I’ve seen a lot of festival inspired weddings in my time, but I think it’s safe to say that none of them have been as so naturally cool as this one! Not only do Charlie and Kane both ooze awesome, but their dinner set up has to be one of the most beautiful ever. At their reception site, a field behind the bride’s parent’s house, they had a Bedouin tent and one huge, long table for their 150 guests to eat at. Thank goodness it didn’t rain!
The couple met in London, Kane is from New Zealand and they now live in Australia but they wanted to get married back in the UK. “All I wanted was to eat at one single table in the middle of my favourite field, like a big family meal for our big extended worldwide family”, began the bride. “I also wanted everyone to come for the whole weekend since we’re not back in the UK very often and one afternoon was never going to be long enough to see everyone properly – hence the bell tents!”
The ceremony took place at St. Michael & All Angels Church and afterwards they danced to their reception site accompanied by Morris dancers! “The Morris dancers gave us a guard of honour out of the church then played and danced and skipped everyone down the lane to the house.”
Charlie wore two stunning dresses, the first was a feather skirted number (obsessed!) by Jovani and her evening gown was a silk dress by Anna Campbell. She was barefoot from start to finish (7am-7am!) and wore a homemade flower crown on her head.
A lot of this wedding was DIY including the cake, flowers and stationery. “We made our own invites and used Vistaprint to print them. Things like stationary were not important enough to us to stress over. Likewise with the seating plan. Planning from the other side of the world might seem stressful but for us it was the best thing we did because we simply weren’t able to worry about the little details. You don’t get so caught up in the minutiae which makes things so much easier. Seating plans, colour schemes, themes… Not for us thanks. We had no stress, no angst, no tears, only lots and lots of laughing – no better way to start a marriage.”
“We had solar powered fairy lights along all the hedges to light the field gates so people could get back to their cars and find the bell tents as it got dark”, she continued. “We also had a pathway of tiki torches to light the way from the house through the fields. The festoon lighting all around the field was erected by my father in law, brother in law and my brothers using posts from local saw mill. Our huge light up letters LOVE and C&K were hired from Doris Loves and we had fire braziers and colourful blankets to keep everyone warm.”
“We had a banquet style meal with hot meat from pig roasting at one end of the table. We planned everything from our home in Australia but we wanted to use local suppliers has much as possible. For favours we had homemade chutney (thanks to my brother for slaving over a hot stove) made from produce grown next door. We had eco-friendly plates, bowls and cutlery made from palm leaves that came from a sustainable project in India.”
“Our first dance was in the field and we had cocktail bar, woodfire pizzas cooked and served from 9pm to midnight”, she concluded. “We also had a vintage Citroen serving coffee, tea and bubble tea. The whole village joined us until the small hours and we served breakfast for 80 people the next morning!”
