DIY + Inspiration Archives - Page 7 of 19 - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: DIY + Inspiration

Charlie

Cake love: an exquisite summer meadow wedding cake of handcrafted sugar flowers

Charlie

Well it has just about been forever since I last shared some wedding cake inspiration here on my Cake Love feature, but I am back with an absolute beauty that I’m convinced you’ll all fall in love with.

This exquisite ‘Summer Meadow’ wedding cake was designed and made by our very own Amy Swann Cakes who you will find listed in the Cakes section of our directory. Amy is a firm favourite of ours with her incredible talent at creating sugar paste flowers that look almost more real than real flowers!

Charlie

Seasonal spring bouquets of British grown daffodils, narcissi and purple-pink blushed tulips

Charlie

One of my favourite parts of my job is browsing the websites of the wedding suppliers we list in the directory to see what new things they’ve been busy creating, making, or planning. There are always some hidden gems to discover, and then I get to share them with you!

Recently I came across these beautiful seasonal spring bouquets for a daffodil inspired wedding – now what could be more appropriate to share at this time of year, as all around us daffodil buds are plumping up ready to burst open and cheer us all up with their sunny yellow faces?

Charlie

In celebration of British Flowers Week: if there’s one thing you do this week, choose British blooms for your wedding

Charlie

This week it’s all about British Flowers Week, a “week-long celebration of the wealth and variety of the Best of British cut flowers and foliage.” At The Natural Wedding Company we have been passionate about supporting British flower farmers since we started out in 2007, and seven years later we feel no different.

If you’re a bride-to-be or family/friend helping with wedding plans and you haven’t yet booked your wedding florist, this week commit to choosing British grown flowers. It’s that simple. And there is so much choice and so many inspiring florists out there dreaming up the most incredible arrangements.

Today we are here to give you a round-up of how we can help you to find that perfect British flower farmer or florist. I’m often told that The Natural Wedding Company directory helps brides to match the perfect suppliers for their wedding day: “All enquiries I get from your website are just my perfect customers – they share the same taste for natural and wild things floral”.

Coming up later in the week we will have a celebratory feature on British grown sweet peas and how you can incorporate them into your summer wedding – think lots of beautiful ideas for bouquets and arrangements.

Choose British blooms for your wedding

We have over 60 flower farmers and florists listed on the directory – and in order to show you all in one place what you can expect we’ve put together collages to showcase all of those businesses…

Charlie

A guide to making pretty floral dressing gowns as for gifts for your bridesmaids from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

Can you imagine making your bridesmaids a beautiful floral dressing gown as a wedding gift to them? Personally my sewing skills don’t stretch that far, but if yours do then read on to find out how Lucy from Lucy Says I Do created them for her wedding in today’s guest post.

If you’re inspired by Lucy’s handmade wedding, then check out her other guest blog posts for us on her bridesmaids dresses, growing your own wedding flowers, her Edwardian wedding dress, and personalised wedding stationery.

Over to Lucy…

When we got married I wanted to give my bridesmaids something special, something they could keep, something personal to say thank you. Together with my mum’s help we made each of them their own dressing gown/robe that I gave them the evening before the wedding. It was a great surprise and they absolutely loved them!

First we bought a simple dressing gown pattern online (from here). Then when we knew how much fabric we needed for each dressing gown, we bought the fabric. I decided to make each one different, as a way of showing each bridesmaid’s different personality, so I spent a long time choosing the different fabrics. I bought the fabric from a variety of places: Shepherds Bush Market and the fabric shops on Goldhawk Road, Etsy, ebay and Liberty.

Charlie

Emma and Chris’ feelgood film of their colourful Cornish outdoor wedding

Charlie

Did you see yesterday’s beautiful wedding? If not, you can view it here – it’s a down-to-earth and relaxed celebration with an outdoor ceremony at an eco park in Cornwall.

Today we have the film from Emma and Chris’ wedding, created by videographer Pete Cox. It’s one of those films that will bring a smile to your face and there’s no better way to start the day.

Charlie

A DIY guide to decorating your wedding cheeses with edible flowers and petals from The Edible Flower Shop

Charlie

It’s so nice to hand the blog over to guest writers once in a while, so today we are joined by Rachael who runs The Edible Flower Shop to teach us how we can decorate cheeses with edible flowers and petals to make a unique addition to your wedding feast.

