Today’s wedding is a pure celebration of colour! Sarah & Daniel hosted their festival inspired wedding at The Yogurt Rooms; an amazing outdoor and barn wedding venue set I’m Sussex, which offered glamping facilities and is surrounded by beautiful woodland.
With a Bon Jovi sing-a-long in the woods, Morris dancers, vibrant decor, an epic pink Fumbalina’s crown and karaoke until the early hours… it was a day to remember!
Over to Sarah and Daniel to tell us more…
Sarah & Daniel…
How did you meet and get engaged?
Like all great love stories, ours began in the smoking area of a High Wycombe nightclub, where we were both studying for uni. Fast forward 10 years, multiple London flatshares, and a semi-spontaneous move to Amsterdam and we’re as close as ever.
In 2019, we took a holiday to Japan and Daniel popped the question on top of Mount Shigi-san where we stayed the night at a Buddhist temple.
Was there an overall theme to your day?
The main thing we wanted was for it to feel non-traditional but still special.
We knew we didn’t want a church, as neither of us is religious, and we also wanted the freedom to pick all the details ourselves. Sarah loves bold colours and wanted to incorporate that into the decorations, and Daniel wanted to ensure that our guests would all have a good time.
We’ve both been to Glastonbury a few times and our venue, The Yoghurt Rooms, had amazing glamping facilities (including yurts!) so the overall theme was very much in the festival camp.
How would you describe your day?
It was colourful, laidback and unique – exactly what we wanted! So many elements came together to make it extra special- from a Bon Jovi sing-a-long in the woods to being serenaded by morris dancers, hiding under the table in embarrassment during our friends’ speeches, and singing karaoke until the wee hours.
All of our friends made an amazing effort to dress up for the festivities. Lots of people told us it was the best wedding they’d ever been to which was obviously so lovely to hear!
How long were you planning it for?
We found the venue at the start of 2020 and once everything started to lockdown we tried to book things very quickly (in fear of weddings being moved to 2021 and everything getting booked up).
We really enjoyed the planning, although it quickly all adds up! We both work in the creative industry so we have quite particular tastes, our main priority with our suppliers is that they give us the freedom to be ourselves – which might not fit the ‘typical’ wedding structure.
We made a lot of the decorations while watching Netflix (10ft of bunting is about one 60 minute episode of your favourite show, if you’re wondering).
How was your day unique to you?
Our day reflected all the things we love: our friends, music, and a couple of colorful surprises.
We held our ceremony in a woodland clearing with a fantastic neon & silver backdrop made by the amazing Streamadelica. Picking Katie Matthews as our celebrant was one of the best decisions we made, as she bought so much fun and warmth to our humanist ceremony.
Sarah walked down the aisle to ‘Moonage Daydream’ by David Bowie while her bridesmaids led the way armed with cheerleading pom-poms.
We knew we wanted some singing to be involved (Sarah was in a choir for 5 years when we lived in London) and our amazing friend Steve stepped up to the task of warming everyone up with a physical workout to ‘Holding Out For a Hero’. He then very graciously led us all in a sing-a-long of ‘Livin’ On a Prayer’.
After the ceremony, we surprised our guests with a performance by psychedelic morris dancing collective ‘Boss Morris’ who traveled all the way to Sussex from the Cotswolds. This was also a special nod to Sarah’s Dad, Mark, who passed away in 2019 and was a dedicated morris dancer. He would have loved the vibrancy and eclecticness of the day.
We decided not to have a best man or a chief bridesmaid but asked two of our bridal party to do a joint speech at the reception, which was hilariously embarrassing and involved Tom the groomsmen hiding a herring and a chunk of cheese in his pocket all afternoon.
Sarah’s Dad’s best friend Andy gave the father-of-the-bride speech which was very special, and we’re both so grateful for him stepping up to do so.
After the speeches, we enjoyed an amazing performance by our funk & soul band Nexus and our first dance to ‘This Must Be The Place’ by Talking Heads.
