We have such a beautiful, fun and inspiring festival wedding to share with you all today, captured so perfectly by Thyme Lane Photography who we are very excited to welcome to our festival wedding directory this week.
Held at Horsley Hale Farm in Cambridgeshire, this rustic bohemian wedding with a hint of sparkle comes with everything you would expect from an amazing festival wedding (camping, tipis, wristbands, wooden and chalkboard signs, plenty of entertainment, an eco friendly glitter bar, a photo booth, food and drink stalls, live music and so much more) but with the on trend bohemian vibes that we love so much on Festival Brides. I am talking about the hanging Macramé, the Persian rugs, the wildflower installations (look out for the aerial display in the tipis – it is just beautiful) and the bride’s gorgeous bohemian style made complete by her Willowby tasseled wedding dress which we simple ADORE.
With a shared love for music festivals and camping and a past career in events, having a festival themed wedding seemed like the natural choice for Mat and Victoria…
We’ve both been to lots of festivals over the years, and I used to work in events as well, so it seemed like the right style of wedding for us! Our first holiday together was camping, so it made sense that this was incorporated into it!
Our theme was rustic with a hint of sparkle! From the start of our relationship, we’ve nicknamed ourselves “Team Ferdedgerley.” We therefore thought it made sense to name the wedding “Ferdedge Fest”, so we tried to incorporate as much of a boho festival feel as possible!
As well as having festival inspired styling, food and entertainment, Ferdedge Fest also comes with an eco-conscious heart and a great fusion of different cultures. It is a wedding that is completely unique and full of personality and we love it!
Look out for the gorgeous handmade sari bunting, the bespoke sari mismatched bridesmaid dresses, the amazing brownies and their awesome wedding film!!
Victoria and Mat talk us through their amazing wedding day and how it all started on a balcony in Paris.
Enjoy this wedding peeps. Its a keeper!
Paris, A Balcony and One Knee…
Mat took me to Paris as a surprise the week before my birthday. He actually booked the trip a year before, as we’d watched a documentary about a pianist (thoroughly recommend by the way, it’s called “Hello I am David!”) After watching the documentary, I said it would be cool to see the pianist in concert.
Fast forward a year, and we were drinking champagne on the balcony of our hotel room, in possibly the nicest hotel room I’ve ever stayed in – the terrace suite at Relais St Germain.
This was after travelling first class on the Eurostar (clearly not used to the luxury, we got far too excited over the fact that they gave us proper knives and forks and not disposable ones…) Apparently Mat was meant to propose on the following night before the concert, but he got too excited and did it on the balcony. Which was perfect.
A Geometric Patterned Lace Wedding Dress with Tassels…
My dress is from Heritage Brides in Hatfield House. The dress name is called Woodrose and the designer is Willowby. The veil was Richard Designs cathedral veil.
I thought I’d found my perfect dress during my first dress consultation at another shop, until I went to Heritage Brides and found this one. It blew my mind. I loved the tassels, I loved the modern geometric style pattern of the lace, and I love the shape of it. I remember trying it on at my fittings and feeling like I never wanted to take it off.
Block Heels, A Daisy Circlet and Plait Rings…
I wore Park Lane Block Heeled Sandals from ASOS – super comfortable, with a block heel so no getting stuck in the field! I had a circlet called “The Daisy Circlet” from Eden B Studios. I tried it on at the Most Curious Wedding Fair in Old Truman Brewery and fell in love. I also had gold plait rings in my hair from Regal Rose.
A Very Special Ring…
I wore a garnet and pearl ring that my Grandad got made for my nanny for their 60th wedding anniversary. They’ve both sadly passed away, so it felt like a part of them were there with me to celebrate the day. I also wore a bracelet from Leju London that my mother in law gave me as an engagement gift.
A Farm, Camping and Tipis…
Our venue was Horsley Hale Farm in Ely. I found our venue online. We knew we wanted an outdoor / festival wedding, so we went to see two venues (Horsley Hale and another one in Surrey). We narrowed them down by making sure they had a good infrastructure in place for power, water and parking (with a background in events I knew these were important factors!) The reason we picked Horsley Hale was down to Stuart, the owner. We immediately got along with him and loved the fact that it was his own family run business. We got the impression that he put a lot of time and effort into his company and really cared about his clients – we were not wrong. No task was too great or small for Stuart and he was always on hand throughout the day / weekend to ensure that we had the most wonderful celebration.
We had a honeymoon yurt which was beautifully furnished and there were 9 bell tents for the wedding party. The rest of the camping guests brought their own tents and vans, pitching in the adjacent field. There were plenty of eco loos for everyone and lovely hot showers.
