Peter and Vicky met at the Isle of Wight Festival and have a huge love for live music so when it came to planning their wedding, it was always going to have a festival theme. With festival flags, bell tents, wristbands, face painting, DIY decor, festival lanyards and a music line up of 2 DJ's and 2 bands, the guys didn't hold back and planned a full on festival wedding that was definitely not shy of a cider or two! In fact, Vicky became so good at organising her own wedding that she has now started her own events company so she can share her skills with other couples!

Because of where they met, Peter and Vicky wanted the Isle of Wight Festival to be at the heart of their wedding so everything was inspired with the festival in mind. Their tables were named after famous bands who have performed at the festival since it began in the 1960's; their flowers were inspired by a local hospice who sell large sunflowers at the festival; and they chose to hold their wedding on the same weekend. They wanted their wedding to remind them of where they began and that is what I love the most about their brilliant festival wedding.

Vicky and Peter tell us all about it......

I thought Pete was going to propose on my birthday in Feb 2014 but when my birthday came and went and he didn't, then our anniversary came and went in June and he still didn't again, I thought Pete meant it when he had said in the past he was not fussed about marriage, so I put it to the back of my mind. So when a week later Pete got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, I was taken aback! Of course I said yes! It wasn't the most romantic of proposals as we were just sitting at home but Pete being Pete, that was never going to happen!

I arranged on a Tuesday to go shopping with my mum and bridesmaids and had booked 3 different shops, I had looked at all there dresses on line and even though there were some lovely dresses none of them made me go 'wow'. A few days before I saw an advert for Cutting Edge Brides who specialise in Tea length dresses and when I looked on line I loved nearly all of them! I arranged an appointment and fell in love with the 2nd dress I tried on. I knew straight away it was the one. It was a Mae-Tea length lace vintage style wedding dress with buttons down the back.

My shoes I found from a little shop in New York on Etsy. You could tell them what colour you wanted so I chose an olive green with ivory lace attached. I also had a pair of gold flat flip flops which I changed into before the dancing become.

My Veil was an Ivory Joyce Jackson short veil which I brought from ebay from someone who had never worn it at a great price. I wore this for the ceremony and the meal. I then got a flower crown made for me from The Pottery Gift House in Frimley for the evening. Sarah the owner asked me to send photos of my flowers and she matched it with them, she also did my smaller ones for my flower girls. This matched the wedding so well and made the evening really fun.

We knew we both wanted an outside wedding and a place we could put our own stamp on. We both started looking and found a few places that were offering what we wanted but they all came with a lot of rules of what could and couldn't be done. I came across Westmead Events in South Nutfield first and arranged a visit. Pete could not make it so I went along with a friend and fell in love with it straight away. I arranged for Pete to go along the following week and he felt the same. We both could visualise how we wanted it. Westmead does not hold a wedding licence but we knew we wanted to get married there so we decided we would go to a registry office a few days before to carry out the legal part, but we would get a Celebrant to carry out a wedding ceremony at Westmead in front of all our family and friends. We had two fields, one which came with a beautiful lake. This is where we set up the Capri Marquees from Out Is In who also supplied all the tables and chairs. We had the ceremony set up in front of the lake and the 2 ^nd field, which is more wilder and came with a fire pit, is where our guests camped and we set up the 15 glamping tents from Love A Bell. They also supplied our special honeymoon tent which came with it's own proper bed and chocolate and champagne. About 50 of our 200 guests camped. We also had the fish and chip van and posh toilets in this field.

I had 4 Bridesmaids; my sister Sarah, my niece Emily, my best friend Katy and her daughter D'arcy. For their dresses, I knew I wanted them to have a similar style to match my wedding dress so wanted a vintage style dress for them. We went to a shop called Dig for Victory in Brighton and I went with a gorgeous emerald green tea length dress. Each girl had a slightly different style dress to match their personality. I asked the girls to get their own shoes which they all brought gold shoes from Debenhams. I also had two flower girls and I got their dresses from Marks and Spencer.

Pete and I met at a festival and both love music and socialising, we wanted the day to be as much fun for us as well as our guest. We wanted a relaxed atmosphere where our guest could have fun and feel like they were at a festival. We felt the same for the ceremony we didn't want people being bored so we tried to include our friends and family as much as possible. We were very lucky to know a celebrant called Jenny Knight who was happy to marry us on the Friday. She sat down with us and listened to our story from how we met to how we wanted the day, she then went away and wrote the service.

We hired Westmead knowing we could put our very own stamp on it. Everything was brought into the venue from the Marquees to the last ice cubes. We set up the whole thing! Lisa, the owner of the venue, gives you the land for three days; one to set up, the day itself and a day to clear away. Lisa was kind enough to also let the Marquee company access on the Wednesday afternoon to set up the marquees so when we got there we could start setting everything else up. We had the support of family and friends to do this. We made a day out of this with music playing in the back ground and loads of laughs! We love bright colours so we went with green and yellow. Each table had plenty of colour with bright sunflowers for the table center pieces.

