afternoon tea Archives - Page 2 of 3 - The Natural Wedding Company

Blog: afternoon tea

Charlie

The pretty village fete wedding of my friend Jen on Love My Dress

Charlie

I couldn’t finish today without sharing the link to my beautiful friend Jen and her husband Chris’s wedding which was featured on Love My Dress today. Jen and Chris got married back in April in the pretty village church in Dunham Massey – I have been lucky enough to get to know Jen through running my website (it turned out we’d been sat in church together whilst she’d been reading my blog!), making me truly grateful for this lovely little business of mine.

Jen and Chris’s wedding is full of pretty handmade details and personal items from their home, many of which have been passed down through the family – as you’ll see from the lovely feature over on Love My Dress, Jen and Chris’s wedding was heavily inspired by their grandparents.

Charlie

George and Sal’s laid back Cornish spring wedding with a walk on the beach

Charlie

Laid back Cornish spring wedding

Sarah of Green Photographic recently captured the lovely laid back Easter wedding of Sal and George, who got married near Newquay and included a beach walk with their guests during the afternoon. I have a softspot for Devon and Cornwall, especially during spring time, so I hope you enjoy this pretty country and seaside wedding as much I did.

Charlie

Inspiration for a spring wedding menu featuring foraged wild leaves and edible flowers

Charlie

Sometimes emails land in your inbox that totally inspire you, I had one such email last week from Sarah at Eat My Flowers with her ideas for floral inspired menu. Immediately I was dreaming up a spring wedding picnic based on her menu ideas and thought that you all might like to be inspired as well.

Why not serve your wedding guests a slightly different take on the English afternoon tea, starting with dainty sandwiches filled with organic free range egg and wild hedgerow leaves. Almost too pretty to eat!

Sarah suggests “Swap one layer of the free range egg mayonnaise with a selection of wild leaves such as sorrel and hedge mustard, and edible flowers such wild rocket, violas and mustard. The peppery leaves and flowers make a novel alternative to cress.”

Charlie

Holly and Dean’s village fete wedding with a coconut shy and Morris Men

Charlie

Village fete wedding with Morris Men

This beautiful wedding photographed by Dawn Potter was inspired by the nostalgia of village fetes, and is full of fun and games for the many children who came – something I think too often gets over-looked. Holly crafted such a colorful and fun wedding that really went that extra mile for her guests.

Holly and Dean got married in the picturesque village of Loders in Dorset, with the ceremony in the village church and the reception just down the road.

The church was decorated with pretty country style flowers and the order of service is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen – isn’t it stunning, like a page out of a fairytale…

Charlie

Allie and Tom’s handmade 1930’s inspired country wedding ~ part two

Charlie

1930s inspired country wedding (part two)

If you missed yesterday’s part one of Allie and Tom’s handmade 1930’s inspired country wedding be sure to read it first – it’s full of beautiful details and photos of their ceremony and how they got Allie’s parents field ready for their wedding. So without further ado, after their ceremony, Allie and Tom had some photos taken whilst dodging the rain showers – what a beautiful vintage car.

>> View Allie and Tom’s 1930s inspired country wedding (part one) here <<

Then everyone headed back to Allie’s parents field where they had Pimms in the marquee, followed by an afternoon tea of cakes, scones and sandwiches, all made by her mum’s friends.

Afternoon tea was served on vintage crockery collected over the year by Allie and her mum. I spent a lot of time the day before the wedding selecting all the crockery and it really did look as I imagined it.

Charlie

Our rustic country wedding – afternoon tea in the garden before the ceremony ~ part 2

Charlie

If you missed it, yesterday there was part 1 of our pre-wedding afternoon tea in my parents garden – do check it out before reading on or it all might be a bit confusing!

So we’d set up our afternoon tea tent, the scrummy scones and strawberries were out, and pots of stripey paper straws alongside old-fashioned lemonade were ready.

When our family and friends began to arrive, me and Izzy happened to be getting ready in a room above my parents drive, so we could see people arriving. This is one of my favourite photos from the wedding – check out Alex’s stunning dress (she’s getting married next April in Cornwall – I can’t wait for their wedding!)…

Here is some of the lovely photos Mark shot of people enjoy afternoon tea in the garden – 18 months of hard work starts to come to fruition…

Charlie

Our rustic country wedding – afternoon tea in the garden before the ceremony ~ part 1

Charlie

For us, dreaming up an afternoon tea in my parent’s garden before our wedding ceremony was probably one of the best ideas we had. So often at weddings you have travelled for a couple of hours, often arriving at lunchtime or soon after, having not had a chance to eat anything and feeling a bit out of it from the car journey.

We wanted our guests to feel as relaxed as possible and well fed before getting down to the serious business of witnessing our marriage. For a start, on the invitation we told people they could arrive from 3pm, rather than saying ‘you must be here at…’ This meant there was a nice staggered arrival of family and friends, and hopefully it meant people weren’t under too much pressure to arrive by a specific time.

Charlie

“English Romance” cupcake decorating class inspired by vintage jewellery

Charlie

Posh & Swanky Cupcakes is one of the new businesses to be listed on The Natural Wedding Company directory, running couture cupcake classes in Leeds. Andrea, the talent behind Posh & Swanky Cupcakes contacted me to tell me all about her latest cupcake class called ‘English Romance’.

Andrea told me that this class is inspired by “dreamy old England, afternoon tea, and shabby chic” and at the end of this class your cakes will deserve to be saved on your best vintage china.

In this class you’ll make moist green tea cupcakes (which sound incredible!) that are then covered in fluffy buttercream, fondant, and are then piped using Royal Icing. Andrea says that the colours for this collection are “pale, sophisticated and romantic” and that the cupcakes are “sumptuously adorned with fondant and sugar paste jewels, roses and pearls.”

Charlie

Our rustic country wedding – setting up the garden on morning of the wedding

Charlie

It has been so lovely to have our wedding featured on Love My Dress, but I know that some of my readers would like to see more detail, and there’s so many lovely photos it seems a shame not to share more of them.

Our wedding ceremony was due to start at 4.30pm, but we’d invited our guests to have afternoon tea in the garden from 3pm. This meant we had all morning to get ready, which for a wedding at home was all about everyone pitching in to help set up. So with less than an hour before people were due to start arriving this is what we were doing…

The tents were already up, but we had to get all the tables laid up. This is our lovely friend Kate, who along with her husband Tim set out all the crockery and place settings (among a long list of other things!)…

We hung lots of the jam jar lanterns we’d made from the tents, tying them on with twine…

Here’s Tim setting out more lanterns around the garden and hanging them from trees…

Charlie

A vintage afternoon tea style wedding in Yorkshire

Charlie

With the whole wedding and blog world mad for vintage, I was sure that brides-to-be would love to hear about the vintage style wedding package offered by The Black Swan in Yorkshire. The Black Swan is an old coaching inn set in the bustling marketplace of Helmsley, a pretty Yorkshire town. Having married a Yorkshire boy this is one part of the country I’ve got to know, and Helmsley is lovely.

If you are wanting a quintessential English wedding, with some of that old-fashioned glamour of vintage teacups, dainty plates and silver cake stands, then The Black Swan offers all that. You can sip on Bramley Apple Pimms, nibble on canapes of mini Yorkshire puddings filled with roast beef and horseradish, and then sit down to an afternoon tea of smoked salmon finger sandwiches, pork pies or even mini fish and chips. This is finished off with a selection of mini pastries, homemade cakes, and scones and jam.

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