We had 2 giant hat kata tipis, we also used a catering tent for the bar, sofas and photobooth / guestbook area. We hired them from Magical Events Ltd who were fantastic throughout the whole process. Magical Events also provided the dining tables, the benches / chairs, the dance floor, tipi fairy lights, a walkway, the disco uplighters, the bar, sofas and end tables for us.
A Weekend of Celebrations…
As it was August bank holiday weekend, we camped until the Monday. Even Hector the dog stayed throughout the weekend, we think the breakfast sausages were a particular highlight for him. The day after the wedding, we blew off the cobwebs by having a “pool party” around the lake. We were able to have a swim and brought our inflatables in (we stated on the wedding invites that it was a BYOB wedding – “Bring Your Own Boat”). Finally, we had a BBQ of epic proportion on the Sunday afternoon, as Horsley Hale have a fantastic industrial-sized BBQ with all of the kitchen facilities you could ever need.
A Lake, A Hexagon Arch and Hanging Macramé…
The ceremony was by the lake, with a Persian rug isle, next to a hexagon arch, hanging macramé tassels and dreamcatchers from Dolly’s Vintage Tea Party. We used the benches and chairs from the tipis for people to sit on.
Rather than have traditional flower girls, my brother walked down my niece (1.5 years old) and my nephew (3 years old) first with bubble guns.
For the music, we used the speaker for the ceremony to play songs through. I walked down the isle to Smashing Pumpkins’ over of “Landslide”.
As the venue is not licensed, we were legally married off site, so the ceremony didn’t have to be religious or technical. This meant that we could have my Aunty Jo as our celebrant (she was so good she even got her own chant!) She spoke about how we got together, told surprise childhood stories from my mum / Mat’s mum, and created her own exchange of rings. We wrote our own vows.
We chose three of our friends (Jon, Annie & Christian) to deliver readings that they chose themselves – they didn’t tell us what they were before the ceremony which was a lovely surprise. Our friend Jon read “The Day the Saucers Came” by Neil Gaiman, Annie (one of my bridesmaids) read a poem she wrote and Christian read Huey Lewis’ “The Power of Love” lyrics (which was hilarious).
Homemade Photo Holders, Plant Pots and Fake Flowers…
My friend Charlotte Willis designed the order of service. For the table plan, we hired two white step ladders and photo frames from Dolly’s Vintage Tea Party, and presented the tables in the photo frames on the steps. I bought fairy lights, plant pots and fake flowers to decorate them.
For the place cards, I made and hand painted little cement blocks with paper clips in, which people could take home and use for photo holders. My mum painstakingly hand wrote all of the name cards to go in them.
We named each table after a festival. I sanded down 18 frames from The Range and printed the table names for them / placed them on the tables. I also bought chalkboard buckets which doubled up as ice buckets for wine, and wrote the table names on those as well.
We also designed and made our own eco-friendly festival wristbands as our party favours.
DIY Decor, Sari Bunting and An Eco Glitter Bar…
Our immediate family and the wedding party helped us set-up the venue the day before. Without them, the whole thing would not have been possible!
The actual reception was in the main field with the dining tipis / dance floor etc.
Everything was incredibly personal, with lots of homemade elements. My Best Woman Izzy was also our Master of Ceremonies, and had a school bell and a gong to make her announcements – she absolutely nailed it!
Annie made copious amounts of stunning sari bunting to hang in all of the tipis. My friend Ellie let me borrow a hanging wagon wheel decorative piece that she made for her wedding. I made the order of the day schedule from a builder’s pallet and some artificial flowers. I also hand wrote on all of the chalkboards (borrowed from friends and family!) My dad upcycled a table and vanity mirror to make an eco-glitter and hair feather stand, which was a massive hit! I got a giant polaroid frame made with our names and hashtag on for people to take pictures in while holding it.
We created little seating areas out of hay bales, decorated them with both my own and hired blankets, and used hired watering cans as ash trays and stacked crates as drinks tables (also from Dolly’s).
Our wedding was a child-free wedding apart from my brother’s two kids, so I bought a mini teepee from Amazon, decorated it with colourful fairy lights and cushions, and hid lots of toys in there so they had a little secret hideout.
Lawn Games and A Photobooth…
For entertainment, we hired lots of lawn games and signs from Dollys Vintage Tea Party (a coconut shy, tug of war). We also had flamingo croquet (also borrowed from our friend Ellie). We brought our own Swedish lawn game which involves chucking wood at other wood (a firm favourite amongst our friendship group!) and a photobooth with a scrap book style guest book next to it for people to stick their pictures in and write messages. The photographs and messages get more outrageous during the later hours of the night!
