Colourful Fusion Wedding at Wilderness Reserve

S&B’s colourful fusion wedding at Wilderness Reserve was a complete extravaganza of fun across four days – it was also the perfect example of how we can ‘theme’ a wedding in a way that’s chic, not cheesy.  We had axe throwing, cocktail ice lollies and a Bermuda-Australia-London mashup full of colour and beautiful details – so, let’s get lost in the wilderness together for a while. 

Why Weddings at Wilderness Reserve?

Wilderness is hands-down one of the best wedding venues in the UK for multiday celebrations, with multiple sites stretching across woodlands, lakes and countryside and space for all your guests to stay within walking distance of the celebrations. You can host events in the forest, the manor house, the orangery and the party basement, even by the pool…your options are almost endless and each space so versatile to make it totally yours. It’s possible to hire Wilderness Reserve exclusively for up to five days, making it a dream for couples looking to extend the fun. 

Find out more about Wilderness and my other favourite Orangery wedding venues close to London. (link to venues blog when live) 

S&B’s Colourful Fusion Wedding

Beginning on the Thursday, S&B’s colourful fusion wedding at Wilderness Reserve started with a night for just the family, an intimate dinner hosted in the walled garden. Planning an event like this is a wonderful way to enjoy some cosy calm before the wonderful whirlwind of your wedding, and allows you to settle into the venue and feel at home before the rest of your guests descend. It’s also a lovely moment for both families to spend some time together, especially in a situation like this where one family lives in Bermuda and the other in Australia – it was a perfect excuse for some quality time before the wider party arrived. If you can add an intimate family night before your multi day celebration, we always recommend it. On Friday, the remaining guests arrived and checked into Wilderness’ gorgeous cottages.

We spent the evening in the woods, cooking over open flames, toasting marshmallows and enjoying heartfelt speeches, the perfect casual welcome party that gave everyone a chance to connect before the weekend’s jubilations really got underway.

Saturday was the wedding day, beginning with some unique outdoor activities such as axe throwing and clay pigeon shooting for the grooms party (the morning flies by for the bridal party but a mid afternoon ceremony can mean the grooms party feeling like they are waiting a round for much of the day, so we always recommend a fun activity to bond with the guys and keep your mind busy whilst you wait for the big moment. It also adds to the story of your day when you look back at your wedding album.!). The wedding itself was joyful and vibrant, with so many fab details and personal touches (more on those next), and ended with an epic afterparty in the basement – complete with giant beer pong, of course.

Many couples would choose to take it easy the day after their wedding, but S&B hosted yet another incredible event around the pool for their loved ones. There was a bouncy castle, tacos and cocktail ice lollies to cure the sore heads. Then a final farewell in the form of a pizza party in the walled garden that evening. What a wedding.

Take a look at my Portfolio for more Wilderness Reserve weddings and to explore other venues I’ve planned celebrations at.

How to Theme a Wedding: A Masterclass from S&B’s Wilderness Reserve Wedding

S&B were such a joy to work with for many reasons, one of which is the fact that they gave me their brief and then put their complete trust in me to roll with it and create something magical. The theme of their fusion wedding was centered around their joint story and personal homelands – Bermuda and Australia, which we encapsulated through each little detail.

One feature we drew on for their wedding stationery was the idea of a bridge. S&B met in London and their first date took them over Albert Bridge, which they lived close to when they moved in together and was later the site of the proposal. We used this as a symbol for connection and for their origin story; an illustration of this bridge connecting Bermuda to West Australia, and was used on the invite,  welcome letters, the table plan and the table names. 

Lots of features of the wedding represented a Bermudan beach theme; ocean blue plates, place mats edged with little shells, and shell place names to symbolise the pink sand beaches. We had fun incorporating a family inside joke on the shell of a family friend and his reaction was priceless! We enjoyed the sun-yellow shorts worn by the guys (a Bermuda brand called Tabs), and included a Bermuda marital luck symbol with the ceremony moongate. The Bermudan kiskadee bird also featured, forming their wedding hashtag from the groom’s surname, Cadee – #kisscadee, so fun!

The theme of this wedding is instantly recognisable, but done in a way that goes beyond the obvious and really feels bespoke to S&B and their story. For me, this is the key to a theme that isn’t cheesy or generic, but feels totally perfect for you and has your guests feeling that ‘this could never have looked any other way.’

See more Wilderness wonderfulness on my Portfolio.

Choosing the right wedding planner is so important to help with this – not only do you need to connect with them and believe that they understand who you are as a couple and what your priorities are, you also need to be able to trust them to bring creative flair to the process to design something that’s truly yours and not just a copy/paste of what’s been done before. 

A wedding at Wilderness Reserve is always special, and if you’re considering getting married there I’d love to hear from you. I know the venue well, and they’re opening a third site in the near future which gives us even more epic options for your wedding! 

You might also like;

• A spring garden wedding at Four Seasons Hampshire
• A wedding at St Giles, Dorset

Imagery by Cristina Ilao at Wilderness Reserve