Blog: real bride Fern
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Fern and Dominic’s woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding at their idyllic Somerset village

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Fern and Dominic's woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding at their idyllic Somerset home village // Photography Belinda McCarthy // The Natural Wedding Company

This beautiful summer woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding is a delight to share, not only because it’s full of lovely details that will undoubtedly inspire many of our brides, but also because it’s the wedding of one last years TNWC Real Brides, Fern (find all her blog posts here).

Fern and Dominic planned a natural down-to-earth wedding in their home village Montacute in Somerset. This idyllic rural village provided a pretty backdrop against which they celebrated their marriage, and wove into their wedding day some of the things they love most – woodland birds and country garden blooms. Over to Fern to share her wedding day…

Fern + Dominic, August 2015

Our wonderful August wedding was everything that we had hoped for. It was really important to us right from the beginning for our day to be really welcoming, intimate occasion to share with our family. We had a very small wedding party with only one bridesmaid, best man and one usher, but this was right for us. Lots of our guests commented on how much they enjoyed the relaxed family atmosphere.

Woodland and country flower wedding table centres // Photography Belinda McCarthy // The Natural Wedding Company

Fern and Dominic's woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding at their idyllic Somerset home village // Photography Belinda McCarthy // The Natural Wedding Company

Gypsophila and pink rose wedding hair flowers // Photography Belinda McCarthy // The Natural Wedding Company

Floral wedding napkins with bird pin wedding favours // Photography Belinda McCarthy // The Natural Wedding Company

Fern and Dominic's woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding at their idyllic Somerset home village // Photography Belinda McCarthy // The Natural Wedding Company

Country garden flowers and herbs // Photography Belinda McCarthy // The Natural Wedding Company

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TNWC Real Brides: Fern shares some of her handmade wedding details from napkins to paper garlands

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TNWC Real Brides: Fern shares some of her handmade wedding details from napkins to paper garlands

Real handmade wedding details

I am terribly behind for various reasons with my lovely Real Bride posts, so here is a post from Fern that she wrote in the run up to her August wedding sharing some of her handmade details like paper garlands, napkins, and table centre making. The photo of her little boy helping to paint the blackboards is just too sweet!

>> View Fern and Dominic’s woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding here <<

Over to Fern…

It’s all in the details

It’s less than five weeks to go to the wedding and I’ve officially turned into a crazy person. Not in a angry, bite your head off way, (ok only once) but in a running around the garden at 5.00 in the morning looking at pieces of wood and measuring how long my garlands are, and trying to work out which of my plants will be flowering in August kind of way.

I have had my first wedding dress fitting and we have all had our hair trial at the salon. So it’s all getting very real now. We are still working on lots of projects for the wedding so here are some sneak peeks, without giving away too many secrets.

Paper decorations

After making the envelopes for my invitations I was left with lots of strips of paper where I had trimmed the papers down to size. I was determined not to throw them away but find some way to use them to make something for the wedding. Then I found this idea (above) on Pinterest for paper garlands. I borrowed a die cutting machine and got to work changing all my strips of paper into little hearts and I have stitched them together on the sewing machine.

For the larger pieces of paper I have made some paper rosettes which, although beautiful, have required some deep engineering to stay in place.

Handmade paper rosette decorations // The Natural Wedding Company

Handmade napkins

I really don’t want too much of a colour theme at my wedding. There is some pink sneaking in to places where it counts, but I really don’t want it to be too “in your face”. I was really inspired by an idea for patterned napkins on Show Me The Pretty and decided to make my own for my wedding.

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TNWC Real Brides: Fern’s plans for an afternoon tea reception with homemade scones and cake

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TNWC Real Brides: Fern's plans for an afternoon tea reception with homemade scones and cake

Real bride Fern shares her plans for an afternoon tea reception

Fern’s post today is full of lovely recipes (lemon and blueberry drizzle cake anyone?) and some great vintage finds, including an old seed tray her dad has upcycled into a drinks tray for their wedding. Go get inspired!

>> View Fern and Dominic’s woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding here <<

Over to Fern…

Collecting for our afternoon reception

We really wanted to have an afternoon reception rather than an evening one for our guests who will not be attending the whole event to celebrate with everyone straight away. The National Trust have allowed us exclusive use of the Old Stable Courtyard at Montacute House for us to serve refreshments for our guests and park our wedding car, but guest will be free to access the grounds as they wish.

Montacute House

We are planning to serve baked refreshments following our ceremony for our guests while we have photos taken. I have been really inspired by Charlie’s afternoon tea in the garden (and part 2 here) and have spent a lot of time reading and then re-reading the posts about it to absorb every ounce of inspiration. Although Dominic and I are not going for a full English tea party, I really want some colourful vintage china to liven up the rustic picnic and trestle tables we will be using.

Montacute House

I am searching regularly through our local charity shops for vintage china, baskets and cut glass. My ultimate bargain is the green china set which I found for £9 for the lot. I love the beautiful cut glass bird, another charity shop find, who will hopefully find a nice little home for the day.

