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Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Emma’s been booking urban wedding venues that have that natural ‘oh my!’ factor

Charlie

A warm welcome back to TNWC Real Bride Emma this week – she’s talking venues today, and I’m pretty stoked to hear all about the places they have booked for the ‘natural wedding in the city’. We share lots of lovely countryside weddings here on the blog, so it’s exciting to hear from a bride-to-be planning a natural wedding in urban spaces.

Over to Emma…

Love On Hope Street

Finding a venue that works for you as a couple is key to any wedding, and doubly so if you’re doing all the planning long distance: we live in Vancouver but are marrying in Liverpool. I wasn’t sure how much time I would have to decorate venues, so I knew I wanted something that would only need a few personal touches to make it feel like “ours”.

Having a good relationship with your venue organisers is also vital, and the friendly advice and timely email correspondence I had from our chosen venues definitely sealed the deal. As we’re marrying in our home town, we knew we would have lots of beautiful spaces to choose from, Liverpool has so many!

I was even able to visit some of them before I came to be with Shane in Canada. This was really helpful in the decision-making process: I ruled one out straight away when I saw the state of the bathrooms our guests would have to share with the bar next door!

Flexibility was also another important criteria for me: I didn’t like being given a rigid list of suppliers that we had to work with, and I discounted any venue that imposed a minimum spend.

I also knew I was looking for something that would have meaning for us, so I focused my search on the city spaces that were part of our courtship: falling in love with Shane is inextricably tied in my memory with running around the sun-splashed summer streets to meet him for our dates at cafés, bars, galleries, and theatres in the heart of the city.

Rooftops + Secret Spaces – Oh My!

Lauren

Build your own bespoke ‘Wedfest’ wedding festival celebration with Cariad Canvas and Wedding Tipi

Lauren

I love camping. There’s no better setting than the great outdoors to allow you time and space to unplug, live simply and take pleasure in the smallest of details. Writing today’s post reminded me why we chose tipis for our own wedding – the laid-back atmosphere they instantly create and the freedom to choose a location put them right at the top of our list.

These days, families and friends are so often spread out across the country and beyond, it’s no surprise that many couples want to make the most of having everyone in one place and turn their wedding into to a weekend long celebration.

If you’re considering this for your wedding but don’t know where to start, then we have good news for you. Fabulous TNWC business Cariad Canvas, who provide luxury canvas accommodation for guests, have teamed up with Wedding Tipi to create packages that offer couples their very ‘pop up’ wedding festival.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: introducing Ellie and Jon’s relaxed and rustic wedding in the Hampshire countryside

Charlie

This week I have a few more posts from TNWC Real Brides and a great piece all about a new wedding festival package from one of our TNWC businesses – so stayed tuned!

But first up this week I get to welcome you to our fifth and final TNWC Real Bride for 2014 – her name is Ellie and she’ll be marrying her Mr-to-be Jon in a rustic wedding in Hampshire next May. I hope you enjoy hearing all about her ideas and following her plans with me.

Over to Ellie…

Jon and I met seven and a half years ago, on our first day at Uni. In fact, it would more accurate to say that we met in our first minute of Uni because, as the fates would have it (or maybe it was all thanks to traffic on the M3) he and I pulled up outside our halls of residence within about 10 seconds of each other, got chatting – and, well, the rest is history!

Much of what we have always had in common revolves around the countryside. Both of us are grandchildren of farmers (his grandparents were beef farmers in South Devon, mine sheep farmers on Anglesey) and, for that reason, we’ve spent much of our time together walking, camping, sailing, cutting logs, building chicken houses and generally looking for any excuse to be outside, ideally in foul weather (you can take the girl out of Wales, but you can’t take Wales out of the girl)!

A Proposal in a Thunderstorm

It’s then unsurprising that Jon, in a story that splits audiences down the middle along the lines of a) how mad they are and b) how well they know us, chose to propose after a 12 mile hike, on the top of a hill in the Peak District and in the middle of a thunder storm (the picture below was taken a few hours later)! It was magical and, although few believe me, I will swear until my dying day that the storm cleared and a rainbow came out within minutes of me saying ‘yes’!

Charlie

Welcoming our new team member Lauren to The Natural Wedding Company blog!

Charlie

It’s a pretty exciting day here at The Natural Wedding Company, as I get to introduce you to my lovely new colleague, Lauren. You may remember a few months ago I put out a request looking for someone to join me in writing features for the blog. We received some wonderful applications and the result of that process was finding Lauren.

