Top Tips For Planning
a Festival Wedding

Festivals are spectacular events that can transport you to another world with music, outdoor dining and good vibes. For a day filled with a beautiful mish-mash of food, music and fun, recreate the magic of your favourite field-party by having a festival wedding. Growing in popularity, festival themed weddings are a great way to use outdoor spaces and make the most of summer weather.

To help you plan your festival wedding, we’ve collected our top tips. Take a look!

For your festival wedding, consider:

• accommodation – if people are staying over, are there hotels nearby or will you need to set up a campsite?
• toilets – even if there are toilet facilities nearby, take a lesson from festivals and consider getting portaloos or similar. You might consider more luxury toilet options for a special occasion.
• washing facilities – festivals get messy, that’s the fun of it! If your guests don’t have access to a bathroom, what washing facilities, showers, etc, will you provide?
• travel and parking – will there be a designated area for people to park or will you arrange for a coach to ferry people from other transport links? Or a bit of both?
• flooring – there are tons of flooring options to help you transform different areas of your festival wedding. Hardwearing dancefloors are great inside your main tent. You can also consider mats to cover muddy areas to avoid slipping, particularly around entranceways to your tent. Or use flooring to create walkways and paths between areas of your festival wedding.

Get furnishing ideas and options.

For a festival themed wedding, cater with food trucks and mobile bars, such as:

• cocktail bars
• ice-cream trucks
• wine bar
• tacos trucks
• burgers and fries van
• pizza truck

To offer a bit more flexibility for guests and simplify service, use buckets or bathtubs of ice packed with bottles or water, beer or wine, or even beer kegs. For an evening activity, consider having a fire pit with marshmallow-roasting.

For an overnight or weekend festival wedding, consider having a small stretch tent set up as a mini kitchen. Those camping for the wedding can enjoy some prepared food over a shared barbeque or fire pit – just make sure there is someone in attendance who can be fire-responsible. You’ll also need to make sure of health and safety on the grounds you are renting as your venue.

Don’t forget to consider seating and cutlery, which could be as simple as bench seating and utensil stations near the food trucks.

Festival Wedding Attire For Guests

It’s important your guests know what to expect from your wedding so you don’t end up with a bunch of heels in the mud. How your guests look and feel will have a huge effect on the vibe. Whether it’s a strict dress code or completely freestyle, it needs to be clear.

Decorate your invitations to demonstrate the colours and the style. You could even put fashion inspiration images so people get a good idea of what is appropriate. How about helping your guests look the part when they arrive by providing a temporary tattoo station, body painter or glitter bar?

Festival Wedding Attire For The Bride, Groom and Marrying Party

Your wedding party is the guiding force of your wedding image and they are the only guests over whose outfits you have full control! Put them all in leather jackets or funky frocks, whatever speaks to your festival wedding theme.

As for the marrying couple, it’s totally up to you if you want to go traditional or add a funky twist. Brides can go for a coloured veil, a flower crown or big leather boots. Grooms could try a colourful tux or bow tie. Or escape tradition completely and wear whatever you feel – it’s your day and you’re at a festival so anything and everything goes!

Make sure the music you go for fits the vibe you want to create. You may love the sound of a good ballad but if you want people on their feet, try a folk band or something more pop. Make sure to also consider the age range of the festival. Cover bands are great at playing music the whole family enjoys. If you have any musical guests, you could even save some of the night for some open mic. There’s nothing better than making your own music together.

If, like a true music festival, you are going for a variety of bands, decide whether you have the funds and space for multiple stages or keep everyone together and change the lineup throughout the day. To create the correct ambience, your music timeline is everything. Jazz and acoustic are nice to ease people in at the beginning of the day. You can then save the electronic DJ for the night owls still going after hours.

Photographers & Videographers

Celebrate the spectacle and excitement of your event by finding amazing photographers or videographers to capture your festival wedding. Consider a quirky photographer who’ll capture action photos of the celebration, or a talented videographer who can create a showreel of highlights that you can send to guests after your wedding.

Not sure where to start?

Start by considering:

Live music – this could be folk bands and/or background musicians
Fashion and style – will you have a more relaxed dress code, for example with flower crowns instead of formal hats?
Camping – or glamping to elevate the specialness of the event, if overnight or a long day party

You’ll also need to consider practical aspects of your festival wedding, such as toilet facilities and transport to/from the venue for guests.