Planning Archives - Page 6 of 15 - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: Planning

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides Married! Myfanwy’s back to tell us all about her creative autumn wedding

Charlie

What a treat we have for you today! A lovely post from TNWC Real Bride Myfanwy who’s sharing all the details of her beautiful autumn wedding to her mister Tom – don’t miss the tractor wedding ‘car’ and Arthur the dachshund in his very smart suit!

Don’t forget you can catch up with all the posts from our brides under the TNWC Real Brides category, and we are looking for 2014-15 brides who’d like to be guest bloggers so if you’re interested full details can be found here.

Over to Myfanwy…

Married! What an adventure it was! August to October 5th was a whirlwind! We had planned no days off and to shut the shop 5 days before the wedding, that plan went to pot! Tom’s stag do and birthday was 2 weeks before the big day, the summer had been so busy that when he came home from the weekend we agreed to close the shop, we had so many final details to organise and were so tired that you have to live to fight another day.

Charlie

A guided tour of what’s on The Natural Wedding Company website for all new brides-to-be

Charlie

I’m a bit late to the game when it comes to wishing you all a very Happy New Year, but a huge warm welcome to the blog to all new and existing brides-to-be and couples planning their weddings – I am so pleased to have you here!

The last 4 months of 2013 for me were completely chaotic after my first baby arrived at the end of August. For any other mummy’s out there you will know how you have no idea beforehand just how much your life will change. Trying to go from ‘me’ to ‘mummy’ as well as running a small business has been challenging, to say the least.

I have a folder stuffed full of the most beautiful real weddings to share with you all as we head into the spring, full of lots of ideas that I’m sure will provide you with some inspiration for your own wedding days. I thought I’d give you a little guided tour of what’s already in the blog archives for you to get stuck into, and if you find it’s ‘you’ then I hope you’ll check back for all the new content coming soon.

The Directory

One of the most important parts of The Natural Wedding Company website is our Directory. It’s stuffed full of some fabulous wedding suppliers who can help to make your wedding day dreams a reality. It’s a wedding directory with a difference though, because all the businesses we work with have underlying eco or ethical principles by which their run.

TNWC Real Brides

Last year we followed the journey of six lovely ‘Real Brides’ who each shared their wonderful plans for their individual weddings. Due to my little one throwing my life out at the end of the summer, I am still catching up with these lovely ladies (who are all now married!). You can read all about their wedding plans on the TNWC Real Brides feature, and coming soon we’ll be featuring some of their weddings.

Become a TNWC Real Bride

Are you getting married in 2014 or 2015? Would you like to share your wedding planning adventure with our readers? If so, you might like to apply to become one of our next TNWC Real Brides – full details here.

Real Weddings

If you are looking for inspiration from real weddings, we have a lovely selection in the Real Weddings category. I loved the wild and seasonal flowers at Chloe’s wedding, the handmade decor and picnic feast from Holly’s wedding, the autumnal touches at Laura’s barn wedding, and the stunning yurt from Jessica’s magical woodland wedding. Do go explore the Real Weddings for tons of real inspiration.

Seasonal Inspiration

Here at The Natural Wedding Company one of the most important things to us is being seasonal – whether that’s seasonal flowers, seasonal food, or simply taking inspiration from the season in which you are getting married. So we have a category completely dedicated to Seasonal Ideas.

Charlie

The story of a handmade bride’s stunning antique lace Edwardian wedding dress from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

Another lovely treat for you on the blog today from guest blogger Lucy of Lucy Says I Do – especially for all of you who share my love of the Edwardian era when it comes to weddings. If you’re a regular blog reader you’ve probably already read Lucy’s previous guest posts on her bridesmaids dresses and growing your own wedding flowers, which are full of inspiration.

Today Lucy is sharing the story of how she came to choose her stunning Edwardian wedding dress – I’m just a little bit jealous! Who else is? If you have the budget to have a wedding dress made for you, then I hope you’ll be inspired by Lucy’s story. Love Charlie x

Over to Lucy…

Notoriously fussy when it comes to clothes, I imagined the search for my wedding dress was going to be difficult and long, and I was a little apprehensive, as were my mum and my sister! When I booked my first dress appointments I knew what I didn’t want, but I was yet to see anything (in magazines or online) that I could see myself in on my wedding day.

