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Charlie

The benefits of a pre wedding massage to relax and clear your mind to focus on the true meaning of marriage

Charlie

Today I have a wonderful guest post all around taking care of yourself in the lead-up to your wedding by investing in wedding massage to help your de-stress and relax. I think we can too often focus on ourselves in terms of having a beautiful dress, hair and make-up for our wedding, but not actually in nurturing our inner self. Marriage is listed as one of the top stressful life events, we can end up so focused on putting together a wonderful day for all our family and friends, that we actually forget to give ourselves space to process what our wedding day is really about.

My experience of massage and other alternative therapies is that they are not only deeply relaxing but they also give you an incredible opportunity to clear and quieten your mind of all those racing thoughts and endless to-do lists. As a mother I now value those moments as incredibly precious, but I also recognised the importance of this in the lead-up to my own wedding. There are many ways to take this time for yourself, but massage is one of my favourites, and so I’m delighted that Ellie from The Beauty Aisle is going to share her advice on making the most of this wonderful therapy.

Ellie is one of our recommended make-up artists and offers a 10% discount to all our brides-to-be who book her for their wedding make-up, you can find full details of the offer here.

Over to Ellie…

Why get a massage in the lead up to your wedding day?

So your wedding day is coming up. You’ve thought about the dress, flowers, invitations and venue but what about… yourself?

Planning a wedding is great fun but it can be stressful too. During this busy time it’s important to sit back and take time to relax too otherwise you risk suffering from burn out.

There are tons of ways to help you stay calm and collected in the lead up to the big day but I’m going to talk about massage as I know how it has benefited so many of my clients in the long term.

Massage is absolutely fantastic for reducing stress. Small amounts of stress are useful when we need to get things done but too much stress can be extremely damaging to our health. It can affect us in all sorts of ways from tension headaches and skin problems to interrupted sleeping patterns.

During massage your heart rate is lowered and ‘happy hormones’ are released. Many people think of massage as a real luxury but it should be thought of as part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It helps to relaxes muscles, improves circulation and it’s also detoxifying resulting in better immunity.

Charlie

Felt flower crowns for flower girls straight from the pages of Brambly Hedge and The Flower Fairies

Charlie

We are huge advocates for real British grown cut flowers, but these sweet felt flower crowns for your little flower girls captured my heart. I first spotted them over on Instagram when Samantha at Proverbial Daisies tagged me in a post. I loved their soft muted colours, that they were handmade by a fellow mummy, and that they offered something a bit different.

Brambly Hedge meets The Flower Fairies

Aren’t they beautiful? In my opinion they look like a cross between Brambly Hedge and The Flower Fairies, and any regular reader will know I have a soft spot for both of those books.

Charlie

Wreaths throughout the seasons: learn how to make these spring hedgerow inspired wedding table wreaths

Charlie

I am delighted to be back today with Alice from Lock Cottage Flowers with a how to guide for making a spring hedgerow table wreath. Not only are would these wreaths be a great little project to decorate your table for a party, but Alice has also shown how you can dress them up a little more to make them the perfect wedding centrepieces.

I don’t know about you, but spring is one of my favourite times of the year, especially for flowers, and these wreaths remind me of the steep Devon hedgerows of my childhood in March/April just exploding with green and all those exquisite wildflowers.

This wreath how to is part of a wonderful series Alice has put together for us, called Wreaths Throughout The Seasons, which provides inspiration and guides for incorporating wreaths into your home or wedding throughout the year, not just at Christmas.

You can find all her posts by clicking on Wreaths Throughout The Seasons or find the individual features below:

How to make a living winter viola table wreath

How to make a seasonal Valentine’s wreath

How to create a hellebore moss winter wreath

Now, over to Alice…

How to make a spring hedgerow table wreath

Hello everyone, this spring instalment of wreaths through the seasons will cover tabletop wreaths that I recently created for a spring wedding. Similar to the winter wreath that I did, these spring wreaths are a combination of small bedding plants swaddled in moss and cut flowers in floral tubes.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Vicky’s gold glitter and sequin wedding cake and bar signs

Charlie

If you are reading this on Thursday, I will be playing with spring blossom at a flower crown workshop by Catkin – you can join in by following me on Snapchat (anaturalwedding) where I plan to share some pictures and maybe even a video or two of what I am up to. More pictures will follow on Instagram and Facebook.

But in the meantime, I have some gold glittery love for you all (even us natural brides often can’t say no to a splash of gold glitter can we?) with some handmade picks from TNWC Real Bride Vicky. She got married last summer but we are only just catching up with the final few bits of her homemade wedding.

