A Halston Heritage Wedding Dress for a Beautiful, Relaxed Summer Festival Style Wedding…

Good afternoon lovers! ;)  Better late than never with this afternoon's bloomin' gorgeous wedding that mostly took place in a field – summer festival style. 

Tom and Zoë tied the knot on 24 September with a beautifully relaxed celebration held at Zoë's parents garden and in their neighbours field in Ashbourne in Derbyshire.  The whole day was planned and arranged in just 13 weeks too. That's pretty amazing really, but proof you can do it if you need too. 

Considering the short time she had to plan her big day, don't you think Bride Zoë' looks incredibly relaxed and at ease in her gorgeous Halston Heritage dress…

"I saw the dress in a magazine quite a while ago (I think Sarah Jessica Parker was wearing one) and I always thought it would make a perfect wedding dress.  I think I’m a bit of a hippy kid at heart and the softness and simple-ness of this dress always stuck in my mind…"

Love My Dress Wedding Blog – Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Modern Photographic

ZoeandTom (280)

"I wore Miss KG by Kurt Geiger shoes – I always wanted shoes I could wear again and shoes that made a statement so when I saw these I fell in love straight away!

Earlier in the day I’d been in white havaianas for ease of crossing the fields and had wellies on stand by should it have been wet and muddy!"

ZoeandTom (55)

ZoeandTom (280)

ZoeandTom (1) ZoeandTom (1)

ZoeandTom (280)

"I always wanted the flowers to look quite natural, like I’d just scooped up wild flowers out of a field, and Lianne and Becky at The Flower Shop interpreted the brief perfectly. Nothing formal, no roses in the bouquets just soft colours and a good mix of flowers and greenery…"

ZoeandTom (420)

 ZoeandTom (55)

ZoeandTom (55)

ZoeandTom (55)

"I did my own hair and make-up with a little help from the bestman’s girlfriend, Kristie, to add the final curls and to pin the flowers in place.  I had a few flowers in my hair, these were the same as those in the bouquets and button holes. I also had a Victorian broach pinned into my hair, this was given to me by Tom’s mum the night before the wedding and the broach had been given to her by Tom’s Grandma when he was first born so it was nice to include it.

The only jewellery I wore was an amber pendant necklace which belonged to my Gran and is very special to me. When I saw the dress I knew that the necklace would be perfect…"

ZoeandTom (55)

The Brides maids wore dresses from Zara and Monsoon

ZoeandTom (124)

ZoeandTom (124) ZoeandTom (124)

ZoeandTom (137)

"We met in one of Tom’s bars when I first moved to London, I was being chatted up by one if his bar staff and Tom didn’t appear to like it very much so kept coming over with drinks for my friend and I and sending the other guy off to do jobs to keep him out of the way! We started going out about 5 months later.

Fast forward 3 1/2 years to a sunny Monday morning in June 2011 and he called me to ask if I’d like to meet him for lunch, he then completely caught me by surprise and proposed while we sat on the dock outside my office.

Thirteen weeks later we got married!"

ZoeandTom (157)

ZoeandTom (157)

ZoeandTom (157)

ZoeandTom (157)

ZoeandTom (157)

ZoeandTom (157)

ZoeandTom (157)

ZoeandTom (247)

ZoeandTom (266) ZoeandTom (266)

ZoeandTom (279)

ZoeandTom (280)

ZoeandTom (280)

"I think the inspiration for our wedding day came when I found out that we could get married at my Mum’s local church. I love the walk across the fields to the church and just thought it would be such a lovely thing to do.

We also always knew we didn’t want a typical wedding, we’re both very relaxed about the whole thing I knew I wanted a church wedding and Tom’s views were always ‘free bar and good disco = fab wedding’ so that was where we started…" 

ZoeandTom (280)

ZoeandTom (280)

"The games on the day included a coconut shy, limbo, boules and quoits, plus numerous props in the form of hats and masks for photo’s at the ‘photo booth tree’…..these also found their way onto the dancefloor in the evening and have meant there are some very funny photo’s!"

ZoeandTom (38)

ZoeandTom (280)

ZoeandTom (280)

ZoeandTom (280)

ZoeandTom (280)

ZoeandTom (38)

"We borrowed deckchairs from family friends and hay bales from the field owners for seating…"

ZoeandTom (280)

ZoeandTom (280)

"Friends actually asked us if they could camp so we created a festival campsite in another field which made staggering home from the marquee quite simple. Tom and I  chose not to camp though and instead stayed in the lovely Mayfield Hall which was just a two minute walk away.

Everyone I spoke to said they had their wellies ready and couldn’t wait for the day to arrive.  So many friends offered to help which made the day feel extra special as so many people who were there had created something for us ….it meant that Tom had a long list of people to thank in his speech!"

ZoeandTom (420) 

"The generosity of people was amazing, from the owners of the fields to Mum’s friends who made all the food, to my cousins who flew in from California just for the weekend to be Bridesmaids, to all those who got up from their tents the next day with raging hangovers but still helped us to clear up….. we really couldn’t have done the day without them and all their help.  I think my parents house and garden are just about back to normal now!"

