Blog: DIY + Inspiration
Charlie Charlie

Handmade wedding stationery from a natural wedding bride-to-be

Charlie

I swap emails with some lovely girls who are planning their wedding, and often they share with me some of the handmade details they are making.  Following on from these lovely floral luggage tag ‘save the dates’ from reader Charlie, I have some more wedding stationery to share this evening.


Image: Allister Freeman Photography

These invitations and envelopes are made by Caroline, one of my readers and bride-to-be, and her fiancée Mark.  Firstly a big congratulations – they are getting married next week on 8th October!

For their invitations they used these free printable bunting invites from Wedding Chicks – you can even select your own colour scheme.  They decided to stick the invitations into cards, and also included a photo from their pre-wedding photo shoot (see all the photos here) that had all the RSVP information on the back of it.

The envelopes they lined themselves, with husband-to-be Mark busy with the tube of Pritt Stick.  Caroline told me they even had someone ask them where they got the envelopes from – a sure sign you’ve created something beautiful.  Although Caroline said that they wanted their friends and family to realise it was in fact their hard efforts on Friday night that had created these pretty envelopes!

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Charlie Charlie

Cake love: an English country flowers wedding cake

Charlie

For me this cake is quintessentially English country wedding all over.  If I was going to have a tiered wedding cake it would look like this, simple white layers (I love the tiny dots of icing) stuffed with seasonal English flowers.

From my limited knowledge of flowers I can spot Peonies, Cow Parsley, Blue ‘Love in a Mist’, Roses, and Lady’s Mantle.  I also think the addition of those tendrils of Honeysuckle really add an extra prettiness to this already beautifully decorated cake.

This gorgeous wedding cake with its English garden flowers has been decorated by Rachel from Catkin Flowers.  Catkin Flowers is one of the wonderful businesses on the directory who grows their own flowers for brides looking for seasonal wedding flowers.

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Charlie Charlie

Handmade floral luggage tag ‘save the dates’

Charlie

This is a pretty exciting blog post for me today – these gorgeous floral luggage tag style ‘save the dates’ have been made by one of my readers.  Another Charlie, who is getting married next August sent me this picture of her handmade ‘save the dates’.

These are actually from a fab free template from a website called Eat Drink Chic so if you’d like to make them yourself you can – what a fab website and resource – have a look here.

Charlie told me that they printed them onto textured card, before cutting out the luggage tags.  They bought a stamp for the back of the tags and used gardening twine for the string.  It’s lovely to hear that Charlie and her husband-to-be had a fun time making these together – Nick and I certainly had stressful moments attempting to make things together!

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Charlie Charlie

A Devon wedding in a tiny windswept church

Charlie

I feel very lucky to be able to share today’s wedding with you all – the wedding took place at St Michael De Rupe Church on the top of Brentor in Devon.  Not only is this tiny, windswept church one of the highest and smallest in England but it’s also very close to my heart.

My granny grew up on a farm in Brentor village that sits beneath this ancient hill.  A large part of my family come from this part of Devon, I have ridden across Blackdown (the surrounding moors) throughout my childhood, and my great granny had her 90th birthday on Brentor.

So before I get carried away with my family history, this is a special place to me – so a big thank you to photographer Sarah Falugo of Green Photographic for letting me feature this wedding.

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Charlie Charlie

A summer season of natural and vintage inspired wedding flowers

Charlie

For many of the flower businesses listed on the directory who grow their own flowers, they will have just finished up a long summer wedding season.  Rachel from Catkin Flowers told me she’s been non-stop since May – phew!  So it’s been nice to get a chance to catch up with her and find out what she’s been up to this summer.

Catkin Flowers are based in Lincolnshire where they grow all their own seasonal flowers and foliage in their cutting garden.  Rachel has been sharing with me some of the beautiful creations she’s made for weddings this summer and I thought you’d all like to have a look at them too.

Rachel has done the flowers for a lot of vintage inspired weddings, such as this one in a Papa-Kåta tipi, and this stunning trailing bouquet…

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Charlie Charlie

A wildflower meadow grown especially for a wedding on an organic farm

Charlie

Can you believe it – this stunning wildflower meadow was grown especially for a wedding on this pretty organic farm?  I’m a bit bowled over and hadn’t even considered that a florist might be able to grow you a wildflower meadow especially for your wedding.

I’m sure ordinary florists can’t, but this is what I think is so fantastic and special about the wonderful businesses listed on the directory.  Some of them can grow you a wildflower meadow, like this one which was grown by Charlie Ryrie of The Real Cut Flower Garden for a bride who wanted colourful meadow flowers sweeping up to their reception in that stunning dome.

I’m in awe.  And wishing I could get married again, to Mr Rigg of course, but just do it all over again and steal these wonderful ideas.  Nothing more can be said.

Charlie Charlie

Colourful seasonal flowers for a bohemian wedding

Charlie

Following on from the recent post on creating your own floral headband – aren’t these ones stunning!  The flowers at this laid-back wedding in Somerset are so fun and colourful, and what’s best is that they were grown and arranged by Charlie (of The Real Cut Flower Garden) who did our wedding flowers, and is also one of the lovely businesses listed on the directory.

I love the flower wreath around the cake, what a lovely and simple way to make your wedding cake look utterly gorgeous.  Charlie’s stunning heart shaped flower garland makes a beautiful focal point for anyone planning an outdoor wedding ceremony.

You can see all the photos from this wedding here.

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Charlie Charlie

A lazy summer picnic photoshoot with cakes and sweetpeas

Charlie

On Wednesday I had so much fun.  I drove up to Lancashire to meet Mark Tattersall, we had lunch and caught up, then we set up a mini photoshoot.  Mark took the pictures and I brought along a boot full of ‘bits and pieces’ from my home, some beautiful English sweetpeas and delicious cupcakes.

I suppose in the world of weddings you would say I ‘styled’ the shoot, but it feels rather odd, as it was more just a collection of pretty things made to look nice.  With this gorgeous (and sometimes stifling) hot weather we’ve had, I wanted to create a small lazy summer picnic.

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Charlie Charlie

Do it yourself: rustic handmade wedding stationery ~ part 1

Charlie

I’ve decided to split the ‘do it yourself’ for our wedding stationery into four parts as there seemed too much to share in just one post, and I didn’t want you all nodding off.  So without further ado, here’s Part 1.

First off, you should know I did all of this in Microsoft Word.  Perhaps insane, as Word is not meant for graphic design, but it’s what I have.  I don’t have any fancy software packages, so I had to do the best that I could with what I had.  Yes, it undoubtedly caused headaches and extra time faffing about, but I got where I wanted in the end and I’m proud of my effort.

The Invitation

Inspiration

For me, our invitation needed to reflect what our wedding was going to be about.  I wanted people to get excited (hopefully!) and have a sense of what kind of wedding they were going to. 

I went through various different ideas, including sewing mini bunting onto each card, which I decided might kill me off and wasn’t a true reflection of our wedding day.  Here are the some of the ideas I was inspired by…


From left to right starting at the top: found Once Wed; Perch Papiers; Junkaholique; Ruffled; unknown; found Snippet & Ink; unknown; Heather Ross; Ruffled; found Twig & Thistle

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