We had a noise curfew at 11pm but luckily the Yoghurt Rooms has a secret sound-proof room where we set up a projector and a microphone to sing some karaoke as loud as we liked.
Where was your wedding / reception venue and why did you pick it?
The Yoghurt Rooms is a working dairy farm in East Grinstead, Sussex. What we loved most about it was the ability to have our friends come and camp on Friday night so we could really stretch out the weekend. The price of the venue also included accommodation for the entire bridal party, plus a honeymoon yurt!
Aefke and the team at the venue were super helpful but also very relaxed and gave us total freedom to set up the place as we liked. Although they had a beautiful bandstand set up for ceremonies, we decided to do it in the nearby woods as this felt a little more unexpected.
We really liked being able to spread the day out across multiple locations within the farm, so nobody was hanging around getting bored or stuck in the same room all day.
Did you use a wedding marquees or any tents for your celebrations?
The Yoghurt Rooms has 3 yurts on-site and also a partnership with a company called Prestige Bell Tents who provided bell tents to guests that booked them.
Who was your wedding photographer and why did you chose them?
Picking a photographer was one of the toughest decisions to make as really wanted someone who could capture the authentic and unconventional spirit of the day.
We were drawn to Lyndsey Goddard as she has an amazing eye for capturing unexpected moments. She uses framing in a really interesting way to capture weddings in a style you don’t see very often. Every wedding she photographs looks totally unique.
We’re so happy with how Lyndsey captured our day, every photo really does feel like a mini-story from that moment. She’s also a total professional and very friendly to work with.
Your wedding outfits! Tell us more about them! Was there any special details, accessories or reasons behind your choices?
Picking a dress during lockdown was tricky, so I never actually visited any bridal stores in person.
I got a lot of inspiration for the wedding from instagram, and had fallen in love with a couple of designers.
I’m known among friends for having a fashion style that’s pretty ‘out there’ so I didn’t want to let them down with my wedding dress! When I came across a sequined number with big puffy sleeves by Canadian label &forlove I knew I had to try it. Luckily, ANWE bridal in Hamburg had the dress in stock and was able to send me it for the weekend to try on at home before committing.
I organised a virtual fitting with my bridesmaids and a few friends in Amsterdam at home, which was actually really special and potentially less stressful than if we had gone into an actual store. The ‘Harris’ dress by &forlove is the only one I tried but I knew it had everything I wanted.
I had a couple of ideas for a headdress, even making a scrunchie hairband and a mini veil, but ended up loving the pop of colour from the amazing hot-pink metallic origami headpiece made by Fumbalinas (another instagram find).
I also wanted a 2nd outfit to dance in for the reception, and found an amazing glitter jumpsuit (on instagram, again!) made by Winifred Rose.
Daniel made the most of the lockdown restriction by having a 1:1 appointment with a tailor at Suit Supply in Amsterdam. He chose a green woolen suit with a dark orange waistcoat and white shirt.
For the lining of the suit, he picked a pattern decorated with tiny llamas as a nod to his parent’s home in Nottingham where they have a number of alpacas.
Daniel found his bowtie on Etsy which was made by a lovely lady in Scotland. She was so pleased to receive an order from the Netherlands, that she even threw in an extra tie for free!
Tell us about your wedding flowers…
The flowers were a last-minute decision as we had given ourselves quite a small budget for them. I picked up my dried flower bouquet with help from the lovely assistants at PHOHM in Brighton 2 days before the wedding, while Daniel got a haircut.
We ordered Daniel’s and the groomsmen’s boutonnière on etsy which arrived beautifully.
For the bridesmaids, I wanted to do something a little unexpected, so I made gold and silver metallic cheerleading pom-poms for them to wave while walking down the aisle. They were a lot of fun to dance with in the evening too!
Which decorations / props did you use on your wedding day? What was the overall look you were trying to achieve?
We rented a couple of decorations, including our ceremony backdrop which involved attaching colourful eco-friendly streamers to a moongate arch. The combination of neon and silver against the natural greens and browns of the woods created a really striking backdrop for the ceremony.
