English Wedding Ideas

If you are looking for vintage wedding ideas and tips make sure to check out Little Miss Wedding which is full of fantastic advice from pros and real life vintage weddings. There is a recent feature on vintage caravans and how to achieve the perfect vintage wedding written by their new bridal blogger (who is a vintage wedding planner)

I am also looking for british brides that are having a vintage style wedding to send in photos and share their tips with our readers so please do contact me. x

I love these photos of this happily married couple, Laura and Leigh from Southampton. It was great chatting to Laura about their special day, how they met, honeymoon and top tips for getting married- she clearly had a fantastic day and loved organising her wedding (no wonder that she has now decided to do that as a job!)

The background
Leigh and Laura have know each other since they were 2 years old and they attended the same playgroup which was run by their mothers. They have pictures at Leigh’s 5th birthday party with her perspective in-laws.
Laura took Leigh to Rome for his birthday Feb 16th, but arrived in Rome on Valentines Day. Unbeknown to her, Leigh had contacted the hotel and arranged to have 12 long stem red roses on arrival and he proceeded to propose down on one knee on Valentines evening. Ahhh sweet!

Although the couple have known of each other for 25 years before marrying, they were not friends or enemies at school.

The wedding day
Laura wore a Sophia Tolli 2 piece outfit and bright orange shoes to match the wedding theme. The wedding ceremony took place in the elegant Romsey Abbey in front of 150 guests.

The location had a special meaning as Leigh’s parents had got married there 38 years before hand. Following the exchanging of wedding vows, Leigh and Laura then had the wedding blessed.

After the service guests were greeted at Romsey Town Hall with a specially designed ‘House of Payne’ cocktail. Following the drinks reception guests moved upstairs to the wedding breakfast on one of 4 family named banquet tables.

The food for the wedding breakfast was a surprise with either organic farmed fish and chips or awarding winning Uptons of Bassett Sausage and chips served with the traditional accompaniment of Champagne.

Dessert was a make your own ice cream, with each guest being served a bowl of New Forest Ice cream and on the tables were sprinkles, flakes and syrup- wow that sounds amazing! Looks like the cake was a tower of cheeses – I love alternate choices for wedding cakes, such as cupcakes, brownies and cheese.

The Wedding Party
Leigh’s best friend Paul Nelson was Bestman, Laura’s sister and oldest friend were bridesmaids. The bridesmaids worn promo style dresses from Monsoon. Leigh’s brother Ian led the ushers with Peter Nobbs as well. Both sets of parents were also present and Laura was given away by her proud father.

The Honeymoon
Two days after the wedding Leigh and Laura set off on an American adventures. First flying into San Francisco, walking over the golden gate bridge and visiting Alcatraz. Then flying into Las Vegas, taking the helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon and on Laura’s birthday Leigh had arranged a surprise meal at Stratosphere’s Top of the World restaurant, 800 ft above the strip that revolves 360 degrees (there seems to be a recurring theme here of Leigh being very good at organising surprises). Following Las Vegas they flew into Miami and drove down the Florida Keys spending some much needed relaxing time in Islamorada and Key West before returning to Miami,

What was the best bit of advice you received?
“Set aside some time in the day for the bride, groom and immediate family to be together to enjoy the day. On arriving at the reception venue we went into an anti room with the immediate bridal party and enjoyed a bottle of champagne together, lots of hugs and congratulations”

What is you best wedding tip?
“Hire a wedding planner to run the day at the very least. This is especially important if you are not having your wedding in one location as it normally falls onto the mother of the bride or groom, best man or chief bridesmaid to make sure that everything is running to time. This is a lot of pressure and means that they cannot simply enjoy the day”

Best memories of the day?
“Drawing along side Leigh at the alter, as the Bestman had not let him turn around so he had not yet seen me. When he finally did he had the best smile and look on his face and the service was magical”

Any funny stories?
“I (Laura) arrived at the Abbey 5 minutes early, only to find that most of the wedding guests including mother of the bride and bridesmaids, were in the local hostelry enjoying a chilled glass of something to calm their nerves. I was then overtaken by wedding guests entering the Abbey as she waited in the car!!”