The other items are a collection of charity and vintage shop finds, were my own already, or I am borrowing from friends and family.

Vintage picnic baskets and crockery

For months, we have also collected jam jars, coffee jars and wine bottles to display our flowers and candles on the day, now filling 2 suitcases. My amazing dad has cleaned up and varnished a seed tray he had for us to hold our glasses for sparkling drinks, I’m blown away with how great it looks, and my parents have also kindly lent us some parasols to keep the sun off on the day.

Upcycled vintage seed tray for wedding drinks tray

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TNWC Real Brides: Fern’s ‘how to’ guide for the pretty envelopes she made for her bird and wildflower inspired wedding stationery

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TNWC Real Brides: Fern's 'how to' guide for the pretty envelopes she made for her bird and wildflower inspired wedding stationery // The Natural Wedding Company

I have just the loveliest post today from TNWC Real Bride Fern, who has not only made the most heavenly bird and wildflower inspired wedding stationery (and with my favourite brown craft card featuring!), but she has put together an easy-to-follow ‘how to’ guide for how she made the pretty envelopes. Plus she’s also shared details of how she created her different wedding stationery items. 

I just know you are going to love this wedding stationery and it’s beautiful little details. If you are on the hunt for eco-friendly materials to make items for your wedding, do check out our DIY Resources section of the directory for a great selection of businesses that we love.

>> View Fern and Dominic’s woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding here <<

How to guide for pretty envelopes

Brown craft card bird and wildflower inspired wedding stationery // The Natural Wedding Company

It is always lovely to receive special parcels and post by mail, and wedding invitations can tell you so much about a wedding. Most of the weddings we have been to, couples have handmade their invitations and I never considered doing my invites any other way, but I really wanted my wedding invitations to have a wow factor as soon as they land through the letter box. So it was clear very quickly that I was going to make my envelopes as well.

I have included a ‘how to’ guide for making envelopes below, but I will tell you about my other stationary first.

DIY Floral Envelopes

DIY guide to making your own floral envelopes // The Natural Wedding Company
Full ‘how to’ guide below!

Invitations, save the dates and RSVPs

I designed all the stationary myself in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Word, inspired by my finds on Pinterest. As I had decided that my envelopes would hold lots of colour it meant that I could keep my invitations more simple.

The fonts were Segeo Script used for our names on the save the dates and the rest of stationary we only used Traditional Arabic but varied use in all capitals or italics. The save the dates I made in Publisher by using the layout guides to divide the page into 8. I did for the RSVPs in Word; it is do-able but a lot fiddlier. I printed them on A4 and then cut them up with a guillotine.

Fern's bird and wildflower inspired wedding stationery // The Natural Wedding Company

The card for the invitations I found in a local shop with 10 brown kraft and 10 white sheets in. The design of my invites was dictated by this and its size. These were designed in Microsoft Word by customising the page size, even the map on the details.

We decided to trim all the corners to tie in with the envelopes, hole punch and tie together with ribbon. I then also made an afternoon invitation in the same way by customising the page size to A5 and then putting amended details inside. I printed everything at home on my own printer. It has cost around £35 for everything, not including postage, but I still have things left over for other projects.

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TNWC Real Brides: introducing Fern and Dominic’s natural woodland bird and wildflower inspired wedding in Somerset

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: introducing Fern and Dominic's natural woodland bird and wildflower inspired wedding in Somerset

Plans for a natural woodland bird and wildflower inspired wedding

I am pretty excited today to be introducing you to the first of our TNWC Real Brides for 2015! It’s that fun time of the year when emails start to drop into my inbox sharing all kinds of wonderful plans and handmade details from these brides-to-be in the run up to their weddings.

Our first TNWC Real Bride to introduce you to is Fern, who is getting married to her Mr-to-be Dominic this August in Somerset. Both of them have a love of the countryside, and Dominic works as a forester, so they are weaving elements of woodland birds and wildflowers throughout their wedding. I can’t wait to hear more!

>> View Fern and Dominic’s woodland bird and country flower inspired wedding here <<

But for now, over to Fern to give you a little introduction to how they met and their initial wedding ideas…

real_bride_2015_fern2

How we met

Dominic and I have been together for over eight years. We met in our first week of university in one of our first lectures, introduced by a new mutual friend, Jon. After one day saving a space for Jon between us in the lecture hall for four hours without him coming, we decided that maybe we would sit next to each other from now on.

We both studied Geography and had most lectures together and got to know each other better. Over a year later, and after some shaky first dates, meaning we now affectionately hold Airplane as the first film we saw together, we finally became a couple and two years afterwards had our first flat together.

A village home in Montacute

After a few jobs, more courses and house moves later we eventually found our way to our little house in the village of Montacute, which has truly been a real home for us. We live right in the centre of this beautiful village in a secret courtyard where we know all our neighbours and are just a stones throw away from breathtaking countryside.

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