ZoeandTom (420)

ZoeandTom (420)

"We had simple flowers on the tables in various vases and tea pots and I also used apples as part of the table decorations and pears from the trees in my parents garden.

A friend made lots of little brightly coloured wooded signs to be dotted about the garden, fields (saying things like bar, Loos, Boules, Welly Park and Campsite)…"

ZoeandTom (1) ZoeandTom (1) ZoeandTom (1)

"We wanted a very relaxed day and as the plans came together, with the field and the garden and the walking to and from the church, the plan began to develop into a festival/summer fete theme for the day.  The décor reflected this as we had vintage china tea sets, flowers in tea pots and a mixture of china vases.

My friend Hester made all the bunting for me and my friend Lizzie at work made the special ‘Kiddfest’ bunting as a surprise gift.

A couple of my friends and I made all the hanging paper hearts and heart confetti and other friends collected jars for me to place candles in to hang from the trees to provide twinkling light in the evenings.

I used a collection of old suitcases as a low table between the deckchairs, also used one to store the blankets (should people have got chilly) and for the wedding post…"

ZoeandTom (3)

ZoeandTom (20) 

"I didn’t want a sit down meal as I feel you lose so much time with your guests when everyone is separated, so we left it very relaxed. People could eat when they wanted to and the food was available all day.  This meant there was no seating plan so we didn’t need a formal seat for everyone so we were able to have hay bales and the deckchairs and create the festival feeling, people could perch where they wanted to and just chatter away. 

I’ve always loved things vintage so the china tea cups and dessert plates were important to the overall look, as were the little details like salad dressings in china jugs and flowers in tea pots. 

The general inspiration was to make sure everyone had fun and felt involved. The summer fete/festival theme was perfect as there were games for people to play rather than just milling around and the day just evolved from things that Tom and I love. 

The day was really just me and Tom and what we love…..just wish we could do it every year!"

ZoeandTom (20)

"We didn’t really do favours as it wasn’t that kind of wedding however we did create some festival style lanyards for the day so that people had an idea of what was happening when and what games there were.

The ribbons were printed up with ‘Kiddfest’ and the wedding date. These were given out at the church with the order of service and when I arrived it made me smile to see that some people were wearing them already!

Everyone was able to take one home (you can see them round peoples necks in some of the photo’s)…"

ZoeandTom (20)

"The name "Kiddfest" was created by Tom as his name is Thomas Kidd. He mentioned it as a joke (I think) but from then on that was how we referred to the wedding.  The invites didn’t say ‘wedding invite’ they said Kiddfest, which confused a few of the elder members of the family to start with, but it also meant that people got excited and were kind of prepared for what lay ahead."

ZoeandTom (420)

"We opted for a cheese cake by The Cheddar Gorge as we both love cheese. We also didn’t want a traditional wedding cake as the meal was very relaxed and with the summer fete themes that we had running through the day the idea was to have lots of delicious puddings that people could help themselves to like pavlova, roulade, trifle, cup cakes, rocky road etc etc so to add another cake on top of that would have been over kill…"

The cheese that Sarah at the Cheddar Gorge supplied was amazing and she presented it in such a beautiful way we were over the moon. Everyone loved it so much we had people trying to take the leftovers away with them at the end of the night!"

ZoeandTom (420)

ZoeandTom (577)

ZoeandTom (420)

"We danced to 'I would do anything for you’ by Foster the People.  We actually struggled to come up with a song that we both liked. I was listening to this album at work one day and this song just hit me and made me quite emotional, it just summed up my feelings really.

Tom wasn’t so keen as he thought no one would know it as the band are relatively new and thought he could come up with something else,  however the day before the wedding we still didn’t have a first dance song. I then played this one for my sister and it just made me cry, after that Tom said we’d have to use it!"

ZoeandTom (577)

ZoeandTom (577)

Words of Wedded Wisdom…

"Three things:

1) Do it your way, it’s your day, you don’t have to follow traditions if you don’t want to.

2) Always have someone else to clear up the next day (we didn’t and although lots of people pitched in to help it took two days to sort it all out and we were exhausted!)

3) Go away straight after, even if its not your main honeymoon, just take a few days to be together with no one else around…..you definitely need (and deserve) it…"

ZoeandTom (420)

Such a beautiful day :)  Huge thanks to Julia West from Modern Photographic for sharing it with us all…

"Julia and Ian from Modern Photographic were wonderful on the day and the photographs are simply beautiful. Julia knew exactly the kind of thing we were looking for and she has captured lovely images of the day that we will treasure forever."

To learn more about the wedding day photography services offered by Julia, pelase visit the Modern Photographic website.

You can see more Festival style weddings here, and make sure you look up all the outdoor weddings I've featured too for more inspiration 🙂

Are any of you Brides to be planning a big outdoor marquee style wedding?

Much love,

Annabel xXx

Photographer – Modern Photographic
Venue – Family Garden
Brides dress – Halston Heritage purchcased via a US website
Brides Shoes – Miss KG by Kurt Geiger
Brides accessories – Amber necklace
Groom – Groom – Reiss + Tie from Thomas Pink + Shoes from Jones the Bootmaker
Bridesmaids – Zara and Monsoon
Flowers – The Flower Shop of Ashbourne Ltd
Cake – The Cheddar Gorge

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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