10 Tips for Planning a Tipi Wedding & 13 of the Best in the UK
Want an outdoorsy wedding with a cool festival feel? A tipi wedding is a perfect option! Here, we've rounded up 13 of the best tipi wedding venues in the UK, plus top tips on how to plan the perfect tipi wedding
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If you’re looking to have an outdoor wedding and want a unique way to celebrate it, a tipi wedding is a great option for a wedding venue. A tipi wedding means you can have a celebration in the great outdoors, among beautiful flowers, rolling hills and even in a forest.
The great thing about a tipi wedding is that you can decorate your venue exactly as you want to – showing off your personalities with details like fairy lights, quirky furniture and fire pits outside. While you can hire plenty of dedicated tipi venues, they can also be hired to set up in your back garden or a local field if you have the space.
We reveal the tips to make sure your tipi wedding goes as planned and also some of the best wedding tipi companies across the UK.
10 Tips for Planning a Tipi Wedding
- Get the venue right. Make sure the venue you’re planning to marry in has enough space for your tipi or is set up to accommodate one. If you are hiring a field or using your own back garden you’ll need to think of hiring extras too – like toilet facilities and generators.
- Decide on how many tipis you need, dependent on how many guests you have. Most companies can link tipis together to make a bigger venue, but make sure you can accommodate all of your guests.
- If you are celebrating your wedding in a tipi, you won’t actually be able to have the legal ceremony in it in England and Wales (you can in Scotland). Create a plan for where you can exchange your vows, such as at a nearby church or registry office. You can always marry beforehand and have a celebrant-led ceremony.
- Decide on your theme before you starting looking at flowers, decoration or furniture to fill your tipi. As it’s a blank canvas, you’ll need quite a lot of decoration and you want to create a coherent style that’s personal to you and represents who you are as a couple.
- From giant letters to photo walls, there are plenty of ways to make your venue sparkle. Some tipi companies have their own furniture and accessories you can hire, but they may not be right for you. Don’t feel you need to hire everything they offer; get a good grasp of your vision first.
- Adding lighting can make the space unique too, like different colour spotlights or festoon fairy lights. Draping lights over a wedding arch or a tree can also add atmosphere.
- Plan for rain. There is nothing worse than stressing about the weather the week before your wedding because you haven’t got a wet weather plan.
- Make the most of the outdoors. Seasonal flowers, hanging foliage displays, fragrant herbs in your table arrangements, reams of lights that hang in the tent and move out into the trees – let your party flow easily between inside and outside spaces.
- Make sure guests know what to expect. Does the flooring mean that stiletto heels are a no-no? Would you recommend they bring a warmer jacket for later in the evening? Will they be able to park nearby? What kind of accommodation is there surrounding your venue? Can you get taxis easily?
- Remember to stay relaxed on the day. It’s one big celebration and you should enjoy every bit of it, so don’t get too hung up on every detail. If you seek the help of people you trust, you can create an event that will be wonderful and everyone will love it.
13 Best Tipi Wedding Venues in the UK
1. Sami Tipi, Derbyshire
This family-run business provides tipis for weddings in the Midlands and surrounding areas. Whether you’re getting married anywhere from a farm to country house or even your own garden, as long as the site is large enough and is accessible, then it is suitable for one of their tipis!
Sami Tipi will erect the tipi for you and can suggest lots of sites if you need some help picking a location. You can decorate their beautiful white-topped, clear-walled tents with accessories such as fairy lights, a disco ball or have a fire pit outside to give it an elegant boho feel.
2. Blue Sky Tipis, London
Based in North London and working across surrounding counties, Blue Sky Tipis offer a quirky and unique space to celebrate your special day. They boast chic, boho-style tipis in a range of sizes and can build dance floors in them too.
Supported by 80-year-old Scandinavian spruce timber frames, the tipis can be joined together to create your ideal wedding space, enabling you to have as many guests as you would like. They're also weather and windproof, keeping you dry in the winter months and shaded when it’s hot – there isn’t a season when you can’t throw a tipi wedding!
3. Shire Tipis, West Midlands
Shire Tipis rent out giant hat tipis which can house 50 people underneath, but they can also be linked with other tipis for larger weddings. The canvas frame of the tipis will keep you warm in the winter or cool in the summer.
