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Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Nik shares her experience of choosing an ethical wedding dress

Charlie

Today we have the lovely Nik from Little House in Town back with us to share the next stage in her wedding adventure. If you haven’t already read her introduction guest post about her plans for a relaxed coastal farm wedding then do take a look.

Nik has recently taken up The Wartime Wardrobe Challenge which is a year long ethical clothes rationing project, designed to make those taking part think about how we use our clothes and where they come from. As such, she is ‘rationed’ on how many items of clothes she can buy for the year, which as you can imagine could prove tricky when you are on the hunt for a wedding dress!

Over to Nik to tell us more…

Choosing an ethical wedding dress: from dream to reality

Looking at my reflection in the Coast fitting room mirror, I suddenly became aware that everyone around me had gone very silent. Turning around to face my mum and two bridesmaids, I was met with a sea of beaming smiles.

“That’s it,” said my mum. “That’s the one.”

I’d found my wedding dress.

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Emma on the beginnings of their DIY wedding efforts

Charlie

I am so excited about my new TNWC Real Brides feature and I hope you are too! It’s been lovely finding out so much about other people’s weddings and being able to share all those details with you here. You can catch up on all the blog posts by clicking this link to the full TNWC Real Bride feature.

Today has her second blog post, and is going to tell us all about the start of their DIY elements to their wedding – starting with their invitations. She’s even done a how to guide on how she made some very cute cake flags! If you haven’t read Emma’s first blog post, you can find it here. Over to Emma…

This week we have reached the first of our planning milestones – we posted our invites! We both wanted personalised invitations and I love to draw so I thought I’d have a go myself. I drew the designs on watercolour paper, painted in a bit of colour and went over it in fine liner.

I photographed the paintings then added the text using Photoshop. We had them printed on recycled card at Monkey Puzzle Repro Art who are based at Mount Pleasant Eco Park. I couldn’t be more happy with the service, John was lovely and got our invites printed within 24 hours of me emailing him the artwork! The front of the invite features us in what I think I can pass off as ‘naïve cartoon style’, standing in front of the archway area we plan to have our ceremony in.

Charlie

A seasonal winter wedding bouquet of garden grown hellebores, succulents, ferns and magnolia buds

Charlie

Angela who runs Petal and Twig, on of our TNWC recommended florists, sent me these photos of a winter bouquet she recently designed. Made completely from garden flowers and foliage it is cleverly constructed on a handmade moss pad with a handle of dogwood.

The bouquet itself contains hellebores, succulents, variegated Euonymous, variegated Box, ferns, Skimmia (both pink and green berried varieties), Mahonia Japonica flower sprays, Spirea, Magnolia twigs and buds, and ivy. I think it’s a really unusual and beautiful example of a winter wedding bouquet that celebrates the season.

Angela also created this posy of Paperwhite Narcissi (one of my favourite winter flowers) from the Channel Islands surrounded by two types of ivy. The green ivy leaves each wrap an individual stem of narcissi to protect their delicate heads and ensure they all face ‘up’. The bouquet is finished with a piece of antique cotton lace, a brown satin ribbon, and vintage pearls.

I am so pleased to be able to share with you these lovely examples of seasonal wedding flowers. If you like these, take a look at this pretty spring bouquet of white tulips and hyacinths or these spring arrangements in vintage teacups.

Charlie

Handmade wedding stationery from a TNWC bride-to-be printed onto ellie poo paper

Charlie

One of the nicest parts of running my own business is that I get the loveliest emails from brides-to-be and couples planning their wedding. Sometimes you even send me pictures of the sweet items you’ve been making, often inspired by things I made for my own wedding. Today one such bride-to-be has been kind enough to share her handmade wedding invitations – and the all important details on how she made them – that were inspired by my own handmade wedding stationery.

Becky was kind enough to detail down how she made each part of her wedding stationery and included some of the websites where she bought supplies from. Over to Becky to tell you about how she made her handmade wedding stationery…

The Invitations

Our wedding reception is taking place in a tipi in a field on our friends’ farm which is overlooked by the forest where Tom proposed, so we wanted the stationery to reflect this natural and beautiful setting that is so special to us.

I found a previous post on The Natural Wedding Company blog where someone had used card made out of elephant poo for their invites, which I loved the idea of, so I ordered some of the paper from The Green Stationery Company with matching envelopes.

Charlie

Last chance to enter the White Memoirs competition and details on the Silver Sixpence In Her Shoe ‘Bespoke Boutique’

Charlie

This Sunday 24th February is the White Memoirs Vintage Wedding Fair in Manchester and along with a number of other girls, I am really looking forward to it! There is still time to get a ticket (and they’re available on the door) and to enter this incredible competition to win a wedding package prize worth £1,000. Today is the last day to get your entry in, so don’t delay and go enter!

