Amie Birkett-Draper, 25, tells Cosmopolitan why she and her husband James, 33, ditched tradition and opted for a festival-themed wedding
Jay and I had been together for five years when we decided to get married. We’ d met at work; I was a waitress and he was the head chef at the local village pub. It was a laid-back proposal; we were watching TV and I turned to him and said, ‘I’m ready to get married now.’ He organised an engagement meal for us, complete with a ‘Will you marry me?’ scratch card, and that was that.
It’s the same attitude with which we planned our wedding. I’d seen friends spend months stressing over a big white wedding and knew I didn’t want that. Instead, we gave ourselves six months to tie the knot on 15 July, 2023.
Deciding where was easy – where better than the place we’d first met? The pub regularly held mini summer festivals in the neighbouring field, so we had a chat with the owners and they agreed to work with us to host their first wedding.
Weddings in tipis aren’t a new concept but we fully leaned into the festival theme, ditching the traditional sit-down meal. Having food available for our guests to eat what they wanted, when they wanted, was a non-negotiable and due to my husband’s career, it had to be delicious,
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAMIAN BRANDON (@DAMIAN_BRANDON_PHOTOGRAPHY)
obviously. We transformed four horse boxes into food trucks, painting them in our wedding colours, and created custom menus for each. One served sushi, another pizza, the third Mexican, and the last burgers, hot dogs and fries. My dad is a brewer, so we served home-made beers with personalised names to accompany a cocktail tower. Champagne was too fancy.
There was a lot of DIY involved in our big day, as we didn’t choose a typical wedding venue; we had to start from square one. While this meant that we could ignore a lot of traditional aspects we weren’t fussed about, it did mean we had to take on a lot of the work ourselves. I’m lucky I come from a crafty family; my mum handled the flowers, both for the bouquet and to decorate the tipi, and my aunt designed the stationary, including the wristbands we made as entry tickets for all of our guests – it was an open, public-accessible field after all. We also made games, from bingo to Kerplunk, as well as welcome and menu signs.
I thought a casual wedding would make the planning easier and less stressful, but it was actually the opposite. The six-month timeline didn’t help, especially as we both had full-time jobs – I’m a user-experience researcher for the government and was continuing to help at the pub when I could. The wedding wouldn’t have happened without our family and friends’ support. At one point, my mum did suggest we abandon our initial idea – she was worried what I was trying to t
