Happy Monday folks.. How are we all after that dramatic thundery weekend.. For all those that were out camping at festivals and in fields - You brave souls... I wouldn't even step out the front door to get some herbs for dinner!! Our wedding 'In the woods' on Saturday was dry and sunny... So thanks to the clouds for dodging our lovely couple Rhiannon and Jon.

We have a corker of a festival wedding for you today.. All singing, all dancing festival fun with lights and all inspired because they found their venue on our festival pages..Wooohoooo!

The wedding took place at Woodchester Mansion - A venue we have featured once before.. It's seems like the perfect place to hold a festival wedding so do check it out.... Over to the lovely Lianne and Craig to tell us more about their special day!!

We based our wedding on End of the Road festival, which we've gone to every year since 2008, including the weekend before the wedding (everyone said we were mad to go to a festival the weekend before, but it was actually really nice being at the festival that had led to a lot of our decisions, it was a nice weekend of relaxing after a few stressful weeks, gave us a few last minute ideas and also as my parents also went, I think they really understood why we were so keen on making our wedding day our own version of that festival). Of course we're going again this year!! (what a great anniversary idea!!)

We really wanted the day to be a lot of fun, very relaxed and very 'us'. We didn't want a standard boring wedding but we also wanted it be very much a wedding - going the full tents in fields thing was initially tempting but once we started really thinking about it ended up being a step too far. And although I really didn't want a church wedding, I did want to have the ceremony somewhere impressive. The drawing room of the mansion which is where they hold the ceremonies is about as close to a church as you can get without being one. We spent a long time planning some of the details, such as getting the picnic element of the lunch just right, the ale festival and the evening lighting, but I think they're the bits that really brought the element of us as a couple through. The mansion really did look quite spectacular lit up.

I bought a load of dried flowers, mainly lavender and the day before the wedding we put them in assorted jam jars and tin cans my Mum and I spent months collecting and decorating, plus empty whisky bottles (Craig is a big fan of whisky - I encouraged him to drink it more than usual in the run up to the wedding!). The venue is so rustic in style I wanted the flowers to compliment that and not try and outdo the grandness of it.

Indoor picnic was provided by the amazing Sarah from Lots of Lemons deli near Cheltenham. Hog Roast was courtesy of The Pig Roast Hire Company and the cakes were all made by Jane at Just Beautiful Weddings.

We had a cake table rather than one cake, so a small two tiered rustic sponge cake decorated with flowers, a battenburg, fruit tarts etc etc. We also had a cake topper made to look like our two bearded dragons (since Winston, our doggy was there and they weren't!), which I had intended to go on the tiered cake, and thought it rather amusing when I walked into the room and saw it on the batternburg! (I think Owen captured that moment actually, there's a great photo of us in the entrance of the room, and I'm looking slightly to the side with a facial expression that totally says 'ha! Look at that!)

It was a stroke of genius coming up with the idea of buying the old beer pump badges (which we attached to empty bottles). I was over the moon when I found on ebay a Wychwood Brewery pump (who often do 'unofficial beer of Halloween pumps) that said 'Unofficial Beer of Weddings. We had that one on our table. The ale festival was curated by us and included eight different ales from Hampshire (where I'm from), Kent (where Craig is from), London (where we live) and Ulley the nearest village to the venue.

Start of the Road branding was designed by my brother Jordan Chatwin. Invites were recovered 7 inch singles (handpicked to the person). We then had plastic pint cups and lanyards (with the order of service/timings for the day) in the same design, and unbeknown to me Craig had some gobos made up too, so we had the logo projected everywhere once it got dark.

We hired Hattie and Flora to help out with organising the living room/bar area, and also to co-ordinate setting up lunch (they basically had the hour for reception drinks/photos to turn the ceremony room into the indoor picnic room) so they arranged the mismatched crockery and beautiful glasswear. The tent/sound/visual/lighting set up was all organised by Craig's AV company Event Projection. All the smaller details like the flowers, the wicker hearts, coat stands, fairly lights and so on was me.

We are loving this festival wedding!! So much excitement, colour and atmosphere. But there are so many more images so we will be posting Part 2 tomorrow.....

Photography credit - Owen Mathias

xx

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