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Charlie

TNWC South West Roadtrip Day 4: The Garden Gate Flower Company with Taylor & Porter Photographs

Charlie

What a lovely day I had yesterday, despite the most miserable drizzly weather in Cornwall. I spent the whole day at The Garden Gate Flower Company (who are based just outside Fowey) with Becca and Maz, generally having a lot of fun with their beautiful flowers.

Our plan was to spend the day creating beautiful wedding hair flowers with the aim to inspire brides-to-be who want to wear flowers in their hair, but don’t feel the big, bold, statement flower crowns are ‘them’.

In the afternoon we were joined by Louise and Teo from Taylor & Porter Photographs, the loveliest couple who’ve recently relocated to Cornwall, and take all their pictures on vintage film cameras – you should definitely check out their work if you want something a bit different for your wedding photography.

Today you get my photos, but soon I’ll be featuring all Louise and Teo’s photos. Can’t wait!

Charlie

TNWC South West Roadtrip Day 3: Lantallack Weddings with Lucy Turnbull Photography

Charlie

I hope you are all enjoying following along with my TNWC South West Roadtrip – I’m only three days and loving it. It has been such a pleasure and a real treat to visit these wedding businesses and find out more about who they are and what they do. I can quite honestly say there are some real gems out there for anyone planning their wedding, so get looking through the directory to find some fabulous suppliers.

After a rather busy Day 2 of the TNWC Roadtrip, yesterday was a bit more relaxed with just one visit scheduled for the day. Like Day 2 I was joined by a TNWC wedding photographer, this time is was Lucy Turnbull, whose photos these are. I momentarily got lost down a very narrow high-hedged Cornish lane, but soon realised my mistake and found the very beautiful Lantallack Weddings.

Charlie

Beauty is a feeling: a personal post on why one bride cancelled her wedding make-up artist

Charlie

You will probably recognise today’s guest blogger, she’s one of my lovely TNWC Real Brides, Emma, who is sharing all her wedding planning experiences with us. She recently emailed me a blog post she’d written about her experience of her wedding make-up trial as she felt it might strike a chord with some of my other bride-to-be readers. And I think it will.

I decided not to include it among Emma’s TNWC Real Brides posts as I think it needed to stand alone. If you’d like to read more about Emma’s wedding plans, you can do so here.

I also wanted to extend an invitation to any other brides-to-be out there, like Emma, who’ve had positive or negative experiences during their wedding planning and want to share them with others – you are welcome to write them up and pop them in an email to me at charlie@thenaturalweddingcompany.co.uk and I will try and feature them here on the blog.

Over to Emma…

Beauty Is A Feeling

I wanted to share with you all my experience of my make up trial and why I decided to cancel having a professional make up artist on the day, leaving me out of pocket.

I always thought that having my make up done on my wedding day would be a real treat as I so rarely wear make up and thought it would be nice to feel and look glamorous. Every bride wants to look their best on their wedding as so much attention is focused onto you and there is a little pressure to look better than you would on any other day, which is why I thought professional make up would make me look ‘more like a bride.’

I booked a trial with a local make-up artist and was looking forward to having a girly time trying out different looks. When I arrived at the studio I explained that I rarely wear much more than a bit of mascara and some tinted moisturiser and that I wanted to look really natural but have my features enhanced. The make up artist started by tweaking my brows, which turned into a full on overhaul with wax, threading and trimming with scissors… I was a little worried as I quite like my eyebrows to be natural but I trusted the make up artist as she has an excellent portfolio and is clearly very talented.

Charlie

TNWC South West Roadtrip Day 2: JW Blooms, Cowparsley Weddings and Bespoke Confetti with Jennie Hill Photography

Charlie

I’ve had another wonderful day out on the second day of my TNWC South West Roadtrip – today I’ve visited three fabulous wedding businesses and been joined for my adventure by Jennie Hill and her camera. Today you are just getting my camera phone snaps as soon I’ll be sharing Jennie’s gorgeous pictures of our visits.

JW Blooms

My first stop of the day was the flower field of JW Blooms, a Somerset based small business growing beautiful flowers for weddings. Jan has an acre sized plot with about two-thirds of this used for growing flowers. It is utterly charming and as a big flower lover I always feel a little bit jealous wandering amongst rows and rows of pretty flowers.

For brides who book Jan to do their wedding flowers, the consultation process involves a visit the week before your wedding to wander the flower field, see what’s blooming, and pick what you’d like for your arrangements. I can’t think of many more lovely things to do!

Charlie

Luxury yurt honeymoons and hen parties with a woodfired hot tub at Secret Cloud House Holidays in the Peak District

Charlie

When I was planning my own honeymoon I looked for places and pictures that inspired me – I wanted to take one look and think, “that’s what I want to do” or “that’s where I want to be.” That beautiful nighttime picture above of one of the honeymoon yurts at Secret Cloud House Holidays does that for me.

Secret Cloud House Holidays have a lovely selection of luxury yurts, including a brand new wooden yurt, situated in the rolling countryside of the Peak District. Their yurts are available for both honeymoons and hen parties, and there’s even a woodfired hot tub with some of the loveliest views that a hot tub could have!

A Secret Cloud House Honeymoon

At Secret Cloud House Holidays there is a choice of three yurts and a bell tent that you can choose from as your romantic bolthole. New for 2013 is Bilberry Lodge, a Scandinavian inspired wooden yurt, filled with rustic furniture, a log burning range cooker, and a cosy double bed. It is also available to book all year round so perfect for a cosy winter honeymoon.