Having had such a successful wedding Laura and Leigh decided to set up a bespoke wedding planning consultancy, Myriad Genii . Check out their site as there is lots of info on there and even a competition to win a ‘kick start your wedding plans’ session.

Everyone loves having a good nose at other people’s wedding pics to get wedding ideas and inspiration so its no surprise that there are many blogs and sites out there dedicated to showcasing real life weddings. I like to have a look at the little personal touches that other couples have made to their wedding – the way that they have decorated the venue, the wedding theme that they have chosen, the favours, the flowers, the music, the invites…. With so many weddings around every bride wants to differentiate their wedding from their friends so sites that post real life wedding articles and shots are really popular. I especially like littlemisswedding.co.uk, who recently covered a lovely rustic wedding in Yorkshire and also there are some great posts and inspired ideas over at Stylemepretty.

I am looking for brides who are happy to share their ideas and tips, and showcase some of their wedding shots, so if you know of anyone that would like to spread the love (and their unique wedding ideas!) please do let me know.

When planning your wedding bouquet what fun to involve your bridesmaids and make it fun, bonding session. I find that seasonal flowers look and feel best for example at this time of year you might want to include sweet peas (which smell amazing) and garden herbs, such as mint. In Shakespearian times they would often use herbs in bouquets and if you look closely you can find that different herbs have different symbolism such as Rosemary for rememberance. There is also the aromatherapy benefits – what could be better for your wedding bouquet than seasonal english lavender with its calming fragrance.

I chose to go for seasonal berries, white roses and evergreen leaves at my winter wedding and it was great fun for us all to make these them together in the morning. We used lots of holly from local fields to decorate the venue – its great to source local and seasonal flowers and foliage – not only does it keep costs down but its green too and fun to be surrounded by things from place that hold special memories. I used Britt at Flourish and Green – she was fantastic, the flowers looked amazing and such a lovely girl to work with.

that are kind on the purse

Green, Ehtical, Eco – these words are on the tip of many tongues at the moment and something that might be in the back of your mind when organising your special day. You don’t have to be a full on tree hugger to incorporate some of these stylish and chic ‘recycled’ ideas into your wedding – whether its using recycled invites, second hand dresses, getting people to RSVP by email or choosing local and organic suppliers there are many small changes that can be made (which I guarantee will be kinder on the purse too)

Flowers and Foliage
A good idea for flowers is to use flowers that are  in season and are grown and sourced locally (maybe even in your or your neighbours back garden) – I got my dad to cut down holly and Ivy for our Christmas wedding from the fields nearby and not only did it save a lot of money, but it was local and seasonal foliage.  My mum and my bridesmaids made all our bouquets on the morning of the wedding – which kept us occupied, was great fun and a bit of bonding for us all in the run up to that special time .  Make sure you use the bouquets afterwards on the tables, or place them somewhere they can be enjoyed by everyone.  The 2 large arrangements in the church were then taken (by friends) to the evening venue – it seemed ridiculous to waste the amazing flowers.  We decided against flowers on the tables too – the venue looked fantastic with fairy lights and candelabra it would have just been overdoing it. I’ll be talking a lot more about flowers, foliage and decor later on – one of my best mates is a whizz in that dept and she has many fab ideas and top tips that I’ll be sharing.

