancing. We had 21 month engagement because we didn’t want to risk getting married in 2021 for covid! Too long to plan a wedding, it takes over your life!’

How they met
We met at Durham in 2012 and started dating in 2013

The proposal
We were in the south of France on a kayak and Dom got on 1 knee in the back seat while I was stuffing my face full of pretzels!

How did you allocate your budget?
We picked the big things and got comparison quotes for all of them and decided what we valued which was music, food, alcohol and photos – the rest we did pretty cheap!

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
We got a on the day wedding coordinator which was a game changer. Meant that we had nothing to worry about on the day and someone knew our plan just as much as we did! Would recommend Tasha Mae!

How did you choose your photographer?
The first thing we booked! My maid of honour and I met Kristian in South America when we were travelling for 4 months aged 18. At that time he took amazing street photos and I started following him on Instagram and saw he did amazing wedding photos and thought it would be amazing to have him at our wedding! It was so fun seeing him again for the first time after 14 years!!

The dress
Mia Mia (by Alan Hannah) – Emerson dress. Rainbow Club Indigo veil. Both bought at Krystle Brides in Bath. Very weirdly when my mum and I went to try it on, she realised she had also bought her wedding dress there 40 years ago! Hair was by Wendy Stevens Salisbury

The suit and bridesmaids
Suit – existing. Bridesmaid – ASOS dresses

Theme or colour scheme
Rustic! We didn’t want a colour scheme but it ended up being a bit blue and lots of greenery.

Flowers
My mum tried to grow all of our flowers for the church, bouquets and marquee. The weather wasn’t so great so they didn’t all come up so she had a little help from Cornflower & Artichoke who pick flowers from your garden and local flower farms to create rustic and local flower arrangements. They all looked so natural and most of it came from our Garden which was special! We also timed it super well so there was an entire wall of roses flowering in the garden!

Decoration
We had a tipi marquee which we tied greenery from the garden all over.
My mum and dad grew 50 pots of rosemary and mint plants for the tables in rustic terracotta pots on just some white calico which we used as table runners.
I bought lots of glass candlestick holders off eBay and some beautiful tall tapered blue candles.
We also made a pub sign for the table plan!

Food
The food was and a friend has had it at their wedding since! Sear street kitchen – they did lots of great canapés as some people were leaving after that but. Then we had BBQ lamb and lots of amazing salads. Then chocolate brownie.

Wedding cake
Dom’s mum made the wedding cake which was really special. 3 tiers of fruit cake.

Entertainment
During the garden party/ canapés bit we had a lovely jazz band called Just Sillhouettes .In the evening we had 2 people who had never met before but worked so well! Billy Keane Music who usually plays at our local pub in Clapham came and played for us which was amazing – just him and his guitar! We also had the amazing Djv.co.uk and his saxophone which was incredible.

Who supplied the stationery?
We designed it our self and got it printed at our local printers to save costs.

Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We had a mini moon in the UK straight after and went to India last November.

Personal touches
We did quite a lot ourselves! For the decoration I really wanted a disco ball in the middle of the dance floor which was fun but needed some framing so my parents and I spent a weekend making the white hanging ‘bunting’ round the edge which we made out of coffee filters!

Special moments
We didn’t want to have a huge cocktail bar so we had an espresso martini race! We packaged up a hamper for each table with a cocktail shaker, ice, and all the ingredients. It wasn’t actually meant to be a race but it turned into carnage and so much fun!!

Advice for other couples
Make sure you spend some time together on the day and plan it in. People told us that and it was really nice!
Also, don’t feel like you have to do things the same as other people and spend money on all of those things! We cut costs where we didn’t value it so much and did it ourselves and actually it came out even better.

Biggest surprise
Not too many surprises when you have planned the day to an inch of its life! But my dad just downing a bottle of champagne during the speech was a highlight!