By The Beach Festival: Back to the beginning and One year on

Wow, almost a whole year on from W-Day and I can honestly say it has been the busiest we've ever been. I've had no time to blog but have stored up some fun outfit posts ready to go, before all that though - the last installment of our By The Beach Festival wedding posts. 

Runswick Bay

So the very first thing we decided was the location, and in truth probably the only place I was ever destined to get married - Runswick Bay, North Yorkshire, just along the coast from Whitby and Scarborough. My family have had a cottage there since my Dad was about five years old, and I've been spending Easter, Bank holidays and Summers there my whole life, it's home. My family come together there to celebrate, to holiday and to have fun (we've event spent Christmas there, very magical)  it holds so many incredible memories, it is just my favourite place in the world. Alex was pulled right into the Runswick circle from the beginning and loves it as much as we do, he's desperate to get a boat so he can join in on the fishing competitions. 

Runswick Bay, running down the beach with Deacon Dog

After deciding the 'where' we had to do some research into the actual places we could have a ceremony and a party. We popped to a local restaurant/hotel at the top of the bank which looks right over the bay, but their menu was a bit too fancy and not what we wanted at all, so we cracked on finding contacts for a field on the other side which was *perfect*. Luckily we found the resident farmer who only used it for a couple of horses and he gave us a flat rate for the entire weekend, two fields - one to park in and one to party in! He also sorted us out with bales of hay to line our space hopper race. The field we had the tents on had a stunning view over the bay, down the bankside and our guests loved it, it was great seeing everyone take selfies with the view of Runswick and the sea behind them.

Our first ceremony venue visit was a hair-raising ride around the moorside with my Mum and Dad in the van, where we did a drive-by (and accidental horn tooting during someone elses' wedding...) at Danby Castle, but were later informed that they could only book 'full day' weddings rather than just ceremonies, doh! We chased a few more leads in the countryside but a lot of places had let their licenses lapse, and eventually we found a lovely room at Dunsley Hall and booked it. Unfortunately in Februrary (yep, that close) they went into Administration and we had our plans cancelled - luckily, we didn't decide to have the whole event there so didn't lose out too much! After some hurried calls, it turned out that another couple had booked their wedding and reception at Danby Castle, but for the afternoon/evening so we were able to sneak in early as our wedding was at 11am, bonus! In the end we got the amazing venue that we liked first, and it's such a beautiful place in the middle of a valley, with a gorgeous ceremony room just the right size for our guests. Oh and a bar... a lovely bar, haha! When the day came, the ceremony was awesome, everything was really just relaxed and perfect, with stunning views and a very lucky day of sunshine!

In the ceremony room, which had a big castle crest on the wall and lovely white pillar candles on all the window-sills

Bubbles instead of confetti!

In the castle for some photos

The gang! How amazing is that view? <3 Danby Castle!

Back to the party part... we knew we wanted a festival style day, and from working in music journalism over the years had come across a few great companies. We visited a few different events run by Tipi companies, we knew a traditional marquee just wasn't going to have the feel we were looking for, and PeakTipi's stunnnig tents just blew us away. They were vast but cosy and we knew they were going to look amazing along the Runswick Bay skyline. PeakTipi's were fantastic from start to finish, they had no end of consulatations with us about the layout of the tents, catering tents, dance floors, fairy lights and furniture to get everything just right. On the Wednesday we had a special moment whilst we were waiting for the tents to arrive, it was so misty and cold and we were standing at the top of the hill looking out to the sea and heard a little noise near us. A beautiful grey-brown Roe Deer popped up from the thicket and looked at us! We both held our breaths and watched it graze for a little while before it popped off the side of the hill and ran down into the woods.

I think Aslan sent him to tell us we'd have a great weekend...

After a couple of bacon sandwiches, a whole gang of guys turned up early in the morning for set up and it was a cold misty day, so we headed off for pastries and juice packs to keep them going, and the tents went up remarkably fast - I think it was down to my expert hammering in of the first peg personally...

PeakTipi set up... beanbag chairs!

A group of lads also stayed the entire weekend in a local guest house so that they were on hand to open the tents up, light the fire pits and generally be there in case we needed anything - it was really nice that they accepted our invite to come to the party later on as well! I couldn't be more pleased with Peak's service, they were amazing. Here's a whole load of Tipi photos - thanks to the various amateur photogs (Nigel, Charlie, Mum...) and our Official tog Rob Ball  for the pics!

Deacon checking out the tipi's

Fire pits lit :)

Ermergerrrrd glerrrsterrks

Little shot of the fish and chips van on the left there!

After dinner, pre-dancing rest

Some other great companies we used were The Yorkshire Vintage Crockery Co. who supplied all our mismatched vintage plates, cups, saucers and cutlery (very kitsch, very cute) 

and Elite Hire who supplied our on-site toilets, which were incredibly posh (mints in a bowl, fresh white roses, fancy hand creams... very nice) and an extra special shout out to the fact that they had a CD drive attached to it so we could play our own music in there. For all those wondering, it was The Cuban Brothers 'Yo Bonita' - unfortunately we accidentally left the CD in there when it left, sad times.

So that's it! Whilst this has been more of a 'how to' view of our Wedding, I'm going to be doing a written diary of events as there were just too many funny stories from the weekend... like my friend Jub flashing Al's Dad... Jack's Awesomeness... Hamish climbing up the Tipi's... Faye falling down the bank... Jack's Awesomeness... Uncle Roger swimming in the sea in his pants... Fran's Koala hug... Trigger's wrong venue... Emily and I drinking champagne in the car... Jack's Awesomeness... Pete's breakdancing... The Chalice...

I know everyone says their Wedding day is the best day ever, but truthfully I loved everything about it and think our guests had a great time too. One year on and I'm sort of still mourning the fact that we'll never have enough money/reason to throw another event like it, hahaha! Unless we start our own festival...