MR & MRS : pimping the place
Originally I was going lump everything from stationery and DIY projects to decor and additional props for our Big Day in one post but there seems to be a little too much to waffle about! So, I’ve split it in two and hopefully you’ll enjoy these slightly shorter insights a bit more.
Next week’s post will focus on DIY elements and include things like stationery, games, props and other projects we worked on ourselves and with other creative beans. This week though, I thought I’d try and set the scene a bit and share what we planned to do with our lovely venue and space in terms of colour and the overall look and feel.
COLOUR SCHEME
From the snaps you've probably seen already, you may have gathered that we didn’t really have a set colour scheme. As much as I LOVE yellow, (it’s no coincidence that my business name is based on my favourite colour and weather!), we didn’t want a Hello Sunshine wedding - it was about US BOTH after all.
W E D D I N G | DECOR : Sunshine_Jo Pinterest Boards
As we collected ideas on Pinterest, we noticed there was definitely a summery-festival feel developing, still with lots of yellow (shock!), but also lots of blues, hot pinks and warm oranges. We both agreed that fun, bright and colourful would be the perfect way to go and we also realised that we may have been inspired by the colour of our #anoraktwats raincoats, especially when it came to selecting colours for more specific elements.
#anoraktwats on tour!
THE PAVILION
Horningsea Pavilion is basically a cricket pavilion/village hall and although it’s one of the nicer, more modern village halls we’ve seen, it’s still a bit bland inside. But that meant we had the perfect blank canvas! The pavilion also had the most wonderful veranda looking out over the green, which we thought would come to life brilliantly with a bit of colour.
Horningsea cricket pavilion
The Beard was quite happy to let me take the lead on sourcing fun things to spruce up the place but we both agreed lots of bright, paper decorations would be the perfect way to add colour without spending a fortune. I had a lot of fun scouring preloved.com, amazon and eBay for second-hand paper lanterns and garlands, as well as hunting down wool, paints and other crafty bits and pieces in various sales throughout the year.
On the veranda, April worked incredibly hard, stringing up lots of different sized, multicoloured paper lanterns and pompoms while I arranged some mini honeycomb paper garlands along the front of the fence. The little pops of colour brought the front of the hall to life and I was in love with how it all looked on the day!
Inside the hall, April also hung paper lanterns and pompoms from the ceiling beams and we strung up a couple of woolly pompom garlands I had made to add more colour and texture. With more paper garlands to dress tables and cupboard doors and the large, colourful letters for our TEA bar and SNACKS table, the inside of the hall started to come to life too.
We also used some brightly coloured table clothes and confetti to dress one of the other tables, which had our guest book, favours and wedding card mailbox on. I’ll chat more about that table in the next post though as includes some fun DIY bits and some pieces from other creatives that I'm excited to share!
Two Little Cats Bakery's GF and Vegan Funfetti cake styled beautifully by April @kookevents
Last week I shared a peek at the AMAZING funfetti cake Jenni from Two Little Cats Bakery made for us and even though it looked MAGNIFICENT on it’s own, what April did to dress the table once it was on it’s cake stand was just MAGICAL!
On a whim I had randomly picked up a fake grass table runner (as you do!) and some fun and colourful, decorative parrot clips. I had no idea how they might be used but it was one of those moments when you just feel the need to have something and I’m SO happy I nabbed them because when April arranged them with colourful glass tea lights and mini fake flowers, it looked BRILLIANT!
OS Maps and Cheerz snaps made the perfect cover-up for the village notice boards
As you entered the hall from the side door, along a corridor there were two large (uninspiring) notice boards. I can’t remember who came up with the idea initially, but The Beard and I thought it would be nice to cover them up with some of our trusty OS Maps and pin some of our adventure snaps to them. I had been gifted some brilliant polaroid style prints from the folks at Cheerz and after selecting some of our faves, I think we pimped the boring boards quite successfully!
OS Map of one of our first camping trip locations, Dartmoor
THE TIPI
As I mentioned in my first post, the Hat Tipis from Cambridge Tent Company are STUNNING, even without added decor, the structures are so impressive with natural wooden beams and fairy lights strung throughout. With that in mind we didn’t want to over complicate the interior so April agreed to just hang some more paper lanterns for us and it all looked WONDERFUL - it actually made me gasp as I walked in and saw everything on the day!
As well as a shiny, golden disco ball to add extra sparkle and create beautiful lighting inside the Tipi, we also had one of Cambridge Tent Company’s impressive fire pits, which looked brilliant when it was lit in the evening.
Beautiful evening shot by @kirstyrholden
The festoon lighting and walkway that led out from the tipi towards the Pavilion also looked stunning and with a few colourful paper lanterns and some fun garden flamingos (another random purchase in the sales!), it created the perfect entrance to our party tent.
