Today on Marry Me Ink I get to share with you a beautiful bohemian style tipi wedding from London wedding photographer Babb Photo. Chloe and Stephen met in their local village pub over tequila whilst listening to Oasis.
I live and work in China so Stephen actually proposed to me over Skype! We have been together for 11 and a half years and were engaged for 18 months of that.
Stephen is a keen wakeboarder and so knew the location of our wedding well. He went to the lake one day and spotted there was a wedding happening at Chittering Farm. He called me to come and have a look, so I did, and we both fell in love with the place. It was perfect for the informal, festival style wedding that we wanted to achieve.
Our ceremony was incredibly special as it was lead by my best friend Kat, who was also chief bridesmaid. We were officially married the day before in the registry office. We had 3 readings and 4 blessings. I chose the readings based on the fact that I didn’t want anything too soppy, sexist or unrelatable! The readings were a snippet form a quote by Einstein on relativity and love. A poem by Roy Croft, called I Love you, and another poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. Our vows were the traditional style vows as we didn’t want to make the ceremony too out there!
One of my very good friends, Rosie Bailey, has always had a keen eye for anything to do with flowers and gardening. She recently set up her own business called Wild Florals. After seeing posts of her flower arranging, I knew she would be the best person for the job. I wanted to create a very natural feel, that echoed the environment and she did that beautifully.
The photography was simply amazing. The main reason I chose Babb Photo was based upon the fact that on the website, Laura mentioned that she loves tattoos, glitter and Dr Martens, that sold it to me! I also spent time looking through her gallery and loved the journalistic style photos she was able to create. She made us both feel so comfortable, especially as we are not a slushy couple and were worried about the photos of just us. Laura made us feel at ease and made us laugh. We couldn’t be happier with our choice!
I was really worried about finding a dress that I would like – I don’t really wear dresses and I hate wearing formal clothes. After trying on a few of the typical dresses and hating all of them, my best friend Kat came to the rescue after googling ‘Bohemian style’ wedding dresses. Eventually I found a shop that sold Terry Fox wedding dresses and really liked all of them. When I finally tried on my dress, which is called Whisper, I knew it was the one. I had to do lots of searching for samples as it was a little out of my price range. I eventually found it, within budget and raced to purchase. I loved wearing it more than I thought I would. It really was so special.
I also had a necklace from a shop in Beijing called the Shard box, which sells antique porcelain form before the Chinese cultural revolution. It was old, new and blue at the same time. It dated back to the 160os.
Our advice to couples about to get married and plan their big day is to do it your way and keep things in perspective! Make sure to spend time with each other and look at what you have achieved. Most of all – Have fun, dance and have a good drink!
How gorgeous does Chloe and Stephen look? I am in love with Chloe’s Terry Fox dress and bohemian styled Joyce Jackson veil. Thank you to them both and to Babb Photo for sharing their wedding with Marry Me Ink!