Amongst the lovely exhibitors who will be attending this weekend, is TNWC recommended supplier Silver Sixpence In Her Shoe. Nicola who runs Silver Sixpence got in touch to tell me about her Bespoke Boutique that she’s running at the White Memoirs Vintage Wedding Fair.

Nicola is offering brides-to-be the opportunity to book a 30 minute appointment with her to discuss what you want in terms of a bespoke bridal accessory – from beautiful headpieces to birdcage veils, dainty garters and pretty sashes. As well as having this one-to-one time with Nicola to discuss your requirements, I’m told there’ll also be some special new bespoke pieces to try on.

Charlie

The story of why one couple chose fairtrade wedding rings to celebrate their marriage

Charlie

Sometimes it’s nice to take a step back from wedding planning, from all the lovely details and fun plans for this incredible celebration, and look at the deeper part of marriage. I think an important part of that is choosing where you buy your engagement and wedding rings from – of all the many items you purchase for your wedding, your rings will have one of the biggest environmental costs.

No one likes to be bombarded or overwhelmed with terrible statistics or facts about the environmental costs of something like a wedding ring, often it just makes you feel even more powerless to make a difference, but we can’t ignore that there are some pretty bad facts when it comes to conventional mining.

Charlie

Announcing the winner of the Pearl & Co competition to win their Anastasia bridal headpiece

Charlie

Two weeks ago the lovely Pearl & Co ran a competition for one lucky TNWC blog reader to win their beautiful ‘Anastasia’ bridal headpiece in celebration of their new collection. Well this afternoon I get to announce the lucky winner of that competition!

We had so many wonderful entries, but only one bride-to-be can win this lovely prize, and that lucky lady is…

Congratulations to Amy Tompkins! Helen and Carly from Pearl & Co will be in touch with you by email to tell you how to claim your prize – I can’t wait to see how pretty you look wearing the ‘Anastasia’ headpiece on your wedding day.

For those of you who entered, there is still time to take advantage of Pearl & Co’s exclusive 10% discount for TNWC blog readers – simply enter the discount code ‘TNWC’ when ordering before 28th February 2013. Take a look at just some of their new collection previously featured on The Natural Wedding Company.

Charlie

A heavenly seasonal spring wedding bouquet of white tulips and hyacinths

Charlie

Today I have some gorgeous spring arrangements from TNWC recommended florist Campbell’s Flowers based in Sheffield. Owner Tracey sent me pictures of these exquisite arrangements she’s done, all of which would be available during the spring months (just ask your wedding florist or flower grower to check specifics).

I’m not usually a fan of all white bouquets, but these are pretty stunning and have completely won me over to the idea. The bouquet above is a simple but heavenly arrangement of white tulips and white hyacinths. If you’ve ever bought or been given a pot of hyacinths you’ll know the incredible fragrance they give off, so just imagine carrying a bouquet with them in – wow!

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: introducing Stephanie and Justin’s homepsun vintage fiesta wedding by the sea

Charlie

It’s that time again to introduce to you another lovely TNWC Real Bride – and today’s couple are all the way over in the USA! It’s really lovely to bring you a couple planing a wedding in a different part of the world, and I hope you enjoy following their wedding plans as the year goes on.

If you’ve missed any of the other introduction, you can find them all by clicking TNWC Real Brides. Now, over to Stephanie to tell you all about how her and Justin met and their plans for their wedding…

Stephanie + Justin: 21st September 2013, Rhode Island, USA

Justin and I crossed paths our freshman year of college. One afternoon, we happened to be in the same dorm for a meeting, but neither one of us could muster the courage to say hello. After that year Justin transferred to another University, so it’s no wonder I never saw the mysterious handsome guy around campus again. Nearly five years later, we ended up meeting through our mutual friend Billy and the rest, as they say, is history. I really love telling people we had been attracted to one another from a distance so many years ago; it’s as if the universe somehow conspired to bring us together…it’s the hopeless romantic in me, I think.

Anyhow, our relationship initially moved really quickly and, much to the horror of my parents, we were living together in no time. Since then, our relationship has taken us backpacking throughout South East Asia, on surf trips throughout Central America, and living in three different states. We have built a strong bond founded on unconditional support and have shepherded one another through some really difficult times.

Charlie

Seasonal spring wedding flowers inspired by a very English ‘afternoon tea in the library’

Charlie

The Natural Wedding Company is a huge supporter of seasonal British grown flowers (if you’re interested to know more check out the #britishflowers chat that’s happening on Twitter) and so I want to ramp up my support by sharing truly seasonal wedding flower inspiration with you.

I think what can be so hard some times is knowing actually what’s in season in Britain during each month of the year, and even whether it’s seasonal in the part of the country you’re getting married in – for example, the flower growers in Cornwall tend to have blooms earlier than somewhere in the north.

The lovely ladies from The Garden Gate Flower Company in Cornwall have been playing around with some seasonal spring flowers and created these beautiful arrangements that I’m delighted to share with you. The ideal inspiration for those of you planning a spring wedding!

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