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Charlie
Vicky’s back today to tell us all about the fab vintage railway poster inspired wedding stationery she’s had designed – I love this idea!
>> View Vicky and Steve’s DIY village fete wedding here <<
Over to Vicky…
Vintage railway post inspired invitations
It is now starting to dawn on me that our wedding is a lot closer than I want it to be and there seems to be an awful lot to do!
Much to Steve’s never ending dismay I am the sort of person who buys Christmas presents in October and arrives at the airport at least 6 hours before I should, just to be safe! Organising a wedding where lots of it can’t be done until much closer to the time is killing me! And driving him mad – so much so he’s gone off to Scotland on a motorbike holiday for 2 weeks!
However there was one major thing I was able to tick off of my ever-increasing list last month – getting the invitations sent out.
Who to invite to our wedding
The actual process of deciding whom to invite has probably been the hardest part of the planning process for us so far. It seems that trying not to upset anyone while keeping the numbers manageable is a tricky balance.
One of the major issues was whether we should invite children or not. If we invited everyone’s children our numbers rose by about 20 meaning we had less space to invite other close friends. In the end we decided that we couldn’t invite children and luckily all of our friends seem quite relieved by this. They all say they are looking forward to being able to relax and enjoy themselves without worrying if their children are getting bored or restless. One of my bridesmaids is so excited at the prospect of being childfree that she’s booked the grandparents for babysitting duties from the Thursday until the Sunday!
A friend to design our invitations
When we announced our engagement one of my old friends, James, immediately offered to design the invitations for us. As he’s an amazing artist there was no way we were going to say no. I’ve always loved his work and have had a particular hankering for his vintage railway style posters for a long time. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get him to do one for us.
Charlie
Choose seasonal blooms for your spring wedding
Well what a lovely positive week it’s been following all the goings-on of British Flowers Week 2015 – I hope you’ve been following along on Instagram and Twitter. This week we have covered why you should choose seasonal flowers for your summer wedding, autumn wedding, and winter wedding – now we are finishing off with inspiration for a seasonal spring wedding.
It was evident when I started collating images for this seasonal spring wedding flower feature that is such an incredible selection of British grown flowers available, I think the most difficult part as a bride should be choosing, not deciding whether to choose British or not.
Apple blossom, lilac and cow parsley
BareBlooms (photo by Cloud9 Wedding Photography)
Mixed tulips, blossom and dusty miller
The Garden Gate Flower Company
Peonies, larkspur and love-in-a-mist
I would love this one, it’s my own bridal bouquet!
The Real Cut Flower Garden (photo by Mark Tattersall Photography)
Violets and more violets!
Clematis, verbena and peonies
Charlie
Choose seasonal blooms for your winter wedding
I know that on a warm sunny day like to day it seems a bit mad to be talking about winter wedding flowers, but it’s a topic that I feel quite passionate about. When it comes to weddings held during December, January and February, I think it’s easy to assume that there are no flowers growing in this country, and therefore if you want wedding flowers they’re going to be imported.
I’m here to show you that it’s just not true!
And if you’re planning a spring, summer or autumn wedding, we’ve also written posts about these, just click on those links or the ones at the bottom.
With this selection of seasonal winter bouquets, I hope I can encourage some winter brides to fully embrace a truly British grown wedding when it comes to the flowers. So say no to the red and white roses, and fill your bouquets and arrangements with hellebores, anemones, catkins, narcissi, and more!
As with all naturally grown flowers, there will be seasonal and locality variations, depending on when and where you are getting married. We would always recommend choosing a flower farmer or florist who specialises in British grown flowers, and ask for their advice.
Hellebores and silver foliage
The Garden Gate Flower Company (photo by Taylor & Porter Photographs)
Rosemary, narcissi and lichen covered twigs
The Flower Field (photo by Jennie Hill Photography)
Hellebores, foliage and narcissi
Berries, paperwhites and anemones
Hellebores, ferns and foliage
Charlie
Choose seasonal blooms for your autumn wedding
In the UK we are pretty lucky to have such defined seasons, and when it comes to weddings I think it means your quite spoilt – it also makes it harder to choose which time of year you want to get married in!
This week we are supporting our many flower farmer florist friends across the country for British Flowers Week, and the best thing I think I can do is just inspire you with what’s available throughout our different seasons (here’s our posts on winter, spring and summer flowers).
The autumn months – September, October, November – still offer an incredible selection of British grown blooms and foliage (as you will see below), and so shouldn’t always be overlooked in favour of summer.
