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Do it yourself: rustic handmade wedding stationery ~ part 1

Charlie

I’ve decided to split the ‘do it yourself’ for our wedding stationery into four parts as there seemed too much to share in just one post, and I didn’t want you all nodding off.  So without further ado, here’s Part 1.

First off, you should know I did all of this in Microsoft Word.  Perhaps insane, as Word is not meant for graphic design, but it’s what I have.  I don’t have any fancy software packages, so I had to do the best that I could with what I had.  Yes, it undoubtedly caused headaches and extra time faffing about, but I got where I wanted in the end and I’m proud of my effort.

The Invitation

Inspiration

For me, our invitation needed to reflect what our wedding was going to be about.  I wanted people to get excited (hopefully!) and have a sense of what kind of wedding they were going to. 

I went through various different ideas, including sewing mini bunting onto each card, which I decided might kill me off and wasn’t a true reflection of our wedding day.  Here are the some of the ideas I was inspired by…


From left to right starting at the top: found Once Wed; Perch Papiers; Junkaholique; Ruffled; unknown; found Snippet & Ink; unknown; Heather Ross; Ruffled; found Twig & Thistle

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Our wedding: handmade rustic wedding stationery with red and white string and luggage tags

Charlie

Like our ‘save the date’ cards, we also made all our wedding stationery.  There was an invitation, a booklet of wedding details, a RSVP postcard, and a gift envelope.  Everything was tied up together with red and white string with a tiny brown luggage tag onto which I hand-stamped our RSVP date.

I’m one of those people (I hope there are others out there!) who knows in my mind what I want something to look like, but don’t always know how to translate that into reality.  So although here you can see lovely photos of the finished invitation set, it took a lot of attempts to get them ‘right’.

All these beautiful photos are taken by the fab man who snapped our wedding photos – Mark Tattersall.

Full details on how we made them to follow shortly!  And would love to know your thoughts – anyone else as much a fan of brown card as I am?

Check back tomorrow for Part 1 of the ‘do it yourself’ series!

Images: Mark Tattersall Photography

Charlie Charlie

The Real Cut Flower Garden’s vintage wedding flowers

Charlie

I impressed even myself this morning when I spotted flowers by The Real Cut Flower Garden on a wedding blog without knowing who’d done them.  The Real Cut Flower Garden is one of the businesses listed on the directory, and I’ve known Charlie Ryrie who runs it for a number of years now.  She has a distinct style and provides beautiful English-grown flowers for weddings.

On scrolling through this Vintage British Wedding I saw these photos of the wedding flowers and couldn’t help but think “they must by Charlie Ryrie’s flowers!”  My thoughts were confirmed at the bottom in the list of suppliers – I love all my businesses and it’s so lovely to see them and their lovely work on big wedding blogs.

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Do it yourself: eco-friendly brown card and raffia rustic ‘save the dates’

Charlie

Here goes with the first of my ‘do it yourself’ guides from our wedding – lots of detail, I know, but this is for anyone wishing to recreate elements themselves.

*Please note that my ‘how to’ guide is for individual, private use, and not to be used for distribution or resale. Many thanks.*

Would love to know what you think and if there’s anything else you want details of.

Our ‘save the dates’ were envelope-less and quite tiny.  I saw this fantastic idea and thought it was brilliant (some people are so talented!) – so I set about making my own version.

We used 100% recycled brown card from a wonderful website called eco-craft (we bought almost all our paper and card for wedding projects from here) – I love that this brown card is called ‘Hairy Manilla’ – very un-weddingy!

I created the design on Microsoft Word – fitting three ‘save the dates’ to one piece of landscape A4 (I’ll include full details of fonts used at the bottom of the post for anyone interested).

I wanted something simple and quite rustic looking, so we just went for text and a tiny image, similar to the cow parsley that lines the hedges in May at the time of our wedding.

It took a bit of fiddling about and printing off copies to get the text in the right place for where we wanted the folds.  The card is scored in two places, making three parts, and then sealed at the back (hence no need for an envelope).

After printing the ‘save the dates’, I used my trusty guillotine (couldn’t have got through many a moment without it – essential kit for anyone planning on making paper items for their wedding) to slice them into three.  Next I faintly drew on pencil lines for where the folds would be, then used the blade on my scissors to gently score a fold.

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Our wedding: handmade rustic ‘save the date’ cards

Charlie

Deep breath… I have been really nervous about sharing our wedding details, but I’m finally ready to take the plunge.  Up first are our handmade ‘save the dates’.  They are quite tiny, printed onto 100% recycled brown card and don’t need an envelope.

These shots were taken by our wonderful photographer Mark Tattersall and show the ‘save the dates’ open and sealed up.

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A special post delivery this morning – our wedding photos from Mark Tattersall

Charlie

I’m being told off by Mr Rigg for not helping tidy the house, but I was so excited by a parcel in the post this morning that I had to share it with you all.

A wonderful package arrived from Mark Tattersall, who did the photos for our wedding – two discs of our images, a booklet of all our photos in mini size, and a gorgeous black box with a stunning recycled wood memory stick of photos.

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Excellent discounts on ethical engagement rings and wedding bands

Charlie

I was very sad to learn this week that one of our fabulous ethical jewellery businesses, Leblas, is closing down.  It’s a real shame as their jewellery is beautiful and was so popular, even amongst royalty!

However, it means that they are holding an incredible closing down sale so there are some incredible discounts to be had on their ethical engagement rings and wedding bands.  Their rings are either recycled or fair trade and with discounts of over 50% on some items it’s not to be missed!

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Your help needed – where do I start with blogging about our wedding?

Charlie


1. Crafty DIY paper items
2. Collecting cow parsley
3. Sign painting
4. Jam jar lantern making

So I’m completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of trying to share photos and details of our wedding.  I just don’t know where to start and decided the best option would be to ask where you think I should start.

Today we have finally seen the ‘official’ photographs taken by Mark Tattersall, which will obviously follow shortly (and are incredible!), but there were so many DIY projects, handmade elements, collecting of gorgeous treasures in the lead up to our wedding that I want to share those too.

I’ve included a selection of images here as examples (saving all my favourite bits for later).


5. Building an ice cream cone holder
6. Collecting old bits and pieces
7. Tiny flag making
8. Freshly washed vintage crockery

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