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Locally sourced wedding meal details from real bride Vicky

A weddig topic close to my heart – food! In the past I think wedding food has often been an after-thought, but more and more it’s becoming something that couples really put a lot of thought into. Here are Vicky and Steve’s plans for their wedding feast!

>> View Vicky and Steve’s DIY village fete wedding here <<

Over to Vicky…

A hog roast with handmade cutlery packages for guests

The food and drink we’ll be serving at the wedding is at the forefront of my mind at the moment as we firm up numbers and start to make the final purchases.

We decided from the very start that we wanted to keep it quite simple to help save the budget for other areas and keep the day relaxed. In the end we settled on a cream tea reception followed by a hog roast is the evening.

The hog roast was easy to organise as our best man’s father-in-law does these as a sideline to his farming. A quick chat on the beach, followed by an impromptu dance lesson (only in Devon!) and we had booked a hog and ram roast with a few roast potatoes thrown in the bottom for good measure. Excellent!

We’ve put together a little bag for each guest to pick up before they eat which have a napkin, wooden cutlery and a hand wipe in. They have been decorated with a personalised stamp which we found on Etsy.

A cream tea wedding reception

After that came the trickier task of finding a company to do the cream tea for us. Lots of the caterers we approached seemed keen to sell us their idea of what we wanted rather than what we wanted. A simple cream tea became a full-scale afternoon tea. It all sounded amazing but it wasn’t what we wanted.

Thankfully a friend then recommended the lovely Hannah and Sima from The Kitchen Table in Totnes. They have been brilliant, sticking to what we wanted, answering many questions about scone sizes (seriously, how did I turn into someone who worried about the size of a scone?) and even talking us down on quantities.

Even better they are advocates of using local produce, which fits our day perfectly. They will provide the mini pasty canapés, sit down cream tea and all the salads and rolls for the evening do, plus some vegetarian options. Their food looks beautiful and I can’t wait to try it all.

Victoria sponge wedding cake

They also put us in touch with Queen Bee Cakes, who make the most amazing wedding cakes and are a supplier on The Natural Wedding Company. Sadly they were already booked for our weekend leaving us with no choice but to try and re-create something similar ourselves.

So my lovely Mum and Aunt have gamely taken on the challenge of making the cake. From reading about other weddings I know this is quite common but my Mum is not the most expert of cooks, once serving up a dessert of sausage pie and custard – don’t ask!

Her cakes, however, are normally really good and with the amount of practice runs she’s been doing I’m sure it’ll be great, even if we won’t fit into our dresses any more! She will be making two sponges, which will sit on top of a fruit cake which my Aunt is busy soaking with brandy.

I’m planning on adding a liberal scattering of flowers and icing sugar to make it look pretty! Hopefully it will eventually turn out something like the cake below.

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Natural wedding hair styles featuring tiny flowers

I have been seeing some lovely inspiration for tiny flowers incorporated into your wedding day hair style, here are some of my favourites…

Dainty sprigs of golden dried grasses woven into wavy locks

Mariel Hannah via Wedding Sparrow

Sprigs of flowers pinned throughout your hair alongside a flower crown

Alyssa Marie Photography via Wedding Chicks

Tiny daisy-like flowers woven into a braided crown

Brown Paper Parcel via Nouba

Single hydrangea flowers wired into a loose braided bridal up-do

Britt Chudleigh via Honey of a Thousand Flowers

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Real bride Fern shares her plans for an afternoon tea reception

Fern’s post today is full of lovely recipes (lemon and blueberry drizzle cake anyone?) and some great vintage finds, including an old seed tray her dad has upcycled into a drinks tray for their wedding. Go get inspired!

>> View Fern and Dominic’s woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding here <<

Over to Fern…

Collecting for our afternoon reception

We really wanted to have an afternoon reception rather than an evening one for our guests who will not be attending the whole event to celebrate with everyone straight away. The National Trust have allowed us exclusive use of the Old Stable Courtyard at Montacute House for us to serve refreshments for our guests and park our wedding car, but guest will be free to access the grounds as they wish.

We are planning to serve baked refreshments following our ceremony for our guests while we have photos taken. I have been really inspired by Charlie’s afternoon tea in the garden (and part 2 here) and have spent a lot of time reading and then re-reading the posts about it to absorb every ounce of inspiration. Although Dominic and I are not going for a full English tea party, I really want some colourful vintage china to liven up the rustic picnic and trestle tables we will be using.

I am searching regularly through our local charity shops for vintage china, baskets and cut glass. My ultimate bargain is the green china set which I found for £9 for the lot. I love the beautiful cut glass bird, another charity shop find, who will hopefully find a nice little home for the day.

The other items are a collection of charity and vintage shop finds, were my own already, or I am borrowing from friends and family.