Do remember that there are variations year-to-year and across the country. Here’s to being inspired for an autumn wedding…
Cosmos, rosehips and blackberries
The Garden Gate Flower Company
Zinnias, snapdragons and grasses
Leaves, scabious and cosmos
PYRUS (photo by Kitchener Photography)
Delphiniums, ammi and verbena
BareBlooms (photo by Owen Howells Photography)
Dahlias, ammi and ivy
Charlie
Choose seasonal blooms for your summer wedding
In case you missed yesterday’s post, this week we are celebrating homegrown seasonal blooms by supporting British Flowers Week 2015. We are hoping to inspire you each day of this week with a feature on each of the seasons, and provide you with loads of ideas for your own wedding flowers.
Without further-ado, let’s launch into this seasonal round-up of wedding flowers with summer, because that’s where we’re up to in the year. The summer months I’m focussing on here are June, July and August, so if you are looking to have a wedding during one of those months, here are just some of the seasonal flowers you can expect to find in the UK.
(And if it’s other seasons your looking for, do check out out seasonal flowers posts for autumn, winter and spring).
Cosmos, cornflowers, borage flowers
Poppies, dahlias and dill flowers
The Garden Gate Flower Company
Garden roses, sweet peas and ivy
Love-in-a-mist, ammi and larkspur
Grasses, lavender and gypsophila
Charlie
Seasonal wedding flowers in support of British flowers
When I first started out with my business there was only really one or two people growing flowers for weddings in the UK. Now 8 years on and there are flower farmer florists all over the country, I imagine in every county, in varying degrees of growing their own to supporting British growers. That is just SO incredibly exciting, especially if you a bride-to-be.
As it’s British Flowers Week I wanted to do a mini showcase of how you can have British flowers for your wedding all year round, it’s just about embracing seasonality and celebrating the wonderful blooms being grown in this country. So coming up over the rest of the week will be a post dedicated to each season (links below) and a snapshot of the kinds of beautiful seasonal British flowers you could choose for your wedding.
As a long time supporter I wanted to dig through my archives and share some of the great posts we’ve previously featured that are full of seasonal flower inspiration and ideas.
And don’t forget to go and treat yourself to a bunch of British grown seasonal blooms this week in celebration of British Flowers Week – and download a copy of this seasonal chart of British flowers and foliages.
Seasonal blooms for weddings all year round
Be sure to check out all the posts in this series for lots of inspiration and ideas for your wedding:
Seasonal blooms for your spring wedding
Seasonal blooms for your summer wedding
Seasonal blooms for your autumn wedding
Seasonal blooms for your winter wedding
Charlie
I have just the loveliest post today from TNWC Real Bride Fern, who has not only made the most heavenly bird and wildflower inspired wedding stationery (and with my favourite brown craft card featuring!), but she has put together an easy-to-follow ‘how to’ guide for how she made the pretty envelopes. Plus she’s also shared details of how she created her different wedding stationery items.
I just know you are going to love this wedding stationery and it’s beautiful little details. If you are on the hunt for eco-friendly materials to make items for your wedding, do check out our DIY Resources section of the directory for a great selection of businesses that we love.
>> View Fern and Dominic’s woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding here <<
How to guide for pretty envelopes
It is always lovely to receive special parcels and post by mail, and wedding invitations can tell you so much about a wedding. Most of the weddings we have been to, couples have handmade their invitations and I never considered doing my invites any other way, but I really wanted my wedding invitations to have a wow factor as soon as they land through the letter box. So it was clear very quickly that I was going to make my envelopes as well.
I have included a ‘how to’ guide for making envelopes below, but I will tell you about my other stationary first.
DIY Floral Envelopes
Full ‘how to’ guide below!
Invitations, save the dates and RSVPs
I designed all the stationary myself in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Word, inspired by my finds on Pinterest. As I had decided that my envelopes would hold lots of colour it meant that I could keep my invitations more simple.
The fonts were Segeo Script used for our names on the save the dates and the rest of stationary we only used Traditional Arabic but varied use in all capitals or italics. The save the dates I made in Publisher by using the layout guides to divide the page into 8. I did for the RSVPs in Word; it is do-able but a lot fiddlier. I printed them on A4 and then cut them up with a guillotine.
The card for the invitations I found in a local shop with 10 brown kraft and 10 white sheets in. The design of my invites was dictated by this and its size. These were designed in Microsoft Word by customising the page size, even the map on the details.
We decided to trim all the corners to tie in with the envelopes, hole punch and tie together with ribbon. I then also made an afternoon invitation in the same way by customising the page size to A5 and then putting amended details inside. I printed everything at home on my own printer. It has cost around £35 for everything, not including postage, but I still have things left over for other projects.
Seasonal wedding ideas:
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