A festival feel, camp wedding with a tipi? Yes please!

Grace and Danny married on a rainy 24 ^th May 2014, holding their Papakata tipi reception in a gorgeous meadow at Camp Katur, Yorkshire. They had a casual atmosphere with great food and music to entertain their guests.

Grace looked beautiful in lace while Danny donned tweed; there were sunflowers, rustic décor and LOT of love. The whole vibe of their day is just brilliant and it looked like every single guest had a fun time. I especially adore the atmospheric portraits in the woods, so gorgeous.

Thanks so very much to Toast of Leeds for sharing her amazing photographs today.

THE PROPOSAL | Danny organised for us to go away to the lake district for my Christmas present (xmas 2012). It was me and Danny and my best friend Zenia and her boyfriend Phil. Me and Danny went up on the Friday as I was on Easter half term and the plan was for Zenia and Phil to meet us the next day. The cabin was amazing with the mountains as a backdrop and our very own outdoor hot tub - we are used to festivals and camping so this was a real treat! We went exploring on the Friday and decided we would get up early the next day and go on a big walk before the others arrived (because we knew we wouldn't be moving from the Jacuzzi once they were there!). We got up at 5am and set off up a mountain we had seen the day before, it was freezing and it was the Easter when it had snowed so it was quite tricky to walk on. We got to the top and sat and had breakfast (chocolate and grapes) and watched the sun coming up over ullswater lake. We decided we were freezing and set off to go back to the Cabin when the words "errrr, this has been a long time coming..." came out of Danny's mouth and he was down on one knee with the most beautiful vintage blue sapphire ring in his hand! I burst into tears and that was the proposal! He didn't actually ask 'the' question until we were in the car on our way home! We spent the rest of the weekend exceptionally drunk in the hottub as expected - he even ordered a huge bouquet of flowers which Zenia collected full of twigs which he knows I love. It was perfect.

THE VISION | We knew we wanted the reception to be outside but were unsure of our options at first. We wanted it very casual and easy going with good music and good food!

THE PLANNING PROCESS | We found a wedding planner - Helen Davies who was an absolute miracle worker when it came to the venue and caterers. We had no idea and she made everything very simple and easy without being pushy which was great. I never thought I would want anyone else helping me but I can't recommend Helen enough for what she ended up finding us!

BUDGET | My Mum Andrea sadly passed away very suddenly in the summer of 2012 so we decided to use some of the inheritance to pay for the wedding - she was the most generous loving mum ever and if she had still been with us it would have been what she wanted.

THE VENUE | Camp Katur in the Camp Hill Estate Bedale. The most magical, breathtakingly beautiful setting we could have wished for complete with our very own glamping village!

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | Full lace, strapless with a sweetheart neck. Not what I was expecting at all! I wore my Grandmas pearls and a locket my sister gave me the day before the wedding with a picture of mum in it.

FINDING THE DRESS | We went to York. Me, my three bridesmaids, my aunty and my two step sisters - we were quite an army! We looked in four shops altogether and by the end of the day had narrowed it down to two maybes. I was expecting a long, fitted, backless number and ended up with two massive princess dresses! We sat in a few cafes (pubs) and made different lists stating the good points and bad points of each dress. I went home that night and dreamt about one - which ended up being THE one!

GROOM'S ATTIRE | He knew exactly what he wanted but being a man went shopping with his best mates and came back with the opposite. He had imagined tweed and braces and came back with a dark grey suit and matching tie.... We went shopping again the weekend after and found his proper suit which consisted of a beautiful tweed jacket and mismatch trousers, he found the matching waistcoat on ebay! My Grandad (who is amazing) bought him an old pocket watch to wear with his suit which finished the look off perfectly!

THE READINGS & MUSIC | One of my closest work colleagues happens to be a Chaplin which meant I had extra help at organising the order of service. Danny isn't catholic so we chose readings which were more sentimental and fitting instead of religious. We sang 'here I am lord' and 'make me a channel of your peace' which are both gorgeous and then the staff choir sang a beautiful acoustic song whilst we signed the register. We had asked the organist to play "Aint no mountain high enough" when we walked out but there seemed to be some confusion on the day - making it sound more like a circus theme tune!!!

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | My best friends Zenia and Kat and my gorgeous big sister Kate. They wore matching Ted Baker maxi dresses but all in a different colour. Zenia wore mint, Kat a blush pink and Kate baby blue - they all looked amazing.

