Planning Archives - Page 11 of 15 - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: Planning

Charlie

Wedding Open Day at The Pines Calyx on Sunday 25 March 2012

Charlie

The Pines Calyx in Kent are holding a wedding open day on Sunday 25th March 2012, providing a great opportunity for couples who are looking for a beautiful and unique wedding venue to take a look around. As well as having the chance to see what The Pines Calyx has to offer (an eco venue, ceremony in a stunning round room, acres of organic gardens and you can see the sea!) you will also be able to meet the team, sip a glass of bubbly on arrival, and meet a selection of local suppliers.

The wedding open day is from 11am – 4pm on Sunday 25th March 2012, with free admittance. Visit www.pinescalyx.co.uk for more details or contact Lisa Smith, Wedding Coordinator at The Pines Calyc on 07884 008 742 or lisa@pinescalyx.co.uk.

Charlie

Are ‘vintage’ weddings dead and on their way out?

Charlie

Are ‘vintage’ weddings a dying breed of wedding? There seems to have been a lot of mumblings in the wedding world recently that ‘vintage’ weddings are has-been, over-done, contrived and a ‘trend’ that is on its way out. As someone who’s never really been that fussed by trends, it got me wondering if this is really the case.

The lovely Helen at Doily Days was the person who planted a seed in my mind about whether I had an opinion on this subject when an email popped into my inbox last week. So I decided to get in touch with some of the businesses listed on the directory who hire out vintage crockery and accessories for weddings. I wanted to know what they thought.

Jenna from Wren’s Tea Party told me that couples should do what they want: I don’t think that brides-to-be should feel that a vintage vibe is ‘so last year’ if that’s what they want. Weddings are very personal occasions and should reflect a couple’s personal style. People’s homes are also a reflection of their style – our home is a mixture of old and new things, we have lots of vintage furniture and accessories as well as newer pieces. My wedding was therefore a reflection of our love of good design and vintage pieces, it wasn’t about following a trend.

I think Jenna’s completely right that weddings should reflect you as a couple, and not just themed to a trend or what you might be told is in fashion. Like Jenna, our home is a mixture of old and new, which is naturally what our wedding turned out like – if the great-and-the-good of the wedding industry had told me that glamorous and oppulent weddings were in last year I wouldn’t have styled my wedding that way. It wouldn’t have been ‘us’ as we don’t live that way or love those sorts of things.

Charlie

Being a wife is hard

Charlie

For many of us, planning our weddings isn’t easy. Being a wife is harder. After all the excitement of getting married there is a the serious task of becoming a ‘good wife’. Six months on, I’m finding being a good wife challenging.

I have a very clear idea of what I want to do for my husband and home, and for myself, but I don’t seem to be achieving many of those things at the moment. Back in the days when I was a girlfriend, even a girlfriend of seven years, it felt a whole lot different. I felt like the bottom line was it could just be about me, I was still Charlie Burton, girlfriend. Now I’m a wife. I’m still Charlie Burton (no name change yet – a much-debated topic on wedding blogs) but I’m a wife and for me it feels different.

Don’t get me wrong, there are so many positives to this change – I feel like we’re a real team, that each other comes first and before everyone else, even family now, and that we’re setting out on this amazing adventure together. We are committed to each other, to spending our lives together, to making our relationship and marriage work no matter what. But for someone who can be incredible hard on herself about not getting things ‘just right’, feeling like you’re being a ‘good wife’ can be challenging at times.

I feel this desperate need to keep a tidy house and clear up my clutter, to cook dinner every night, to prepare lunches for my husband to take to work, to make our house a home, to be a happy, healthy outgoing wife – that girl Mr Rigg first met who was a little bit more care-free and giggly. And that’s on top of all the other things we women want to be. If that’s what I think a wife should be, it’s hard.

Charlie

The benefits of a pre-wedding photoshoot

Charlie

If you missed yesterday’s sweet engagement shoot then take a look first, then read on to get photographer Kelly Weech’s suggestions for why a pre-wedding photoshoot might benefit you.

Try before You Buy: On your big day it is essential you feel at ease around your photographer and they fit in amongst your guest. An engagement portrait session is the perfect opportunity to test the waters, see the way in which they work and the results the photographer can produce. You can then make an informed decision about the quality of their work and if you want to make the bigger investment of that particular photographer shooting your wedding.

Put your mind at ease: A one to one session is a great opportunity to voice any insecurities you have and for the photographer to work with you to over come these before the big day. You could even practise some poses so you feel confident on the day just to do them and allow the photographer to capture natural moments.

It’s all about you: The point of this session is that it is all about you and your partners love. There is no right or wrong way to dress or particular way to act, just be yourself. If you have a hobby together then incorporate this into the shoot or if you have a special place, then go to that location. It is good to be different and to feel your photographs are a true reflection of your lifestyle.

Charlie

Our rustic country wedding – an outing with Carrots the pony

Charlie

Today’s photos are some of my favourite from our wedding and I’m really excited to be sharing them with you all. After the church ceremony and ice cream outside, Nick and I left across the field on a simple pony and carriage, which took us down the country lanes for a short while just the two of us.

My mom is solely responsible for organising this – as a teacher in the village primary school she knows a lot of local people, and John who took us out in his pony and carriage is one of them.

I’ve had a love of horses and riding since before I can remember, as a little girl growing up in London I used to dream of moving to the country and having riding lessons. That finally happened when I was six, and I think for my 7th birthday I got my first lessons.

