Wedding planning often seems harder than negotiating a United Nations ceasefire. For my wedding, the battle lines were drawn over the location. One side (the groom) wanted a wedding with no guests at a tiny safari camp deep in the African bush. The opposing army (my mother) wanted to rent an ancient abbey in the heart of a sweet English village and invite 500 nearest and dearest. The task of conflict resolution fell to the bride (me).

With both Whalley Abbey in Lancashire and deepest Africa ruled out, I trailed around traditional wedding venues with a slightly bitter future husband while my mother brooded at home, threatening a boycott if the wedding moved abroad. We viewed wedding barns and hotel conservatories, ballrooms and restaurants, but they were all uninspiring and overpriced. And then, on a country walk, inspiration struck.

Three months later, the wedding car (otherwise known as my dad’s Toyota) pulled up in a muddy car park at Bradfield Woods Nature Reserve. We had picked up a lost guest on the way who was now filling in for the bridesmaid who had missed her flight. I had two pairs of wedding shoes: one fancy pair for dinner and a second pair of robust wedge heels that would hopefully keep my dress out of the mud.

The muddy aisle.

I set off on my father’s arm, out of the car park and over the dyke, towards the wood chipping shed. And then disaster struck. It had been raining all night, the ground was churned up and right in front of the assembled congregation, my dad slipped. There was a lurching moment when it looked like the entire bridal party were about to hit the very muddy deck. But at the last second, a combination of the spare bridesmaid, the platforms and some nimble footwork by the father-of-the-bride somehow managed to get us upright again. The guests broke into a ramshackle chorus of the wedding march and we squelched cautiously towards the makeshift altar (a sawing bench).

Bradfield Woods is a working wood, managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. The trees have been coppiced here for hundreds of years, and the Trust continues that management for the native wildlife. The wood is used for fencing and the spare bits get stacked up in a circular shed, with a hole in the centre for the fire. The original plan had been for me to waltz down one of the woodland rides, a verdant pathway that would double as an aisle, and to meet the guests at a clearing. Unfortunately, the weather put pay to that, so instead, the guests were huddled under the tin roof of the shed, all wearing their finest dresses or suits complemented by great big wellington boots and umbrellas.

Somehow the unusual location had released everyone’s inner stoic – probably the welcome wine helped

Clouds moved low overhead, laden with potential rain showers. One of the smaller guests was cutting up worms on a sawn-off log. It could have been a bit of a dismal scene, but in fact the atmosphere was brilliant. Somehow the unusual location had released everyone’s inner stoic – probably the welcome wine helped. The fire was leaping in the woodman’s brazier and we stood in front of it to warm up as the Humanist celebrant welcomed everyone and started the ceremony.

Being outside, in the elements, surrounded by a woodland that has been worked and protected since 1252 was special. My husband and I had often walked there together, birdwatching or looking for dormice and red squirrels. It was a place where we really felt connected, rather than an anonymous ballroom with bland decoration. Here, there was no queuing up to use the room, there were no uniformed waiters, and no one else would kiss under that creaking tin roof while the champagne corks popped (we had to hunt them down afterwards to avoid leaving any litter). It was our wedding and ours alone.

Our wood wedding also helped us to avoid the commercialism that plagues weddings, souring the romance with a painful invoice. There were no additional charges, no added extras, and no VAT. And instead of the thousands of euros that the other venues had demanded, all the forest cost us was a donation of €100 to the Suffolk Wildlife Trust for allowing us access.

Obviously, an outdoor wedding with no plan B is not for everyone. If it had really poured down, perhaps the wood chipping shed would have lost its magic. But I don’t think so. We would have stood under a white umbrella and made the best of it: we would still have kissed, the champagne would still have flowed and it would still be the wedding that everyone remembered.

When you’re planning to get married, it’s easy to get lost in the labyrinth of choosing the right flowers, the seating plan and how many courses you should have. And of course, we went to a hotel for dinner after the wood and I did worry about all of those things. But finding a unique location for the wedding ceremony itself helped us to focus on what really mattered: how to really be in the right place and in the right moment when you say your “I do”. Planning might have felt like war but the wedding was all about peace and love.