Header image credit: Damion Mower Photography
English Wedding hit 10 years of wedding inspiration back in November. I don’t know where the time has gone – it feels like only yesterday this whole crazy snowball of a wedding blog began, and I love our little part of the internet as fiercely as ever! In 10 years though, I’ve changed. I’ve teetered around the edge of becoming wholly vegan for a few years (I’m still failing on chocolate) and I’m more and more conscious of the climate crisis with every passing week. So I’ve been thinking this morning about how I can really bring my little wedding blog more in line with my personal values.
Images by Catherine Spiller Photography – full wedding feature here
Wedding traditions can be so much fun – the clouds of confetti, the giggles as your girls help with your garter in the morning, the cutting of the cake and your first dance… But they can also be a little awkward. Throwing the bouquet to your single friends isn’t a comfortable moment for everyone. And sadly not all of us are lucky enough to have our dads there to walk us down the aisle.
Etiquette is a word which turns me cold. It just implies a ton of rules and regulations, and the risk of doing things ‘wrong’ – and planning a wedding is hard enough without having to worry about wordings and receiving lines and whose name goes first, right? Etiquette and traditions go pretty much hand in hand, and I’m all for burning the rule book and doing things your own way – who’s with me?
So I had a little chat with a few friends on our Facebook page the other day. Here’s a list of 4 brilliant wedding traditions we love… and 9 we really do seem to hate!
Occasionally I lurk on wedding forums… it’s a habit I’ve indulged since I started my little calligraphy business back in 2005. And this week I came across a little discussion about throwing the bouquet. With my mind very much on wedding traditions this month (we’ve a few interesting features up our sleeves) I was very curious to find out people’s opinions on bouquet tossing! With some of the amazing bouquets I’ve seen at weddings recently, I can’t imagine that throwing it would be a) physically possible, b) anything less than heartbreaking and c) financially viable!
Photo credit: Amanda Karen Photography
The English Wedding Blog would be but a speck of what it is today without the fabulous, inspiring and dedicated sponsors who fill its pages with gorgeousness every day. On a personal level too, I’ve learned so many things from people I’ve met along the way: every stationer, photographer, bridal shop owner and florist has an amazing story to tell and wisdom to share.
I had a brilliant chat with one of our lovely members, the brilliant Kent wedding photographer Benjamin Toms, earlier in the year and we put together a series of really useful advice and discussion features for you to enjoy. Here’s the first, and I’ll hand you over to Ben: