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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

Inspiration for edible flower decorated wedding cocktails and drinks to delight your guests from Maddocks Farm Organics

Charlie

I am thoroughly enjoying sharing (and reading) all these wonderful guest blog posts from some of the great wedding businesses listed on the directory. On the blog today it’s one of my favourite subjects – edible flowers. For me there is something rather romantic about the idea of eating flowers, perhaps it’s in my DNA because as a crawling baby I was often found in the garden eating flowers.

Today’s blog post on edible flowers from Jan at Maddocks Farm Organics is much more sophisticated, sharing some great ideas for using edible flowers in your wedding cocktails and drinks. The perfect grown-up use for edible flowers for the girl who enjoyed snacking on them as a child. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who loves the idea of a scrumptious cocktail adorned with edible flowers?

Over to Jan to share her suggestions for adding edible flowers to your wedding drinks (and here’s a feature she did on edible flower wedding favours)…

Above left: A dark and stormy rum cocktail with a twist of lime and citrussy tagetes; Above right: a non-alcoholic mojito with fresh mint, a squeeze of lime and stunning mallow ‘heart’ petals

Edible flowers work brilliantly in wedding drinks irrespective of whether your wedding is a formal ‘champagne all the way’ kind of do or whether you are casually pitching a teepee in the back garden and opting for the DIY route.

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.’

Izzy

DIY guide to creating painted clothes peg name cards for your homemade wedding from A Alicia Handmade

Izzy

Today’s guest blog post is another fab DIY guide, this time from the lovely Anna who is the designer behind A Alicia Handmade. She has put together this ‘how to’ guide for making peg name cards, and also has lots of advice on how to give them your own style!

Without further ado, it’s over to Anna…

Hi, I’m Anna and I’m a designer-maker and author of craft/interiors how-to book Make it Your Own. The idea behind the book was to encourage anyone trying the projects to explore and develop their own design style, to literally make the projects their own, and I think this principle couldn’t be more important in planning your wedding.

Whatever kind of day you’re planning – from a big do with loads of guests to a tiny ceremony followed by chips and champagne in a lovely old pub (mine was the latter option!) – it’s such a beautiful opportunity to explore who the two of you are.

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

DIY guide to making pretty paper flower place settings and wedding favours from Hollyhock Lane

Izzy

We have such a lovely DIY guest post today from Julie at Hollyhock Lane – she’s put together an exclusive ‘how to’ guide for our readers on how to create these gorgeous paper flowers that can be used both as place settings and/or wedding favours. They are a perfect project for all you crafty and creative brides out there.

Over to Julie to get you started on making your own pretty paper flowers…

So here’s a DIY for those brides that like to make stuff. Paper flowers can be used for anything really, but in this example I decided to make them into place settings which can be taken away as favours for the guests as well.

Admittedly, these could take some time if you’re planning on a wedding for a hundred guests or more, but when you get into the flow of it, they only take about 10-20 minutes each. The good thing about them is that they can easily be made in front of the TV, and unlike fresh flowers, they can be finished well in advance of the big day.

You could always make it part of your hen party activities and get crafting with a group of your best friends. There’s nothing like bonding over a creative project and a good cup of tea to while away the hours.

Charlie

Designing and creating bespoke bridesmaids dresses with an English Country Garden theme from Lucy Says I Do

Charlie

I’m delighted that the incredibly creative Lucy from Lucy Says I Do, a recommended TNWC supplier who designs beautiful wedding stationery, will be joining us for a series of guest blog posts whilst I’m off on maternity leave. Lucy had a stunning wedding that was featured on Love My Dress and she booked wedding photographer Mark Tattersall after seeing his photos of our wedding.

Lucy created so many lovely things for her wedding, that I’m really excited to share some of them here with you – I just know you’re going to be inspired. Love Charlie x

Over to Lucy…

I knew I wanted to make dresses that suited the wedding, so my thoughts were: English Country Garden, summery, fun, and natural. In addition to this I wanted the girls to feel really special when wearing them, so they needed to be high quality, feminine, soft and elegant.

My sister (one of my lovely bridesmaids) and I designed the bridesmaids’ dresses together. We decided to design the print as an English country garden story. When developing the design I created an ‘English Country Garden’ inspiration board to help focus my ideas for the print. Here’s my print inspiration board:

Taking different natural elements of the English Country Garden idea we developed the print to include lots of detail including: flowers, fruits and insects. I loved the way the print developed, and the way that every time you looked at it you’d notice something different. Including the little bumblebees! We made sure we incorporated botanical elements such as the strawberry plant, but we balanced this with soft painterly effect flowers to make sure the print maintained a softness, like that of wild flowers.

Here’s a sample piece of the print, how many different elements can you spot?

Izzy

Country garden and dreamy meadow inspired bridal bouquets full of seasonal blooms and a necklace made of flowers

Izzy

What a beautiful feast of floral design we have for you today! If you are planning a summer wedding and have just started thinking about your wedding flowers, then grab of cup of something warm and settle down to soak up some inspiration from one of our florists, Campbell’s Flowers.

Over the summer Tracey and her team at Campbell’s Flowers had a lovely intern – Kate – working for them. To celebrate the end of her internship they put together a shoot of stunning seasonal blooms, and my gosh are they heavenly. Kate also works as a second shooter for a wedding photographer so she’s pretty nifty with a camera, capturing this beautiful floral collection at Sheffield Botanical Gardens.

Here’s Kate to tell you more about what they did…

To mark the final day of an amazing internship with Campbell’s Flowers, we ventured off to shoot some beautiful British grown bouquets. While taking shelter from the summer showers we made use of the beautiful light in the Pavilions in Sheffield Botanical Gardens and got some lovely soft shots of the interchangeable flower necklace and flower crown, crafted from locally grown seasonal flowers.

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).

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