My first appointment was at Jane Bourvis’s Atelier, and that’s where my wedding dress story ends, short but oh so sweet! As soon as I walked in, I knew we’d found something very special.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides Married! Caroline’s back to tell us all about her laid back eco-friendly farm wedding

Charlie

We’ve had a little break from our TNWC Real Brides but we’re back today with the lovely Caroline who got married back in May. Along with her now husband Gareth, they planned a beautiful and laid back wedding on their farm in Nottinghamshire. It has been a long time coming but I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading about her day and soon I hope to share her official wedding photos.

Over to Caroline…

Wow – has it really been 6 months since our wedding day! I really can’t quite believe how much time has flown, and in some ways, our day seems like a lifetime ago, but in others it feels like yesterday!

I know everyone says that your wedding day is the best day of your life, but it really, really is! We had the most magical day right from the second we woke up and it wasn’t raining (hooray!!) until we finally stopped dancing at 2am, and were whisked away to a secret location for our first night as Mr and Mrs Stafford.

The days leading up to the wedding were heaps of fun and not nearly as stressful as I had feared they might be! I left my little shop in the capable hands of mum and my now mother-in-law and had the whole week to get things ready.

In the months before our big day, apart from cleaning the barn (which to be fair was a fairly big job!!) Gareth had a pretty easy ride of it, but in the last week, bless him, I don’t think he managed to get much sleep! 400 metres of bunting was hung, along with 400 metres of fairy lights and about 100 paper pom poms and he spent most days up on the roof of the barn trying to repair a few leaky spots (the forecast for our wedding day was looking pretty dismal) and around all of this he had 500 cows to milk every day!

The day before the wedding was full on from the crack of dawn – Karen from Darby and Joan arrived at 8am to help start dressing the barn, and within an hour the transformation was already looking pretty special. The only word to describe Karen was ‘amazing.’

Charlie

A handmade bride’s guide to growing your own wedding flowers for a rustic country garden feel from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

We’re back today with the lovely Lucy from Lucy Says I Do, who is sharing with us some of the wonderful DIY projects from her own country wedding. If you missed her first guest blog on designing and creating her bridesmaids dresses, do check it out here. Over to Lucy…

We wanted to embrace the location of the wedding and play with the English Country Garden idea. I love flowers and plants that are found in wild flower meadows and old walled gardens, and I wanted to incorporate these into our wedding. We were also heavily inspired by the wonderful Petersham Nurseries, and their beautiful plants and flowers.

We decorated the area outside of the marquee with a multitude of plants and flowers, many of which we grew from seedlings specifically for the wedding. We decided on the plants and flowers we wanted, and made sure they were likely to be flowering or at least alive at the time of the wedding and set to work planting and potting them up.

Izzy

Get this soft, smokey look to go with your pretty coral wedding palette with a make-up tutorial from the Organic Make-up Artist

Izzy

Coral coloured peonies have all over the wedding world this summer and it’s not difficult to see why they have become so popular with brides-to-be. Today, Laura Jane Sessions, who is the Organic Make-up Artist, is bringing our readers a make-up tutorial using a coral palette to create a soft, smokey look. Laura Jane’s pretty make-up is complimented by some gorgeous florals and a beautiful upcycled wedding dress.

Over to Laura…

Shot in the grounds of Danson Park in Bexleyheath, the shoot, designed to inspire brides with an upcycled dress and simple styling, was the creative vision of Gwenda Jeffs from the Vintage Flower Design Company and photographer Heline Bekker.

The idea of the shoot was to team a simple hair and make-up with a beautiful coral palette. I wanted to design a soft, flattering smokey look that could easily be replicated at home. Keeping it as minimal as possible, I tried to avoid using too many products as this can be daunting to someone wishing to do it themselves.

Izzy

Alice Palace’s guide to getting the wedding stationery that really reflects you as a couple

Izzy

We have a great guest blog post from the team behind Alice Palace, one of our recommended wedding stationery companies here at The Natural Wedding Company (you can check out their profile page here). They have been designing and printing wedding stationery for over 6 years now and often get asked about how they come up with their wedding stationery designs and what information should be included on the invitations.

To help our lovely brides- and grooms-to-be they have come up with a fab guide to help you get the wedding stationery which really reflects you as a couple. We’re going to hand you over to Liz, Alice Palace’s studio manager, to tell take you through their top tips…

How We Came Up With Our Wedding Stationery Designs

When Charlie and I were planning our wedding, we were a bit indecisive, we knew we wanted a small intimate wedding with just our closest friends and family but that was as far as our ideas went!

