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Charlie

Favourite Natural Wedding Details: favours, table plans, wedding cakes, DIY projects, transport & children-friendly weddings

Charlie

Natural Wedding Details

For the third part of our Real Wedding Favourites mini series we are bringing you are Favourite Natural Wedding Details. As you might imagine, choosing ‘favourites’ in this category is really hard. It’s also a lot down to personal preference. My suggestion is to enjoy browsing through our blog archive for inspiration for your wedding details.

All our picks are chosen from the very first Real Wedding we featured up until spring of this year. You can find all the links to our Real Wedding Favourites here.

Our Favourite Wedding Favours

Hot Chocolate Mugs with a Vintage Welsh ‘Love Teaspoon’

Nik was one of our first TNWC Real Brides and together with her husband Chris they created a true-to-them chilled out wedding at their home. We followed many of the details that Nik created for their wedding, but it was hot chocolate inspired wedding favours that I really loved.

Nik decorated a mug for each guest that they served hot chocolate in at their wedding, and gave the mug along with a vintage teaspoons with the words ‘LLwy Garu’ (Welsh for ‘love spoon’) stamped onto it as wedding favours. Useful and beautiful.

Charlie’s favourite wedding favours come from Nik and Chris’ chilled out rustic coastal farm wedding. Vintage teaspoons from Rescue & Revive and mugs hand decorated by the bride. Photography by Pete Cranston Photography.

Nik’s wedding dress was also one of our favourites, which you can see in our Natural Wedding Styles post.

Charlie

Favourite Natural Wedding Spaces: ceremony spaces, wedding reception decor and a magical wedding venue

Charlie

Natural Wedding Spaces

This is the second in our 7 part blog mini series Real Wedding Favourites. Last time we featured our favourite Natural Wedding Styles (wedding dresses, accessories, bridesmaids dresses and more). Today we’ve scoured the Real Weddings to find our favourite ceremony spaces, wedding reception decor and a truly magical wedding venue.

As mentioned previously our picks are chosen from the very first Real Wedding we featured up until spring of this year. You can find all the links here to our Real Wedding Favourites.

Our Favourite Wedding Ceremony Spaces

I had two favourites for this category and I’ve decided to share them both.

A Wedding Ceremony on a Beach Amongst Chapel Ruins

The first of my favourite wedding ceremony spaces is this ruined chapel amongst the dunes of a Scottish beach. Sounds like something from a film doesn’t it?

Well this is where Jo and Dom had their wedding ceremony. They had a humanist ceremony amongst the ruins on a beach that bride Jo had grown up visiting. It was also where Dom proposed, so it had loads of special meaning to the couple. As if that wasn’t lovely enough, they followed it with a picnic on the beach and a swim!

This was from Jo and Dom’s natural and relaxed Scottish wedding. Photography by Taylor & Porter Photographs.

Charlie

Favourite Natural Wedding Styles: wedding dresses, hair styles, grooms style, bridesmaids and accessories

Charlie

It’s the first in our new Real Wedding Favourites mini series, which will be featuring some of our favourite picks from the Real Weddings we’ve featured over the years. It’s been such a challenge to choose our ‘favourites’, but as we mentioned in our introductory post, these are really just some of our favourites.

Our picks are chosen from the very first Real Wedding we featured up until spring of this year.

Natural Wedding Styles

Today it’s all about Natural Wedding Styles. This includes our favourite wedding dresses, our favourite bride’s wedding hair style, our favourite groom style, our favourite bridesmaids style, and our favourite wedding accessories.

Our Favourite Wedding Dresses

An Asymmetric Layered Wedding Dress

I got a bit stuck on this category because every bride chooses a wedding dress that suits them, and is right for their wedding. The dilemma was, how should I choose? Should I pick the one I’d most like to wear? In the end I was tied between two (this was the other), but Nik’s wedding dress won out for me.

For her Welsh coastal farm wedding, Nik unexpectedly fell in love with this wedding dress from Coast on a shopping trip for bridesmaids dresses. She even told us: “I actually tried it on for a laugh – it looked hideous on the rail and I was going to leave it behind.” I love the asymmetric hem line and layered skirt of this wedding dress, which Nik wore with a thin leather belt.

Looking through their wedding day I just felt that the dress not only looked great on Nik, but it fitted in with their day. Worn with silver flip flops it blended perfectly into their down-to-earth (and very hot!) outdoor ceremony. Later on for their champagne picnic and walk on the beach it worked wonderfully with bare feet. And for the evening party on the farm with a pair of vintage cowboy boots.

My favourite wedding dress comes from Nik and Chris’ chilled out rustic coastal farm wedding. Wedding dress by Coast. Photography by Pete Cranston Photography.

Charlie

Our Top Natural Wedding Inspiration and Ideas from Real Weddings

Charlie

We have had an unexpected blogging break due to a new arrival, but as we hurtle towards the end of the year we have a lovely new series to share.

Over the years we have been lucky enough to feature the most beautiful, inspiring real weddings. All with their own individual touch of magic. They are full of eco-friendly details, vintage finds, homemade projects, and have family, friends, laughter and heart at the centre of them.

Our Real Wedding Favourites

We’ve called this mini series our Real Wedding Favourites. With so many weddings sitting in our blog archives we felt it a shame not to recap all the lovely wedding inspiration we have sitting there.

