Fun Loving Lemon & Lime Tipi Wedding

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Settle down lovelies as I have one super gorgeous real wedding this morning plus a really wonderful report from the couple full of advice and helpful tips. I especially love groom Adam's words, they did get me a bit teary I must admit :-)

Lindsey and Adam tied the knot on Tuesday 3rd June 2014 at Taitlands followed by a Papakata tipi reception at Newton Grange. Yellow and green were the vibrant colour choices of the day, which injected so much fun and light into the celebrations. With bright pom poms, blooms and bridesmaid dresses all looking divine.

Lindsey wore a romantic strapless gown by Maggie Sottero with her hair in the prettiest up do, while Adam donned a grey suit and lime accessories. Love.

Thanks so much to Tux and Tales Photography for sharing these lovely images today.

THE PROPOSAL | Adam and I had always said we would never get married and never really saw the point. However, after we had been together for almost seven years, we started to discuss the idea of getting married more and more; taking cheeky peeks at rings for example. Adam had been planning the day for some time, though didn't know when would be right. He knew I wouldn't like anything big and grand, or anything in front of lots of people, so he had to pick a nice quiet spot. We went out for a picnic to a local water park/boating lake that looks over a castle on June 2nd 2013, on a really sunny warm day. We had a lovely afternoon sat in a quiet spot by the water with yummy food, watched people on the lake, dogs swimming and people on the mini railway they have around the lake. Then whilst I was reading my book, Adam took two yellow daisy cupcakes out of his bag, gave me one and on mine he had written "Will you marry me?" in icing and took out the ring from behind him. It was lovely as it was a moment just for us (and probably a few people windsurfing!).

THE VISION | Initially we had no idea what we wanted for our wedding, other than "something different". We had been to about a dozen weddings in the three years before we got engaged and knew the things from these that wouldn't work for us. So ultimately we just decided to plan "something fun" and plan a day that we would enjoy if we were the guests attending the wedding, with a BBQ, a bouncy castle and an outdoorsy type of day.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | I am a super organised person normally, so the wedding didn't really get to me. I just kept an A5 note book that was my life for the year that was everything wedding! I kept any suppliers' information in the front half, such as contact details, who needed paying when, what we were getting from who and when, etc. and then kept the back for random pieces of information and notes, so that I knew everything would all be in one place, even if I had to look at a few pages first to find it. I did have a ring binder with the contracts in and a running tally of who we had paid deposits to and when remaining balances were due, otherwise I would have been lost with dates - there are so many of them along the way.

BUDGET | We initially wanted to do the day for £7000, but then we found the teepees, so that went out of the window. We increased this to £10000, but ended up closer to £14500. Ridiculous when you think about it! That would never have been possible without the help of my parents though.

THE VENUE | This was the thing that took the longest during our whole wedding process. As I am originally from Suffolk, Adam is originally from West Yorkshire and we now live in South Yorkshire, we looked at many different venues across several counties. In the end, we opted for North Yorkshire because of the beautiful views and because we would be able to get a venue in the countryside.

We knew we wanted something a little different, so we had a look at Papakata for our teepees and where we would be able to have these as well as all of our other ideas for a fun-filled day. So we chose to have our ceremony at a B&B country house called Taitlands in Settle and our reception in the Papakata teepees in a field at Newton Grange near Skipton. This gave us the option for many of our friends and family to stay on site, help out and extend the celebrations.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | My dress was a Maggie Sottero "Aleah" and I wore this, for the ceremony, with a cathedral veil by Joyce Jackson, with tiny pearlescent clear jewels on.

My hair comb was a "Treasured Comb" from Sweetheart Vintage (an online company). Anna was fantastic at helping me to get the piece in time, as well as try and create other pieces for me.

My earrings were from the Imperial range by Ivory & Co, from Crystal Bridal Accessories. Again, Crystal Bridal Accessories were really helpful in trying to find me the right pieces of jewellery to match my dress.

My bracelet was a Swarovski Tennis Bracelet (small set stones). My brooch on my flowers was my "something old" from my wonderful sister-in-law Flo. My Dressing gown and PJs worn whilst getting ready, as well as my garter, were by Ted Baker.