Charlie

TNWC South West Roadtrip Day 1: Huntstile Organic Farm and Clavelshay Barn

Charlie

Wow – what a start to my trip! I’m writing this on Sunday evening, so I’ll be sharing with you this morning what I got up to on the first day of my TNWC South West Roadtrip yesterday. Hope that makes sense!

I set off from home at lunchtime with a three hour drive ahead of me to Somerset. My first stop on the TNWC South West Roadtrip was Huntstile Organic Farm – a beautiful wedding venue set in the rolling Somerset countryside. This wasn’t my first visit to Huntstile, so I’m mainly just going to share with you some pictures I took today – if you’d like to read more about what I think of Huntstile check out my previous visit.

This was Huntstile yesterday, looking super pretty in the sunshine, flowers blooming everywhere, and buzzing with people.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Myfanwy tells us about her embroidered napkins, personalised vintage hankies and knitted napkin rings

Charlie

The one thing all our TNWC Real Brides have in common is that they are all creating handmade or homemade weddings to some extent, whether it be designing wedding invitations, sowing wildflower seeds around their ceremony site, making bridesmaid gifts, or brewing up elderflower champagne.

One things for sure, of all our brides-to-be Myfawny is the one whipping up a sewing storm of beautiful items for her autumn wedding to Tom. Today she shares some of her many wedding related sewing projects – from embroidering motifs onto their napkins, to personalising vintage hankies – and I’m sure that you’ll find some inspiration here for your own wedding.

Over to Myfanwy…

Vintage Tablecloths

Over the winter we did a lot of our planing and preparations including a lot of collecting. This is something we have done ever since we set the wedding date and decided on the venue.

We are not white tablecloth people! Mainly because one of us will spill something on them before the big day! We did not want round tables covered in perfect white tablecloths, at some weddings it looks great, just not ours.

Izzy

Sarah and Sam’s old fashioned country village wedding with a pretty garden party reception on a shoestring

Izzy

Old fashioned country village wedding

I’m thrilled to be sharing another exclusive real wedding with you on the blog today – a gorgeous June wedding set amongst stunning North Yorkshire countryside. The bride Sarah, was one of the lovely girls who joined me for my TNWC 5th Birthday Party last April, so it’s especially lovely to share her wedding after hearing about their plans last spring.

For anyone planning a wedding on a ‘shoestring’ then this wedding is for you – as Sarah mentions later on, they took ideas they saw and worked out how they make it themselves. It’s a real DIY wedding on a budget, but a totally beautiful one.

Over to Sarah to tell you all about her beautiful wedding to Sam…

Sarah and her husband Sam chose the 23rd June 2012 to get married, “because it was the Saturday closest to the midsummer solstice and there’s an old English tradition of weddings on that day. We wanted an old-fashioned country wedding with an informal feel, and we tried to make everything homemade if it possibly could be.”

“The week before the wedding was a crazy whirl of preparations because it was such a DIY affair. Luckily we had a fantastic team of family, friends and neighbours who worked tirelessly to finish preparing the food and decorations.”

Charlie

Join The Natural Wedding Company for our South West Roadtrip visiting some fab wedding businesses along the way

Charlie

The Natural Wedding Company – that’s me (Charlie) and my baby bump – are going on a roadtrip! Starting on Sunday 9th June I will be driving from my home in Cheshire, all the way down the country and into Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, finishing up in a little bit of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire about 10 days later.

Along my way I’m going to be stopping off at a number of the fantastic businesses that you can find listed on The Natural Wedding Company directory. There are many more fab wedding suppliers down in the South West than I am possibly able to see in 10 days, but I am doing my best to see as many as I can and report back to you, my lovely readers, about what I find.

Follow My South West Roadtrip

The whole aim of this roadtrip is not only for me to get to meet some of these businesses in person, but also to share pictures and details with you. I’m going to be taking my camera, my phone and my laptop, and each and every place I visit I’ll be capturing in pictures, words, and maybe even video (if I can figure that out!).

Each day I’ll be retreating to a B&B to write up my day’s visits, which you’ll then be able to read the following day on the blog.

As well as documenting my South West Roadtrip on the blog, I’ll be sharing photos on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I’ll be tagging all my images on Instagram and Twitter with #TNWCRoadtrip so I hope you’ll follow along and join me on this epic roadtrip virtually.

Charlie

Win a beautiful springtime blossom bow tie with matching pocket square for your groom-to-be from Mama Wolf

Charlie

*This competition is now closed 00:00 12/06/13*

So far this year we’ve had some really lovely competitions on The Natural Wedding Company blog, and I must say there are more lovely ones to come. Today I’m launching a competition from new TNWC business Mama Wolf to win this gorgeous springtime bow tie and matching pocket square.

I’m particularly delighted to have a competition prize that’s for the men in our weddings. Whether you want to win it for you groom-to-be, the best man, the father-of-the-bride, or maybe even a page boy, or even if you’re not getting married and you’d like to win it for a bow tie lover in your life, then read on for how you can enter.

When spring finally arrived on our British shores this year it has been spectacular – the hawthorn leaves unfurling and blossom budding all over the place. What could be nicer for a spring wedding that this springtime bow tie and pocket square?

Made from upcycled pure cotton, like all Mama Wolf products, they have been handmade with every effort to ensure they meet their ethical selection criteria (recycled, vintage, fair-trade, organic, up-cycled and natural fibre fabric).

What’s more, Mama Wolf created this bow tie and pocket square exclusively for The Natural Wedding Company readers, so you won’t find this design anywhere else! If you’d like to enter to win this delightful set, read on below for full details of how.

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