Cheese wedding cakes are increasingly popular so why not make them even more beautiful with edible flowers. I particularly love these soft goat’s cheeses above that have been decorated with edible calendula and cornflower petals – such a riot of beautiful colours! I so want to try this out this summer.

Over to Rachael…

Wedding cheeses are becoming ever more popular and are often the centrepiece at a wedding breakfast. To personalise your wedding cheese and add stunning colour and beauty, why not have a go at decorating them with your own home grown edible flowers?

Using edible flowers is a wonderful way to incorporate any colour theme from your wedding in to your food, and adds a really personal touch to your wedding breakfast. Not only that, but if you grow edible flowers for your wedding you can also use them for table decorations, button holes and to decorate cakes. The possibilities really are endless…

Base of Brie decorated with violas and goat’s cheese on top decorated with dianthus

Edible flowers can be used to decorate either hard or soft cheeses but the methods used are quite different. Popular edible flowers for decorating cheeses are nasturtiums (flowers and leaves), chive flowers, calendula, violas, pansies, dianthus, borage, primulas, rocket, mustard, radish, sunflowers and cornflower petals to name but a few.

Viola ‘Sorbet Raspberry’

Charlie

Nik and Chris’ beautiful film of their Welsh coastal farm wedding

Charlie

Did you see yesterday’s beautiful wedding? If not, you can view it here – it’s full of lovely inspiration for a truly down-to-earth wedding, and lots of sound advice from bride Nik.

As promised, today I have Nik and Chris’ wedding film, which beautifully brings to life a glimpse of their wedding. Their film was created by their artist friend and film maker Pat Hurst, and Nik told me it’s her favourite memento of the day.

Charlie

Elegant English country garden party inspired handmade wedding stationery from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

For all of you embarking on the hunt for you wedding stationery, today’s post is bound to inspire you. We are joined again by the lovely Lucy from Lucy Says I Do, who has been sharing a number of guest blog posts all about the handmade elements of her own wedding (read all about her bridesmaids dresses, homegrown flowers, and antique wedding dress).

Lucy runs her own business (and one of our recommended suppliers) Lucy Says I Do, creating all kinds of beautiful wedding invitations, paper goods and gifts, so it’s pretty cool to hear about how she designed her own wedding stationery.

Over to Lucy to tell us all about it…

As with all of the inputs to our wedding, the invitations were a real labour of love! We wanted all our guests to be given a taster of what our day was about, what was important to us, and hopefully generate a little bit of anticipation for the big day!

Charlie

Modern vintage inspired bouquets for brides who want more than a hand-tied from Petal and Twig

Charlie

Today I have another lovely treat from one of our recommended wedding suppliers. This guest post has been put together by Angela who runs Petal and Twig, a Lancashire based floral designer with an emphasis on seasonality, locally grown flowers and ethical sourcing.

Over to Angela to tell us all about these wedding bouquets she’s created, each one inspired by a vintage bouquet…

The majority of wedding bouquets we do these days are hand-tied and I have always loved the informality of this style compared to the rather stiff, wired bouquets that dominated weddings from the 60s to the late 80s. I remember staying up late with my mum almost every Friday night in my teens, wiring flowers within an inch of their lives. Looking back, it seems utterly mad to deconstruct and then reconstruct flowers but I never questioned it at the time.

In recent years the availability of “antique” shades in roses have inspired beautifully subtle colour schemes for weddings and we have rediscovered the potential of garden plant material and more natural styles. The peach, gold and soft pinks of an antique jug are brought out in the “Faith” roses and garden plant material of this simple hand tied posy. It certainly looks very vintage, although I don’t think my grandmother would have thought much of this as a wedding bouquet – she would have put it straight in the vase.

Charlie

Pen and ink style mini calendar save the date cards that you can print and customise yourself

Charlie

When I spotted this mini calendar style save the date, I loved it’s simplicity and thought that the pen and ink style would be popular with my blog readers as my own save the dates have been so popular.

So you can imagine how delighted I was when I discovered that this is in fact a free printable save the date, created by Bells & Whistles for The Pretty Blog – so you can actually go and download the design, print it off on your choice of recycled card, and add your own names and date.

Seasonal wedding ideas:

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

DIY + Inspiration

Real Weddings

Suppliers + Products

Browse the blog:

Planning

Advertise

Get your eco wedding business listed on our directory