My shoes and bag were from Next. I looked all over the place for the right shoes, the right height, the right colour, at expensive designer ones, unique looking ones and in the end, just bought a pair from Next for £25 and wore them around the house, whilst I was ironing, etc. to break them in for a while beforehand and they were so comfortable I was able to wear them all day and night!

FINDING THE DRESS | I went to several different shops with my friends and mum looking at wedding dresses, not really having a clue what I wanted. The only thing I definitely knew is that I did not want a strapless dress as I did not want to be one of those brides pulling up her dress every five minutes and knew that I would find it difficult to find underwear for the day. I perhaps thought of a darker, champagne, lace dress. Something a little different, but didn't know where to start.

We went to some awful shops, with one of my bridesmaids describing one of these as "the shop that wedding dresses go to die!", however, as soon as my friend Laura and I walked in to Abigail's Bridal Boutique on Great George Street in Leeds, we knew that it was special. The shop is clean, the staff are so attentive and make you feel like you are the only customer they are there for, they listen to you and help you make informed decisions, there are bubbles whilst you are trying on the dresses and presents when you buy! Jaki and Margaret were brilliantly patient at helping me decide which dress was for me. I must have tried on dozens of dresses, never having that "the one" moment, and in the end picking a dress that was totally the opposite of what I thought I would get... a strapless, HUGE, sparkly dress that my friend picked out as a bit of a giggle for me to try on. A stressful process whilst deciding between the final choices, but looking back, a great time!

After hunting high and low, across the whole country, asking suppliers about custom making a bra or basque for the dress, in the end, I found my underwear for the dress from Debenhams. It was part of the Adore Moi, by Ultimo range. It was the only set that I could find that would sit low enough down my back, however, was still the wrong size for me, so body tape (purchased online) came in very handy for the day!!

GROOM'S ATTIRE | We decided to buy the suits for the Adam, my dad Jeff, Adam's dad George, Adam's best man Chris and Adam's Usher Ryan as we would be able to get the right colour and style of suit, rather than having to settle for a rough fitting and light grey hired suit. It also did not work out that much more expensive, as we bought the trousers, jackets, waistcoats and shirts all from a Moss Bros. Outlet and the men all had them altered if necessary.

We purchased the ties and handkerchiefs from two different online companies as we wanted to find colours to match the bridesmaids' dresses. In the end, these were almost a perfect match and were from The Tie Room and The Oxford Tie Company.

Adam's shoes were by Jeff Banks from Debenhams and we purchased additional green laces for these from "BootAndShoeLaces" on Etsy. Adam's belt and cufflinks were from Ted Baker. Adam's Tag Heuer Carrera watch was a wedding gift from me!

THE READINGS & MUSIC | We decided not to have any readings at our ceremony, however, we did have friends of ours sing me down the aisle to Tim McGraw's "Just To See You Smile". Ruth and Rob Took are actors, musicians and singers, performing around the world, and kindly volunteered their services for us for the day, adapting the lyrics to the song to make it more meaningful to us and slowing the tempo right down. It was beautiful.

For our first dance, we thought that the idea of slow dancing in front of all of our friends and family would be too embarrassing for us. Instead, we decided to take a song that makes us giggle and have fun with it, and as Adam is known throughout our friends and family for his "dancing skills" we spent a couple of weeks and a few hours learning the lyrics and making up some choreography to each line of the song "Pencil Full Of Lead" by Paolo Nutini, dancing along to this as our first song on the night. Our friends and family have said they loved it as they had no idea, and we had great fun with none of the embarrassment!

As I am not really in to discos and cheesy DJs, and Adam wanted something a little different and fun, we decided that we would rather have a band, hoping that this would get myself and our guests up on the dance floor... and it worked! Groovy Revolution played two sets for us during the night, working with us beforehand to put together a playlist, and played a laptop DJ service when they were not performing with other songs that we had asked them to play, as well as some old favourites!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | Our amazing bridesmaids were dressed in custom designed and handmade dresses by Kate Fearnley in Middlesbrough. They were beautiful and having them custom made ensured that we were able to have the exact colours and combinations that we wanted, the girls were able to have the colours they preferred for their own dress and that the dresses would fit them all properly.

Our adult bridesmaids' shoes were new from eBay and were an absolute bargain. They were originally from Wallis. Our younger bridesmaid's shoes were from Next. All the girls' hair combs were from Oasis and were only £8 each! Our adult bridesmaids' earrings were from Accessorize and their bracelets were a gift from Pandora. Our younger bridesmaid's jewellery was a gift by Kit Heath from Children's Jewellery.