Invites and Stationery
I think its nice to send out invites as people like to receive them and I most certainly wanted a reminder of my special day, but get people to RSVP via email, its so much easier to keep track of (and great to send reminder emails etc) and saves on postage too.  There are lots of companies out there that do recycled invites if that is what you are looking for and I suggest that you check out the directory at The Natural Wedding Company (its a great site actually with a good directory offering ethical and organic suppliers – what a great idea!). Its easy and fun to make your own name places, wedding services and invites and I’ll be sharing mine (and other brides top tips on this too)

Dress and Accessories
I definitely wanted a new dress for my wedding day, one that was specially made and fitted to me. This had to be one of the best bits of planning the wedding. However there are lots of designers and dress makers out there that use organic fabrics and run their companies in an ethical manner check out some of the alternative designers. Its also a great idea to check out charity shops, Ebay and specialist online suppliers for second hand wedding dresses and accessories, or even better borrow from friends and family, you know where its come from and it probably means a bit more. I will certainly be loaning out my tiara, jewellery, shrug and ideas to my friends.

I had never thought about vintage crockery for a wedding, or even any crockery for that matter of fact until a very stylish friend of mine brought it up the other day when I was talking about this site.  But having done a bit of digging and research it I can see the inspiration – how cool and appropriate it could be …. the afternoon tea and cakes, the english summer weddings, the lace and antique dresses  - it all fits in perfectly if that is the look you are going for.  

There are companies that specialise in the whole ‘vintage’ wedding such as Vintage Days, or  Glynnis Maguire at Scarlett Ribbon for creative wedding work and ideas.  I have heard that there are many specialist (and some very good) vintage wedding dress boutiques – I’ll be reviewing those shortly.

Scarlett Ribbon (does among many other things) vintage crockery hire at pretty reasonable rates.  However my favourite of all the sites is The Crockery Cupboard, a London company founded by 2 friends,  who hire out crockery from the 1920’s to the 1960’s and promise to add a bit of stylish ‘vintage glamour’ to your wedding celebrations.  I can’t remember what I paid for my bog standard white dinner plates but they’re charging anything from £1 for dinner plates to £2 for cups and saucers which sounds like a much more fun and stylish alternative than what most of us opt for.

If you are thinking of using vintage wedding crockery at your wedding, if you have used any good, reliable suppliers that you would recommend please do let me know – I would love to get some feedback on who to use in this space (and the suppliers that let you send it back dirty as I know my caterers didn’t have the time or space to be washing up on the night!)

Contact me with any ideas and thoughts on this matter or leave a comment at the end of the post.

I have been so excited to set up this site – Its been on my mind for so long to do this and I’ve been driving my husband mad with all my excitement (what shall I call it, what should it look like, will I be able to do this, have I chose the right domain name) – the weird thing is that I am scared to write the first post because it means so much to me to get this right.  Silly really when I do this sort of thing everyday (writing blogs) BUT this is different because its my passion and something that means a lot to me.  Ever since I got married in December, infact ever since I got engaged in April 2008 I have been scouring the net for british sites that have cool wedding ideas and tips, trying to find something a bit different, not the run of the mill type wedding sites but something personal, unusual, ’boutique’ – as I like to call it.  A site that reviews and finds those one off cool suppliers, a site that lists places that don’t charge corkage (and let you bring your own champers), a site that helps you create your perfect, fun, but laid back wedding and just gives you ideas to make it YOUR special day.  I certainly had mine, and it was perfect and happy and everything I wanted, but I added some personal touches that it made it OURs and not just like every other wedding.. …

And the main thing is you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg – get your mum and dad to help out with the decorations, get your brother to drive you to the church, get your mates to bake the cake, or your old school friend (that is now a top fashion photographer) to do reportage shots of your special day.  What I loved about mine was that so many friends and family were there to lend a hand and we had bags of fun in the run up.  There was a lot more love than unneccessary expenditure!

So that is why I set up this site – a niche in the market, I believe that this sort of  UK focused site was missing – there are brides like me that want something different, people that might be on a budget but still want hip weddings, and most importantly for people like me that want to share their ideas and make sure that you can have the best day ever.  Please add comments, let me know your thoughts – keep me posted on your wedding plans and anything unusual or exciting that other readers would love to hear about.  If you are a supplier that offers something a little bit different (bunting, circus tent marquees, karma cars, lace ribbons) just email me

Phew I have done the first post now – everything else should be easy/…..