Happy Monday Peeps!

Hope you all had a good weekend.

We have a bright, relaxed, yellow tinted wedding to share with you today that's full of quirky handmade details and festival inspired decor.

Kate and Richard said 'I do' on the 31st August 2013 at St Mary's Church in Cilcain, North Wales followed by Pimms in Kate's parents garden before heading over to the 'main Tipi' (situated in a local farmers field) for food, music and dancing!

They wanted their wedding to have a fun festival vibe with plenty of homemade touches.........a hint of Glastonbury in Cilcain, surrounded by great family and friends.

Pretty much everything you see in these gorgeous images was handmade from the festival signs in the famous Glastonbury font to the fabric buttonholes worn with pride by Rich and he's best man and ushers. Even the flowers used to dress the church and Tipi had been handpicked from the neighbours garden and arranged by the mother of the bride.

Spread over 3 days with a band playing each night and enough camping for 60 guests, Kate and Richard really did create their very own festival wedding - nicknamed Hiltonbury.

Kate tells us all about it.

It was a blustery, wet Easter weekend and Rich suggested we go for a walk up Moel Fammau (a mountain near Cilcain - which was visible from the wedding venue!) one of my favourite places to be. From the top you can see for miles and its wonderful. At the castle to the top of the mountain Rich got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, being ever the joker I said I'd "think about it", and quickly put the ring on my finger and shed tears of joy wrapped up in the warm hug from my best friend. As we walked back down the mountain is became very slippery because of the rain, and Rich walking one pace in front of me slipped and as he went down threw his arms out to try to balance himself elbowing me in the face causing a nose bleed! So, with tissue stuffed up each nostril he asked the question again - "will you marry me...and just think what might happen to you this time if you don't say yes"! Obviously it was a resounding yes, and we made our way back down to the village to be greeted by friends, family and a bottle of bubbly in the White Horse village pub! Perfect in every way, and certainly unforgettable!

My dress wasEden, Jenny Packham from Blackburn Bridal. My shoes called Abel (Glitter Champagne) fromJimmy Choos and I wore a plain tulle viewl with a jenny packham headpiece, also from Blackburn Bridal.

For my jewellery I had the diamond from my grandmothers engagement ring made into a simple rose gold necklace, at BM Bijoux, London (who also made all our rings, designed by ourselves).

Rich wore a custom made suit from Whistle & Flute, London (with Liberty fabric lining that matched the Flower girl dresses - made by the Mother of the Groom!).

It was a daunting task to decorate such a large space, we had 4 interlinking tipis and ALL the decorations were homemade by the bride, groom and brides mum! My mum & I went on a willow course and made three large willow balls that we hung from the bar tipi, the dance tipi had 3 spherical large white balloons hung from the apex (blown up by my brave brother...who nearly passed out!?), then we covered the field, tipi church (and most of the village) in lashings of homemade bunting (we think we made over 160m of fabric, hemmed bunting, with home made bias tape!) We also made/decorated over 25 cushions that were scattered around the venue, there were straw bales to sit on outside and 10 huge silk festival flags lining the field. Mum made drift wood ladders on which we hung throws and shawls in case it got chilly and we had two indoor fire pits which burnt all weekend long (we were in Wales after all!!)

We made signs (all written in Glastonbury font - yes, I taught myself to write like the Glastonbury sign writers...ish!?) and blackboard sandwich boards made from scratch, table numbers (small blackboards...all hand painted) were stuck in yellow plants, and there were signs (blackboards on stakes) for each of the bell tents. We also designed our save the date "teatowels" with the story of our relationship!

It's difficult to pick one moment, because it was all so perfect for us, walking through the village on my dad's arm up to the church, with all the villagers clapping us was magical, being surrounded by all our favourite people all seemingly having as much fun as we were, it was all just such a great day/weekend...catching my husband's eye for a brief moment during the evening do and just thinking, yes, we did it!

Make sure you start early if you intend to make lots of things, take a few days off to prepare the venue so that on the day you can just relax and enjoy the fruits of your labour! Also, take your time picking a photographer, and make sure you meet them before hand - we struck gold with ours as they were a huge part of our day and were bloody lovely, talented people!

Photographer: O&C Photography

Ceremony Venue: St Mary's Church, Cilcain, North Wales

Reception Venue: Local Farmer's Field, Cilcain, North Wales

Brides Dress: Jenny Packham's Eden from Blackburn Bridal

Bridesmaid Dresses: Two Birds (charcoal) from Ellie Sanderson

Venue Flowers: DIY

Bouquets: Fresh of Chester

Decor and Styling: DIY

Catering: Green Gages

Cake: Fran's Magical Cakes

Tipi and Bell Tents: Event In A Tent

Band: The Chaps, The Retrosettes, The Roxtons

VW Campervans: Split the Difference

Thank you so much to Kate and Richard for sharing your awesome wedding with us. All your hard work paid off as it looked like it was an amazing day and LOVE the balloon shots!

We will be featuring Kate and Richard's first dance in Independent Love Song later on today so don't be a stranger.

Big Love

Festival Brides xx

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