Blog: confetti
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Top tips on getting the best from your confetti moment by Shropshire Petals

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Creating your best confetti moment

Creating an incredible confetti moment will not only fill you and your guests with pure joy on the day, but also create a lasting memory encapsulated in a single snap. We’ve got some amazing tips for you, straight from family-run flower farmers, Shropshire Petals. They’re on a mission to save the world from paper or metallic confetti, and believe in creating epic weddings without compromising sustainable values.

Shropshire Petals is a Recommended Supplier of The Natural Wedding Company directory. Find out more about them here.

Here at Shropshire Petals we are 4th generation farmers who diversified into growing flowers to make biodegradable petal confetti for weddings across the UK. We grow a variety of flowers during the summer months, including delphiniums, cornflowers, calendula, sunflowers and many more. The flowers provide food and a safe haven for insects and animals, boosting biodiversity in the area.

Once the flowers are in bloom, they’re handpicked and dried onsite to keep their beautiful colour and shape for months and even years. Our confetti is natural, dye-free and completely biodegradable, making them the perfect choice for an eco-friendly wedding.

Here’s our top tips for achieving your dream confetti moment…

Top tips for your confetti moment:

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Favourite Special Wedding Moments: including a breastfeeding bride and the bride who cut up her wedding dress on the day

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Favourite Special Wedding Moments: including a breastfeeding bride and the bride who cut up her wedding dress on the day

This is the final part of our mini series on featuring our Real Wedding Favourites. If you haven’t viewed the other six parts, you can find them all here, or individual links at the bottom of this post.

Today we are going to round up this series with our Favourite Special Wedding Moments. These are particular moments from the real weddings we’ve featured that really stuck in our minds. Tender moments, a detail that made us feel a bit teary, and even a moment that we found quite scary!

Groom Washes the Brides Feet during their Wedding Ceremony

Favourite Special Wedding Moments: Groom Washes the Brides Feet during their Wedding Ceremony

It’s always lovely to see how couples choose to personalise their wedding ceremony, and this was one of the most tender and intimate moments that we’ve featured. As part of their outdoor wedding ceremony in the French countryside, groom Benjamin washed bride Mariette’s feet as a symbol of his commitment to her.

I imagine it’s not the kind of act that every couple would choose to incorporate into their wedding ceremony. But I love the symbolism, and the moment of quiet and calm that I imagine it would bring to your wedding ceremony. A great reminder to personalise your ceremony and do it your own way.

This beautiful moment was from Mariette and Benjamin’s natural French countryside wedding. Photography by David Blair Photography.

Awesome Breastfeeding Bride

Favourite Special Wedding Moments: Awesome Breastfeeding Bride

Both Samantha and I have become mums in the past few years, so these images of bride Elena breastfeeding her daughter during her wedding really stand out for me. Elena chose a wedding dress that she would be able to breastfeed her young daughter in and photographer Emma Stoner captured these precious images of the two of them.

A great reminder that your wedding day and wedding dress shouldn’t restrict your personal circumstances, whatever they might be. Make them work for you.

Favourite Special Wedding Moments: Awesome Breastfeeding Bride

Read the full story at Elena and Simon’s colourful handmade wedding. Photography by Emma Stoner Photography.

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Our behind-the-scenes tour of the flower fields and confetti shed at Shropshire Petals plus a giveaway

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Our behind-the-scenes tour of the flower fields and confetti shed at Shropshire Petals // The Little Caravan Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of a day trip to visit Shropshire Petals, wander their fields cutting flowers, playing with confetti, and learning about the process of how they transform these beautiful blooms into the petal confetti that will shower you on your wedding day.

I met up with fellow TNWC wedding photographer Sarah from The Little Caravan Photography, and together with our little girls we were treated to the most wonderful tour from Ashley at Shropshire Petals. Sarah captured these awesome images from our day and I’m delighted to share them and our experience with you all today.

Confetti giveaway and discount

To celebrate our visit to Shropshire Petals, we have teamed up to giveaway a pack of 10 Petal Pouches that come filled with your choice of confetti. For more details and to enter head over to our Instagram where we’ll be holding the giveaway.

For anyone getting married or looking for confetti for a wedding, Shropshire Petals have an exclusive 10% discount off orders over £50 for our visitors, full details here.

Our behind-the-scenes tour of the flower fields and confetti shed at Shropshire Petals // The Little Caravan Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Our behind-the-scenes tour of the flower fields and confetti shed at Shropshire Petals // The Little Caravan Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Our behind-the-scenes tour of the flower fields and confetti shed at Shropshire Petals // The Little Caravan Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Our behind-the-scenes tour of the flower fields and confetti shed at Shropshire Petals // The Little Caravan Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Our behind-the-scenes tour of the flower fields and confetti shed at Shropshire Petals // The Little Caravan Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Our behind-the-scenes tour of the flower fields and confetti shed at Shropshire Petals // The Little Caravan Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

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Samantha Samantha

An elegant rustic ballerina wedding shoot with vintage details, handcrafted jewellery and natural petal confetti

Samantha

Ballerina Wedding Dress by Minna // Styling Charlotte Munro // Paulo De Paulo photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Please note: Minna is now Indiebride London.