You can find all her previous posts here, which include some fab DIY projects and ideas. Over to Vicky…

While I loved planning the wedding I have to admit that by being maybe a bit too organised I found the last couple of months leading up to it, dare I say it, dull! I just wanted the day to arrive.

Initially there was lots to plan and make and decide and then I hit this lull. I really wanted to get on and do things but realistically I couldn’t because everything that was left was last minute things.

Everything was piled up waiting in the spare bedroom – or ‘Wedding HQ’ as it became for the year. Even the confetti bags had been made and boxed up. Like most churches we could only use natural confetti which suited us fine so we had bought a lot of natural flower petals and popped them into bags ready for our page boy to hand out.

It was during this lull that I decided it was best to stay off websites and Pinterest, as the temptation to do and make more and more things was too great.

I did cave in and make a glitter cake sign…

A sequin bar sign…

Samantha

Amy and Alex’s colourful, handmade outdoor wedding with a floral wedding dress and relaxed Buddhist tea ceremony

Samantha

Today’s gorgeous wedding has us beaming from ear to ear, it is a incredible explosion of colour, brimming with love, laughter and personal handmade touches. This wedding truly optimises the idea of doing ‘your wedding, your way’ throwing the ‘wedding rule book’ out the window and we just love it.

You will find no big white dress or matching suits here, think floral prints, an outdoor buddhist tea ceremony, a ‘bring a dish’ buffet, and an evening full of family entertainment and you will begin to get the picture.

Alex and Amy, July 2015

Alex and Amy, who met at university, were married on a gloriously sunny day back in July last year. They wanted to create ‘a relaxed day of fun for everyone’ and they most certainly did that.

Our day was about celebrating us as a couple, our two children, our family and friends. We are very fortunate to live in a beautiful valley which was the perfect venue for our wedding.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Vicky’s homemade pallet bar and giant polaroid photobooth, and a DIY illuminated letters

Charlie

We’re back with TNWC Real Bride Vicky today, catching up with the final details she created for her wedding. Having a super handy Mr, they put their skills to use with wood and metal and paint creating all manner of fab wedding things. And that bar – definitely a keeper for the garden post-wedding I reckon!

Over to Vicky…

The handy thing about having a fiancé who is a builder is that you can talk them into making a lot of the things you’ve seen on websites. They have all the tools, know people who can get them things and various mates who can wire things up. It’s very very handy!

On my wish list were – a bar, various signs, big letters spelling out ‘wedding’, a photo booth of some sort, a giant frame to hang photos from and an illuminated “S” and “V”. Steve rather sweetly agreed to all of these things.

The best thing he made were definitely the illuminated letters. We scoured the internet for ideas on how to make them and had no luck, meaning that we had to muddle through on our own. After we made them, another brilliant illuminated letter DIY appeared on this blog from another TNWC groom – if only we’d waited! Like Jon, our only worry was where on earth they’ll go after the wedding – they are massive!

Charlie

A creative and practical guide to making an edible leaf wedding cake

Charlie

I was blown away by this unusually decorated wedding cake with its edible leaves, a fantastic collaboration between TNWC recommended supplier Maddocks Farm Organics and Bees Bakery. If you’ve read our blog for any length of time you’ll know we are big fans of edible flowers, but edible leaves on a wedding cake? It may sound odd, but as you can see from this beautiful cake it creates the most stunning effect. It is both modern and natural, and feels like it could have been painted on. I particularly like the combination of purples and greens used.

Sourcing Edible Flowers For Wedding Cakes

Whilst this is a design you could ask a wedding cake maker to create for you, Maddocks Farm Organics have helpfully given some tips on how to do it yourself. Firstly, it’s important to remember these key points about using edible leaves:

Flowers and leaves should not be eaten unless sourced from a reputable organic supplier of edible varieties (we recommend these edible flower suppliers).
Many flowers and leaves are poisonous and can cause a whole range of serious symptoms if ingested. Even if you don’t plan to eat them, it is wise not to attach them to any food items in case they are mistaken for being edible when they are not. Even if they are just decoration, sap or fine hairs could leech onto your cake and cause irritation.
Do not be tempted to pick up supermarket or regular floristry flowers to decorate your cake. They are routinely sprayed with chemicals that you absolutely do not want to be ingesting or touching your wedding cake.

So when sourcing your edible flowers or leaves, ensure that you 1) buy from a reputable organic supplier; 2) Ask your supplier how they are grown, picked and processed; and 3) Discuss with your supplier how you want to use them.

