“Your wedding ceremony should be the most important aspect of your wedding day. It’s the part that really matters, the reason you and your guests are all there and the reason for the reception afterwards – to celebrate what happened in that ceremony.”
Photo credit: Maureen Du Preez
By Lisa at the fabulous Carmela Weddings
In reality, it is the part of the wedding day that is most often overlooked and more time spent on décor and entertainment than the words you’ll say to each other when you actually get married. I get it. It’s not the fun part and because of the rules around what words have to be said/can’t be said when using a registrar, there’s often not a great deal to decide on anyway other than some music and a couple of readings, right?
So music would be top of my wedding planning list, and there’d be an amazing party atmosphere… more important than dresses, or vows, or food, or wine… there’d be a band, and dancing, and a real sense of celebration. I might even elope so I could go to a concert the evening after my wedding with all of my friends, and tell them there. If music is important to you too, you’ll want to read this:
All images from Vanessa and Will’s Warwickshire wedding, photographed by the fabulous Rob & Sarah Gillespie 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:
Here’s the thing: you’d never use a ‘standard wording’ for any other letter to your friends and family. If you send letters or notecards to anyone, ever, then 1) you’re awesome! and 2) I bet they’re fun to read.
Hand lettered invitation by Calligraphy for Weddings
When you send your wedding invitations, don’t google ‘wedding invitation wordings’ (or worse – ‘standard invitation wordings’). In this case, Google is unintentionally evil with the results it throws back.
Contrary to what it tells you, etiquette is over.
You don’t need to follow any centuries-old rules to get your wedding invitations right!
Words & images by Amanda Karen Photography
As a bride to be I was a Pinterest addict, in fact I think I could have planned several weddings with all the things that inspired me! I was convinced I could be a DIY bride too, but thankfully realised very early on that this was not to be the case.
I think this is why I have such a mixed love-hate relationship with Pinterest, it’s amazing for inspiration and even to find suppliers, I love it for finding recipes for dinner. But when it comes to wedding planning I think there is a fine line between a casual browse for inspiration and losing hours pored over your phone and getting stressed because you can’t recreate the wedding on your board.