Author Archives: Claire

Engagement Rings: Taking the First Step towards a Perfect Wedding

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Claire

This guest blog post brought a wry smile to my face this morn­ing — so for any men plan­ning to pro­pose in the near future, here’s some advice to help you pro­pose with­out a hitch!

engagement ring by wedding photographer Alison Groves

Photo credit: Ali­son Groves (click to see fea­tured wed­ding blog)

Of course the first step in any wed­ding is the pro­posal, and what is a pro­posal with­out the per­fect engage­ment ring? Tak­ing that first step can be a fright­en­ing prospect as there is always some amount of doubt in the back of the man’s mind as to whether or not his pro­posal will be accepted.  Read more…

Posted in Advice, english weddings, Jewellery | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Wedding blog search results — seriously?

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Claire

I’ve stolen the idea for this blog post from lamarieeencolere.com. Nathalie had a look at the odd­est queries Google was send­ing to her French wed­ding blog, with some funny results. I thought I’d do the same…  Read more…

This is what some of you have been search­ing for, and landed on Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog

  • wrapped in bed­sheets roman­tic — I don’t imag­ine this searcher was look­ing for my blog. I sup­pose it can be, but it’s not some­thing I’ve seen on a wed­ding sub­mis­sion recently — have you?
  • worst wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy images — Thanks. Charm­ing. But you won’t find them here! I’ll be hav­ing words with Google.
Posted in english weddings, to make you smile | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Wedding inspiration, French style: pink and glitter

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Claire

So pleased, and happy. I’ve dis­cov­ered a real life French wed­ding blog in La Mar­iée en Colère (trans­lated: The Angry Bride). So the plan for today is I’m blog­ging Nathalie’s gor­geous inspi­ra­tion shoot for you, then I’m off to brush up on my français.

wedding blog inspiration France (1)French inspi­ra­tion shoot from La Mar­iée en Colère

This shoot (“shoot­ing d’inspiration”) is deli­ciously girly: with per­fect pinks and del­i­cate pas­tels, beau­ti­ful lit­tle flower arrange­ments for tables, a bright and sum­mery bou­quet plus wed­ding sta­tionery (ele­gant as you’d expect!) — it’s just divine. The pic­tures speak for them­selves, and I’ve cred­ited all the sup­pli­ers involved below:
wedding blog inspiration France (2)
wedding blog inspiration France (3)
wedding blog inspiration France (4)
wedding blog inspiration France (5)
wedding blog inspiration France (6)
wedding blog inspiration France (7)
wedding blog inspiration France (8)  Read more…

Posted in bridal shoot, daily UK wedding inspiration, inspiration, Photography | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Cosmetic surgery and the wedding industry — a rant

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Claire

I’m going to show you an email, and then I’m going to say just what I think about a) plas­tic surgery and b) the idiots who think brides are their ideal cus­tomers for procedures.

This could get messy…

Here’s the email I found in my inbox this morn­ing:
I can’t fault Bella’s polite approach, but it’s cer­tainly a one-email-fits-all thing, so I don’t feel bad about my response. She’s only ask­ing for a guest post about skin­care… all per­fectly harm­less (I’ve noth­ing against mois­turiser!)  — but the string attached would be a nice back­link to a blog about cos­metic surgery. Kerch­ing?  Read more…

Posted in Advice, debate, english weddings | Tagged , , | 20 Comments

A real wedding from Monkey Island

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Claire

wedding photography by Louise Bjorling (17)
Tucked away in a lus­cious land­scape, acces­si­ble only by boat or foot­bridge and on its own pri­vate island on the River Thames, Mon­key Island is pretty unique as far as Eng­lish wed­ding venues go.

It’s a secluded hide­away, ele­gant and (I love this:) ances­tral home to monks rather than mon­keys — Mon­key Island was the per­fect back­drop for Max and Marina’s wed­ding day.

We begin the day in the bridal suite with Marina get­ting ready for the cer­e­mony — it’s a lovely out­door wed­ding with pea­cocks roam­ing around the grounds! and the day unfolds with so many glo­ri­ous moments between the bride, groom and their wed­ding guests.  Read more…

Posted in classic weddings, daily UK wedding inspiration, english weddings, Real weddings, traditional weddings | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Wedding planning or work?