THE FLOWERS | My step mum asked to do the flowers and the end results were breath taking. We wanted a lot of sunflowers (which remind me so much of my lovely Mum) so she managed to incorporate them with lots of wild flowers and twigs. We had guests collecting jam jars and milk bottles for the best part of a year which were then used in the place of vases.

THE CAKE | My great friends Annette, Julia and Glennis bought us the cake which consisted of two layers, one Victoria sponge and the other vanilla covered in rough icing with green hessian around the middle and amazing sugar sunflowers on the top.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | Shelly Mantovani. Another great find from our wedding planner. We wanted someone a bit different and edgy, less of the posed group shots and more of the natural funny pictures. We met her once at her beautiful house and knew straight away that she would be perfect for the job. She is funny, cool and beautifully mad in all the best kind of ways and all our wedding guests loved her - we can't wait to see the photos!

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | The whole theme for the wedding was to not really have one? We rented four giant papakata tents which were put up in the meadow and which gave us a magnificent space to decorate as we pleased. We asked for long bench tables instead of round to make the seating less formal and only had the flowers and candles on the tables to keep it simple. We used the left over invitations (which I had made) and made them into bunting and are lucky enough that Danny's mum Jo makes crafts and house decorations as her job. This meant the day before Jo turned up armed with boxes full of tiny little personalised houses, name pegs and giant wooden love hearts which she had soaked in the bath for four days previous to bend! Bows made out of bed sheets and bird cages hung the tents looked out of this world - all because of homemade DIY! We decorated the trees outside with flower garlands and solar lights and had a table in the entrance with a washing line seating plan and a canvas painting of a tree for people to thumb print as they arrived.

THE HONEYMOON | We went away to Wales for four days straight from the wedding, we stayed in a converted Wheat Silo which I had found on canopyandstars.com (AMAZING website) and just slept ate and drank for the week! Hay on Wye was a 20 minute walk down the road and we had managed to fall on the annual Hay festival which meant we got to see some fantastic acoustic and indie bands, comedians and even an outdoor film! We are planning a big long honeymoon next year when we have saved some money - hopefully somewhere more exotic than Wales!

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | We rented a cream vintage VW campervan called Blossom as our wedding car - when we came out of the church the rain was vertical and hammered it down all the way to Bedale. The van was so old the windscreen wipers didn't work and neither did the fan so we had to drive at 50mph down the M1 with the windows opened to let the condensation out! It rained continuously all day which meant all the guests were soaked when they arrived, it was very funny watching all the guests who were staying for the weekend carrying their things up in wheelbarrows - they seemed less impressed! I kept my bright pink wellies on for about an hour and then ended up bare foot for the rest of the day.

Danny's speech was wonderful, he had written it down on the back of an envelope but the tent was too dark so he had to improvise the entire thing! It was witty and very moving - I don't think there was a dry eye in the house when he had finished!!!

We decided we didn't want a stereotypical wedding band so had the pleasure of having 'Brothers on the Slide' play in the evening with a mixture of reggae, funk and soul - we have watched them play a few times at The Wardrobe in Leeds and were blown away by them at first site, they were more than brilliant and got everyone up dancing - my Grandma who lives in London and Danny's step dad Paul tore up the dance floor all night which was hilarious to watch.

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | If you are making your own invites make sure you are very organised - I wasn't and ended up giving some of the invitations out at the actual wedding!!!

Casual is key! All of our guests loved how laid back the day was but most of all how we had organised the food. Having a BBQ meant guests could eat when and where they pleased and having such a fantastic caterer and lovely staff made everything much easier for us.

Make sure you get people to RSVP. We were surprised by how many drop outs we had and even though many of the reasons couldn't be helped it still cost a lot of money which could have been saved!

Don't stress! I was chilled out right until the day (when the nerves kicked in) but we loved every second of the day. There is no point worrying because on the day everything just seems to fall into place and becomes more extraordinary and magical than you could ever have imagined!

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photography | Toast of Leeds

Venue | Camp Katur

Pop Up Venue | Papakata

Wedding Planner | Helen Davies

(AMAZING) Band | Brothers on the slide

Caterers | Bouncing Hogs

Wow what a day! I wish I were there joining in with the party hehe.

Thanks so so much to Grace and Danny for sharing their wedding story with us here at WWW XOXO Lou