Real Tipi Church Wedding: Jess & Alistair

Posted by Weddings Dresses Ideas

Brighten up your day with this fantastic colourful wedding day, set by the sea, on the Wirral peninsula. The lovely Jess and Alistair had two different visions for their big day, but compromised between traditional and quirky, with a church wedding and a tipi reception. With bright blue cornflowers, red roses, pink peonies and yellow daffodils, Jess' beautiful bouquet epitomises the theme colours for this gorgeous wedding, and I've completely fallen for her bridesmaids' floral dresses, and vintage-style corsages. Jess' lovely vintage gown was refashioned from her mother's wedding dress, and her blue wedding shoes were a bargain from a local supermarket! Don't miss all the gorgeous wedding reception pictures - due to go live later today. Huge thanks to Victoria Phipps Photography for her beautiful work - she captured every stunning detail.


My wedding dress had been my mothers wedding dress from the 1970s. I tried on lots of lovely dresses but none on them were what I had envisioned myself wearing. My mum was more than happy for me to customise her dress as it had been sitting in the attic for the last 37 years. A local dressmaker at Anna May Couture in West Kirby interpreted my ideas and made the dress.


The headpiece was borrowed from my bridesmaid from when she was married. I did want a floral head garland but once I put my friends headpiece on it just seemed right. 



We had three different florists for my bouquet, the church and the reception. My bouquet and the bridesmaid’s corsages/groomsmen buttonholes were by Eden Florists in West Kirby, Wirral. Friends of Alistair's mother did the flowers for the reception, and members of the church did the church flowers.

I knew I wanted floral bridesmaid dresses. The girls tried on dresses from Phase Eight and they ticked all the boxes!


I loved my blue wedding shoes, and even better, they were from a well know supermarket and didn’t break the bank. Everyone commented on them and thought they must have been expensive.

Al wanted to stay traditional and went for suit with tails, hired from Moss Bros. His tie was from Charles Tyrwhitt. He picked out the blue ties for the ushers and the camel coloured waistcoats.



We got married end of July 2012 in Thurstaston on the Wirral Peninsula. The ceremony was at St Bartholomew’s Church and the reception was in Papa Kata tipis at Church Farm on the Wirral.

Al is quite traditional and I wanted something fun and relaxed. We compromised by having a church wedding and a tipi reception. The church had meaning for both of us as it was where my parents had got married and somewhere Al and his family had visited on Sunday walks.

We met at a party - I was already friends with Al’s brother. We proceeded in bumping into each other at various gigs and nights out, and realised we had a lot in common {the-who-asked-who-out part is greatly contended!}. We had been together for 4 years when we decided to do a European road trip. We drove around Europe with the final destination being a day in Paris.

We spent the day touring the sights, and in the evening Al had booked a table in the wonderful restaurant. It was so busy, we were squeezed onto the end of a table almost on the laps of the couple next to us. We ate late and as the restaurant emptied out they moved us to a table of our own for our desserts and coffees. Al proposed over the crème brûlée.



Our photographer was Victoria from Victoria Phipps Photography. We really liked her natural wedding photography style.



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