For months, we have also collected jam jars, coffee jars and wine bottles to display our flowers and candles on the day, now filling 2 suitcases. My amazing dad has cleaned up and varnished a seed tray he had for us to hold our glasses for sparkling drinks, I’m blown away with how great it looks, and my parents have also kindly lent us some parasols to keep the sun off on the day.

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Nautical tying the knot save the dates

Some of my favourite emails are from brides/couples who have been inspired by the stationery I made for my own wedding – both our save the dates and our invitations. Rachel was one of those brides who got in touch to share photos of what they created and I particularly loved hers because her and her husband-to-be Lee are sailors – so the ‘tying the knot’ version of our save the dates couldn’t be more appropriate.

It is so exciting to hear that couples all over the world have been inspired by the design I created for our save the dates, and it’s pretty satisfying when emails pop into my inbox with photos attached of what everybody’s been busy creating.

>> View Rachel and Lee’s autumn lake house wedding here <<

Nautical graphics for tying the knot wedding invitations

Rachel asked her friend and designer Anne Trencher to design her a few graphics for her wedding stationery, and to choose fonts for them to use – and don’t they look beautiful!

In addition to her save the dates, Rachel also emailed me photos of her wedding stationery – an elegant design with rustic elements of hessian, lace and twine incorporated.

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Firstly a huge apologies from me as I am so behind on this year’s Real Brides posts. The lovely Em, Fern and Vicky have been diligently sending me their posts and I haven’t been posting regularly – so apologies both to them and to my readers who have been following along. 

Over to Em…

Floral theme for summer wedding

In terms of planning, on my first blog post I thought time was going quickly; now it is positively racing past. After deciding on a venue which was dear to our hearts at Norton Priory Gardens, and sending out the ‘save the dates’ in midwinter tones, I guess I began to sit back a bit as life carried on around the wedding organisation.

The twist in our tale has been that within months of sending out the ‘save the dates’ to close friends and family, I have landed a new job and we have sold our house – effectively meaning that we are literally upping sticks to make a new life together this year. Within a couple of months, we are hoping to move, get married and start new roles; so 2015 is becoming a big year for us all!

With that in mind, I am so glad that we made key decisions early on about a relaxed quite bohemian vintage feel to the wedding and had arranged the venue and location for the ceremony early on, as this has made it much easier to style what we wanted without becoming distracted by magazines, bridal fairs and the plethora of wedding related paraphernalia!

Walled garden wedding venue

As we are based at Norton Priory in the walled gardens, we were both keen to have a floral theme to the wedding that brought ‘the outside in’, and this has precluded having any real colour scheme running throughout the whole day.

There will be a palette which nods to the wedding vibe, and deciding this linked to a vintage fun look has enabled us to tone everything else around key features for our day. While we made the ‘save the dates’ ourselves, with big – and fun! – life changes afoot, we had to think practically about our choices while retaining some creative control and quirkiness.

I didn’t want to sacrifice the individuality which was important to us, and we have trawled through lots of examples of designs to find images and styles which we feel suit our personalities.

I have to say books have been invaluable – I particularly like these three which I bought second hand and therefore saved a packet, plus it’s nice to think someone is passing them on after their own wedding/crafty projects! All of these books have given me ideas about print and colour which have informed my choices for the wedding.

Books – Cath Kidston’s ‘in print’, Emma Arendoski’s ‘The Handcrafted Wedding’ and Lucy Morris’ ‘The Complete Vintage Wedding Guide’ all sourced from Amazon second hand.

Bright butterfly and floral wedding invitations

The invites we are particularly happy with, and these have been sourced from Not On the High Street, from a seller called Skinny Malink in Edinburgh who has a range of beautiful designs. The colours on the day invite really ‘pop’ and reminded me of Andy Warhol designs, which seemed perfect for the beginning of summer when the gardens will be a riot of colour.

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Relaxed Spanish village wedding

Prepare yourself for the most exquisite wedding today! This charming Spanish village wedding is full of natural and rustic details and is bound to inspire more couples to go for a down-to-earth and intimate wedding celebration.

Thank you to Barcelona based wedding planners Detallerie who created all the beautiful details for this wedding and sent it over to us to feature. Before we dive into sharing all the details, why not take a few minutes to watch their sweet wedding film…

A cosy wedding with family and closest friends

Carolina and Tati got married last July in a beautiful little Spanish village called Empordà, in north Catalonia, where the groom’s family own a house. Having met at a friend’s party, they decided they wanted a cosy wedding with just their families and closest friends.

This was also the reason that they chose to celebrate their wedding in the groom’s family home, for a relaxed and down-to-earth party. Tati’s family are olive oil producers, so they chose a natural and organic theme and decorated the house and garden with lots of olive branches.

The bride wore a custom made dress, Menbur shoes for touch of glamour, and the earrings she wore were a family heirloom that belonged to the great grandmother of the groom. Carolina carried a beautiful countryside inspired bouquet, designed by Detallerie and created by Moshi Floristería.

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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.

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