Blog: handmade wedding
Charlie 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.

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Charlie 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…

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Charlie Charlie

Our “Rustic, Outdoor, Eco-Chic, Country Garden Wedding” is featured on Love My Dress

Charlie

Such exciting news to tell you all – our wedding is featured on Love My Dress today!  You can (finally!) see the photos from our wedding – the lovely Annabel who runs Love My Dress has called it a Rustic, Outdoor, Eco-Chic, Country Garden Wedding.

I would love to know what you all think.  There are so many more lovely photos from our wedding and other details that I will be sharing here on my blog, so please check back or stay in touch by adding your email address to the mailing list (you can find it on the righthand side of this page).

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Charlie Charlie

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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Charlie Charlie

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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Charlie Charlie

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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Charlie Charlie

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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Charlie Charlie

Crafty hen party workshops making pom pom necklaces, flower fascinators, garlands and favours

Charlie

Who could have dreamt up such a wonderful idea?  Why, the lovely Anna of A Alicia Accessories – the talented designer-maker behind gorgeous eco-ethical textile jewellery like this…

In addition to her pretty jewellery and wedding ranges, Anna is now offering fun hen party workshops where you and your bridesmaid can create your own fabulous accessories, all with a focus on eco-ethical and vintage materials.

You could make these funky pom pom necklaces perfect for a night out or even as part of your bridesmaid ensemble…

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