A Festival Inspired Colourful Outdoor Wedding with Glamping

A Festival Inspired Colourful Outdoor Wedding with Glamping

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I'm not sure I know where to begin with Naomi and Guy's incredible festival wedding. Do I start with their colourful handmade decor that includes poms poms, bunting, sprayed tin cans, paper garlands and confetti? Or do I mention the amazing entertainment that saw guests competing in a sing off, doing the wedding conga and dancing to the silent disco? Maybe I should begin with the handpicked wild flowers, Naomi's beautiful bouquet or the fact that they has 3 different food stations that included paella, thai and nachos!

Honestly, Naomi and Guy's FM Love Fest (named after their newly wed surname Fenn-Mansfield) is full of so much festival inspired wedding inspiration that my heart is singing! It's bright, colourful, fun, happy and most importantly, a true reflection on their personalities which is what every wedding should be.

Naomi and Guy talk us through finding their beautiful venue in Cornwall and turning their festival ideas into life.

Enjoy this wedding peeps. Its a keeper!

We went for a walk up Raw Head on the sandstone trail in Cheshire, Guy used to play in this area as a child so whilst I stood at the top admiring the view he said he was going to see if the cave was still there from when he was younger. I didn't think anything of it as he often told me stories whilst on this walk about the caves and other secret places they would discover. A few minutes later, he reappeared and got down on to one knee, to which I told him to stop being so stupid and to get up, he then asked me to marry him, producing not one but two rings as he didn't want to get it wrong. Apparently I kept him waiting quite a while before answering, there was never any doubt but I think it was so unexpected I was shocked and clearly couldn't speak.

We had the ceremony and the reception at Kilminorth Cottages in Looe Cornwall. The location was key for us. We wanted the venue to be in Looe Cornwall as it had a lot of meaning for us, we also wanted as many guests as possible to be able to stay on site. We initially googled holiday cottages in Looe after finding the specific wedding venues rather pricey. When we stumbled across Kilminorths website we just knew it was the place. As soon as we arrived at Kilminorth Cottages and met Jayne we knew we had found the right place. We fell in love with the remoteness, the wildness and the fact Jayne was so welcoming and friendly. She was so relaxed yet knowledgeable and completely understood our vision for a festival wedding. She was happy to let us do what we wanted and offered to be as involved as we wanted her to be. We were able to secure all 13 cottages onsite and we had the option to offer camping and glamping to our guests.

My dress was from Eternity Bridal; I wanted something elegant and classy but with a vintage feel and an edge. Not an easy combination to find but as soon as I saw this dress I knew it was something special. I loved the heavy lace and I loved the detail on the arms and down the back.

I wore my hair up and threaded a daisy strap that had been on my mums wedding dress through it. The only jewellery I wore were a pair of earrings. These were a gift from my mum & two bridesmaids from Anthropologie. We got our wedding band rings from Ernest & Jones.

The two bridesmaids wore dresses from ASOS - with one bridesmaid being 7 months pregnant ASOS allowed us to mix up the styles whilst keeping the same patterns.

We had a civil ceremony, all of the decorations around the ceremony area were handmade - a colourful hanging backdrop made of tiny coloured paper tissues & colourful paper tissue flowers decorated the pillars of the venue. We wrote our own vows as we wanted it to be more personal.

We had two readings:

  • Melaine Morrell (Naomi's aunt) Ordinary Morning by Joyce Grenfell
  • Lyanne Nicholl (Guy's Sister) Better together by Jack Johnson

We had a playlist of relaxed music whilst the guests waited, I walked down the aisle to a guitar version of 'here comes the bride' and to celebrate the wedding we both walked down the aisle at the end of the ceremony to: Lovely day by Bill Withers

Trawling through pintest at potential flowers I came across the most beautiful bouquet. It was full of bright colours and had ribbons hanging from it. I contacted Hannah Burnett Florist in Plymouth (about 40 minutes from Looe) and sent her the images. Hannah responded straight away and told me she would be able to achieve the look I wanted. She was very reasonably priced as well which always helps. As the bridesmaids wore colourful dresses we opted for plain yellow bouquets for them, which matched flower girls dresses. The Grooms party had yellow button holes which went great with their bright blue suits and pulled in the bridesmaids flowers.

As there was so much colour in the marquee we decided not to overrun it with flowers, so we opted for small painted tins of wild daisy's from my mum's garden.

It was important for us to give things a personal touch and to try to make as much as possible. I created newspapers for the order of service and we handed out homemade bags of confetti. We wanted the confetti to be bright and colourful keeping with the theme.

The table plan, the table names and name places were all handmade; the name places were old funny photographs of our guests, either in fancy dress or caught in a funny moment - these seemed to go down well and brought back a few memories for all. The flowers for the tables were wild daisy's picked from my mum's garden and placed in painted jam jars and painted tin cans. I handmade a large floral G&N sign which hanged behind the head table, I also made a chandler which hung from the centre of the marque. All of the bunting was made by my gran, and the pompoms were all created by hand by all the family. For wedding favours we decided to make FM Love Fest soundtracks so we created CD's which incorporated some of the songs from throughout the day.

