Jay and Rachel’s Fun, Colourful Festival Style Summer Wedding at Dragons Gate Hereford | Dragons Gate Photographer

Festival Style wedding couple portrait at Dragons Gate Hereford Lake

A festival style wedding at Dragon’s Gate Hereford

With glitter, costumes, DJ sets and tons of sunshine, Jay and Rachel’s DIY festival wedding was so much fun from start to finish.

Jay and Rachel chose The Dragon’s Gate as their wedding venue because it’s dry hire, available to book for the full weekend and a complete blank canvas. There are glamping tents available on site, too, making it the absolute perfect spot for a festival wedding. Keep reading to find out how Jay and Rachel created a colourful festival dream of a wedding (and threw a pretty epic party in the process).

Festival Wedding at Dragons Gate Hereford Confetti Walk

A heartfelt Celebrant-Led Ceremony

To start things off, Jay and Rachel opted for an outdoor, celebrant-led ceremony, with guests seated on hay bales and the gorgeous natural setting of The Dragon’s Gate as their backdrop. With the temperamental weather we get in the UK, outdoor ceremonies can be a bit of a gamble, but luckily the weather was absolutely perfect on the day. The venue had two large tipi style tents set up as a rainy weather backup as well.
Rachel arrived in style in a colourful camper van along with her bridal party, who were dressed in vibrant shades of orange. The ceremony was conducted by celebrant Pippa Ward. I’m always a big fan of celebrant-led weddings as they are so much more personal and tell more of the couple’s story, and this one was no exception.
After the ceremony, it was over to the lake for dried flower confetti and post-ceremony fizz.

Festival Wedding at Dragons Gate Hereford Bride Camper van arrival
Festival Wedding at Dragons Gate Hereford Pippa Ward Celebrant
Wedding first kiss at Dragons Gate Hereford
Wedding guests with confetti
Festival Wedding at Dragons Gate Hereford Confetti Walk

Fun festival-style wedding games

Making sure that their guests have fun was really important to Jay and Rachel when they planned their wedding. They provided giant tic tac toe, giant connect four, a tug of war, an ice cream truck and a tea-towel making station to keep their guests entertained during the reception.

Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding Connect four guest game
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding reception game splat the rat

Festival style wedding breakfast

The festival feel of the wedding kept going with Jay and Rachel’s food and drink choices. Street food from JAE catering created an informal, festival style, with no seating plans or picking a side to sit on. Mobile bar services from Bar Spot and ice creams kept the festival vibe going.

Bar Spot Caravan Bar at Dragons Gate Hereford
Festival Style Street food at Dragons gate Hereford wedding
Wedding ice cream cart
Festival wedding food nachos
Festival Wedding at Dragons Gate Hereford informal seating
Jaeger wedding shots
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding speeches cheers raised glass

A festival parade and glitter station

After the speeches, it was time to get ready for the evening party, and Jay and Rachel had big plans for how to keep the vibe going. With a glitter station manned by Rachel’s friends and lots of sparkly fun costumes amassed through years of festival-going, Jay and Rachel set up the ultimate getting-ready zone for the evening party.
Once everyone was suitably glittery, it was time for phase two of the plan - a parade up the hill to the barn, which was set up with a dance floor for the evening festivities.

Festival Wedding glitter station
Festival Wedding party wigs
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding parade
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding parade
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding parade

Festival style evening party

My advice to anyone planning a wedding is, if a traditional part of the day doesn’t feel authentic to you, don’t do it. Jay and Rachel didn’t fancy doing a first dance because it wasn’t very ‘them’ so they opened the dance floor their own way.- with a first DJ set featuring them both!
The evening celebrations featured a tarot card reading, more street food, a fire pit and multiple DJ sets from Jay and Rachel’s friends, making an absolutely epic party.

Wedding first DJ set
Wedding Tarot Reading
Wedding DJ set
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding party
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding dance floor
Dragons Gate Hereford wedding evening party

Festival style couple portraits

With such a fun-packed day and so many friends and family to see, how could I drag Jay and Rachel away from all of this fun?!
I always think that getting some nice couple photos is such an important part of the day. But I also think it doesn’t need to take ages and it doesn’t need to drag you away from all the fun.
For Jay and Rachel’s wedding portraits, we spent 10 minutes by the lake capturing some natural, unposed moments and we spent about 5 minutes in the evening getting a couple of nice photos, too. In just a few minutes I was able to take some natural, unposed wedding photos, with plenty of time for Jay and Rachel to be present with their guests and enjoy their day too.

Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding couple photo
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding couple photo lake
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding couple photo lake
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding couple photo sunset
Dragons Gate Hereford Festival Wedding couple photo golden hour

Supplier list

Jay and Rachel’s wedding was made possible by an absolute dream team of suppliers, listed here:

Venue: Dragon’s Gate Weddings

Celebrant: Pippa Ward

Catering: JAE Catering

Ice Cream: Kelsmor Dairy

Bar Service: Bar Spot

Glamping Tents: Under the Stars Monmouth

Stretch Tents: Assemble Stretch Tents

Photography: Suzie Smith Photography

Festival Style Wedding photography

Looking for a photographer who can take photos like this for your festival-style wedding? Oh hey, that’s me! If you hadn’t guessed already, I absolutely love a festival wedding and love taking photos of people. Click the link below to get in touch and check my availability for your date!

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