If you are reading this on Thursday, I will be playing with spring blossom at a flower crown workshop by Catkin – you can join in by following me on Snapchat (anaturalwedding) where I plan to share some pictures and maybe even a video or two of what I am up to. More pictures will follow on Instagram and Facebook.

But in the meantime, I have some gold glittery love for you all (even us natural brides often can’t say no to a splash of gold glitter can we?) with some handmade picks from TNWC Real Bride Vicky. She got married last summer but we are only just catching up with the final few bits of her homemade wedding.

You can find all her previous posts here, which include some fab DIY projects and ideas. Over to Vicky…

While I loved planning the wedding I have to admit that by being maybe a bit too organised I found the last couple of months leading up to it, dare I say it, dull! I just wanted the day to arrive.

Initially there was lots to plan and make and decide and then I hit this lull. I really wanted to get on and do things but realistically I couldn’t because everything that was left was last minute things.

Everything was piled up waiting in the spare bedroom – or ‘Wedding HQ’ as it became for the year. Even the confetti bags had been made and boxed up. Like most churches we could only use natural confetti which suited us fine so we had bought a lot of natural flower petals and popped them into bags ready for our page boy to hand out.

It was during this lull that I decided it was best to stay off websites and Pinterest, as the temptation to do and make more and more things was too great.

I did cave in and make a glitter cake sign…

A sequin bar sign…

And a popcorn and sweet sign out of an old book and 100 badges for all of our guests to wear which filled the time up quite nicely.

It also gave me a chance to hunt through old photos and find ones of each of our guests to pin up on our giant photo frame. Steve meanwhile made the most amazing guestbook from some old floorboards. A beautiful “S” and “V” joined together that we could get people to sign and then hang on our wall at home. I love it.

I also got my lovely mum and her friends to knit squares, which I sewed together to make blankets to drape over the hay bale seating. Ending up with about 15 including some amazing crocheted ones – another bargain charity shop find.

Bridesmaid dress shopping and sorting out Steve’s outfit was also firmly on the agenda. I had given the bridesmaids free rein with their dresses – any colour, any style, you chose. I really wanted them all to be happy and comfortable on the day and to be honest I couldn’t face the stress of trying to find something that suited my two very different friends and three little girls.

My ‘older’ bridesmaids both have their own style and look great whatever they wear, but their styles are very different. One of them, if not both, could have felt very uncomfortable if I’d tried to dress them. Looking back, however, while it lessened my stress it most definitely added to theirs. I’m pretty sure my friend Trish tried on more dresses for the big day than I did before making her choice. The three little girls were happily very easy to sort out – a quick trip to Monsoon and Debenhams had all three kitted out in a variety of sparkly numbers with the obligatory tiaras to match.

Steve somehow managed to arrange himself and the best men in this time as well, all opting for a variety of tweed jackets with beige trousers, one of the jackets was even purchased at an agricultural fair, which raised a few eyebrows.

I also put together the order of service as we had finally chosen all of our hymns, our selection process being a) would people know it? And b) was it short enough? We had also managed to finally find a reading that wasn’t too soppy or making a joke about wives being nags, which was harder than I thought it would be.

I used the image of the church from our invitations for the front and my wonderful dad took them all to work and printed them off. We’d chosen a recycled brown card for the cover with recycled bone coloured paper for the pages. These were then tied together with a lovely cream and gold bakers twine I found on eBay, just to add another little bit of sparkle.

The last few weeks also gave me a chance to make sure everything was ready. Being a teacher I do like my lists and to know exactly what I’m doing. We had arranged for a crew of people to help us dress the marquee and fetch and carry things in the couple of days before the wedding so I took the time to make lists of what needed doing and put together a calendar for the last week. I have to admit it caused a few laughs and Bridezilla comments, but it meant nothing was forgotten and Steve and I didn’t have to keep explaining what we wanted. I even did crib sheets of how various areas of the venue should look and what decorations went where. Wedding fever had obviously kicked in big time.

Images: All brides own photos