Carla Threlkeld & Ian Threlkeld - Carla is a family friend and she also photographed my sister's wedding with her dad back in September 2015. We didn't want to feel uncomfortable on our wedding day by having a stranger point cameras and giving us direction so having Carla and her dad was perfect as we already knew them. They allowed us to express our wishes and were able to capture the day beautifully. We took some serious photos and then had several where we joked around. A couple of my favourite are when I am 'running away' from Guy and then when he is biting my garter!

We fell in love with the idea of a drippy cake and asked Guy's sister Donna if she fancied the challenge, her cakes are always amazing!! She accepted and decided not to show us the cake until the day of the wedding. It was so nice walking in and seeing the cake and having an element of surprise considering we knew everything else that was happening. We also bought in some gluten free brownies and mini meringues from a family friend Louise Short.

We love our food and absolutely love having a variety to choose from when at a festival, so we decided the best way to decide on what food to have was by having separate food stations. During the reception drinks we had a Spanish feel snack bar, full of humus, meats, breads and dips. For the mains we had 3 stations: 'Nacho Regular Wedding'; which consisted of Chilli with Nachos, cheese & dips, 'Thai the Knot'; which was a vegetarian thai noodle dish & 'Hellavu Paella'; which was a seafood and mixed meat paella. The feedback we have had from guests has been amazing and being able to have a bit of everything on the day was exactly what we wanted. Along with the cake we set up a sweet table, cheese crackers & crisps for everyone to help themselves. In case anyone was still hungry, we arranged for hot Cornish pasties to be delivered around 10pm - these went down really well after a few drinks, and a lot of people had never had a real Cornish pasty!

Now with every festival you need entertainment!! We were incredibly lucky with the weather and were able to enjoy the rugs and benches laid outside of the marquee area. A close friend of ours Phil Reeves took on the role of Master of Ceremonies. Phil & his wife Alex also own an entertainment company ' The event station ' so were able to supply us with several outdoor games such as Splat the Rat, Giant Jenga, giant connect 4 and so on. The first bit of entertainment came in the form of Lucy Fuller (Guy's niece). Lucy kindly agreed to sing for us whilst everyone was enjoying the snack table, playing games and enjoying a few cocktails. Before eating Phil held a game of 'heads and tails' where he got everyone standing, you had to put your hands on your head or your bottom while he flipped a coin - the winning guest won a bottle of bubbly. Once everyone had eaten, Phil decided to pull out all the stops and introduce the 'sing off'. He split the marquee in two; Team Bride & Team Groom!! The first song was 500 miles, as the words came up on the big screens the guests really got into the spirit of things and started competing against each other, by the time bohemian rhapsody came on the energy was electric, we were on the tables and the signing had turned into a screaming session. (Clearly team Bride won!) It was incredible seeing our family & friends, especially my Nan rocking out with their air guitars.

As soon as we had finished the sing off, Phil was keen to keep the energy and vibrancy alive so we started two love trains, lead my myself & Guy, taking our guests around the marque and fields, slowly making our way back to the dance floor for our first dance. Following the first dance came the band; Ferris Wheel Junkies. They were incredible, all of our guests were already energised and they played to that.

When planning the wedding there was one thing that we kept going back to, so we decided to go for it. A silent disco! We kept this a surprise until the day of the wedding and when the band finished we provided guests with sets of headphones, these had two stations and for those who didn't want to participate in the silent disco we continued a playlist on the sound system. It was such a wonderful way to end the night, everyone singing out loud to different songs whilst others looked on in amazement at what was going on around them.

This is probably the hardest question, how can you pick just one moment from such a special day!! If I had to pick a couple of favourite moments they would be:

  • Walking down the aisle and saying our vows, I was so nervous as I thought I was going to get my vows wrong. We had written our own and whilst practising I kept getting tongue tied. However, on the day, walking down the aisle and seeing all my family and friends and then walking up to Guy all of my nerves went and I felt completely in control and confident. I was able to take in everything that was going on and really enjoy the moment.
  • The sing off has to be a top favourite as no one was expecting it and everyone got so involved, it was incredible seeing family members on tables & chairs rocking out on the air guitar.
  • The speeches - I always worry about the speeches in case they are taken too far, or are personal jokes that people won't get but I have to say I have not laughed that hard for so long in a long time

As everyone says, the day goes so quickly so try to take a step back and take everything in. Trust me, all the stress and pressure you put into the build-up is worth it and soon fades away when you see your soul mate stood at the end of the aisle waiting for you. I also decided not to drink too much until later in the evening as I wanted to keep a clear head and be able to remember as much as possible.

Our family & friends were just incredible and we couldn't have got to where we are today without them. They have supported us through everything and have always been there for us. We are huge family people and that is why it was so important for us that they were able to relax and enjoy their weekend as much as possible.

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