Walking out of the Party Tent of dreams 💛
THE GREEN
Not only did we have some lovely rustic wooden benches and tables inside the tipi and hall, Cambridge Tent Company also made sure we had enough to arrange some outside, on the grass. Along with some bargainous fire pits Will and I had picked up from the supermarket the previous Winter, it meant we could also have three cute ‘chill out’ spaces.
When I sat down with April to plan our ‘site map’ I had a pretty good idea of how it all might look when we added in the food vans, games and random props but it wasn’t until we started to pull it all together on the day before that I got really excited. Especially when our little bell tent went up with it’s bunting, fairy lights, hula hoops and teeny tiny table and chairs with colouring sets inside for the kids!
I also got a bit excited about the fact we had been given permission to use the Pavilion’s outdoor ping pong table. Obviously, we bought a Beer Pong set to put out on the day and it was lovely to see guests having fun with it! Still not sure if someone actually drank the ball wash at the end of the night though...
Revisiting the ‘random purchases’ theme, I had one quite extravagant last minute splurge a couple of days before the wedding, when I was in town picking up some other bits and pieces. Again, it was one of those moments when you just knew it had to be done but I couldn’t explain why so when Will reluctantly agreed I got quite excited about bringing this fella home…
Thank you John Lewis and Sunnylife for bringing this guy into my life!
It might seem ridiculous to have a giant inflatable flamingo at a wedding but MY GOD was it one of the best things we purchased! He might have been an utter sh*tbag to inflate but not only did he look fabulous, the kids LOVED him and he spent all day and night being jumped on and adored by every small person there.
flags
In one of our catch-ups April had mentioned the idea of using festival flags to help add some height and colour to the grounds too. I wasn't sure at first (the budget was already stretching and that was before I went nuts on an inflatable flamingo!) but when April sent over the info and I saw the Indian Summer flags at Event Flag Hire,I fell in love! I'm so happy I did too because they looked bloody amazing, lining the drive way up to the green and pavilion.
Gorgeous snap of the festival flag entrance, captured by @apriltowriess
There were LOTS of other fun things set up inside and outside too but these were epic DIY projects I worked on with my parents and their Workbench Shop business so I’ll talk about them in detail next time with the other DIY fun times.
FLOWERS
We had decided pretty early on that we didn’t want to spend a shed load of money on flowers to decorate our venue. The tipi wouldn't need them and we preferred to focus more of our budget on food and photography instead. We did however, have a fun plan to spruce up tables whilst including another one of our favourite things… GIN!
Winning combination of Gin bottles, foraged flowers and April's lanterns and styling skills!
Over the 5ish years we’ve been together, The Beard and I have collected a lot of different gin bottles, including three of the beauties from our local; the wonderful Cambridge Gin Distillery. As you can imagine, we had quite a stash developing. We thought it would be fun to include them on our day and turn them into table pieces by adding some foraged flowers from our garden and the surrounding Fen Ditton meadows.
Wild flower foraging in Fen Ditton : don't worry, we didn't need many and picked responsibly!
The day before we set up at the wedding I had a GREAT time cycling around the meadows in Fen Ditton, snipping a few flowers here and there. By the end of my mini mission I had a bike basket full of beautiful wild flowers... and probably a lot of weeds!
It had also been my birthday earlier that week and I had been sent a gorgeous bunch of Sunflowers (thank you Emski!), which looked perfect along side the wild blooms. Another floral bonus was that the house next door to us had a shocking pink Peony bush in full bloom so we were chuffed we could snip a few of those too!
One of favourite local Gins and the neighbour's Peonies.
April did an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING job of arranging the random mix of foraged blooms in all of the empty gin bottles and when they were all lined up on the veranda my heart almost exploded - I mean, look at how beautiful they are! The fact they almost perfectly matched my bouquet on the day (which was a complete coincidence!) was even more amazing.
Dream team of Gin bottles,fun flowers and April's styling skills
As much as I want to carry on sharing more details how everything looked, I shall resist because it's mostly DIY fun and finishing touches I have left to waffle about, which I'm saving for the next update! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about how we started to pimp up the place and if you want to show some love to the beautiful human beans mentioned in this week’s post, pop over to their links below:
KOOK EVENTS
coordinator | kookevents.co.uk | @kookevents
DANIEL ACKERLEY
photography | peterboroughweddingphotography.co.uk | @danielackerley
CAMBRIDGE TENT COMPANY
tipi | cambridgetentcompany.com | @cambridge_tent_company
TWO LITTLE CATS BAKERY
GF and Vegan cake | twolittlecats.co.uk | @twolittlecatsbakery
EVENT FLAG HIRE
festival flags | eventflaghire.co.uk | @eventflaghire
WORKBENCH SHOP
diy gurus | etsy.com/workbenchshop | @workbenchshop
CAMBRIDGE GIN DISTILLERY
gin & joy | cambridgedistillery.co.uk | @cambridgegin
NEXT UP : DIY & playtime
All the bits we decided to do ourselves, with the help of some other amazing creative individuals and businesses. Expect stationery, lawn games, sign posts and the BIGGEST DIY project we’ve ever taken on!