Mike and Katy's Wedding in Ambleside, Cumbria

We always knew we wanted a relaxed vibe for our wedding, and BITF lets you hire the venue for the night before as well which is a perfect icebreaker event and helped set everyone up for a good time the following day, since everyone's already mingled in a more relaxed place they're ready to dress up and let their hair down the next day! We went for American smokehouse BBQ for our main meal provided by Pappy's Texas BBQ, a genuine Texas smokehouse in Kendal no less! We were blown away on the day despite having eaten there plenty, and all our guests keep telling us what brilliant food we had. We also had a piñata instead of a wedding cake, followed by a ceilidh, and Dominos pizza at 10pm to fuel the late night party!

Eden Event Hire did a fantastic job stringing up hundreds of Edison bulbs (which have to be individually screwed in!) to create a romantic canopy across the whole barn, which was absolutely gorgeous. The ceremony/dancefloor was backlit by a gorgeous cascade of fairy lights. They also provided lovely oak tables and benches to add to the rustic feel.

We hired Unfurl Photography and Hello There Films as our photographer and videographers, respectively. On the day both Gill and Charlotte & Craig made us feel completely relaxed despite being followed around quite intensely in the morning, I was smiling so much my face hurt before I even got to the ceremony! The results are just phenomenal and while we've only had the "sneak peeks" we have been moved to tears multiple times. I can't wait for the final outcome!

I really can't put my finger on our favourite wedding moment, but we did something a bit unusual according to our suppliers and that was a First Look, and private vows. This took so much pressure off the ceremony so we could really just focus on each other, and also gave us space to say what we really wanted to one another without the pressure of people watching us. We also took the family photos before the ceremony, which freed us up to have much more time with our friends as well as some private moments later in the day. The whole day was perfect and we both understand now why people say this is the best day of their lives, because it certainly is ours. If we could do it all again, we would in a heartbeat!