17 Jan Planning a Winter Tipi Wedding

Winter is an incredible time of year for unique weddings and events. Everyone is hiding inside from the cold longing for the first signs of Spring so we can get back outside. What would be more wonderful than creating a completely different experience in a cosy winter venue?

Your tipi venue will be waiting for your guests to arrive, the fairy lights will be sparkling and the fire crackling. Through the wooden doors you’ll enter into the warmth and bustle of your very own magical winter wonderland.

ADDRESSING THE COLD

Tipis are nordic structures built to keep out the cold Scandinavian winter. The design is such that the wind will whip up and over the canvas and our Wooden Door entrance means you can open and close the doors every time a guest needs to slip out. In terms of bringing warmth into the tipis, a simple marquee heater is all you would need to keep you and your guests warm. Thermostatic marquee heaters are both effective and affordable, with an adjustable thermostat that you control. You might choose to have 1 heater for 2 tipi weddings or events or 2 heaters for 3 tipi weddings or events.

LIGHTING

Nights draw in earlier on winter days so make sure you’ve got adequate lighting around your venue. Festoon lights look fantastic and can be used to create a festoon light circle outside your tipis or a walkway to the loos. Solar lights or battery powered fairy lights look magical when hung from trees, wrapped around gates and bridge handrails and can be used to light up signposts or guide your guests back to the car park.

Inside the tipis, fairy lights are really effective in lighting the tipis and the spotlights look incredible over the dance floor. Cotswold Tipis set up their fairy lights so that each string is attached to the very top of the tipi, the lights chandelier down each pole to the midway horizontal poles and then are wrapped around each pole to the floor.

The spot lights are controlled by a control panel in the tipi so you can set the lights to rotate or remain on a single colour. For example, you could set the colour to white during the day then change it to rotate colours in the evening.

If you would like additional lighting, you can have fairy lights along the pole(s) that connect the two tipis so that this central area has extra lighting. It is possible to have fairy lights in all of the tipis and disconnect the fairy lights in the dance floor tipi once the evening entertainment begins.

DON’T MISS THE PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES

We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place and it is rarely more beautiful than on crisp winter mornings, when the wolds are shrouded in mist or the fields are covered in frost. Imagine your wedding photos in such a unique and serene setting.

In this quieter wedding season, you could ask your photographer for a sunrise photography session with the sun rising on average around 8.15am in Cirencester in December and January.

CATER TO THE SEASON

We are surrounded by farms providing incredible produce and there are plenty of catering companies who are focused on creating menus with the best seasonal ingredients from local suppliers, minimising food miles and waste.

Ask your caterer to get creative, swap your cold canapes for hot ones and serve food that’ll warm your guests up. Think colourful Moroccan tagines or Asian curries, fine dine your guests with local game dishes or perhaps a hearty pie is the perfect meal for you and your guests. In the evening if you wanted to offer something different, you could serve hot cocktails, mulled wine and hot chocolate.

A few caterers we know well…

Fosters Catering
Jack’s Kitchen
Vaughan’s Kitchen

BLANKETS & HOT WATER BOTTLES

Blankets are easily hired if you’d like to offer them as a thoughtful extra detail. While the majority of your guests will fine dancing and with a drink in their hand, your less mobile guests may be more prone to feeling the cold. Cotswold Tipis hire sets of 20 blankets in wooden crates for £60.

Another thoughtful option would be to offer hot water bottles. You can speak with your caterer about providing a hot water urn and you could scatter a few hot water bottles amongst the blankets or offer them as your wedding favours.

QUESTIONS OR READY FOR A QUOTE?

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01453 367667

Cotswold Tipis is a tipi and bell tent hire company based in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire. We service the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Somerset, Monmouthshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.