You can either decorate it yourself or the company provide a selection of bespoke tables and benches, a 15ft x 15ft parquet dance floor and giant whiskey barrels.
4. MYTIPIEVENT, Kent
Ideal for planet conscious couples, at MYTIPIEVENT you can choose from a range of tipis for your wedding day, all made from natural and sustainable materials. There's the Giant Hat tipi which can host up to 200 guests, the Chill Out tipi suitable for 40 people, plus a Little Hat tipi for catering and a stand alone bar for guests to enjoy.
You won't have to worry about overheating in summer and shivering in winter, their tipi structures allow cool air to circulate when it's warm and create a cosy aesthetic in the cooler months.
5. Sunset Tipis, Cornwall
Based in Cornwall, Sunset Tipis have a range of different tipi layout options to suit every size wedding. Tipis can be furnished with handmade furniture, such as their southern yellow pine tables, benches and a cedar bar unit. Accessories include outdoor lawn games, giant letters and fire pits.
The poles of the giant big hat Kata tipis are ethically sourced from UK forests, while the canvas is waterproof and holds up against harsh weather conditions. Sunset Tipis can also provide a fully licensed bar team and an in-house calligrapher for bespoke signs for your table plans and direction boards.
6. Tribeca Tipis, East Sussex
A family-run business with years of experiences in outdoor events, Tribeca Tipis have Nordic giant hat tipis and bell tent villages to hire.
As well as their tipis – which are made in Lapland, Sweden – you can also add on extras including a cosy fireplace, rustic wooden tables and benches, wooden bars, a dance floor and Moroccan inspired chill-out areas.
7. Garden Weddings Tipi Hire, York
If you're planning a tipi wedding in Yorkshire, Garden Weddings Tipi Hire is on hand to turn your dream day into a reality.
This tipi hire supplier offers an all inclusive wedding package that includes a range of brilliant features that party loving couples and guests will adore. Expect fairy lights, fire pits, dance floors a drinks bar and more.
8. ZooTipis, Wiltshire
9. Love Tipis, Kent
Based in Kent, Love Tipi can help provide a unique and quirky setting for your special day. Each of their tipis has the capacity for 100 party guests, or 70 for a sit-down meal.
As well as the tipis themselves, Love Tipis can also provide packages including lighting, fittings, furniture and fire pits to complete your venue. Whether you’re after shabby chic or sleek and sophisticated, Love Tipis will help provide the perfect package for you.
10. Tipis4hire, Hertfordshire
Family-run, Hertfordshire-based business Tipis4hire set up tipis in all of the Home Counties, East Anglia, London and beyond. Perfect for the unpredictable British weather, the tipis combine modern techniques with traditional materials making for a waterproof space.
Your wedding tent is guaranteed to look stunning, with wooden tables, benches, lighting and matting all available to hire.
11. Big Day Event Tipis, Cumbria
Founded by a husband and wife team originally from Yorkshire, Big Day Event Tipis offer Scandinavian-designed tipis, meaning they hold their own whatever the weather. Now based in Cumbria, they hire tipis in the North of England and Southern Scotland.
The tipis house 50-200 guests and they come with the couple’s expertise in event staging and project planning.
12. Welford Park, Berkshire
Set among Berkshire's own wilderness is Welford Park, an impressive tipi wedding venue with serious boho wedding vibes. The 3,000 acre farming estate boasts indoor and outdoor event spaces, meaning you can have a civil ceremony here and then move your celebrations outside.
All tipis offered by the team are flexible and can be made to work for any wedding size. Tipis can be used alone or joined together, giving you separate areas for different parts of your day, plus flooring, lighting, dance floors and rustic bars can be added at your request. The Welford Park team also have a range of other rustic country sites available for tipi weddings.
13. Magnakata, Northern Ireland
Based in Downpatrick, Magnakata provide atmospheric and beautifully designed Nordic tipis, as well as flooring, lighting, furniture, fireplaces, dance floors and bars for your special day. Constructed from sustainable wooden poles and neutral coloured materials, they'll look gorgeous in all your wedding photos, plus will fit into any wedding colour or theme you go for.
The tipis can hold 30-300 people but if you're having a larger guest list you can join multiple structures together which has a really impressive effect.
If the idea of being outdoors appeals to you, make sure you read up on our list of outdoor wedding venues – you could find the perfect one for your big day.
