Great British Bash and The Unique Tent Company - the perfect romance

Jul 27, 20204 min read

Updated: Jul 30, 2020

Photo by wedding photographer Neil Denham

We recently partnered up with the Great British Bash after falling in love with their work on Instagram and at The Northern Wedding Show earlier this year. The Great British Bash specialise in event styling, so as you can imagine their show stand was magical - filled with stunning life-like silk flowers, incredible glamorous tableware and beautifully illustrated menus, we had to know more!

From this meeting, we drew up a plan with Fiona, the owner and creative force behind The Great British Bash, to work together at our Open Day in April at Hulne Abbey! The Great British Bash were all set to dress our tipis and marquees for you all to see, sadly, however, this was postponed due to the pandemic. (We will keep you updated for the next one!) We decided to take the opportunity of lockdown to get together, socially distanced of course, and dress our giant tipis with Fiona’s new Floraison collection – a stunning mix of bright, summer flowers and foliage, just perfect for an outdoor summer wedding! Not only that, Floraison is perfectly complemented by jewel-coloured tableware and matching menus and table plans illustrated by Fiona (she is one super-talented lady!). We spent the day having our tipis and furnishings dressed for different wedding scenarios including a wedding ceremony, a fabulous banquet feast top table, a wedding breakfast, as well as our popular finishing touches like fire-pits, cake stand and bars. The displays were then photographed by the wonderful wedding photographer, Neil Denham!

Photo by our Marketing Manager @Lorna Lily Wright Work

Photo by wedding photographer Neil Denham

Fiona and her husband Bill were fantastic to work with. They arrived early with their van filled with enchanting pieces and went straight to work decorating our tipis. I took the opportunity to quiz Fiona about the Great British Bash!

Photo by wedding photographer Neil Denham

So who are the Great British Bash?

The Great British Bash are a wedding and event styling business, specialising in silk flower displays and finishing touches for your big day.

Founded by Fiona, they are a small family-run business based in the heart of Northumberland. Their team is made up of Fiona, Bill and their two daughters. Fiona designs the collections, illustrates the stationary and helps plan your day along with the help of her wonderful family.

Photo by wedding photographer Neil Denham

How did Fiona get into weddings and events?

Fiona explained how she studied and worked in interior design when she was called upon by her daughter and son-in-law to design and style their wedding. With her expert interior design background, she was perfectly placed to transfer her skills and artistic talents to event styling.

With the success of her daughter's wedding, Fiona was inundated with requests from friends and family for display pieces and styling for their events. With a gap in the market for a one-stop wedding shop, Fiona launched the Great British Bash and has never looked back! The Great British Bash prides itself on being a place where you can hire all the beautiful finishing touches for your day, from uniquely illustrated stationary to super-stylish and eye-catching table settings and flower displays all in one place.

Photo by our Marketing and Events Manager @ Lorna Lily Wright Work

Why silk flowers?

Silk flowers offer no end of design options! – with Fiona’s creative eye for detail, she makes opulent luxe displays of life-like botanicals in SO many beautiful colours that make for truly fantastic looks whatever your style. As Fiona says “more is more!”. Silk flowers are also a great choice because tipis and marquees can be dressed the day before with no worry of wilting and they are a cost-effective alternative to real flowers.

A great tip of Fiona’s is to simply transfer your silk flower displays from your ceremony to your wedding breakfast top table – what a great idea!

- We think GBB’s silk flower designs look fantastic and are absolutely perfect for tipi and marquee weddings! The Floraison Collection bursts with summer colours reminiscent of an English country garden.

Photo by wedding photographer Neil Denham

How does it work?

After you’re done lusting over all the incredible collections online, and drop Fiona an email, she will be in touch to discuss your ideas! You can then start to share your online mood boards, this way Fiona can really visualise your dreams of your day and begin to put together your bespoke collection.

Each event is bespoke and through regular meetings, Fiona will listen and guide you through the planning process to make everything as seamless and stress-free as possible.

DIY or DIF?

DIY - Do It Yourself! You can choose to hire all the items for your day and dress your venue yourself! Or, you can opt for DIF - Done For You! Taking away all the stress, Fiona and her team can dress your venue so you don’t have to. None of that last-minute folding of napkins and creating your own flower arch when you could be having a pampering night! The team will then return the following day and take down all their pieces.

Photo by our Marketing and Events Manager @ Lorna Lily Wright Work

There is so much to love about the Great British Bash - the styles, the colours, the transformation of any room, tipi or marquee! I personally love that Fiona will hand-paint a watercolour design of your flowers (and tipi!) to give a beautiful and personal cohesive look to your invitations, menus, table plans and welcome signs - all mirroring your floral colour scheme.

Have a look at more of our photos from our little virtual open day below.

Over on our Instagram, you’ll find story highlights for a few videos too!

We had a fantastic day with Fiona & Bill - our tipis looked absolutely incredible and were completely transformed into an English garden-inspired botanical dream – we can’t wait to do it all again and were left totally inspired for summer weddings 2021!