Blog: diy wedding ideas
Charlie Charlie

Elena and Simon’s colourful handmade wedding with rustic outdoor ceremony, felt heart garlands and a unicorn

Charlie

This week’s Real Wedding is vibrant and carefree. There’s a marquee bedecked with sweet felt heart garlands and hundreds of handmade pom poms, and wildflowers and hay bales adorning the open-air ceremony space. This colourful handmade wedding is an inspiration for anyone who wants a laid back and fun vibe for their big day.

Beautifully captured by one of our TNWC recommended photographers, Emma Stoner, on a horse rescue farm. Join us as we find out more about this September wedding from bride Elena…

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Charlie Charlie

Chloe and Sam’s modern spring woodland wedding with earthy organic decor, gold dipped feathers, and lush green and white florals

Charlie

Chloe and Sam's modern spring woodland wedding with earthy organic decor, gold dipped feathers, and lush green and white florals // Enchanted Brides Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

This week’s modern spring woodland wedding is incredibly beautiful. There are mismatched chairs under waxed scaffold-board tables, gold-dipped feathers, vintage candlestick holders and garlands of greenery. Every single element of this wedding is carefully planned yet natural and organic. It’s a strong contender for my favourite Real Wedding so far (and it’s the final one of 2016) and I just love that they did it all themselves.

We first met Chloe and Sam when the gorgeous couple featured in this rainy romantic Cornish wedding shoot back in March. I think we all knew then that their wedding would be a beauty and it certainly hasn’t disappointed.

Bride Chloe tells us more about their modern spring woodland wedding…

Modern rustic wedding table decor // Enchanted Brides Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Hand painted wedding sign // Enchanted Brides Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Wild and natural green and white wedding bouquet with ferns and peonies // Enchanted Brides Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Romantic modern church wedding // Enchanted Brides Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Chloe and Sam’s modern spring woodland wedding with earthy organic decor, gold dipped feathers, and lush green and white florals // Enchanted Brides Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Naked wedding cake decorated with edible spring flowers // Enchanted Brides Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

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Samantha Samantha

A DIY wedding menu wall hanging and book review of Decorate for a Party

Samantha

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The ultimate party season is fast approaching so surely there is not a more perfect time to check out a book solely focused on creating beautifully themed parties. Decorate for a Party by Holly Becker of the fab Decor8, design and lifestyle blog and Leslie Shewring of the charming blog A Creative Mint provides an abundance of ‘stylish and simple ideas for meaningful gatherings.’

With such brilliant creative minds behind the book you can find the sort of inspiration and DIY suggestions you would expect. And you know we are a sucker for a good DIY project especially if it involves re-using or recycling items that you already have around the house. With this in mind we pawed over the lovely pages and selected a simple DIY wedding menu wall hanging to make to find out just how easy the suggestions are for you.

So check out our version of their DIY wedding menu wall hanging followed by our review of the book.

DIY Wedding Menu Wall Hanging

Decorate for a Party // DIY Wedding Menu Wall Hanging // The Natural Wedding Company

Now we couldn’t just review a DIY book without testing out an idea and giving it a go to see how simple they really are. With a friends winter wedding fast approaching, I selected an idea that I felt would work with the look and theme she is going for – a DIY wedding menu wall hanging.

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Charlie Charlie

Gemma and Nick’s flower filled cottage garden wedding with homegrown sweet peas and pale blue bridesmaids’ dresses

Charlie

Gemma and Nick’s flower filled cottage garden wedding with homegrown sweet peas and pale blue bridesmaids’ dresses // Maureen du Preez Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

This Real Weddingsis one of those relaxed, family-filled days; brimming with joy and carefully chosen homemade details, it is unique yet classic and timelessly traditional.

Gemma and Nick, who met at university, were married in their beautiful local church and held their reception in a marquee adorned with borrowed bunting and homegrown flowers in the garden of Gemma’s family home.

We asked bride Gemma to fill us in on more details of this picture-perfect DIY wedding, captured by one of our recommended wedding photographers, Maureen de Preez. Over to Gemma…

Rustic hessian wedding table plan // Maureen du Preez Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Gemma and Nick’s flower filled cottage garden wedding with homegrown sweet peas and pale blue bridesmaids’ dresses // Maureen du Preez Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Homemade wedding cake decorated with real flowers // Maureen du Preez Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Gemma and Nick’s flower filled cottage garden wedding with homegrown sweet peas and pale blue bridesmaids’ dresses // Maureen du Preez Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Country wedding bunting // Maureen du Preez Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Gemma and Nick’s flower filled cottage garden wedding with homegrown sweet peas and pale blue bridesmaids’ dresses // Maureen du Preez Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Country wedding place setting // Maureen du Preez Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

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Samantha Samantha

How to make a red gingham pageboy bow tie for your rustic country wedding

Samantha

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Today I have created a lovely and simple pageboy bow tie DIY tutorial. Being a mama to a little boy I sometimes find the outfit choices a little limiting compared to the options for girls. For a celebration however I don’t think there is anything more adorable than a boy in a bow tie – paired with some braces, a flat cap, or blazer you can’t really go wrong.