Today’s elegant rustic ballerina wedding shoot, set in an urban oasis in the heart of London, is a beautiful showcase of eco-friendly and ethical wedding suppliers.

Although people are growing more and more discerning regarding the use of ethical and eco-friendly products, it is still not common place in the mainstream and this also rings true for the wedding industry. You only have to look at our directory of recommended suppliers however, to know that there is an abundance of incredible independent businesses producing beautiful products for your big day with ethics at their heart. It is lovely to see these sorts of companies gain more recognition, and today’s shoot brought to us by stylist Charlotte Munro and photographer Paola De Paola does exactly that, showcasing some brilliant businesses including many TNWC recommended suppliers.

An elegant rustic ballerina wedding shoot inspired by eco-friendly suppliers // Styling Charlotte Munro // Paulo De Paulo photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Relaxed, braided wedding hair inspiration // Styling Charlotte Munro // Paulo De Paulo photography // The Natural Wedding Company

An elegant rustic ballerina wedding shoot inspired by eco-friendly suppliers // Styling Charlotte Munro // Paulo De Paulo photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Natural petal wedding confetti // Styling Charlotte Munro // Paulo De Paulo photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Ballerina bridal wedding dress by Minna // Styling Charlotte Munro // Paulo De Paulo photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Eco-friendly wedding inspiration

Stylist Charlotte explains a little bit more about the inspiration behind the shoot…

‘The main focus of this shoot was on ethical and eco-friendly weddings, something that more and more couples are considering for their wedding day, but hasn’t yet been well publicised on wedding blogs and in magazines. Myself and professional photographer Paola De Paola wanted to change that with a beautiful, editorial styled shoot that focuses on ethical wedding companies.

We wanted to focus on suppliers who could bring their own ethical and eco-friendly ethos to the shoot and create something organic and beautiful that any couple could take away with them to incorporate into their own wedding day. I decided to introduce the ballerina aspect as I loved the concept of something flowing and beautiful, and to help convey our message – that it’s not always easy or straightforward to plan an ethical wedding, but the end result is beautiful, soulful, and can still follow fashion trends.’

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TNWC Real Brides: Vicky’s gold glitter and sequin wedding cake and bar signs

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TNWC Real Brides: Vicky's gold glitter and sequin wedding cake and bar signs // The Natural Wedding Company

If you are reading this on Thursday, I will be playing with spring blossom at a flower crown workshop by Catkin – you can join in by following me on Snapchat (anaturalwedding) where I plan to share some pictures and maybe even a video or two of what I am up to. More pictures will follow on Instagram and Facebook.

But in the meantime, I have some gold glittery love for you all (even us natural brides often can’t say no to a splash of gold glitter can we?) with some handmade picks from TNWC Real Bride Vicky. She got married last summer but we are only just catching up with the final few bits of her homemade wedding.

You can find all her previous posts here, which include some fab DIY projects and ideas. Over to Vicky…

While I loved planning the wedding I have to admit that by being maybe a bit too organised I found the last couple of months leading up to it, dare I say it, dull! I just wanted the day to arrive.

Initially there was lots to plan and make and decide and then I hit this lull. I really wanted to get on and do things but realistically I couldn’t because everything that was left was last minute things.

Everything was piled up waiting in the spare bedroom – or ‘Wedding HQ’ as it became for the year. Even the confetti bags had been made and boxed up. Like most churches we could only use natural confetti which suited us fine so we had bought a lot of natural flower petals and popped them into bags ready for our page boy to hand out.

Flower petal confetti and gold glitter tape // The Natural Wedding Company

It was during this lull that I decided it was best to stay off websites and Pinterest, as the temptation to do and make more and more things was too great.

I did cave in and make a glitter cake sign…

DIY gold glitter wedding cake sign // The Natural Wedding Company

A sequin bar sign…

DIY gold sequin bar sign // The Natural Wedding Company

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TNWC Real Brides: Kerry’s sharing details of her brown card wedding festival programmes and hessian crafting

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TNWC Real Brides: Kerry’s sharing details of her brown card wedding festival programmes and hessian crafting

It is so lovely to be joined by a new group of brides-to-be for the TNWC Real Brides series here on the blog. Last time we heard about Kerry and Nick’s initial plans for their festival inspired wedding, and today Kerry is back with more details on the crafting they’ve been up to.