Charlie

Our rustic country wedding – ice cream in the church yard

Charlie

It is terrible to toot your own trumpet, but this is one of the ideas that we had for our wedding that I was so pleased with. Nick and I love our food and love supporting local producers, so we always knew this was going to be woven throughout our wedding. There were moments we worried we might be overfeeding people!

We have a wonderful local farm to where we live in Cheshire that makes its own ice cream – we practically live off the stuff. Somehow we wanted to incorporate this into our wedding day, and the only place we could think of when people might need something to eat and break up any standing around was after the ceremony.

So we set about creating our own ice cream stall that would greet our family and friends as they exited the church. We commandeered a nice old trestle table from my parents, which meant we didn’t need to cover it.

Nick built a wooden cone holder by drilling holes into a plank of wood and attaching legs to it. Then I painted it with leftover paints (tester pots are great for small projects).

Charlie

The order of service for our rustic country wedding

Charlie

When you’re heavily involved in planning, organising, and making your own wedding there are so many details to consider. I found it was quite easy to get wrapped up in whether or not I should wind ivy inside the tealight lanterns on the dinner tables (ran out of time/forgot in the end!) and other details, without putting as much thought into our ceremony.

And however beautiful, pretty, rustic, handmade we want to create our weddings, however great that need for attention to small details, there wouldn’t be all that if we weren’t getting married. I think partly I put off getting to grips with the content of our wedding ceremony because it seemed an insurmountable task to craft something that was so heavy and laden with meaning.

I find myself getting so lost in trying to create meaning with words when it comes to the different ways you can say ‘I love you’, that I end up just throwing up my hands and admitting defeat – sometimes ‘I love you’ says it all. At any rate, Nick and I know how much we love and care for each other, so why fret over putting that all into words?

Well I think that it is important to give it your best shot. I’m sure that with thought and care whatever you decide on for your ceremony, whether it be traditional hymns, modern love songs, readings for children’s books or excerpt from the world’s greatest poets – it will be lovely and meaningful.

So with that preface, these are what Nick and I chose for our wedding ceremony back in May. On the first page we had a short thank you to our family and friends for coming to share the day with us, including a list of everyone’s names. We also made special mention to Nick’s granny who died a month before our wedding – she was a very special lady in our lives and we wanted to recognise that.

Charlie

Our rustic country wedding – the ceremony

Charlie

I’m excited to be back on track with sharing the full details of our wedding day – it is so lovely to hear that people are enjoying hearing the trials and tribulations of how it all came to be.

So with church decked out with frothy cow parsley, slender young hornbeams, country roses and lit only by candlelight, the only thing missing was me. The bride. It’s been mentioned before, but I was 20 minutes late to my wedding.

Image: Mark Tattersall

By now, Nick was getting pretty antsy, Alex the best man was playing his role and winding Nick up (do you remember the photo at the bottom of this post?), and every time the church door opened everyone would look up in anticipation. This I’ve all heard. First my mom and little brother Freddie entered.

Then the music started. We (meaning me) had fallen in love with a piece of harp music from Rebecca Joy Sharp called ‘Scattered Lad’. The first time I heard I knew that this was what I wanted to walk into the church to. It encompassed the feeling of how I wanted my wedding to be – it felt celebratory, it was twinged with an old fashioned country tune, and just utterly beautiful.

Image: Mark Tattersall

Of course, we’d rehearsed a couple of times at what point I wanted to start walking in, but standing outside the church with my dad as Izzy and the flowergirls filed in, I completely forgot it all. Emily and Isla the two flowergirls were so sweet, I was just sad not to see them myself, as they walked in scattering dried petals.

Image: Mark Tattersall

Izzy my gorgeous sister disappeared in – I swear I got tunnel vision, I don’t remember seeing anything inside that church.

Image: Mark Tattersall

Charlie

What do you do with your wedding dress after the big day?

Charlie

As I realised this weekend that it’s been over three months since our wedding and my dress is still hanging from the curtain rail in our bedroom, it made me wonder – what do you do with your wedding dress when you wedding has been and gone?

I walk past my beloved dress twice a day – once waking up in the morning, and once before I go to bed – and yet I only see it covered carefully in its protective jacket. Is this a fitting end for my beautiful gown, a dress that cost so many pennies of hard-earnt money, a dress that made me feel so beautiful for a whole day, and a dress, that you could say, I had been dreaming of since I was a little girl?

Image: Mark Tattersall Photography

Well it got me thinking, what do other girls do with their wedding dresses, and do soon-to-be brides have a plan for their gown after the big day?

So to begin with, it’s over to you – what did you do with your wedding dress, or what are your plans for it after you’re married? I’m hopeful some of you dear readers will share your thoughts and ideas. There is so much hype and talk and dreams of ‘the dress’ I thought it was about time we talked about happens to them when the wedding is over.

Charlie

Our rustic country wedding – a church full of cow parsley

Charlie

As voted for by you, I am moving onto the flowers in the church before continuing with our wedding ceremony. I’m excited to share this, because I just loved how the church looked, it was more than I could have dreamed of and we did it ourselves.

If this is your first visit to the blog you can catch up on all the details so far from our wedding here.

Mark Tattersall Photography

I’ve decided to show you photos of how the church looked and then go back to how we did after. That way I get to show off all the pretty pictures first. At the entrance to the church we filled two old metal milk churns with cow parsley and grasses – quite a wind picked up and I love how it looked blowing in the breeze.

Mark Tattersall Photography

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