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Charlie

Ireland’s first Vintage Bridal Fair

Charlie

On June 13th 2010, Ireland’s first Vintage Bridal Fair will be held in Belfast. Featuring around 35-40 exhibitors the fair will showcase traditional and alternative vintage wedding gowns, special occasion dresses, accessories and jewellery.

The Vintage Bridal Fair is hosted by Frock Around The Clock, organisers of vintage fairs. There will also be hair and beauty treatments, along with flowers, cakes, cards, wedding car hire and photography – everything you might need to create a beautiful wedding.

The fair is open from 12pm – 5pm with £5 admission. Visit their website to find out details of exhibitors and more information.

Charlie

Biodegradable natural petal confetti from Shropshire Petals

Charlie

One of our listed businesses, Shropshire Petals, got in contact to tell us about a fab new product they offer. Here’s a little more about them and an exclusive offer.

Shropshire Petals grow biodegradable natural petal confetti. Their Shropshire farm has fields upon fields of delphiniums. To create the perfect petals all flowers are grown with careful love and attention.

Petals are delicately handpicked, eco-friendly and 100% natural. Together with natural petal confetti, Shropshire Petals also offer wheat sheaves and lavender bundles – how gorgeous would these look at a late summer or early autumn wedding…

Charlie

New wedding favours from Oxfam Unwrapped

Charlie

Oxfam Unwrapped – the charity gift range that made ‘giving goats’ famous – now has wedding lists and favours that will make your wedding extra special and make a big difference to people living in poverty.

Complete your wedding day with Oxfam Unwrapped’s brand new wedding favours containing wonderful world-changing gifts including; health check-ups, help teach a child, chicks, bags of seeds, buckets and animal vaccinations.

Charlie

A weekend of wedding planning

Charlie

Over the Bank Holiday weekend Mr Rigg and I visited my family in the Cotswolds. Mr Rigg’s parents also joined us and we had a lovely weekend, showing them around my home village, the local church, and discussing our ideas for our wedding.

Oh, and we all celebrated Mr Rigg getting a year older!

Hopefully more on this and other wedding loveliness to come!

Charlie

Great find: The Vintage Wedding List

Charlie

Over the weekend I came across a truly fantastic website – it’s called The Vintage Wedding List and the name says it all really. A website full of beautiful antiques and vintage finds that you can use as your wedding gift list! I’m in heaven!

Mr Rigg and I are in disagreement about the idea of a wedding gift list. I am in the anti-camp – I feel that we have all the toasters, tea towels and generic household items that are often found on gift lists – I mean we’ve lived together for the past 5 or so years, so we have everything we need. Mr Rigg thinks gift lists sound just great – because who doesn’t like receiving presents?

I do appreciate that family in particular like to buy you a gift for your wedding as something to keep and treasure. But I have never been enamoured by the idea of a wedding gift list at John Lewis or asking for vouchers for a specific shop where we can buy what we like.

Charlie

A handmade vintage winter wedding

Charlie

One of our newest editions to The Natural Wedding Company directory is a photographer from the North West of England called Mark Tattersall.

Just a glance at his website and you can tell he takes exquisite pictures, so I had to share this beautiful handmade vintage winter wedding he shot.

Marie and Karl were married in the Forest of Bowland and chose a personal, DIY approach to reflect their eco-conscious principles – delightfully combined with elegant, vintage and natural touches.

Their reception was held at an organic farm in a gorgeous 17th century barn with wood burning stove. Guests were treated to mulled wine, hot vimto and spiced biscuits made by Marie. Everything was served in a beautiful array of mis-matched vintage tea cups and saucers.

Charlie

Handmade eco-friendly wedding cake toppers

Charlie

The lovely Heather from Star House got in touch and after looking at her pretty alternatives to wedding cake toppers I knew I had to share them.

Forget the cheesy plastic figurines and instead go for one of Heather’s that’s been lovingly handmade in wood…

Heather started designing and making cake toppers after she received a number of customer requests – previously she focused on “little folks for little folk”.

Now the majority of Heather’s work is designing likenesses and love bird cake toppers for discerning brides-and-grooms-to-be.

Charlie

On the hunt for the perfect wedding dress

Charlie

Image: Maggie Sottero ‘Abigail’

I have been away this weekend staying with my family in the Cotswolds. My mom, little sister and I went to look at wedding dresses for the first time on Saturday.

It was a strange feeling stepping into the first wedding dress – it felt weird and that somehow I wasn’t old or mature enough to be wearing one. It has always been my intention to get my dress made by a seamstress friend of mine, but I still wanted a girls day out to try some on and get an idea of what suited me and what styles I liked.

We went to three shops, all quite different – from what I would call that standard ‘off the rail’ wedding dress shop full of strapless gowns that are the current fashion in this country, to one with designer gowns (I tried on some beautiful Jenny Packham’s) and finally to a small boutique shop where all the dresses were bespoke and handmade by the owner.

Charlie

Dreaming of a May wedding

Charlie

I am and back from a delivering a week long conference and ready to start my year afresh. The last couple of months have been riddled with illness and long working days. With the anticipated arrival of spring I want to start my year again, so hopefully I can draw a line under the past months and look forward to a good year and towards my own wedding.

Speaking of which, in the spirit of new beginnings I had to post the lovely picture above as inspiration for my own wedding – just looking at all that frothy cow parsley! I am planning for a May wedding in 2011 to make the most of the cow parsley filled lanes and hedgerows of my family home in the Cotswolds. Here’s to dreaming of a beautiful May wedding!

Charlie

Handmade ethical jewellery for Valentine’s Day

Charlie

With Valentine’s Day just around that corner I thought it only right to start February with some beautiful handmade jewellery from one of our sponsors

There is also a fantastic 10% discount to readers of The Natural Wedding Company blog – just use the following discount code when ordering NW10.

Karina Anne is based in Suffolk and makes handmade unique jewellery including necklaces, bracelets and earrings. She has a strong committment to making jewellery in a responsible way, and much of her jewellery is made from Fair Trade silver.

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