These bow ties are so simple and easy they would be perfect to make for little pageboys, and the advantage of making them yourself is you can choose any fabric that compliments the rest of your wedding party. I chose a red gingham fabric but you could choose any kind.

The tutorial today has been adapted from one by Slow Mama which I used a couple of years back when my little one was a baby. Now he’s a little older I made a couple of small changes to suit a family wedding we had this summer. You really don’t need to be a pro seamstress to make one, I am most definitely not!

What you need to create a pageboy bow tie

How to make a pageboy bow tie // The Natural Wedding Company

What you will need:

  • Fabric (at least 25cm x 20cm)
  • Complimentary thread & needle
  • Sewing machine (optional)
  • Scissors (material scissors preferable)
  • 2 x small safety pins
  • Tape measure
  • Iron (optional but helpful)

Making your pageboy bow tie

How to make a pageboy bow tie // The Natural Wedding Company

Step 1 – Cut the fabric

Cut the two pieces of fabric required to make the bow tie:

  • Piece 1 – 25cm x 12cm
  • Piece 2 – 8cm x 4cm

As my fabric was chequered it was easy to follow the lines. If you are not confident in cutting the right sizes in a straight line, make the templates out of paper/newspaper first and trace onto the fabric.

How to make a pageboy bow tie // The Natural Wedding Company

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Charlie Charlie

Bree and Mitch’s rustic backyard wedding on the coast of Australia with a blush pink wedding dress by Grace Loves Lace

Charlie

Bree and Mitch's rustic backyard wedding on the coast of Australia with a blush pink wedding dress by Grace Loves Lace // OnThree Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Today’s beautiful rustic backyard wedding comes to us all the way from sunny Australia and is a lovely example of how to have a laid back and affordable wedding. Bree and Mitch were high school sweethearts and planned a wedding around their memories of warm evenings sat together in Bree’s parents back garden.

From Bree’s unconventional blush pink Grace Loves Lace wedding dress to rustic handmade details and makeshift bar, this wedding is both beautiful and full of love, but without a huge financial cost. They even had some weather issues, but not – if you’re planning a summer wedding in England – in the way that you’d imagine!

Over to Bree to tell us more about their wedding…

Bree and Mitch's rustic backyard wedding on the coast of Australia with a blush pink wedding dress by Grace Loves Lace // OnThree Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

DIY newspaper love heart decorations // OnThree Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Bree and Mitch's rustic backyard wedding on the coast of Australia with a blush pink wedding dress by Grace Loves Lace // OnThree Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Backyard wedding ceremony // OnThree Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Bree and Mitch's rustic backyard wedding on the coast of Australia with a blush pink wedding dress by Grace Loves Lace // OnThree Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

Bree and Mitch's rustic backyard wedding on the coast of Australia with a blush pink wedding dress by Grace Loves Lace // OnThree Photography // The Natural Wedding Company

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Charlie Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Nik shares details of her hot chocolate wedding favours and thank you gifts

Charlie

Izzy Burton illustration

Opening up the blog to other real brides-to-be has been one of the best decisions I’ve made.  I hope you are enjoying and benefiting from the experiences, ideas and handmade projects they have been sharing here.  I’m so pleased with the outcome of this new feature that I will be looking for new TNWC Real Brides to start blogging in the autumn – if you’re interested stay tuned as I’ll be posting details on the blog shortly.

We are joined today we have the lovely Nik who is planning a relaxed coastal farm wedding at her home in Wales.  She’s sharing details of the fab hot chocolate wedding favours they’ve been making for their guests, and also some more personal thoughts on how she’s found planning a wedding alone a challenge.  

I hope you enjoy it – over to Nik…

Arranging Favours and Thank You’s – Our Last Big Job!

With six weeks to go until the wedding, we’ve been turning our efforts to the tasks on our ‘to do’ list that are able to be done in advance.  There seems to be so many things that have to wait until the week/night before the wedding, and it kind of felt as though we’d hit a bit of a ‘lull’ in the preparations, until I remembered that we hadn’t really started on one of the most important tasks – favours and gifts for our guests!  Whoops.

Heart-Warming Hot Chocolate Favours

Hand illustrated 'let love grow' wedding mug favours

From the word go, we wanted our favours to be something practical that would be used on the day of the wedding and that could be used again and again afterwards.