The scarves that the bridesmaids had were a last minute purchase just in case they were a bit chilly on the day (the weather had not been that good in the week leading up to the day!), so involved a mad dash to Primark!

My hair and make up, as well as the hair and make up of our beautiful bridesmaids, were masterpieces created by Lauren Rippin and her assistant Laura. However, our nails and pre-wedding beauty prep was all done by my wonderful Chief Bridesmaid Jaydene Sears, onwer of The Beauty Room, Melton.

THE FLOWERS | Our flowers were all provided by Fiona Hogg Floral Designs in York. I had found a photograph on Pinterest of a bridesmaid in dark grey holding a large bouquet with a large sunflower, lots of meadow flowers in lime greens and yellow and wild daisies. We took that idea and expanded really, using the sunflower as the main flower for the day.

My bouquet was very much along the same lines as the Pinterest photo, only more tailored, with billy balls to match Adam's button hole and more white peonies to make it more bridal (I am not a fan of roses, so we opted for peonies as a delicate alternative). The bridesmaids all had slightly different bouquets, with our green bridesmaid Jaydene having more yellow in her bouquet, our yellow bridesmaid Gemma having more green in hers and our youngest bridesmaid Charlotte, our niece, in grey having a smaller bouquet with smaller sunflowers. All of our bouquets were hand tied and bound with natural twine.

The boys had slightly different button holes to Adam as Adam felt that his should be something a little more special. They all contained the wild flowers, billy balls and sunflowers and were loose tied with natural twine as well, with Adam having white wild flowers as well.

My mum Joanna and Adam's mum Denise both had a button hole style pin rather than a traditional bracelet style corsage as we felt this was more fitting for the day. They had flowers that were in keeping with the day, however, had colours that would work well with their outfits.

For the ceremony room, we decided we wanted to keep things very basic as the room spoke for itself, so we had one simple bunch with three pillar candles in on the table for signing the register and one spread laid on the mantelpiece of the fireplace, again with pillar candles in. Both of these made use of the flowers in my bouquet, however, as advised by Fiona, we had small splashes of orange in these to bring out the bright colours and some more foliage along the mantelpiece.

We used balls of sunflowers and balls of white and lime green flowers to hang from the beams of the teepees and then hand decorated jam jars around the tables filled with a variety of wild flowers, daisies, billy balls and sunflowers to decorate the rest of the teepees.

THE CAKE | Our AMAZING three tiered topsy turvy wedding cake and our handmade teepees for our cake topper was all made by our fantastic friend Amy Topp from Topp's Tasty Treat. We did not want to go for a traditional cake and wanted a variety of flavours, so had a carrot cake, a madeira cake and a fresh vanilla cake! Yum! Amy worked with us to design the cake around what was going to be there on the day of the wedding and created a masterpiece!

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Our photographers were incredible. We initially had another photographer booked, however, due to circumstances out of her control she had to unfortunately cancel our booking. I then found Jaye and Matt Cole from Tux and Tale Photography on a wedding blog site and we never looked back! They were brilliant at taking us on after our cancellation from our previous photographer and helped us through the planning process, gave us some of the best photographs we've ever seen and we had great fun with us along the way, helping to give us the relaxed day we were hoping for.

Adam was initially a little reluctant about having a second photographer with all of the boys whilst they were getting ready, but after having met Jaye and Matt at our engagement shoot, getting used to the camera and now that we have the photos, neither of us would have had it any other way!

Both Jaye and Matt were great with all of our guests on the day, helped our Friend Jay work alongside them to film our day and have been fantastic before, during and after the wedding! We would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone (some of our friends have booked them for their weddings since!) or to use them for any of our future photography adventures!!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | Most of the decorations for the day were pieces that we had collected over the year with the help of our wonderful friends, family and colleagues, or handmade ourselves, such as our hundreds of jars for the flowers, our wicker basket for our cards and presents, which I decorated with material from fabric from the bridesmaids dresses my parents had at their wedding (my mum still had some spare as she handmade all of her own bridesmaid dresses!). We made our own menu in a handmade frame and hand decorated some paper mache letters spelling out Mr and Mrs as well as our initials.

