Bell Tent Wedding Inspiration During Lockdown

Morning lovely people and welcome to the weekend. We have something a little bit different to share with all of your eyes today on Festival Brides. In fact, this feature is the first of its kind in a series of inspiration wedding shoots that we will be sharing over the next few months. These inspiration shoots have been put together by amazing wedding creatives during lockdown. Intending to bring you positive ideas and inspiration on planning a wedding during Coronavirus, h ow to make the best of this incredibly difficult situation and maybe give you the courage to make the tough decision of postponing or opting for a smaller, more intimate wedding. We see you lovely people. We know this has been an incredibly difficult and heart wrenching time for every single one of you. So much planning, effort, money and excitement is poured into a wedding and to have that taken away from you is horrible. Couples are being forced to make such tough decisions and it’s hard. Really hard. In some cases you are being asked to choose between a social distanced wedding (whatever that will mean) or cancelling all together and losing all of your wedding deposits. It is really hard to make these decisions and to feel positive about your ‘Covid-19 wedding options’ when all you want to do is celebrate the day you have dreamed about for so many months. We get that. We really do.

These series of shoots, and real weddings (tune in on Monday for our first real wedding that took place during the lockdown) have been put together in the hope that they shine some positive light on your present options. They are not there to detract from the hurt you are all feeling. Not at all. Their sole purpose is to inspire you during this time and maybe even make you excited (dare I say it) about planning a more intimate Coronavirus wedding. After all, remember that an intimate wedding doesn’t mean you can’t throw the biggest of wedding receptions when this is all over – and I mean the biggest party ever where everyone is hugging in a circle on the dance floor at the end of the night, singing the Oasis classic ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger.’ and telling each other how much they love them!! Man I love a wedding!

So without further ado, on to today’s first lockdown inspired wedding shoot, put together by the lovely Elise of Beneath The Canopy. She wanted to keep her creative juices flowing during lockdown so pitched up one of her glamping bell tents in her garden and created 3 different inspiration shoots. The first, a kids party tent. The second, a good old English tea party for two and finally, an evening couple shoot with smores by the fire. She called on the talents of her friends in the industry who all helped her plan the shoot at a distance including Katie Rogers Photography, Thyme Lane Photography and Wild Meadow Photography who all advised Elise on the sort of images to capture and then helped her edit them ready for us to share with you today.

Grab yourselves a cup of something nice and read all about this fab shoot and why Elise wanted to put it together – I hope it brings you some inspiration during this time and, if you have had to postpone your wedding but still want to celebrate your original wedding date in someway, maybe you can do something like this shoot. Hire a gorgeous bell tent for two set up in your garden with festoon lighting, a fire and champagne.

Have a fabulous weekend lovely people and we will see you on the flip side!

Creativity and Wedding Inspiration During Lockdown…

Words by Elise of Beneath The Canopy

Like so many creatives, recently we found ourselves missing the connectivity with other people in our industry. Normally, around this time of year we are busy with wedding fairs and styled shoots that help us and our brides keep up with wedding trends and styling. We should be out meeting lots of happy couples planning their big days. But how can you do anything when you can hardly leave the house? I thought about this for ages and a little idea started to grow in my mind about how to do a styled shoot in my own garden. Something to inspire some of our clients who are finding it difficult to find inspiration for wedding planning and some of our industry friends who are feeling creative frustration at the moment. What was really important to me, to anyone at this time, is staying safe. So the shoot had to involve no contact, no non essential journeys and no unnecessary postage, all things that would put a strain on already stretched public resources.

With a bit of jiggery pokery we managed to fit one of our 4 meter tent in the garden. Space is always a consideration when planning any event with our tents. The tricky part was the guidelines that normally stretch to a 7m diameter, but with years of experience, we have a few tricks up our sleeve!

Suppliers – with our remit in mind of no contact, unnecessary journey, postage we spoke to some of our most local suppliers. I have a friend Helen, who owns Betty Love Vintage, she hires vintage tableware and accessories for weddings and events. She was able to deliver some beautiful items whilst on route to do her essential shop. Flowers were supplied by Sussex Cutting who are still open for business and delivery at the moment. So we had the fundamentals in place for a little shoot.

Photography. This is where it got a little trickier. I have a reasonable camera and enjoy taking snaps, but in no way am I a photographer. I’d seen a lot of photographers doing remote face-time photo shoots, so this seemed like a the way forward. I reached out to some photographers via social media and some lovely people got back to me and where happy to help with technical direction and their editing skills.

We had a couple of days of good weather so we seized the opportunity and played about with some different set ups and styling ideas whilst getting some styling tips from the lovely Helen from Betty Loves Vintage and facetime photography tuition from Katie Rogers photography, Molly, Wildmeadow photography and Noemi from Thyme Lane photography. The images were then sent back to the photographers via we transfer, ready for them to edit. The edited galleries were then sent back to me. It’s been wonderful to work with people in our industry at the moment, as we are all in a bit of a creative fug ! The photgraphers involved have all been trying experimental ways to do things, facetime shoots for couples, flat lays for branding and projects like this that stretch the imagination. We are pleased to see lots of virtual wedding fairs pop up too, which is helpful to couples who are missing ‘the real thing’. Both brides and suppliers are finding new ways to find inspiration and communicate their ideas, whilst we all figure out a way forward as the life very slowly returns to normal, or as we are all discovering, a new form of normal.