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Blog: save the date

Charlie

TNWC Real Brides: introducing Sarah and Lee’s homemade child-friendly wedding

Charlie

This week I’ve already introduced TNWC Real Bride Myfawny who’s planning a creative and vintage inspired wedding celebration with her Mr-to-be Tom (oh and Arthur the dachshund!), so today it’s ‘Real Bride’ number 4 – the lovely Sarah.

Sarah and Lee are getting hitched in Nottinghamshire and are making their wedding a child-friendly (they have two cuties called Ava and Archie) and homemade affair – I can’t wait to hear all about it as their plans unfurl.

I’m also really excited because I met Sarah’s mum Susan last summer on the Catkin cut flower course (she’s growing lots of flowers for their wedding!). So it’s over to Sarah to tell you all about their plans so far…

Sarah + Lee: 24th August 2013, Nottinghamshire

Hi my name is Sarah Milner I am 26 and engaged to the handsome Lee Broadhurst who turns 30 on Christmas day! We have 2 children Ava who’s 5 and Archie who is 21 months old. Our wedding is taking place on August 24th 2013, we are tying the knot at the gorgeous old vicarage in Elkesley – it’s a beautiful old building which is a private home in which they allow 12 weddings a year to take place.

The ceremony would take place inside the house and afterwards we move into the marquee set in the beautiful gardens where we are having an informal tea party for guests and a BBQ later in the evening. It’s the perfect setting for the relaxed, homemade, family wedding we really desire.

My lovely mum is playing a big part in my day, she is growing and arranging the flowers for the big day. She is also making hand knitted toy dogs as favours for young guests, handmade lavender bags for the ladies and we are still deciding what to do for the men!

Rachel from Catkin Flowers showing my mum and Charlie from The Natural Wedding Company how to make a hand-tied bouquet:

Charlie

Wishing you a Happy New Year with a half price offer on wedding stationery from The Little Cornish Design Studio

Charlie

Wishing you a very Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely break over Christmas and have an exciting year ahead to look forward to – I had a somewhat exhausting 2012 so I’m hoping that 2013 is going to involve more quality time and a better life balance. How about you?

Let’s kick off the New Year here on the blog with a fantastic and exclusive half price discount – yes, half price! – for my readers. The lovely Natalie from The Little Cornish Design Studio is offering TNWC readers a 50% discount on all printed wedding stationery ordered before 31st January!

Charlie

Vintage inspired postcard save the dates made by a TNWC couple

Charlie

It’s been a while since I shared some of your lovely wedding stationery designs, and I get some utterly lovely emails from you all with snaps of your designs attached. So I decided I’m going to get better at sharing them with you, and to start with I’ve got these lovely vintage inspired postcard save the dates from Matt and his fiancée Candice.

Matt and Candice are getting married in January 2014 in the Lake District, because Candice is Australian they’ve had to be super organised ahead of time to give her family plenty of time to plan for their wedding.

Charlie

Quirky and eco-friendly hand drawn wedding stationery from Hollyhock Lane with an exclusive reader discount

Charlie

I am loving the influx of talented illustrators who are turning their hand to creating stunning wedding stationery that is not only beautiful, but in many cases eco-friendly too. Today I want to introduce you to Hollyhock Lane, a brand new wedding stationery business set up by artist and illustrator Julie Annis.

Plus, Julie is offering readers of The Natural Wedding Company an exclusive 15% discount on all orders placed before August 20th 2012, so if you love her designs below or want a bespoke design, simply mention The Natural Wedding Company when you get in touch with Julie.

From her little cottage in rural Sussex, Julie is busy dreaming up and creating quirky wedding stationery that has all the charm and creativity that I certainly was searching for when planning my wedding. Hollyhock Lane provides a collection of ready designed stationery or you can commission Julie to create a bespoke design that intimately captures the essence of your wedding day.

The Hollyhock Lane Collections:

Hazy Woodland

Inspired by Julie’s own woodland wedding – whether you’re getting married in the woods or are using nature as an inspiration.

Charlie

Rustic postcard save the dates with stamped lettering on recycled brown card

Charlie

Oooh I do love a great but simple idea, and this one is just downright fab. I know there is a huge following for rustic brown recycled wedding stationery on this blog (there’s lots of you after my own heart and I love it), so I’m pretty sure this design will interest a few of you.