For our table plan, we purchased a mirror from The Range and hung twine across it with name tags and table numbers off of the twine. We purchased some of our jars for sweets and candles from The Range, as well as Dunhelm Mill and TK Maxx.

We did not want just an ordinary guest book, so opted for a canvas print that our guests could write their names on that we can hang in our house and an advice book for them to write little pieces to us in.

My parents made us a frame with photographs of all of our loved ones who were unable to be at the wedding, which was beautiful.

We had bunting along the walls and fences at Newton Grange for the reception and this was made by one of my Dad's friend's Sarah, owner and creator of The Stitcheroo. She was able to find exact colour matches to our bridesmaids' dresses just from a photo of the fabric swatches and the bunting was brilliant! Many of our teepee decorations were from Papakata themselves, such as our massive disco ball, fairy lights and fire pits. I bought a lot of bits from eBay and Etsy over the year, such as our disposable cameras, battery powered tea lights, paper lanterns, and the garden games. Pinterest also came in handy for sourcing things!

THE HONEYMOON | We decided we wanted to go on a honeymoon visiting several locations, much as we had done on a previous holiday a few years ago, so opted for Kuala Lumpur and Bali, staying in Nusa Dua and Ubud whilst in Bali. We loved Kuala Lumpur and everything the city had to offer. Although there are a lot of people and many things to see and do, it is not as busy or dirty as many other cities around the world and the people were lovely. Although we enjoyed Ubud with our hotel leaving us speechless and the service here being second to none (Uma by Como), we were not fans of Nusa Dua, finding the gated community living too restrictive, a long way from anything else, with poor beaches and far too expensive compared to the rest of Bali.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Lindsey: My memorable moments from the whole experience have to be all of the late nights sticking things on to jars, getting ready with all the girls the night before and with everyone the morning of the wedding, bouncing on our bouncy castle with everyone, my mum's hand made full suit and tie to match the boys for my childhood teddy Russell, our fantastic magician Mark Waddinton, our first dance - what a giggle and just getting to spend so much time with all of our wonderful family and friends! It was an absolute blast! We live all over the country and it was so nice to all be together.

Adam: Having everyone there to share your day, with all their love and support was breathtaking. Seeing people having fun on the bouncy castle or sitting around the fire pits, toasting marshmallows or soaking up the atmosphere and laughing the night away was a compliment to the day that we created. Of course being a little merry and busting moves on the dance floor is always a particular highlight to any wedding! But most of all, it was seeing my fiance walking down the aisle and knowing I'm about to marry the most beautiful, selfless, patient woman I could ever hope to of met, and being thankful that I now get to spend the rest of my life with her.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Forget about all the wazbangfangled ways to organise the day, just get a notebook and keep everything in here that you want to write down; keep random ideas in the back, such as suppliers, venues, thoughts and messages to yourself, with lists, dates to pay suppliers, specifics in the front of the notebook. Then have a ringbinder to keep printed out hardcopies of any contracts (or emails that act as a contract/change in contract) in. Take these both with you on the day and give to someone, just in case a supplier needs to clarify something.

Make sure you collect items and ideas from friends, family, eBay, Etsy, PInterest PInterest and Pinterest (I became mildly addicted to Pinterest!) throughout the whole process as your ideas will change and evolve. Make use of any skills that friends and family have to cut costs and borrow any equipment you can.
Get together some "To Do" lists for all of your key people involved in the day, so that they are aware of where they need to be, when and what they need to be doing to help you out.

Above all, never accept the first price that a supplier offers you. Especially if it is close to the wedding date. Be forward with your bargaining and remember that you will always get a better deal if you compromise; offer food or drinks, book the date for a weekday, out of season, book the entertainment to perform for slightly shorter times and for a reduction in price. If they want the full price, ask for extras to be thrown in, and if they do not give you what you are looking for... go elsewhere... it is a huge market!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Venue | Taitlands

Venue | Newton Grange

Tipi | Papakata

Transport | Bronte Wedding Hire

Photography | Tux and Tales Photography

Hair and Make Up | Lauren Sally Hair and Make Up

Nails | The Beauty Room

Dress Shop | Abigail's Bridal Boutique

Flowers | Fiona Hogg Floral Designs

Bunting | The Stitcheroo

Cake | Topp's Tasty Treat