Macramé & Dreamcatcher Woodland Wedding at Upthorpe Wood

You may want to get your pinning fingers ready because this outdoor woodland wedding at Upthorpe Wood is full of fabulous DIY decor and ideas. There are macramé and dreamcatcher hangings, plus glitter stations, 'bake off' cake tables and a whole lot more to boot! Jenny and Tom are the smiliest of couples and their entire boho wedding is a delight to pore over from start to finish. Enjoy.

Woodland Wedding at Upthorpe Wood

Jenny & Tom: When we first got engaged we just felt totally loved up at the thought of being married rather than creating ‘a wedding’. We toyed with many ideas for our venue and the initial vision had always been outdoors, abroad, large long rows of tables and a feast. The more we progressed into our planning, we decided to look into options in England. After stumbling across Upthorpe Wood, we popped along to check it out. As soon as we entered Upthorpe, we were both so enthused by its uniqueness and it all just felt so magical! We absolutely LOVED the idea of a DIY wedding, which we could make exactly as we had hoped, including the woodland outdoor dining feast and long tables! Tom and I enjoyed spending time deciding how we could use all of the cute little areas to organise the day. Along the way, we had a few nightmares of the possibility of the clouds opening up and rain but we thought it was a risk worth taking. We knew that come rain or shine it would be such a cool place for a wedding and either way our wonderful guests would embrace it! On the night of our wedding, we enjoyed a stay in the beautiful Bluebell Cabin, which was so cosy and dreamy…stargazing at night and breakfast hampers in the morning, overlooking the fields.

DIY Macramé & Dreamcatcher Decor

Rather than a fixed colour scheme, we envisaged an ethereal, effortless and fun theme, which didn’t just conform to current trends but excited us! With the help of my Mum and her husband, many props were lovingly sourced from charity shops, car boots or homemade. My Mum invested many hours and days into learning how to make macramé bunting, hangings and dreamcatchers and these were positioned around the wood. I enjoyed creating my pompom curtain! As we hired gorgeous rustic oak tables, we wanted the décor to be simple. We used a collection of dried flowers and herbs from our families gardens, recycled tin cans which were spray-painted gold and a few single stems positioned in old medicine bottles. We loved that our styling was quite spontaneous in parts and although we were relatively organised, we did create some crafty items less than 48 hours before!!

Humanist Ceremony

Having a personal ceremony which reflected us as a couple was very important to us. We wrote our own ceremony with the help of our celebrant and were inspired by a humanist wedding. We included all of the elements which are important in our relationship and when coming together as one team. We included: a light-hearted story of how we met, our journey so far, our promises to each other, readings by both of our Mums and a close friend, Tom’s sister learnt the skill of hand-fasting to tie our knot and another close friend had learnt to sing and play our favourite song on the guitar. I chose to walk myself down the aisle as the concept of being ‘given away’ felt quite old fashioned to me and not in conjunction with my idea of a strong independent woman, choosing to enter a happy and equal marriage. The children at the wedding held balloons and walked down the aisle before the bridesmaids. At the end of our ceremony, we encouraged our guests to sing ‘Love me do’ by the Beatles with the string quartet playing and guests jumped over the broom! This then led to our confetti throw, which felt a natural transition.

Wedding Entertainment

Something at the heart of our wedding planning was making sure we didn’t have that ‘wedding lull’, hence we had an action-packed day with games such as tug of war, limbo, quoits and giant Jenga. Additionally, we hired a glitter bar (LoveMoi Makeup) to create that extra sparkle for guests and had a flower crown workshop (Foxgloves & Alice). Both of these we felt helped to set the tone of a fun and relaxed wedding! To say goodbye at the end of the day we had a relaxed sparkler send off! As we wanted to involve our family and friends in the making of our day, we invited guests to take part in our ‘bake-off’. We definitely have many creative and talented friends and it was heartwarming to see everyone put such effort into the day. A huge thank you to our guests!!