Tipi Wedding at Decoy Ponds Wedding Photography

Gina and Kelvin

Bride wearing a Yolan Cris gown, and groom portrait at sunset in a field.

Decoy Ponds in West Sussex, the former home of A.A. Milne of Winnie the Pooh fame, is quite a place for a wedding. The whole place has something about it. Something a little intangible. Maybe I'm biased. Whatever it is, When Gina and Kelvin first got in touch and I heard their plans I was hooked. Gina and Kelvin went to TOWN on their wedding plans. An outdoor humanist ceremony, led by the utterly brilliant Emily, followed by a tipi reception with dancing, drinking, bouncing, climbing, beer-ponging, and smoke bombing. Just wow. I mean, I had a struggle with where to point the camera next. It was such a good job I had the incredible Katie Da Silva along to help me.

Jason I don’t even know how to put into words how absolutely over the moon on top of the world in LOVE we are with our photos.
We are still working our way through them and finding new details constantly but thank-you SO much.
Gina

Plans for weddings are usually pretty settled and I have a good idea of what to expect. In Gina and Kelvins case, it was all a little bit of a whirlwind. A huge part of Gina's life is her Grandad and her love for him is infectious. Due to ill health, there was always a chance that Grandad would struggle to make the wedding - a hot summer’s day with little cover would not be ideal for him. So, the plan was always for Gina and Kel to have a "legal" ceremony a couple of days before their "real" wedding celebration so that her Grandad could attend and see her tie the knot. However, due to Gina's grandads health it was decided to bring the legal bit forward a couple of months. Anywho, fast forward a few months and Gina's grandad was on the mend and everybody was so excited for him to be there. Alas, come the day of the wedding, his health took a turn and it was decided that on the day he'd better rest. Needless to say, there was ZERO chance of Gina not seeing him on her biggest of days, and so it was that Gina, Kelvin and Gina's mum hopped into my car and I whizzed them off to see him like the saviour and all round great guy I am :) This has to be the most incredible, emotional, heartfelt thing I've ever photographed. Maybe not my "best" images technically. BUT, for sure, the ones which mean the most.

As a venue, a Decoy Ponds wedding is hard to beat. But when you add to that a couple who are so much in love, and so much into creating something special and unique and all round bonkers, you know it's gonna be a good day.

Here are 60 or so of my fave pics from the day.