However, we soon discovered we have many favourites from each and every wedding featured. So this is more a collection of some of our favourite bits from our Real Weddings. Each and every wedding is so individual to the couple that any attempt to compare is pointless.

What Will We Be Sharing?

What will you find in our Real Wedding Favourites series? A collection of some of favourite bits from our Real Weddings grouped into 7 blog posts with different themes:

Our Favourite Natural Wedding Styles

This includes our favourite wedding dresses, our favourite bride’s wedding hair style, our favourite groom style, our favourite bridesmaids style, and our favourite wedding accessories.

Read it here

Charlie

Louise and Andrew’s cosy winter wedding at River Cottage with spring inspired bouquet and dapper groomsmen

Charlie

We might be headed into summer but this cosy winter wedding held at River Cottage in Devon reminds us of all that is great about a winter wedding done well. Louise and Andrew had an intimate wedding with just 50 of their friends and family, with excellent local food (obviously!) and seasonal touches that embraced the farm venue. I also particularly love the attention they put in for the babies and children at this wedding – some great ideas. Plus gorgeous photography from Larissa Joice who we’ve featured previously here.

Over to Louise to tell us more…

A Cosy Winter Wedding at River Cottage

Charlie

Natural organic wedding inspiration with a romantic spring bouquet, touches of copper and vintage wedding dresses

Charlie

This spring photoshoot is full of natural organic wedding inspiration with hints of peach, pale blue and copper. The team were inspired by vintage reclamation and the organic and natural colours and textures of oxidised copper. From the exquisite handpainted botanical cakes to the vintage wedding dresses (the rose pink one!) and touches of foraged blossom, this photoshoot is brimming with inspiration.

Over to photographer Jenny Owens to tell us more…

Natural organic wedding inspiration

Charlie

Romantic vintage wedding inspiration at a watermill with a modern fairytale wedding dress and raspberry red wedding florals

Charlie

Today’s romantic vintage wedding inspiration comes via a beautiful photoshoot from Mademoiselle Fee. Some of my favourite wedding photoshoots have been sent to us from Stefanie at Mademoiselle Fee (you can see them here and here) and they always have a beautiful back story.

The raspberry red wedding florals, a wedding dress inspired by Romanian fairytales, and a romantic dessert table are all set against the backdrop of a 14th Century watermill. So many lovely details and ideas to inspire you for your own wedding if you are wanting a romantic and vintage feel.

Austrian based stylist Stefanie told me about this romantic vintage wedding inspiration photoshoot…

Charlie

Mel and Ben’s English country barn wedding with cottage garden flowers and handmade wedding details

Charlie

We have a beautiful English country barn wedding for you from TNWC recommended photographers Warren & Carmen Photography. Mel and Ben chose to keep their day simple and classic, sourcing as many of their suppliers close to their wedding venue alongside some handmade projects.

Over to bride Mel to tell us all about it…

English country barn wedding

Both of us just wanted a laid back feel to the wedding without any particular theme. We really liked barn weddings and simple weddings without too much formality. We also knew that we wanted to put a lot of what we enjoy in to the wedding and hoped that our guests would enjoy the personal touches.

Music was therefore really important and we spent hours agonising over the playlist. We also really wanted to embrace the area where the wedding was located so we tried to incorporate all things local such as the food and drink, flowers etc.

Charlie

Beautiful botanical wedding favours for a natural wedding from Oakwood Soaperie

Charlie

We’re back with our Meet the Maker series interviewing small business Oakwood Soaperie who create beautiful botanical wedding favours. When planning your wedding it’s easy to get caught up in check lists of what you need to buy, but we think it’s important to take a moment to get to know the people behind the businesses.

Today we are joined by Ceri from Oakwood Soaperie, a Northumberland based small business creating a beautiful range of botanical wedding favours. From luxurious soaps to bath salt shots, Ceri is dreaming up and creating some delightful sounding natural botanical wedding favours.

We wanted to find out more about what inspires her, how she got started, and the process of creating her range.

Beautiful botanical wedding favours for a natural wedding

Hi Ceri, welcome to our Meet the Maker series. Tell us how you first dreamt up Oakwood Soaperie?

I have a background in art and design and after many years of non-creative jobs, I was hankering to get back to designing and making once more. I officially began Oakwood Soaperie in October 2010 after many, many months of researching, reading and formulating recipes while experimenting with natural ingredients and making some basic products.

I was working full time and fitting in building up to launch my business in my spare time. I began at my dining room table which I soon outgrew, and now have a beautiful, rural studio within a National Trust property near my home town where I can make everything and work on my business full time.

Charlie

Charli and Sam’s sunny laid back village wedding with outdoor ceremony, locally grown flowers and tea cup wedding favours

Charlie

It certainly feels as though Spring has sprung, and what better way to celebrate but with a gloriously sunny, cheerful and laid back village wedding.

Charli and Sam’s special day has an authentically wholesome vibe to it. Just looking at these beautiful photographs by Freckle Photography you get the sense that their day was true to them. While their ‘official’ nuptials took place in the edifying surrounds of historical Bath, their outdoor ceremony and marquee celebrations were set in the village Charli grew up in.

The couple’s decisions typify the quintessential natural English wedding: hay bales, locally sourced wildflowers and homemade bunting, and it really is lovely. Emma of Freckle Photography, one of our recommended suppliers, has captured the happiness of their day perfectly. Let’s chat to bride Charli to find out more…