Blog: DIY + Inspiration
Charlie Charlie

The Real Cut Flower Garden’s vintage wedding flowers

Charlie

I impressed even myself this morning when I spotted flowers by The Real Cut Flower Garden on a wedding blog without knowing who’d done them.  The Real Cut Flower Garden is one of the businesses listed on the directory, and I’ve known Charlie Ryrie who runs it for a number of years now.  She has a distinct style and provides beautiful English-grown flowers for weddings.

On scrolling through this Vintage British Wedding I saw these photos of the wedding flowers and couldn’t help but think “they must by Charlie Ryrie’s flowers!”  My thoughts were confirmed at the bottom in the list of suppliers – I love all my businesses and it’s so lovely to see them and their lovely work on big wedding blogs.

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Charlie Charlie

Do it yourself: eco-friendly brown card and raffia rustic ‘save the dates’

Charlie

Here goes with the first of my ‘do it yourself’ guides from our wedding – lots of detail, I know, but this is for anyone wishing to recreate elements themselves.

*Please note that my ‘how to’ guide is for individual, private use, and not to be used for distribution or resale. Many thanks.*

Would love to know what you think and if there’s anything else you want details of.

Our ‘save the dates’ were envelope-less and quite tiny.  I saw this fantastic idea and thought it was brilliant (some people are so talented!) – so I set about making my own version.

We used 100% recycled brown card from a wonderful website called eco-craft (we bought almost all our paper and card for wedding projects from here) – I love that this brown card is called ‘Hairy Manilla’ – very un-weddingy!

I created the design on Microsoft Word – fitting three ‘save the dates’ to one piece of landscape A4 (I’ll include full details of fonts used at the bottom of the post for anyone interested).

I wanted something simple and quite rustic looking, so we just went for text and a tiny image, similar to the cow parsley that lines the hedges in May at the time of our wedding.

It took a bit of fiddling about and printing off copies to get the text in the right place for where we wanted the folds.  The card is scored in two places, making three parts, and then sealed at the back (hence no need for an envelope).

After printing the ‘save the dates’, I used my trusty guillotine (couldn’t have got through many a moment without it – essential kit for anyone planning on making paper items for their wedding) to slice them into three.  Next I faintly drew on pencil lines for where the folds would be, then used the blade on my scissors to gently score a fold.

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Charlie Charlie

A round-up of seasonal summer wedding flowers – including a floral dog collar of cornflowers and mint

Charlie

I thought it might be nice to do a round-up of what some of the lovely businesses listed on the directory have been up to recently.  So I’ve had a snoop round their blogs and decided I would feature some seasonal flower photos, for the following reasons:

  • I just can’t get enough of English flowers at the moment (probably spurred on by the buckets of gorgeous flowers I had to arrange for my wedding)
  • They are always such a positive and beautiful reflection of our seasonal countryside

Charlie Ryrie from The Cut Flower Garden has been creating floral wonders such as this stunning globe of flowers for a wedding recently…

And arranging flowers for this wedding in vintage style jugs and jam jars…

Jo and Rachel over at Green and Gorgeous created this stunning (and pretty fabulous, don’t you think!) summer collar for one of their dogs.

It’s made from blue cornflowers and apple mint – I think this could be the new must-have item for anyone incorporating their dog into their wedding…

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Charlie Charlie

Delightful alternative uses for natural petal confetti

Charlie

There are some lovely companies out there producing natural petal confetti and some like the lovely Rosie at Bespoke Confetti even grow the flowers to produce the petals.

I have been inspired by some of the creative and alternative ideas they have for using natural petal confetti, and knew I had to share them with you.

Natural petal confetti scattered around your table centrepieces – perfect for a vintage wedding

Natural petal confetti in paper cones at the entrance to the church – perfect for a country wedding

Dried flower heads to adorn your flowergirls or bridesmaids hair – perfect for a rustic wedding

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Cornish seaside garden wedding with deck chairs, lawn games and a stunning yellow wedding dress

Charlie

Today I have a lovely Cornish wedding to share photographed by the talented Sarah Falugo of Green Photographic.  This beautiful wedding was held at Rosteague, with the ceremony in the summer house followed by lawn games and champagne overlooking the sea.

At the heart of this wedding was a relaxed day full of fun, with no strict timetable and plenty of time to play cricket and croquet and take a walk to the beach.  Plus the bride wore a stunning pale buttercup yellow dress and had the most unique bouquet.  I shall say no more…

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Charlie Charlie

Inspirational natural winter wedding decorations

Charlie

For all those brides and grooms planning an autumn or winter wedding who are in need of some inspiration when it comes to decorating – look no further.

From red berries to dried ferns, maple leaves scattered on tables, abundant fir cones and gourds, ivy coiled around willow hearts, and beeswax candles – this wedding shows how beautiful natural decorations can be when you look to what nature can provide.

With the help of a few vintage pots and metal jugs and a little bit of imagination an autumn or winter wedding can be just as beautiful as any summer wedding with its pick of flowers.

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With flowers in her hair

Charlie

Some of you might remember this brides beautiful flower adorned hair, well here’s a bridesmaid with jolly blue cornflowers (one of my favourites) fastened in her hair.

I really wanted to use fresh flowers in my hair on my wedding day, I’m just having trouble deciding how I want my hair and how flowers could fit in.

I am used to wearing my hair down most of the time, so I don’t want a fancy ‘up do’ – but if I leave it completely loose there’s not many ways or places to fix flowers in.  Thoughts welcome!

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Homemade jam jar lanterns – a ‘how to’

Charlie

We have spent the last few weekends making jam jar lanterns for our wedding.  I have had friends and colleagues at work saving all their jars for us, Mr Rigg has been busy soaking off all the labels and together we have been attaching wire to make handles.

They are so simple to make, just time consuming!  Especially attaching the wire.  They’re not particularly beautiful, the wire is a bit twisted, but I love the handmade look of them, all that glass and silver wire, and the fantastic shapes and sizes of the jars.

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Vintage 50s style cinema wedding

Charlie

This vintage 50s style cinema wedding speaks for itself.  Fun wedding photography from Mark Tattersall.

A sweet couple and pretty vintage style wedding dress.

Exquisite shoes – I love her teal green shoes and his brown lace-ups.

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