The bar was Peter's creation! We brought loads of Apple Crates and he made them into a bar with blackboards advertising what we had on offer. We offered a free bar so we made sure we had loads on offer. We hired in 5 ladies to be our bar and waitress staff for the day. They were kept busy all day by our guests and did a great job. We also supplied a table where our guest could help themselves to flower crowns, LED bracelets, sunglasses, sun lotion (it was a very hot day) plus ponchos and umbrellas just in case it rained.

All the decorations were kept with the festival theme. We hired large festival flags in the colours from Festival Flags and Peter and his step dad made loads of wooden signs so our guests knew where to go.

We had loads of bunting around the marquees plus loads of glass jars with LED candles all around the fields along with solar lanterns hanging from trees. We also hired a company called Unlimited Productions to put tree lights up plus flood lights in the camping field.

We hired posh toilets from Elegance Services and we placed a basket in there with toiletries, hand sanitizers, facial clothes, sprays, tick tags etc ...

We also had two face painters from About Faces come to the evening which made the photos for the evening! Everyone of all ages had their face painted with all different types of patterns and looked great.

All our stationary matched in colour and had 'Brampton's Wedfest' printed on them. Our invites were a festival style ticket, our tables were named after bands and artists who have played at the Isle of Wight festival since 1960. We had lanyards with a small booklet as our order of service, whos who and thank you's on. Our table plan was in the layout of a poster.

We also had festival bands made up as our wedding favour which all our guests had to wear to be able to get their fish n chips these again were designed with our colours and had the date and Brampton's wedfest on.

We had a fish n chips served with either mushy peas or curry sauce for our guests from Fish and Chip Catering. We also offered Pickle onions, Gherkins and bread and butter. The company were amazing and I got them to send me the wooden cutlery before the day as I wanted to tie the knife and folk together with a little note to our guests. We also had 3 people who were gluten free so the company made us a gluten free batter which allowed our guests to eat the same.

For dessert we went with a vintage tricycle from Plum Honeychurch serving ice-cream and sorbet. This was unlimited for 2 hours. Each ice cream and sorbet was advertised with its own personal names....Rolling stone raspberry ripples and music mango to name a few. Plum the owner is so sweet she decorated the tricycle with our colours and comes in full uniform.

I have known Lee our photography for a few years as we worked together at British Airways, I knew he had started up photography in his spare time and it had grown into his passion. He was always going to be our first choice. He is the most laid back person you will ever meet and suited the day perfectly. He knew both Peter and I are not the type of people who love having their photos taken, and we were not looking forward to having to pose nonstop. Lee put us at ease straight away and even made us laugh a few times, even when Pete was getting all hot and bother due to it being an extremely hot day and I wanted a photo of us in our wellies! Lee joked around and picked up on the fact Pete wanted to go and party. All my family and friends all said how great he was.

We did not want a traditional wedding cake. We wanted something different so our friend Tamara, who makes cakes as a sideline, made us the most spectacular cake. As she was a guest at our wedding, she had a copy of our wedding invite so she knew the colours and the theme. The wedding cake was going to be a surprise and we both did not see it until the day. The wait was worth it though because it was the best cake we had ever seen and was the talking point from a lot of people on the day! We absolutely loved it.

Both being music lovers, the music throughout our day was very important to us and with this being a festival themed wedding, we knew we had to get this right. We hired a duo ( Matt Strafford Duo) to entertain our guests when they arrived. They also played Songbird by Eva Cassidy when I walked down the aisle and also when we signed the registry. They also played after the ceremony whilst we had our reception drinks.

We then had a DJ playing back ground music whilst our guests ate and drunk.

Emily and Thomas my niece and nephew (my sisters children) surprised us with a song after dinner both singing a song from Oliver the musical, I do anything, it was amazing and Pete and I could have not of felt prouder.

We then had a 2 ^nd band called Lui Matthews who we first came across a few years back when we were at the Hampton Food Festival and had met them. The evening music was started off with Pete (who is a drummer and has previously been in a band) and his good friend Anthony (who is a singer in a band called The Rise) singing Led Zeppelin with the help of Lui Matthews. The band and the DJ between them had our guests on their feet all night long! Pete and I had chosen a first dance but on the day, our guests were all dancing and enjoying themselves that we didn't want to slow it down so we went with a different song (play that funky music by Wild Cherry) which was more upbeat and allowed everyone to dance around us in a circle.

Two parts , during the ceremony Jenny our celebrant did a thing called first kiss, last kiss, it was where Jenny asked all our guests if they remembered when they received their first kiss, she reminds them that most of us received our first kiss from our mums, she then invited both our mums to come up and give us our last kiss they both got very emotional, we also at this point gave them their necklaces we had made which started on my mums thank you for bringing up the women of my dreams and Pete's mums said thank you for bringing up the man of my dreams. It brought tears to a lot of people's eyes.

The second was when we had just done our first dance all of our guests were on the dance floor and we both just looked around and smiled as everyone was dancing and smiling and just looking like they were having a great time.

Do what you want to do! Everyone has so much advice for you, some great and some not so good, but everyone will have an opinion. Remember it's your day and do what you want to do. Don't be scared to think outside of the box and make sure you enjoy the day......after all, it's what you have worked for.

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