Lauren had previously popped into my world on a couple of occasions – they designed their wedding stationery inspired by my own, I saw their beautiful wedding on Love My Dress, and lastly I bumped into Lauren on the last day of my TNWC South West Roadtrip last summer at Organic Blooms where she was attending a course.

It seems often in this world things lead you to meeting certain people, and I feel Lauren is one of those. On reading her application we just had that feeling she was just the right person. I’m so excited for her to get involved with writing for The Natural Wedding Company blog and I look forward to you all getting to know her.

The pictures you see here are from Lauren and Matt’s own wedding captured by one of our TNWC Recommended Suppliers Julie Anne Imaging, and I would highly recommend you go have a read of all the details and soak up how pretty and meaningful it was.

We’re sending her off this weekend to attend Blogtacular in London to well and truly immerse her in the world of blogging – I can’t wait to hear all about it! All there is left to do is welcome Lauren and hand over to her so she can tell you a bit more about herself and why she came to apply for this role.

Over to Lauren…

I’m Lauren, a (relatively) newly-wed with a love for nature and the outdoors, beautiful blooms, dainty details and dreamy weddings. I cannot describe how excited and honoured I am to be joining Charlie in writing blog posts for the The Natural Wedding Company.

I’d always had this hazy vision that I’d be a barefoot bride, married in a meadow or in the woodland around a tree, and shortly after I got engaged to Matt in 2011 – overwhelmed with planning a wedding, all the choices on offer and decisions to be made – I came across The Natural Wedding Company.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: introducing Kerry and Nick’s Somerset festival farm wedding

Charlie

Our fourth TNWC Real Bride is Kerry, who is marrying her Mr of fifteen years this summer at the beautiful Cowparsley Weddings in Somerset – one of our fab recommended wedding venues and a pretty special place that I visited last summer.

Over to Kerry to tell you all about it…

Hmmmm, how should I start?….Ummm, well – I’m Kerry (Hi!) my friends call me Potts (my surname’s Potter….not for much longer). I’m 36 and I’m marrying my long term boyfriend, Nick this August (eek). We’ve been together 15 years this year, and already have our little family made with our kids; Amber (9) and Finn (7).

Nick and I met on a Monopoly pub crawl in London back in September ’99. We hit it off straight away, and saw each other every weekend from then on, until I went to Thailand for the millennium with my best friend. Whilst I was away we realised we had something kinda cool going on, so when I got back we moved in together.

After 4 years, 5 house moves, a fair few festivals and a few more crazy nights out, we discovered we were pregnant with our first child; Amber. We suddenly had to grow up, so we bought a flat in Hackney and settled down. Sixteen months later, we were pregnant again, this time with Finn. By now we felt it was time to leave the city and decided to head for the country, so in 2008 we up sticks and move to Taunton in Somerset.

Izzy

Emma and Matt’s pretty May wedding in a field with giant tipis, fete inspired games and a vegetarian feast

Izzy

Pretty May wedding in a field

It might not yet be May, but by the end of the week it will be, and my favourite month of all (I am biased because it contains both mine and my Mr’s birthdays plus our wedding anniversary!).

So I want to kick-off May today with the beautiful laidback fete-esque spring wedding of Emma and Matt. It is full of understated soft floral colours with pops of brightness here and there – from the funky orange VW Campervan to the groom’s colourful leaf buttonholes. See what you think!

Over to Emma to tell you about their pretty May wedding with beautiful photography from TNWC recommended supplier Hannah Beatrice…

Emma and Matt got married in May last year and chose a church ceremony at St Patrick’s Church in Earlswood where Emma was baptised. The reception was at Mousley House Farm, “We were keen to have an outdoors reception and found the perfect space at Mousley House Farm, where we were given use of their beautifully spacious field. We had a fantastic reception in kata tents that had been put up and tended to by the team at PapaKåta.”

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: introducing Miriam and John’s summery Scottish wedding with 1920s touches

Charlie

TNWC Real Bride number three is Miriam, a lovely bride-to-be who I have ‘known’ for a while via my social media networks. I was pretty excited when she applied to be one of this year’s TNWC Real Brides and I love the sound of her wedding plans and am sure you will too.

Over to Miriam for all the details so far…

Hello! My name is Miriam and I am very excited to marry my wonderful fiance John on the 26th of July 2014. We first met two years ago in Edinburgh, when I was working as a vet in nearby Falkirk and he was teaching at a primary school in the city. Since then there have been several big life changes for both of us.

I now live in Bodmin in Cornwall, where we will eventually settle into married life together, and John is spending two years teaching overseas in Qatar. He returns for good just a month before the Big Day. To make things even more complicated we have settled on the gorgeous venue choice of Dryburgh Abbey near Melrose in the Scottish Borders, 350 miles from me and 3500 miles away from John.