We also rented four large festival flags and poles to really amp up the festival vibe of the weekend, and a whole bunch of paper lanterns to fill the dancefloor in the barn.
Other decorations we made ourselves, including about 60ft of bunting. One of our bridesmaids also made some amazing pom-pom garlands to decorate the tables with.
Sarah’s Mum, Barbara, arranged fresh flowers on the tables and around the farm in milk churns and wooden crates.
Let’s talk food! What style of food did you go for and why?
We definitely didn’t want anyone to go hungry so we had a number of caterers throughout the weekend.
On Friday night we organized a fish & chip van to feed our campers before the big day. This was a great way to spend time with everyone after a hectic day of putting up decorations.
Harold’s Hog Roast provided canapes for our guests as they arrived and after the ceremony, then filled us up with an amazing hog roast for our reception meal.
For dessert, Indulgent Ice Creams kept everyone happy with their retro ice cream van Rosie and an abundance of flavours including dairy-free.
In the evening, Safari Pizza provided 80 pizzas to keep everyone on their feet with some really unusual but delicious toppings. (Our guests loved the ‘Honey Badger’ – don’t worry no badgers were involved!)
We kept everything very casual with guests able to go up and order for themselves.
Cake! Who created your wedding cake and what theme did you go for?
One of the first things we decided was actually not to have a cake. We both felt they were an extra expense that often gets forgotten about as the evening goes on, so we went for an ice cream van instead.
Tell us about your wedding stationery – who designed them for you and what style did you go for?
Sarah designed all of the invitations, place settings and signage for the day. We used ‘Stannp’ a mailing company to print and send the invites which saved us a lot of money compared to posting everything internationally from the Netherlands.
Sticking with the ‘DIY’ theme of the day, our place settings were drawn onto illustrations from old ladybird picture books.
We used withjoy.com to handle our RSVPs and give everyone all the information they needed for the day, we liked that the website was easy to customise and fit with our un-conventional look and feel.
Tell us more about your hair / make-up for your wedding. What kind of look did you want to achieve and was there any particular products/accessories you wanted to use?
Alice Vincent styled Sarah and the bridal party’s hair wonderfully and was a lovely laidback presence on the day. I knew I wanted to wear the headdress with the veil so we had a trial session a few days before and decided a loose low bun worked best.
How did you entertain your guests throughout the day?
We started the day quite late, at 3pm, so that no time would be spent hanging around getting hungry. We created a number of playlists for the different parts of the day and made sure the bar was well stocked.
As well as the singing during our ceremony, the surprise morris dancing, funk & soul band, and karaoke, we also set up a polaroid selfie station for guests to take photos and stick them in our guest book.
Our family friend Andy brought along a ‘toad in the hole’ table to play on – which is a traditional Sussex pub game where coin-shaped discs are thrown towards a hole in a lead topped table.
Looking back, what was the stand out moments of your day?
There are so many! Our sing-a-long led by Steve during the ceremony was very memorable and perfectly encapsulated what we wanted the day to be.
One of the best moments was walking out of the woods after the ceremony to discover the (previously overcast) sky had become totally blue. With the sun shining and the nervous-standing-up-in-front-of-people bit over it was amazing to see everyone and celebrate while Boss Morris put on a show.
Do you have any advice for couples currently planning their wedding, for either the planning or the lead-up?
We used a spreadsheet to keep track of our budget and suppliers’ details which was really useful.
On the day, we create a ‘call sheet’ with contact details for all the suppliers and a schedule of what needed to happen when. This was really helpful as it meant our bridal party knew exactly what to do and who to speak to, so we didn’t have any last-minute panics on the day.
The day goes so quickly, so definitely try to enjoy the planning process as part of it.
Also, think carefully about where you allocate your budget. We decided that instead of buying expensive flowers and cake we would use the money on a really great band and photographer instead.
It’s easy to get caught up in the conventional details of what you ‘need’ at a wedding, but in reality, as long as everyone’s fed and entertained then there’s no need to stress about table favors and tiny things people will forget about.
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