philippa & oliver’s wedding

Summary

Take a look at Pippa & Olly’s fabulous summer wedding at their family home in Essex which demonstrates beautifully the combination of both the traditional wedding of a Sailcloth Tent and a chill breakaway area in to the Stretch Tent.

Best Memory of The Day

“I think the most memorable part was the speeches, emotions were running high and there was a lot of love flowing in the room!“

VENUE

Family home in Great Sampford, Essex

DO YOU HAVE ANY TOP TIPS FOR THE DAY:

After months and months of preparing, the day absolutely flies by so make sure you build in some time for yourselves. We had a moment before the food where we both worried the day was passing us by without us actually taking any of it in! Thankfully, our photographer realised this and took us off somewhere quiet so we could catch our breath and have a private moment together!

SHOUTOUT TO YOUR FAVOURITE WEDDING SUPPLIER

All our suppliers were fantastic but two we particularly want to shout out are Plenty of Thyme and Chris Grover Photography. Jodie, Plenty of Thyme’s event manager was our guardian angel on the day making sure everything ran smoothly. The food was amazing and people are still talking about it weeks later! Chris the photographer was so brilliant with all our guests, he put everyone at ease and the natural, happy smiles in all our photos are testament to his skill as a photographer!

TELL US ABOUT YOUR WEDDING DAY VISION

Both Pippa and I spent a few summers working at a wedding venue after we left school so by the time it came to planning our own wedding, we had a very clear idea of what we did (and didn’t!) want for our day. Our primary vision was to make sure the day was as fun as possible for both us and our guests and so we envisioned more of a relaxed summer garden party than a formal wedding reception.

Olly’s parents very kindly offered to host the wedding reception at their house which had a wonderful outdoor space but some layout difficulties to overcome. Event’s Under Canvas were so helpful, conducting a couple of site visits to help us work out which tents would work best with our space. We went with a small sailcloth tent and a small stretch tent and they both fitted our space perfectly.

Decorations wise, we wanted to keep things simple to remain in keeping with the relaxed summer vibe but at the same time have some unique features to make it truly memorable. We decorated the tents with colourful paper lanterns and bunting which had a real wow factor plus we upcycled some old pallets to create a few rustic wedding features such as a picture frame photobooth and a table plan.

At the reception itself, we wanted the food and band to be the main focal points so we picked delicious sharing platters to get everyone interacting and made sure the band finished as late as possible to ensure our guests were sufficiently lubricated and ready to party!

IF YOU HAD YOUR TIME AGAIN WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY?

We had planned quite a strict timeline but on the day, this quickly went out the window. Luckily, we winged it and we weren’t restricted by a venue, everything turned out ok but build a little bit of flex into your schedule to avoid you getting a bit stressed on the day!

WHAT MUSIC FEATURED ON YOUR BIG DAY?

We spent numerous evenings trying to cut our list of meaningful love songs down to one for our 1st dance but the whole way through we kept commenting on how awkward it would be slow-dancing in front of all our guests.

Instead, we decided to go in completely the opposite direction and chose ‘Get Down Tonight’ by KC & the Sunshine Band. This was one of our best decisions, it completely surprised our guests, avoided any awkward shuffling on our part and it got everyone on the dancefloor ready for the band’s first set!