Planning a festival tipi wedding
It’s my DREAM bucket list wedding to shoot a wedding at a music festival. Shooting a wedding at Latitude would be the best, but I’d love to photograph a wedding at anyfestiva l, it doesn’t matter how indie or big! I’d capture all the main wedding parts but also the reality of the camping with friends, the classic festival queuing etc.
However, they’re quite rare to come by so instead I have photographed a lot of festival tipi weddings. These are outdoor weddings held in a field with a tipi hire company coming to set the tipi up for you.
Tips for planning a festival tipi wedding
I recommend that you hire a field or private garden with a sort of house attached to the site- this can be useful for the getting ready morning, provide a safe place to stash things, and somewhere for elderly guests or those with babies to take a quiet nap mid revelry! If you hire a tipi in a field that has no house nearby, bear in mind that you’ll need to hire a generator for electricity, potentially heaters for the tipi, and also portable toilets. For food, the easiest thing to do is hire food trucks as they have their own self contained kitchen.
It’s also important to remember that as it stands you have to get legally married under a licensed fixed structure. There are rumours that the UK law will change on this soon. It means you need to do your legal wedding at a registry office beforehand and then have a celebrant wedding at your festival site.
If you’re planning a festival wedding, the odds are a lot of the set up will need to be DIY so I recommend hiring a on the day coordinator like Amae Events who make sure everything goes smoothly. On the day wedding coordinators ensure that you don’t need to deal with liasing with suppliers or worrying about anything at all. Essential for a wedding in a field!
Fun Essex wedding party
I started the day of this fun Essex festival wedding at their home, a short walk from the tipi field site. The couple had already done their legal wedding about a month before, so we didn’t have a ceremony at this wedding it was straight into pure awesome party vibes! The bride and groom got ready in different parts of the house, with the hair by Leggy Bird and make up by Faye Neill. The bride wore a tailored Nadine Merabi Bridal lace flared jumpsuit.
Suffolk marquees wedding tipi hire
At this amazing festival wedding in Essex, they used the bride’s uncles’ tipi hire company, Suffolk Marquees. They have some of the best pricing for Essex festival weddings. The pricing varies between their different types of tent so get in touch with them directly for quotes!
Festival wedding entertainment ideas
This wedding hosted hundreds of guests so as you can imagine they put on plenty of entertainment. They had live acoustic musicians, a temporary tattoo station, and circus games for the kids which turned into a fire act later on in the evening by Ruby Flames Entertainment. They had a festival map style site map at the entrance which was fun. The also hired Lucy’s glitter box for Photo Booth selfies and face painting/glitter.
Golden hour couple photos in Essex
In between the chatting with guests we took some time out for some gorgeous golden hour photos around the festival wedding site.
Food trucks for festival weddings in Essex
The evening meal was supplied by Gourmet Geezer who did amazing gourmet chips- absolutely fantastic highly recommend. They also had Barney and the Pizza serving pizza during the early evening and Fan Thai Sticks serving amazing massaman curries.
The best showband in Essex
In the main tipi the couple hired the amazing Jam Hot Show Band- a super nice group friendly group and along with the incredible Artisan Productions AV team they hosted a cracking dance floor that was the most rammed I’d seen in ages! It was totally full from start to finish! They gave their speeches on stage to open up the dance floor. They also had custom printed t shirts/merch which they threw into the crowd which was hilarious.
How to entertain evening guests at a festival wedding
During the evening the circus skills entertainers of Ruby Flames also doubled up with a fire performer act. Everyone gathered under the uncovered tipi frame on a circle of hay bales to watch her perform.
Festival wedding party
The production team did an amazing job firing confetti cannon machines during the first dance, making for epic moments. It’s certainly a bit more than having some friends hand pop confetti cannons but as you can see it makes a real difference!
Documentary wedding photography
The upside of having a raw candid documentary style wedding photographer at your festival wedding is that I capture all the stories beyond the usual timeline. Festival weddings in particular have a free for all roaming kind of atmosphere. There’s very few timeline events holding everyone in one spot, no sit down meal moment, so you can benefit from having a photographer who loves walking around and capturing real moments as they happen. The morning after this Essex festival wedding, they had all their friends who camped over waking up in their tents. The couple themselves camped in a Tentbox on top of their Land Rovers. All the friends and family pitched in to help make a fantastic fried egg bacon and sausage butty breakfast for everyone!
I hope you enjoyed and felt inspired by this festival wedding in Essex. If you’re holding a festival wedding anywhere in the UK I am up for being your wedding photographer! Or indeed if you’re getting married at Glastonbury or similar I am so up for it I’d offer a bucket list discount! If you’d like to check out other festival weddings I’ve photographed then check out this amazing Bohemian festival Jewish wedding.