So first things first, we fixed our budget, sensible I know, but there was no point coming up with ideas if they were going to run off the money scale! Once we knew what we had to spend (a small budget), we spent a fun evening consuming a (little) bit of wine, and using the following wedding words we wrote down the first idea that came into our heads:

Date / time of year we wanted to get married
Venue / where we thought we would have it
Colour themes
What would we eat?
Our outfits
The cake
The flowers
Stationery ideas

We each took it in turns to read out the answers and discussed our ideas. This really helped to see what we both wanted and it was a great way to come up with ideas for our own unique wedding stationery – which can then be passed on to your wedding stationery designer (if you’re using one).

Charlie

Everything you wanted to ask a wedding photographer but were afraid to ask – a guest post from Bohemian Weddings

Charlie

Today we have a guest blog post from Michael and Andrea of Bohemian Weddings, one of our recommended wedding photographers, who have tips and advice on what to ask your wedding photographer to make sure you get the perfect photographer and feel for your wedding day.

Over to Michael and Andrea from Bohemian Weddings…

It may sound obvious but one of the most important things to us as wedding photographers is our relationship with our couples. The reason for this is simple, if we have a good relationship the couple are relaxed, we are relaxed and this really really shows in every photograph we take.

If you have just started your search for your perfect wedding photographer this is an exciting time as there are so many talented people out there who are amazing to work with. But it is important to note that the wedding industry like any other does also have its undesirables and unlike big corporate companies there is no law to enforce vetting of small self-employed photographers…it’s down to you folks!

To help you make the right choice we are going to guide you through what to expect based on questions we receive from our couples.

Charlie

DIY bride Holly shares her top ten tips and advice for a handmade wedding

Charlie

You might remember that back in the late spring I featured Holly and Laurie’s beautiful picnic wedding that was full of creative handmade details, well today we’re lucky enough to have Holly back with us.

Holly’s sharing her top ten tips and advice for a DIY wedding and I’m sure that her advice will provide invaluable to any of you brides- and grooms-to-be who are in the stages of planning a handmade wedding.

Over to Holly…

1. Firstly (and probably most importantly) make sure you have a small army of friends and family who are willing and kind enough to help out and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

In his speech my husband Laurie described our friends as the ‘games makers’ of our wedding and they really were- we couldn’t have done it without them!

2. Make sure you have a willing fiancé.

Creating a handmade wedding isn’t a one person task, it will take up lots of your free time so make sure you work together. My husband Laurie helped me out so much with all the handmade elements of our wedding – he put up with me spending hours reading wedding blogs and chugging away at my sewing machine, he also spent a whole weekend printing out and tying up invitations and made dozens of gorgeous paper flowers.

3. Spend some time gathering inspiration before you start.

There are so many ideas out there that it can feel a little overwhelming sometimes. Spend some time gathering inspiration so you know the kind of wedding you want and you have an idea of how it will all tie together. Pinterest is such a useful tool and it is full of beautiful images and ideas.

There are also a few blogs I would recommend; The Natural Wedding Company for ideas and wonderful suppliers, Junkaholique for gorgeous vintage styling (and their wedding is one of the loveliest I’ve ever seen!), and Green Wedding Shoes for a dose of eco-friendly wedding loveliness from the USA.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides Married! Emma’s back to tell us all about her outdoor festival wedding in Cornwall

Charlie

Charlie here writing from my maternity leave, I couldn’t not be here today to share with you this exciting blog post – it’s the first blog post from a now married TNWC Real Bride! Eeek!

So far, three of our TNWC Real Brides have got married – Caroline, Nik and Emma – and all have been busy ladies since their weddings over the summer, both honeymooning with their new husbands (!) and running their businesses. I’m utterly delighted to have Emma with us today sharing how her wedding went, and we’ve even got some of the beautiful official photographs from Rebecca Roundhill Photography of the day.

In the coming week’s we are going to be lucky enough to share with you all of the stunning photos from Emma and Chris’ Cornish outdoor festival wedding along with many more details. So do stay tuned for those!

For today though, over to Emma…

Getting married is officially the best thing ever!

Our wedding day was just perfect; it really was all we had hoped for and I can tell you it is better on the ‘other side.’

My bridesmaid and I left Plymouth on the Thursday prior to the big day with a car full of wedding regalia and hand made prettiness. We stopped off on the way to see Susanne at The Blue Carrot to collect our flowers for the table decorations. It was so lovely to see her again and she kindly showed us around her magical garden. She had chosen a wonderful array of wild and beautiful flowers for us to use to fill the collection of glass bottles.

I had chosen The Copper House in Portreath as a base for the preparations, which was a wonderful choice. On arrival we were greeted with a cream tea! I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting a complete getaway with serene and peaceful surroundings.

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