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Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Myfawny has been busy designing their tea towel invitations and making confetti from old books

Charlie

For those of you keenly following the TNWC Real Brides feature you may have noticed we skipped a week last week. That’s my fault as I had become a bit disorganised following a rather nasty cold over Easter, and as such didn’t get ready in time – so apologies! I am delighted that we are back on schedule this week and have two lovely guest posts from Myfawny and Sarah.

I’ve also made it easier for you to track down all your favourite TNWC Real Brides stories, simply click on their names and you’ll be taken through to all their guest blog posts: Emma, Nik, Myfawny, Sarah, Caroline and Stephanie.

Today Myfawny is sharing details about the designs for their tea towel invitations (how great do they sound!) and making confetti – the picture of Arthur their dog helping them stamp out confetti from old books is not to be missed! Happy reading…

Easter has come and gone the season is upon us and our shop is now open six days a week until July and then seven days a week until we close five days before the wedding. The realisation that we may have bitten off more than we can chew is slowly sinking in but we are not to be defeated! So during the last month we have concentrated on invites and confetti.

Tea Towel Invitations

We wanted some unique invites – we had been lucky enough to win the TNWC competition for a personalised hand painted map of our day by the wonderful Pigeon & Quill. Alex really was a pleasure to work with and the map is truly fantastic and incorporates all the elements of our day.

Charlie

Jen and Chris’ pretty village fete wedding – happy anniversary guys!

Charlie

This time last year my sweet friend Jen was getting married to her Mr, Chris, as it happens in the lovely village church that we both go to sometimes. It’s in a gorgeous little village called Dunham Massey in the countryside south of Manchester. Most of the cottages are owned by the National Trust so it still has this old fashioned feel to it, and the vicar is just the best ever.

I was lucky enough to meet Jen a couple of days after her wedding for my TNWC 5th Birthday Party and we had previously met up for a cup of tea when Jen emailed me and we suddenly realised for a few months we’d been sat in church together whilst she was busy reading my blog – she created some beautiful paper details for her wedding based on our own wedding stationery.

Charlie

Laura and Dave’s autumn barn wedding with a handfasting ceremony and seasonal decorations

Charlie

Autumn barn wedding with a handfasting ceremony

It has been a while since I featured an exclusive real wedding on the blog, more through my own fault than lack of them to share. Whenever I put together a real wedding feature I feel this immense sense of responsibility to the couple who’s wedding it is – after all this was their special day and I want to do my very best in portraying it here on my blog.

As a result it takes me a great many hours to put together the beautiful photographs and carefully answers questions submitted by the bride. Today’s wedding is a very gorgeous autumnal affair, that was inspired by the couples love for the countryside.

Laura and Dave got married in Stratford Upon Avon during the autumnal month of October, with a humanist ceremony. Their wedding was captured beautifully by TNWC photographer Sarah Brittain Edwards Photography. Over to bride Laura to tell us more about the day…

“We both love Autumn and were keen to reflect the season, with it’s lovely cosiness and beautiful colours. We wanted it to feel personal and handcrafted – no ‘Gold Package’ all inclusive deals! And being a country girl at heart, I wanted it to feel rustic, homely and unfussy.”

Charlie

DIY project: how to make handmade recycled seeded paper flowers

Charlie

The Natural Wedding Company is lucky enough to be blessed with some fantastic small and independent businesses, who aren’t only making and selling beautiful things, but they’re also showing you how to do it too.

I’m delighted to welcome back to the blog Sharon Langsdale from TNWC business Razzle Dazzle Rose – she’s going to be showing you how to make recycled seeded paper flowers that are ideal for decorating wedding favours or invitations, and even transforming into alternative buttonholes.

Razzle Dazzle Rose sells a number of fantastic eco-friendly craft materials, specifically in my favourite brown craft card. A new addition to her shop are these paper flower kits – you can choose from recycled brown kraft paper flowers, cream vintage fleck flowers, or seeded paper flowers.

Once you have your kit, here’s how to make the flowers – over to Sharon who is using the cream vintage fleck flower kit…

Handmade Recycled Seeded Paper Flowers

Step 1 – Unpack your paper flower kit and you’ll see you have a number of die cut pieces of paper, just like these…

Charlie

Announcing the lucky winner of the House of Whatnot competition to win a personalised embroidered wedding map

Charlie

This afternoon is a pretty exciting one for all of you TNWC readers who entered our House of Whatnot competition to win a beautiful embroidered wedding map. It was one of the most popular competition’s we’ve run and there were so many lovely entries, which meant Sally from House of Whatnot had a really difficult time choose a winner.

As with most competition’s there has to be just one winner, and I’m delighted to announce that the lucky person who’ll be receiving their very own personalised embroidered wedding map from House of Whatnot is…

Huge congratulations to Nicola! Sally from House of Whatnot really loved all of the map details you are already incorporating into your wedding and felt one of her wedding maps would suit it well. Sally will be in touch with you shortly by email to arrange getting your map made.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Nik tells us about their DIY wedding invitations and building a wedding website

Charlie

Welcome to our second TNWC Real Brides guest post of the week! Today we’ve got the lovely Nik to tell us all about her beautiful DIY wedding invitations and how they created their wedding website. I’m a little bit jealous because I love the style of Nik and Chris’ invitations and think they fit so well with their coastal farm wedding.