Wild Flowers, An Aerial Display and Brass Ornaments…
Our florist was Bridget from Wild Rosamund. We knew we wanted wild flowers, and nothing too structured (as we’re not particularly structured people ourselves!) I met with Bridget and showed her my colour scheme, she did the rest! She provided an aerial floral display to hang over the top tables in the tipi, bride and bridesmaid bouquets and buttonholes for the groomsmen and fathers. Together, we sourced various brass ornaments from charity shops to line along the tables instead of table centres; Bridget then added flower stems and candles to them.
Bespoke Mismatched Sari Bridesmaid Dresses…
I got my bridesmaids’ dressed from The Sailaway Dress Company. They were bespoke dresses made from off-cuts of sari material, and the money goes towards the tailors in India that made them. I bought a dress from them a few years ago as a guest to my friend’s wedding, which gave me the idea. I wanted my bridesmaids to have a dress that they could wear again, rather than it just sit in their cupboard.
Grazing Stations, Eco Friendly Coffee, Cocktails and Pizza…
Our catering company was Little Piggy Catering. They provided the drinks service, an antipasti grazing station (instead of starters / canapes) and a hog roast. Their food was absolutely delicious, and they also provided gorgeous linen and tableware.
We had some delicious coffees throughout the day from Rural Coffee Project. They also monogrammed some eco friendly coffee cups with our initials.
We used Jack’s Gelato for dessert who everyone loved. For the evening meal, Pizza Mondo provided yummy pizzas.
My sister’s boyfriend made delicious brownies for the guests to eat in the evening. I think the three most popular flavours were pecan, white chocolate cheesecake and peanut butter.
We had a cocktail van for after the meal, who also brought with them a bath tub as a prosecco cooler. As expected, this went down very well:
For alcohol, Mat organised buying the wine and prosecco with Majestic Wines and drove to Calais to pick it all up. We bought lagers, spirits for the cocktail van and soft drinks online in bulk.
For the craft beer lovers, we ordered kegs from a local brewery called Three Blind Mice (who own the Drayman’s Son pub in Ely) which everyone loved.
An Incredible Photographer…
Our photographer was Noemi from Thyme Lane Photography. We absolutely loved her and couldn’t be happier with the photos! She was incredibly helpful from the moment we started chatting – even helping us source other local suppliers.
An Al Fresco Dance floor…
Mat’s childhood friend is in an amazing band called Los Lads. They do Spanish covers of pop songs. As the weather was glorious, we said they could pull the stage outside so our dance floor was al fresco!
Our friends Tomas and Doug are also very gifted DJs, so they brought their decks and did their own sets.
Favourite Moment…
So many moments! The ceremony was amazing, my Aunty Jo did a fantastic job. I loved the speeches, they were all wonderfully written and made me cry a lot. We had six in total; I did one, plus my dad, Mat’s Dad, some joint speeches from my Maid of Honour / Best Woman and two Best Men (who did a multi-media presentation!), and Mat. I also loved dancing to the band outside, at one point we got picked up (I think this might have been my idea but my memory is hazy by this point!) Just generally seeing everyone enjoying the day made us both incredibly happy.
Any Advice?
- Do lots of research into your suppliers and don’t rush into the first thing you find. I thought I’d decided on my dress as I loved the first one I tried on at my first consultation. Then I went to a different shop and found a dress that I loved even more.
- Read reviews, they’re really helpful.
- Write lots of lists! They’re useful if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
- Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, you can’t organise everything.
- Don’t sweat the small stuff, as not everything will go perfectly (I accidentally forgot about one of the best men and left him at a train station, my veil fell off mid-ceremony, two examples there!) but it got sorted / didn’t matter at all.
- Finally, enjoy it!
The Film…
VICS + MAT HIGHLIGHTS from HUSHABYE FILMS on Vimeo.
The Line Up…
Photography: Thyme Lane Photography; Venue: Horsley Hale Farm; Tipis: Magical Events Ltd; Props, Decor and Lawn Games: Dolly’s Vintage Tea Party; Bride’s Dress: Woodrose by Willowby via Heritage Brides; Bride’s Shoes: ASOS; Hair Accessories: The Daisy Circlet from Eden B Studio & Gold Plait Rings from Regal Rose; Bride’s Jewellery: Bracelet by Leju London; Bride’s Hair: Kate Fletcher; Bride’s Makeup: Jessica M Makeup Artistry; Groom’s Suit: Master Debonair; Bridesmaid Dresses: The Sailaway Dress Company; Bridesmaid Accessories: Bracelets from Gaamaa Jewellry via Not On The High Street; Videographer: Hushabye Films; Flowers: Wild Rosamund; Band: Los Lads; Order Of Service: Charlotte Willis Designs; Catering: Little Piggy Catering; Coffee Van: Rural Coffee Project; Ice Cream: Jacks Gelato; Pizza: Pizza Mondo; Brownies: Epic Brownies UK; Cocktail Van: The Cocktail Car; Craft Beer: Drayman’s Son Micro Pub
