Happy & Bright Outdoor Tipi Yellow & Pink Wedding - Whimsical...

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I've featured many a different mode of wedding transport here on WWW but I think Jo and Paul's wedding day held on the 30 ^th May 2015 had a first for me. A cable car bridal entrance.. amazing! In fact their whole outdoor wedding was just brilliant, from the gorgeous tipis to the ceremony in front of the stone barn.

Their day was happy and bright, think Peonies and Sunflowers, bridesmaids in wellies, confetti and sparklers galore. Jo looked so gorgeous in her lace fishtail dress with plaited rustic hair style, while Paul donned a navy suit with fuschia tie and pocket square. You are going to really enjoy these nuptials today.

HBA Photography, thank you so much for sharing your stunning images with us today.

THE PROPOSAL | It was Jo's 40 ^th Birthday and we were out on boat on the lake in Central Park, New York. Paul gave Jo an engagement ring Pandora charm.

THE VISION | The vision was always to have a relaxed feel to the day with just our close family and friends. Jo had always wanted an informal outdoor wedding with a bright and happy feel to it. It was important to ensure the feel of the day was personal and in keeping with both Jo and Paul's personalities.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | Finding a venue that supported the outdoor concept was hardest, we decided fairly early on that we liked the tipis but it was a while before we found Masson Farm. From the moment we did we knew it was perfect for what we wanted, especially when we found out that Jo could arrive by cable car.

Denise at Masson was fantastic with the planning process so many of the suppliers were her recommendations. She really did take care of the key aspects of the planning which left Jo and Paul to focus more on the finer details and bringing in the personal touches. Other than bright and happy we had no real thoughts on what we wanted which made some of the decisions rather tough - like flowers, but in the main the whole process was fairly relaxed.

Some things did come together rather late in the day as it was really important that everything was right and in keeping with the vision... the only panics where when it felt like time was running out but Jo remained confident that it would all work out - and it did!

THE VENUE | Swallow Barn at Masson Farm, Matlock.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | The dress and bracelet was from Sposa Bridal in Brinklow, Rugby; Jo wore a necklace which belonged to her late Nanna. Jo's shoes were Ruby Shoos and in a very pale green colour which toned in with the bridesmaid dresses.

FINDING THE DRESS | With a lot of help from her Bridesmaid Jo went on several wedding dress shopping expeditions and tried on some fabulous dresses. Eventually, at the National Wedding Fayre in Birmingham, she found the one..... simple but very sparkly!

GROOM'S ATTIRE | The Grooms suit was a fairly bright blue from Paul Smith - and he even had shoe laces to match!

THE READINGS & MUSIC | Processional music - An instrumental version of Christina Perri's a Thousand Years by the Piano Guys.

Recessional music - We really wanted something uplifting for this part of the ceremony that would give everyone a spring in their step so went for Best Day of My Life by American Authors.

There were two readings for the ceremony read by close friends, Nicky and Jo. Both girls chose the readings themselves - Nicky read a poem called the Magic of Love, and Jo read a piece from Captain Correlli's Mandolin in memory of a summer holiday she and Jo took to Kefalonia a few years before.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | Jo had 3 bridesmaids - the easy choice her god-daughter Amy who didn't even need to be asked, it was just obvious, as was the fact that the dress had to be bright pink - the brighter the better. In the end the dress was from Etsy where we could chose the dress and the colour separately. Thankfully, as it only arrived the week before the wedding, she loved it and looked fab.

Kerry and Gill are both very close friends of Jo's and after a fun day's shopping in London - a great day out but no dresses.... We found the pale green dresses by Jenny Packman in Debenhams. Given we were originally looking for a pale pink the dresses were a complete departure from the plan but we loved the dresses and then realised the colour would match Jo's shoes - decision made! We then had quite a game tracking down the dresses in the right sizes and several members of the family were sent on errands to various Debenhams stores.

THE FLOWERS | The flowers were by a fabulous lady called Nadia, who really did have her work cut out with Jo. Jo had a vision, bright and haphazard largely derived from pinterest which turned out to all be American and with flowers that were not in season or not easy to get in the UK. Several meetings and exchanging of pictures later the final product was a bit of an unknown but was perfect. A long with the much wanted Peonies and Sunflowers, Nadia had even managed to find a yellow peony for the bridal bouquet! The general flower theme was for bright and happy looking flowers - there were shepherds hooks with flowers in jars off set down the aisle and a stunning arrangement in the wedding arch. The men's buttonholes were orchids in bright pink, with the groom having the same in a pale green. Jo, Kerry and Gill all had small orchids in their hair as well along with sparkly pins.