Over to Kerry to dish the details…

Planning, Making and Gluing

So, it’s May, the last 5 months have been spent; planning, meeting, researching, making and gluing.

We spent hours deliberating over the invites (featured in my last blog post). We both had different ideas of what we wanted, so it was quite tricky to find a middle way. In the end we decided on a PDF printable from STH Blue on Etsy.

Niki customised one of her standard invites especially for ‘Kipstival the Wedding’ and we LOVED it, it’s so personal to us and unique. We liked the postcard RSVP idea, and have had lots of lovely responses back already.

TNWC Real Brides: Kerry’s sharing details of her brown card wedding festival programmes and hessian crafting

Festival Wedding Programme

The next piece of stationery we created was the programs. We wanted to create something which would inform our guests of what’s happening next. A kind of playlist of the day, as it will be broken up into various sections around the farm. This introduced our first conundrum – what are our timings for the day?

TNWC Real Brides: Kerry’s sharing details of her brown card wedding festival programmes and hessian crafting

We had to sit down, walk through it in our minds, and try and agree on both format and timings; we got there in the end, after a number of hours sat at the kitchen table and a few glasses of wine! Once that was sorted, we then decided on a front cover and I used old festival programs, which I’ve hoarded over the years, as inspiration for a ‘With thanks’ section on the back page.

I’d bought a pack of blank cards with natural brown envelopes from Papermania, we used the envelopes to send our invites, but had the left over cards, so I put these to good use, and had the programs printed on these. I also wanted to include a handful of confetti in the program, I’d seen a Pin on Pinterest that I liked, so I consulted The Natural Wedding Company directory and found The Confetti Farm.

TNWC Real Brides: Kerry’s sharing details of her brown card wedding festival programmes and hessian crafting

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

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Izzy Burton illustration

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: EmmaNik, 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.

Pigeon & Quill illustrated wedding map

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Get an exclusive 20% discount on beautiful bougainvillea petal confetti from Bespoke Confetti

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Bougainvillea petal confetti

This bougainvillea petal confetti is pretty stunning, and not something I’d come across before until an email popped into my inbox from Rosie at Bespoke Confetti.  I think it would be particularly fitting for an autumn wedding (the petals remind me of leaves!) but it would be lovely at any time of the year.

Plus, Bespoke Confetti are offering an exclusive discount to TNWC readers – you can get 20% off your order of bougainvillea petal confetti when placed before 31st January 2013.  I’m a huge fan of real petal confetti, Rosie from Bespoke Confetti even gifted me some of their beautiful mixes for my own wedding last year.

Rosie tells me, “Our bougainvillea petal is hand-picked and air-dried.  The colours are beautiful for autumn, embracing all the autumnal hues of mellow orange and salmons, burnt russets and golds.  It looks glorious laid as carpet in an entrance, as a table decoration, and works really well as throwing confetti.  It is a completely natural confetti, biodegradable, and as such considered non littering and eco-friendly.  It will blow away with the wind and weather, and become autumns rich compost.”

Natural bougainvillea wedding confetti

If you’re here reading The Natural Wedding Company blog and using the directory to help you find wedding suppliers with eco credentials, like me you probably like to know a little about the story behind the products you’re buying.  Well, Rosie from Bespoke Confetti kindly told me about the bougainvillea petal confetti and how they came to include it in their products.

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Eco-friendly birch bark cake toppers and confetti for a woodland wedding

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Birch bark bird wedding cake topper

One of my Favourite Finds recently is this Etsy shop who are creating these beautiful wedding items from biodegradable birch bark.  There is a wonderful selection of cake toppers (like these cheerful little birds above), cupcake toppers and mini flags, birch bark confetti in the shape of leaves or hearts, and even a cute little ring bearers pillow.

This is the birch bark confetti, which is full compostable making it a great eco-friendly option.  I think it would be particularly nice at an autumn or winter wedding…

Birch bark confetti

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A special offer on pretty delphinium petal confetti from The Natural Confetti Company

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The Natural Confetti Company delphinium petal confetti

A wedding is not a wedding without a confetti toss, and I’m a firm advocate of naturally produced petal confetti.  The Natural Confetti Company are offering our lovely bride- and grooms-to-be a fantastic offer on their beautiful natural Delphinium confetti.

The Natural Confetti Company delphinium petal confetti

There are two great options to choose from, for confetti cones and organza bags, both exclusive to readers of The Natural Wedding Company.  With every 10 cones of natural Delphinium confetti ordered you will receive an additional 5 cones free, or with every 10 small organza bags of natural Delphinium confetti ordered you will receive an additional 7 bags free.

The Natural Confetti Company delphinium petal confetti

So rather than showering yourself with mass produced confetti, get your guests to throw handfuls of this beautiful, English grown, natural petal confetti.

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