It might not be easy organising a long-distance wedding, but we enjoy a challenge! With our families being an eclectic mix of Italian, Scottish and Irish we have lots of traditional family influences, and will certainly have a ceilidh and a piper (with a family connection as John’s dad runs a piping school in Edinburgh).

John proposed in the most modern way possible – via Skype! I was obviously over the moon, even more so when he returned at the Easter holidays with surprise Eurostar tickets to Paris as an (unnecessarily) compensatory big romantic gesture. We adore the sophisticated, romantic, carefree air of Paris and hope to have brought a piece of this back for our wedding, to fuse with our love of Scotland (especially Edinburgh) and the beautiful British countryside.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: introducing Lisa and Tom’s Welsh country folk festival wedding

Charlie

It’s time to introduce you to our second TNWC Real Bride of the year – her name is Lisa and she’s getting married to her Mr-to-be Tom this coming July in South Wales. As well as sharing some of her lovely wedding plans, we have another sweet love story today.

Over to Lisa…

I am and never have been one to be rushed, so when my long term partner Tom asked me to marry him back in June 2012 I knew that our engagement was going to be a long term affair. It’s not that I didn’t want to get married in a year, it’s just I always wanted a DIY wedding and knew that this would take time.

I know many other brides to be who would have easily managed everything that I am trying to do within a year but that just isn’t me. I felt as though I wanted to relish and savour my engagement and by making it last over two years I felt I was relieving some of the pressures and stresses that I was determined to avoid.

Charlie

Claire and James’ rustic Easter wedding in the Cotswolds with an egg hunt for the kids and lots of homemade details

Charlie

Rustic Easter wedding

What could be more appropriate for this week than a pretty homemade wedding held on Easter Sunday complete with spring flowers and an Easter egg hunt? I hope you agree, so I am delighted to be able to share Claire and James’ beautiful wedding which has all those elements.

Over to Claire…

“As we’d chosen to have a spring Easter wedding in a barn in the beautiful Cotswolds, we decided that a rustic Easter country themed wedding was for us – nice and relaxed with lots of fun.

April has always been a favourite month of ours and Easter a family favourite time growing up. As all our family and friends would have to travel, we decided to give them the opportunity to have a mini break to the Cotswolds and an Easter egg hunt sealed the deal!”

“I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this – but I started planning my wedding day (probably like others) years and years ago! James (Jim) and I had been together 12 years when we got married so he gave me plenty of time to start a scrapbook (no Pinterest back then!). Some of the thoughts I’d had never changed and made it to being part of the day – particularly the theme.”

“Our day was rustic country and Easter themed, bursting with creative touches, many of which we’d made ourselves. There were handmade clay birds, beautiful flowers, tree slices, bales of hay, milk churns, birch tealight holders, homemade chutney, chalkboard signposts, handmade stationery and printed linen, planted wellies, rusty letters, old French crates, Easter photo props, a lucky dip and chocolate eggs galore!”

“There is so much inspiration out there, but mostly we felt inspired to create a day that reflected our love for nature and relaxed natural style.”

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: introducing Emma and Shane’s natural wedding in the city

Charlie

Recently we saw the final ‘just married’ post from last year’s TNWC Real Brides – I am so sad to say ‘goodbye’ to those lovely ladies who made such an inspiring contribution to the blog. But today is a wonderful day, because I get to introduce to you the first of this year’s TNWC Real Brides.

We have five brides-to-be who are going to be blogging about their upcoming weddings over the next few months, I have been privy to reading all about their plans already and can’t wait to get them sharing all their lovely ideas with you. This morning I’m going to hand you over to the first of our TNWC Real Brides – Emma – who has a rather sweet long distance love story, in fact very similar to my own (apart from it was me that moved thousands of miles away to Vancouver shortly after meeting my now husband).

I do hope you are looking forward to following this year’s TNWC Real Brides, so it’s over to Emma to tell us all about her plans for a natural wedding in the city…

Long Distance Love

It was on one of our first dates that Shane told me he was planning to emigrate to Canada. Our love story began as an office romance, flirting over cups of tea in the staff kitchen. It took me a while to realise that he actually liked me and it wasn’t until he moved in for a kiss at a cocktail bar one night that I was convinced!

We fell in love in the summer of 2010 ~ giddy, breathless, starry-eyed love ~ but at the end of the summer, just as he promised he would, he got on a plane and flew 5,000 miles away!

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