How To Use Edible Leaves On Wedding Cakes

With that in mind, here’s Maddocks Farm Organics top tips on how to use edible leaves on your wedding cake:

Edible leaves work best when pressed into buttercream.
They should be added to your cake on the day of your wedding.
Choose from organically grown leaves, herbs and wild foragings.
Use clover shaped and fern shaped edible leaves in a variety of shades to create a striking design (like the one above).
More robust varieties include rosemary and lavender (examples below, but please note I am not sure if any of the other flowers/leaves shown on the cakes are suitable, as per the advice above – please check with your supplier).

Charlie

Wild strawberry and white nigella flower crown for an early summer bride

Charlie

This wild strawberry and white nigella flower crown is pretty much perfection in my books, and my feeling is you’ll agree. It is pretty rare that I genuinely see wedding inspiration these days that I wish I’d incorporated into my own wedding – this is one of those rare ideas.

I first spotted this flower crown over on Instagram, from A Harem of Peacock’s account that is just so achingly beautiful. Imagine Brambly Hedge and the Flower Fairies all come to life and you are on your way to the prettiness that Kelly-Marie creates and shares.

It was this flower crown, with it’s tiny wild strawberries (some blushed red, others still white), frothy white nigella flowers, strawberry leaves and still-green nigella seedheads, that captured my gaze. I knew I had to ask permission from Kelly-Marie to share it all with you as it’s one of those ideas that I am convinced at least one of you lovely natural brides would love to recreate for you own wedding.

Kelly-Marie gathered the nigella and wild strawberries from her garden and used a ribbon wrapped crown, this was a practice run for an up-coming wedding this summer she is hoping to replicate it for. You absolutely should check out more of Kelly-Marie’s work, either on her blog A Harem Of Peacocks or her Instagram account. It’s also worth noting that she’s the in-house florist at Deans Court in Dorset and a freelance floral stylist.

Charlie

Lizzy and Graeme’s country fete inspired Cheshire wedding with vintage ice cream van and cottage garden flowers

Charlie

To describe this wedding at a country fete inspired wedding is really to do it a disservice, because it is so much more than just that. The bride, Lizzy, told me that her photographers “truly captured the happiness and love felt”, a wish that I imagine most of us have for our wedding day. Lizzy has put into words so many of those feelings we have in the lead up to our wedding day, so if you are a bride-to-be then I encourage you to stop a while and read as well as soak up all the pretty details.

For an overview of this beautiful wedding this slideshow put together by photographers Bohemian Weddings gives you a little of the magic these two shared on their wedding day, and includes lots of extras captures. A lovely alternative to a wedding film, and I get all teary watching it despite not knowing these two…

As a quick aside, you might also notice that we’ve changed up the format of our real weddings a bit, we have crafted a new questionnaire for our couples which we hope gives them more freedom to tell us the story of their wedding in their own words. For this reason I imagine that the appearance of these features will change from wedding to wedding, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it will truly allow the stories to shine through.

Lizzy + Graeme, July 2015

So many of the real weddings I share have extra special meaning to me, and today’s wedding is no exception. I was contacted by Lizzy after her wedding photographer cancelled just 8 weeks before her wedding, asking if I could help. After I emailed all of the wonderful wedding photographers in our directory, Lizzy received over a dozen replies, and from those she fell in love with one couple – Michael and Andrea of Bohemian Weddings. I understand the four of them really connected and I am just so delighted to be now sharing Lizzy and Graeme’s wedding with you. Over to Lizzy…

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Vicky’s hunt for vintage glass bowls and doilies to add dash of vintage charm to her wedding tea party

Charlie

As I am so often admitting, I have been fairly ‘behind’ (a polite way of putting it!) with keeping up with last years lovely TNWC Real Brides. Recently we featured Fern’s beautiful wedding, and now I am thrilled to be bringing you a couple of catch-up posts from Vicky.

She did an incredible job of collecting a selection of vintage glass bowls, vases and doilies to add a relaxed vintage vibe to her wedding tea party. Her thriftiness paid off with a fantastic sounding haul – can’t wait to see how it looked all put together on her wedding day!

Over to Vicky…

We always wanted our wedding to have quite a relaxed vintage feel to it but didn’t want to spend too much money in achieving this, preferring to be able to invite more people if money allowed. I’ve always loved the mismatched vintage china that lots of people use but the cost of hiring the vintage crockery was too much to comfortably justify and after a quick scout around charity shops I wasn’t confident that we’d ever collect enough or it would work out any cheaper!

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