If you’ve not read Nik’s first few guest posts, you should first read about her plans for their relaxed coastal farm wedding, and her experience of choosing an ethical wedding dress.

One of the first jobs we tackled upon choosing our chosen wedding venue was our invitations. Our announcement of plans for a summer wedding was immediately met with panic from several relatives and friends about potential holiday clashes. Getting the invites out six months in advance gave everyone plenty of time to plan their hols around the wedding, and has meant that we’ve only had one clash resulting in absent friends on the day.

Our wedding celebrations will be split into two very different parts: a very small ceremony with 25 close family and friends on the farm where we live in Pembrokeshire; and a big all day reception two days later in our home county of West Yorkshire. This gives us the best of both worlds: a relaxed, intimate ceremony where we can focus on the day and what it means, but also the opportunity to celebrate our marriage with our wider network of friends, which is very important to us.

Ceremony Invites

We planned to DIY our invites from the word go: we wanted them to be very personal, I wanted them printed on ‘green’ paper and Chris is a graphic/web designer so it seemed silly not to take advantage of that! However, in the end, we decided to buy our ceremony invites ‘off the rack’ as we realised that we just couldn’t print them at home without compromising on the quality and appearance. Lela of doodlelove was fantastic and worked with us to create a complementary design to match our theme, even incorporating the little chicken illustration that has sort of become our invitation mascot!

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Emma has been sowing wildflower seeds around her outdoor ceremony venue in Cornwall

Charlie

We’re kicking off the week with a lovely guest post from TNWC Real Bride Emma, who has been busy sowing wildflower seeds at her outdoor ceremony venue in Cornwall – what a beautiful idea! She’s also been trying to decide on her wedding transport, so do read on and I hope you enjoy hearing about her wedding plans…

With less than four months to go we have been rapidly ticking off things on the seemingly never-ending wedding to do list, which has been brilliant fun! We kicked this off with a visit to our venue to meet the event organiser at Mount Pleasant Eco Park, Lee, who was absolutely brilliant! He made us tea (won me over straight away) and was happy to chat about our wedding for nearly two hours! We also got to see the new bar that Tim, the custodian of the Eco Park, had built from reclaimed wood found in Plymouth.

Whilst there we were able to scatter our collection of wildflower seeds on the site, which we hope will grow in time for our wedding. Chris did the scattering and I took some photos. It was a brilliantly sunny but very cold and windy day, so most of the seeds probably blew away! We can but try.

This is Chris tucking the seeds, ninja style, into the area around where we hope to have the ceremony, the idea being that the flowers will grow up and around the bottom of the decked area.

Charlie

Vintage finds and seasonal spring flowers for an Easter window display from The Garden Gate Flower Company

Charlie

Happy Easter everyone! I was delighted when an email popped into my inbox earlier this week from Becca and Maz at The Garden Gate Flower Company – I’ve come down with a horrid cold this week so it was lovely when they appeared with a wonderful Easter-inspired guest post.

It’s full of beautiful inspiration for wedding styling if you love that combination of seasonal flowers and vintage finds. I’ll hand you over to The Garden Gate Flower Company to tell you about the beautiful Easter window display they created in one of their local vintage and antique shops in Cornwall. Over to Maz…

Easter is here, and we have gone all nostalgic at the Dower House in Lostwithiel. We have just been styling an Easter window in a shop that is filled with vintage lace, jelly moulds, buttons, ribbons and much more!

Becca rediscovered The Downy Duckling (or something like that, it’s a good job she’s got little kids to read it to!).

We made pretty miniature arrangements in vintage cups. Spring flowers like primroses and grape hyacinths are short stemmed so make a good addition to a tea cup.

Charlie

The perfect Easter decorated Simnel cake with crystallised edible flowers and mini chocolate eggs

Charlie

I must say I hadn’t really heard of Simnel cake until a few years ago, and I certainly haven’t ever tried one. But I do love traditions, and Simnel cake is often eaten over Easter. I particularly love the way this one, created by TNWC business Eat My Flowers, is decorated – both the colours (yellow and purple), the little pile of chocolate eggs, and those beautiful crystallised edible spring flowers.

Sarah who runs Eat My Flowers shared her recipe for this Simnel cake and I thought it would be a nice thing to share with you all. Many of us who life making things, often like making sweet treats, so I thought you wouldn’t mind a recipe. Even if you don’t fancy making a Simnel cake, you could always take inspiration from the way Eat My Flowers decorated it, and use this on an Easter cake of your choice.

According to Sarah from Eat My Flowers, “the cake is made with 11 balls of marzipan icing on top representing the 11 disciples. (Judas is not included.) Traditionally, sugar violets would also be added. Simnel cake is very easy to make and because of the extra layer of marzipan is very moist and keeps well.” Her recipe is from Mary Berry.

Charlie

Announcing the winner of the Minna competition to win the beautiful vintage inspired Zara veil

Charlie

Please note: Minna is now Indiebride London.

There have been some fab competitions on the blog recently (check out this one that you still have until midnight today to enter!) and I’ve got some great ones coming up as well. Today I am delighted to be announcing the lucky winner of the Zara veil from ethical wedding dress company Minna.

We had some lovely entries – it is so nice reading all about your wedding plans and why you’d like to win – but sadly there can only be one winner. That lucky bride-to-be who has won the Zara veil to wear on her wedding day is…

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