Designed by the very talented Allie Ruth, this is a postcard sized save the date, very simply stamped on one side with the words ‘Save the Date’, and on the back the basic details such as date and place, along with space for your guests address and a stamp. The white lace motifs were also stamped on.

What’s brilliant, is that Allie Ruth has a fab Etsy shop where you can buy that lovely ‘Save the Date’ stamp, complete with arrow struck heart, plus she also does custom address stamps should you be looking for a new ‘Mr and Mrs’ style return address stamp.

Charlie

Quirky and playful illustrated wedding stationery with a mixture of modern designs and old fashioned charm

Charlie

When I came across the wedding stationery created by illustrator Victoria Whincup I was certain that you would all love to see her designs too. I got in touch with Victoria and she told me that she first started doing wedding invitations when she made them for a friend, and since then hasn’t been able to stop! “I love to hear a customer’s idea and then translate it into a design. I have always drawn and painted, it’s all I’ve ever really wanted to do.”

Victoria uses paint brushes and pencils to create her designs, telling me she believes it gives a much more personal feel to the invites. “I’m a great lover of typography, so all of the text is delicately hand drawn. Colours are also definitely important when it comes to my designs, it’s nice to subtly tie in the colour theme of a wedding, or perhaps the season. Most of the tones I use are quite muted, but I am a fan of a splash of vibrant colour here and there.”

Charlie

A Padstow-inspired stop motion animated ‘save the date’

Charlie

It’s Sunday and I thought I would share something a bit different to the normal inspiration-type posts. This is an incredible animated ‘save the date’ from Charlie Scribble, one of the talented businesses you can find on the directory. Charlie Scribble can bring your wedding stationery to life with their stop motion animations like this Padstow inspired ‘save the date’ they created for one couple…

As well as being incredibly cool and quirky, you eliminate the need to send out paper ‘save the dates’ to everyone, instead you can just email people the link, or if you have a wedding website you can embed the animation onto a page. Visit Charlie Scribble to find out more about the animated stationery that they can offer you.

Charlie

Our wedding stationery inspired this reader to create her own handmade invitations

Charlie

One of my lovely readers, Eulyn, got in touch to share her wedding invitations with me after being inspired by the wedding stationery we made for our wedding. I can’t tell you how lovely it is to get emails and pictures like this, knowing that something you did inspired someone else – and a photo of another couples hard work.

If you’ve been inspired by the ‘save the dates’ or stationery that we created for our wedding, do send me an email – I’d love to hear from you and attach a couple of pictures so I can see (and maybe even share on the blog) what you’ve created – it would make my day. It can get very lonely blogging away, sharing ideas and inspiration, so hearing that you were inspired by something you found here really makes me happy.

Charlie

Woodland inspired luggage tag ‘save the dates’

Charlie

Today it’s more handmade loveliness from a lovely bride-to-be and another fab idea for creating ‘save the dates’. These ‘save the date’ luggage tags were made by Tara and her husband-to-be Ben who run a vintage restoration business called Elegantly Wasted Vintage. They are getting married in December and are going for a woodland Edwardian feel for their wedding.

Tara was happy to share the details of how she made them and where she got her supplies… The ‘save the dates’ were easy to make – although all the furious typing on the old typewriter gave me very sore wrists – I don’t know how my mum, who was a secretary in the 1970s, did it! The whole lot cost about £15 to make 50. I used letter stamp blocks from Dunelm Mill and cost £2, the tags were £2 for 50 from Ebay, the twine was £3 from Nutscene, and I ordered the stag stamp online from stampsdirect for £7. I trimmed the paper with the details using scalloped edged scissors.

Charlie

Printable floral tags for gifts, place cards or save the dates

Charlie

I don’t usually squeeze in a lunchtime post, but I really wanted to share this find as I thought it would appeal to a lot of you. These beautiful floral tags are offered free to download and print from Packagery, all you need is a printer, some card and a pair of scissors. There is such a wonderful choice of recycled cards available now, so do check out the DIY section on the directory for a list of where you can buy it from.

I thought they could be used for everyday gift giving, customised into ‘save the dates‘ (I have a fab handmade luggage tag ‘save the date’ idea coming soon) or perhaps as place names for your wedding guests. Any other suggestions on how these could be used?

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