After much deliberation, I had a bit of a lightbulb moment and we decided that we would make hot chocolate stirring spoons for each of our guests, complete with a DIY hand-illustrated mug to commemorate the day (inspired by the work of illustrator OhNoRachio!, whose work I covet and purchase often!).

Hand illustrated 'let love grow' wedding mug favours

To add a little nod to the country we now call home, we arranged for Folksy seller Rescue & Revive to handstamp vintage teaspoons with the words ‘Llwy Garu’ –Welsh for lovespoon! Lovespoons are an old Welsh tradition, although they are typically carved out of wood.

Handstamped vintage 'lovespoon' teaspoon wedding favours

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Charlie Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Emma’s latest crafting projects and and worries about the small things on their wedding ‘to do’ list

Charlie

Izzy Burton illustration

So we had a little break last week from our TNWC Real Brides series – the first of our real brides, Caroline, got married on May 18th in a beautiful farm wedding (you can see a gorgeous picture of Caroline and Gareth on their wedding day here on Facebook) and I can’t wait to hear all about it.

Today we have Emma back with us, and she only has 8 weeks to go until her big day in Cornwall.  These weddings are all coming so quickly!  She has a couple of gorgeous craft projects to share with you all today – a pretty decorated bottles for table flowers, a homemade blackboard seating plan, and the sweetest aisle liners I’ve seen.

Over to Emma to tell you what they’ve been up to…

All The Small Things (seem to bring the biggest headache)

Up until a week ago I was feeling calm, organised and under control with the planning going swimmingly.  Then suddenly with less than 8 weeks to go (EXCITED!) I started to get a bit worrisome.  All the big things have been well and truly ticked off the list but the little things seem like they have started breed!

Old glass bottles decorated with ribbons

I suspect this happens to every bride and the point at which where ‘bridezilla’ may start to rear her ugly head, I can feel it bubbling beneath the surface now… I think the main problem is worrying that we will forget something!  Like having enough tables for the caterer to put food on, sorting out music for the ceremony and how we are going to play it outside in the amphitheatre.

I have been worrying about things that we had slightly overlooked; like what we can feed our vegan guests when we are having a hog roast and cream tea (slight fail).  The only oven on site is an outdoor pizza oven…hmmm, still to be solved.

Antique glass bottle vases

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Charlie Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: Stephanie’s been making homemade honeybee themed gifts for her bridesmaids

Charlie

Izzy Burton illustration

I’m so delighted that we had an American bride-to-be amongst our TNWC Real Brides as although British and American weddings are similar in so many ways, there are little extras that I love hearing about.  Stephanie is getting married this September at a beautiful farm in Rhode Island and her guest post today is all about the homemade gifts she made for her bridesmaids and Matron (or Maid) of Honour.

As well as making the gifts herself, she also sourced honey from her dad who is a beekeeper, so really keeping her wedding details in her family.  Plus I am an absolute sucker for honey, always picking up locally produced jars whenever we are visiting new places.  I’m sure you will find some lovely inspiration from Stephanie’s blog post today…

I was really excited about asking my sister and a few girlfriends to be in my wedding party, so I really wanted to do something a bit more personalized and special than simply asking them on the phone or over some coffee.

I’ve been in a dreamcatcher phase lately and have been making them from old scraps of fabric and other items around the house.  They’re pretty basic, but my sister, Dayna, has loved every one; naturally, I decided to make her a dreamcatcher of her very own as a gift when I asked her to be my Matron of Honor.  I also thought it made sense since I’ll be making a few for my reception… I need all the practice I can get!

Homemade dreamcatcher

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Charlie Charlie

Edible spring flower lollipops with violas and primroses for sweet Easter wedding favours

Charlie

Edible spring primrose lollipop wedding favours

I’ve been meaning to share this idea with you for a while, but what could be more perfect than sharing them now – well, apparently it’s supposed to be the start of spring although the snow across the UK suggests otherwise.

These homemade lollipops each hold a pretty edible spring flower, such as these beautiful primroses, and would make lovely wedding favours for an Easter or spring wedding. These ones were made by our lovely TNWC businesses Forage For.

The tiny violas or violets are just the right size to be kept whole in a lollipop, whereas the larger pansies can have an individual petal carefully removed and used instead. You can find a recipe for the edible flower lollipops at Sprinkle Bakes – I particularly love that you don’t need to buy special lollipop moulds, but can in fact use powdered sugar to create your mould! If you’d rather not add another item to your already lengthy ‘to make’ wedding list, then I’d recommend checking out Eat My Flowers who make them with their homegrown edible flowers – you’ll find them in their shop.

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