Just before Jo walked down the aisle, Denise scattered petals on the ground.

THE CAKE | When doing their engagement photo shoot in March it suddenly struck Jo that they had not sorted a wedding cake, and that maybe they needed to get on with it. Luckily Hannah from HBA Photography came to the rescue and sent through some contacts from which we found April Delights. The idea for the cake was to be very simple and bring in the rustic nature of the day. Each layer had a raffia rim and with just a view peonies and a sunflowers.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | HBA Photography was almost the first choice we made having seen Hannah and Ben at a number of wedding fayres. We wanted a relaxed and informal feel to the photos to capture the real spirit of the day and from looking at their website and chatting with Hannah and Ben we knew they were the right choice.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | The night before the wedding Jo stayed at the High Tor hotel In Matlock Bath along with several close friends. It started the festivities off perfectly with a lovely meal and people being together. The hotel was fantastic and enabled us to take over the place as we all had breakfast and started the getting ready preparations. They even provided the bridal party with lunch.

Jo's arrival was via the Heights of Abraham Cable car, along with her father, 3 bridesmaids and photographer Ben. We were so lucky with the weather as if it had been raining we knew we would not be able to do the cable car arrival but it was a bright sunny morning. All of the girls wearing wellies we wanted past friendly, and slightly surprised, day trippers through the fields to arrive at the side of the farm. The arrival had been kept a secret from the guests who all cheered when the bridal party emerged. As the farm is an Eco-farm there is a limited amount of cars allowed so all guests would be arriving by coach. With this in mind we decided to keep the venue a secret from the guests who just knew they needed to be a set departure point for 14:30. On arrival they were handed a Grey Goose Le Fizz cocktail and could mingle around in the grounds until the bride arrived.

For the wedding breakfast we went with a sharing theme to get people chatting and to bring in an informal feel. The food from Vanilla in all Seasons was stunning - thai green chicken curry, pork in calvados and risotto.

Denise had decorated the outdoor area with bunting and there were lots of beautiful wild flowers all around. We decided to really keep décor to a minimum and went with lots of fairly lights in the tipi which looked stunning all lit up at night. Then just as it started to go dark everyone went outside and lit sparklers before the entrance back into the tipi for the cake cutting and first dance.

Our first holiday together was to Borneo where we visited the Orangutan sanctuary so we decided to have Orangutans as our table plan theme. The Sanctuary sent us images of 14 baby orang-utans and Nic at Olive Creations used those and one of our holiday photo's to create an amazing table plan for the day.

For favours the men had chilli seeds in personalised packets and the ladies all had wedding flipflops in a little bag so they could whip off their heels and continue dancing late into the evening. These were a real success and most of us were wearing them by the end!

THE HONEYMOON | The honeymoon started with 3 days in Rwanda to trek for Gorillas, amazing experience, and then 8 days in Zanzibar for some chill out time. As well as a close encounter with the Gorillas we were lucky enough to swim with a pod of wild dolphins in Zanzibar - just the two of us and about 50 of them!

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | The element of surprise with all of our guests when they arrived and when Jo arrived.

Watching our close family and friends all stood around chatting together on the lawn after the ceremony.

We did the speeches before dinner which was a great idea as it meant everyone could relax afterwards, but it also meant we were a long way from the presents to be given out. So during the speech Jo spent a lot of time running around the lawn collecting and distributing presents.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Don't sweat the small stuff - the only really important thing is having all the people that really matter to you together in one place and anything you've forgotten no one else knows was meant to be there.

Be true to yourself and do what you want to do - it is your day after all. We had a mixed reaction to the idea of an outdoor wedding in Derbyshire, with fears of it being cold and wet, so it would have been easy to have changed to something more traditional. But we knew it was the style we wanted and anything else just would not have felt like 'us'.

Choose suppliers that suit your personality, some of them will be with you for large parts of your day. On the morning of the wedding, sitting around with my mum, bridesmaids, the photographer, make up lady and hair stylist was so much fun that felt like one big group of friends.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

The photography | HBA Photography

The tipi | Peak Tipis

The caterer | Vanilla in all Seasons

The dress | Sposa Bridalwear

The shoes | Aspire Style (thats the shop I got them from - they were ' Ruby Shoos Belle '

The bridesmaid dresses | they were Jenny Packham at Debenhams, and the little one was from Etsy

The hair | At Home with your Hair Stylist (Donna Rhodes)

The suits | Moss

The make up | Bryony Dalton

The cake | April Delights

The flowers | Nadia Ditullio