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Claire
Somerset wedding photography by Belinda McCarthy

Som­er­set wed­ding. Pho­tog­ra­phy credit: Belinda McCarthy http://somerset-wedding-photographer.co.uk

I’ve found some bril­liant bits of inter­net for you this week: real wed­dings, DIY projects, dis­cus­sions and — a new bit of Wed­ding plan­ning or work: wed­ding busi­ness stuff. I’m just going to jump in. High­lights today include Alex Beadon’s busi­ness blog­ging advice, and dis­cus­sions on beauty from Anna (Far from the wed­ding crowd).

Enjoy. And have a won­der­ful week­end xx

Real wed­dings  Read more…

Posted in daily UK wedding inspiration, english weddings, inspiration, the blog week, wedding blogging, wedding blogs, wedding industry | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Wedding suppliers — do you blog?

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Claire

Pre-wedding sea­son, I was peer­ing through the tum­ble­weed at var­i­ous wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy web­sites and gen­uinely sur­prised by a) the num­bers of wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers out there, and b) the lack of blogs!

A quick look at this as a lit­tle aside: I searched for ‘wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers’ and got a map with chicken pox. There are so, so many pho­tog­ra­phers out there! (Even more if you zoom in). I knew that though…

wedding photographers map UK

wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers — a rash across the UK?  Read more…

Posted in Advice, debate, english weddings, wedding blogging, wedding blogs, wedding marketing | Tagged , , , , | 33 Comments

Debbie and Matthew’s surprise Buckinghamshire wedding

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Claire

Wedding by Natasha Thompson Photography (29)
A long awaited pro­posal and a secret, inti­mate wed­ding are hid­ing in my lit­tle box of tricks for you today my lovely read­ers. Deb­bie and Matthew, and their lit­tle boy Noah, cel­e­brated their sur­prise wed­ding in superb style — although they tell me the decor was “a bit of a mis-match”!

Their wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Natasha Thomp­son sub­mit­ted this wed­ding for the blog many weeks ago, and Matthew and Deb­bie (I think mainly Matthew) sent their wed­ding report back to me this week, along with the sweet­est note: “Sorry this has taken so long, we have just had a baby!” So first of all let me say a huge Con­grat­u­la­tions to you both, and I’ll hand over to you and to Natasha with her beau­ti­ful pho­tographs of your inti­mate wed­ding.  Read more…

Posted in classic weddings, daily UK wedding inspiration, english weddings, Photography, Real UK weddings, Real weddings, winter weddings | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Wedding Industry Awards 2013: worth every penny?

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Claire

The Wedding Industry Awards photo by Adbycreativeimages (3)Last week saw the launch of The Wed­ding Indus­try Awards. These were a quiet rev­o­lu­tion in the wed­ding indus­try in 2012: their integrity was a breath of fresh air. The vot­ing was open to brides and grooms; not to twit­ter bud­dies and wed­ding indus­try pals. Feed­back given by cou­ples dur­ing the vot­ing process was fab­u­lous, in depth and heart­felt. The even­tual win­ners in regional and national cat­e­gories deserved their glory: they were truly admired by the cus­tomers they’d worked so hard for.

After the awards event early in 2012, there was a buzz of antic­i­pa­tion as wed­ding sup­pli­ers across the coun­try looked for­ward to a big­ger and bet­ter Wed­ding Indus­try Awards in 2013.  Read more…

Posted in debate, english weddings, Wedding fairs and events, wedding industry, Wedding Industry Awards | Tagged , , , | 31 Comments

Wedding jewellery ideas — oops!

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Claire

As my dar­ling Gareth would say in his best Frank Spencer accent, “I think I’ve done a lit­tle whoop­sie.” I’ll elab­o­rate: in March I asked wed­ding jew­ellers to share their spark­li­est designs on the Eng­lish Wed­ding Show­case. I intended to share them with you all the very next week… I made two inspi­ra­tion boards and put them on the Eng­lish Wed­ding face­book page, but for­got to share them with you here! Let’s fix that :)

Wed­ding jew­ellery: deli­cious sil­ver inspi­ra­tion board

Bridal jewellery from the UK silver sparkle

Bridal jew­ellery from the UK — wed­ding inspi­ra­tion board  Read more…

Posted in daily UK wedding inspiration, english weddings, inspiration, Jewellery, wedding inspiration board, wedding suppliers | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment