Theme Thursday: Festival

For a lot of people, festivals are the higlights of the year with good music, a great atmosphere and a lot of fun in the mud!

If you're one of those people, then a festival-themed wedding might be right up your street!

When planning a wedding, the devil is in the details, and there are loads of fun and creative ways to really give your big day that fun festival feeling.

• Make/order ticket-style invitations! Having the RSVP card as a tear-off on the end is a really cool detail.
   
• Wristbands on entry. They can be made from vinyl, silicone or tyvek, the choice is yours! Personalise them with the Bride and Groom's names and the date to double as a fun souvenir! 

• Another fun option is to make VIP passes to go on lanyards for your guests instead of wristbands. If you're feeling particularly into it you can use other types of passes; 'Backstage Passes' for the bridal party, 'Crew' for your ushers, 'Artist' for your music acts and 'Press' passes for your photographers are just a few examples. You could also make a plan for the day and attach that to the lanyard too as a programme!
 

• Festivals and the fields they're held in are notorious for being muddy and wet, so the last thing you want is a long wedding dress dragging through the mud! Try a combo of a short wedding dress and white wellies for a fun and totally cute bridal look. http://www.weddingtonboots.com specialises in bridal wellington boots, and will even customise them to match your colour scheme! Wellies for your bridesmaids also look fantastic, and it means nobody has to worry about getting their high heels stuck in the grass.

• Put a bucket of flip-flops somewhere accessible for guests in case their shoes start to sink into the ground. Not ideal for mud, but on a nice day you're bound to have plenty of guests needing them!

• Bright and colourful bunting and banners can make whatever venue you choose stand out. Pick colours to match your theme, and patterns that go with the style of the day. For a laid-back affair, choose pretty printed fabric tied with string.

• Set up marquees or colourful tents for evening entertainment, or for the whole event! Having a couple of smaller marquees to move between can be a lot more fun than one big one. To save money but get the same effect, hire two; the ceremony tent can be rearranged into a wedding breakfast setup while you mingle with guests in the other.
 
• Encourage guests to bring tents to camp out after the wedding; cheap, fun, and totally true to the theme. Not to mention it means the party can continue as late as you want cause the guests dont have to worry about driving home or the cost of a hotel!

• Fireworks or a bonfire late in the evening can be loads of fun for all the guests. Sparklers and sticks of marshmallows get everyone involved and enjoying themselves.

•  Put your flower arrangements in welly flowerpots! You can get all sizes and styles, and they look adorable as a table centrepiece.
 

• BBQ, Hog Roast, Fish and Chips; food options are endless. If you don’t have to worry about budgeting, you could hire catering vans to park on the field giving your guests plenty of options! An ice cream van or candyfloss stall is bound to be a hit at any wedding.

And finally...

• Music!!! Rope in as many musical friends as you can to bring along instruments and host an ‘open mic night’ in between any scheduled entertainment. If you want lots of short sets by different acts, search for local bands who will be cheaper to hire and happy to play for the publicity! Music is, of course, the main focus of any festival, so make sure you pick artists you like and that are good enough to keep your guests entertained. A mixture of music styles keeps everyone happy with stuff to dance to and to chill out to. Have hay bales, beanbags and picnic blankets set out at the sides for guests to sit down on when they're not up dancing.

As always, the most important thing is that you plan a day that you're going to enjoy and look back on as one of the best days of your life. Be original in your ideas and your planning to make it the day you want it to be. Have fun with it! If you don't enjoy planning it, you won't enjoy the day when it comes.

I hope you liked my ideas for this theme! I have a few more posts lined up, but I'm totally open to any theme ideas you'd like me to blog about. Let me know in the comments what you'd like to see next!

Until next time,

Sammi xxx