I am so excited about my new TNWC Real Brides feature and I hope you are too!  It’s been lovely finding out so much about other people’s weddings and being able to share all those details with you here.  You can catch up on all the blog posts by clicking this link to the full TNWC Real Bride feature.

Today has her second blog post, and is going to tell us all about the start of their DIY elements to their wedding – starting with their invitations.  She’s even done a how to guide on how she made some very cute cake flags!  If you haven’t read Emma’s first blog post, you can find it here.  Over to Emma…

This week we have reached the first of our planning milestones – we posted our invites!  We both wanted personalised invitations and I love to draw so I thought I’d have a go myself.  I drew the designs on watercolour paper, painted in a bit of colour and went over it in fine liner.

I photographed the paintings then added the text using Photoshop.  We had them printed on recycled card at Monkey Puzzle Repro Art who are based at Mount Pleasant Eco Park. I couldn’t be more happy with the service, John was lovely and got our invites printed within 24 hours of me emailing him the artwork!  The front of the invite features us in what I think I can pass off as ‘naïve cartoon style’, standing in front of the archway area we plan to have our ceremony in.

The back of the invite shows the brilliant flags we are hiring and also has a teeny bit of a ‘disclaimer’ about the outdoor nature of the wedding!!

This is the front of the RSVP card, and on the back there is space for a song request, as we thought it would be good for everyone to choose a song the DJ could play in the evening and our return address.

We also provided an information card…

We wanted to add some fun elements to our day so have decided to have a ‘Great Wedding Bake Off’  – who doesn’t like a bit of competition!  We have planned who is judging and what some of the prizes will be but these will have to stay a surprise at the moment.

Inside the invites I have included handmade flags for our guests to use to label their baked creations. Here are some of the flags…

They were super easy to make, all I needed was some nice coloured, patterned paper, some glue, a ruler, a craft knife, cutting mat and some cocktail sticks.

First of all I cut the paper into strips that were an inch wide…

Then I had a much needed cup of tea with biscuits – essential for continued inspired crafting activity!

Then I folded the paper strip to the size of the flag I wanted, cut it, glued it and wrapped this around the cocktail stick.

I really hope that we will get an array of different cakes with all the pretty coloured flags in them.

My crafting efforts didn’t stop there, I spent a Saturday afternoon with my Mum and her lovely ginger cats, Mylo and Simba.  We went about making some fabric hearts to match the bunting. Simba was particularly enamoured with the scraps from the bunting!

Here are some of the hearts we made, Mum is planning on making some little garlands from these, I think they will look great in the barn.

So as you can see we have been busy making things and our colour scheme is evolving – a nice mix of corals and yellows.  The bridesmaids are wearing coral and the boys will have a splash of yellow in their suits, so even if the sun doesn’t shine, there will be bright colours to make up for it.

I just love those little flags Emma has made for the cakes, and love the idea of sending them out with your invites so your guests have them.  For our wedding we also invited people to bring cakes, and had little brown paper flags that people wrote their name and cake on when they arrived – I wish we’d thought to send them out in advance as I love this idea!

Images: (1) Illustration by Izzy Burton; (2-12) Brides own pictures