9 best wedding traditions from around the world

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Morning everyone! Today I’ll tease your learning-buds with a list of nine things you probably didn’t know. This is a guest post by John Greed Jewellery, who’ve found the best wedding traditions from around the world. Will you be incorporating any in your day? Or do you think we have any better traditions here in the UK? I’d love to hear what you think!

The bride and groom spending the night apart before the big day is about as traditional as many British weddings get. However, there are plenty of countries with their own wedding day quirks- some of which are quite touching, while some are a little scary! We’ve investigated the best ones from around the globe. Why not take some wedding inspiration and inject a worldly twist into your big day? Or even better, get in to your soon to be mother-in-law’s good books, by embracing the family’s heritage? See more...

Croquet on the lawn? There’s an English Wedding!

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Emma and Richard’s wedding at Homme House is a real treat: it couldn’t be more English Wedding-y if we were all sitting here drinking Earl Grey and munching on scones while reading this blog post and waving union jacks*. I loved it the minute I saw this wedding on Anneli Marinovich’s wedding photography blog. Wedding day croquet on the lawn? Yes please!

Emma is absolutely beautiful, and Anneli captures her radiance so well in these pictures. There are many more I couldn’t fit on the blog post so I’ll urge you all to look at Anneli’s wedding blog post at the end! For now, enjoy my favourite photos from this quintessentially English wedding day.

Claire xxx

I sent Emma and Richard my English Wedding Blog questionnaire to find out a little more about the wedding day. Emma told me about her dress, which is “Pronovias Silaba – I bought it from Teokath in Wimbledon.”

Katie and Steve’s Isle of Wight wedding

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real wedding by Chris Cowley (25)

I’ve never been to the Isle of Wight, but Gareth and I recently discovered we have relatives there (long story!) so this wedding day piqued my interest! Katie and Steve were married on the island, at Appuldurcombe House – a partly restored 18th century wedding venue and one of the grandest buildings on the Isle of Wight.

Katie and Steve’s wedding was lovely: a traditional wedding with a pretty white theme, beautiful flowers, a tiered white wedding cake, and lots of fun with children always looking as though they’re just about to jump into the fountain! I didn’t spot my long lost relatives in here, but it’s a gorgeous wedding with lots of ideas to inspire, I hope, brides and grooms who are looking to have an elegant, understated but beautiful wedding day.

real wedding by Chris Cowley (6)

Oh, and there’s a white vintage scooter starring in one of the group photos. I love it! I’m ashamed to say Gareth and I can’t identify even whether it’s a Lambretta or Vespa, but it’s gorgeous! See more...

Vintage glamour bridal shoot

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Morning everyone! A little treat today in the form of a bridal shoot with a classy vintage style. A collaboration of wedding suppliers including the fabulous FCNK, there are some great ideas for brides here too.

I’m a big fan of sixties and seventies make up and styling: I’d kill for a willowy figure to match my daily slash of black eyeliner! and the sixties sounds like so much fun to have lived in… so when wedding photographer Kat Hill got in touch with this gorgeous, glamorous vintage shoot to share on English Wedding blog I said yes! I hope you love it too! Kat shares her inspiration for the shoot below.

The idea for this bridal shoot started bubbling away in my head a few months ago when I came across the Town Hall hotel, a really unique hotel nestled away in London’s East End. I fell in love with it straight away, it’s such a wonderfully quirky mix of traditional charm with retro and modern twists. It sounds a bit ambitious, but it really works! The hotel is decorated throughout with works by up-and-coming artists and they’ve shot scenes from Atonement, Brideshead Revisited and Poirot there. See more...

How to buy wedding jewellery with a clear conscience

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When you start planning your wedding, there is so much to think about. Huge decisions often need to be made and some of the smaller, but still important issues can easily be forgotten.

Ingle and Rhode fair trade gold wedding rings

One of the decisions that may be overshadowed by which venue to have, or where to go on honeymoon, is where to buy your wedding jewellery from. It’s easy enough to walk in to a high street jeweller and select something you like, but have you and your partner considered where the gold, platinum or stones comes from?

Introducing fair-trade gold wedding jewellery

Many people wouldn’t think twice about buying fair-trade bananas or coffee in the supermarket, but don’t even know about the existence of fair-trade gold.

Fair-trade and fair-mined certified gold comes from artisanal and small-scale mining organisations meeting the fair-trade and fair-mined gold standard. In other words, the gold has been responsibly mined and the miners have received a fair-trade minimum price and premium. See more...

Louise and Will’s Manchester wedding (Showcase)

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Morning everyone, I hope you’ve had a lovely week. As things are still a little at sixes and sevens here in English Wedding Towers* I’m sharing another treat from the English Wedding Showcase blog with you today. This is Louise and Will’s wedding – or a part of it.

My fabulous friends and sponsors McAvoy Wedding Photography have been writing up their real weddings as little mini-series over the last few weeks, which I love! It means the English Wedding Showcase is a thriving and busy blog full of real weddings. This is part four (count ’em!) of Louise and Will’s wedding entitled “In The City” – with my favourite pictures from their day.

“Last month we had a fab time photographing Louise and Will’s lovely Midland Hotel wedding. It was a gorgeous blend of luxury and handmade personal details with a pink and rock music theme. Today is all about Louise and Will-taking a stroll in the city, toasting their wedding in the intimacy of the honeymoon suite and sharing their love on the dancefloor. See more...

Days to Go: 163

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I don’t really have many updates! The trouble with planning your wedding two years in advance is that it’s so slow!

We booked the wedding venue, the church and the photographer December 2009/January 2010, which seems like ages ago. We booked most of our suppliers in Spring and Summer of 2010 and I bought my wedding dress last April. Everything is organised!

Wedding things are, however, starting to take over our living room. I’ve ordered and received all our wedding favours which includes bubbles, boxes and little organza bags.

I’m also collecting shoe boxes to use to put all the tables items in. All the favours for table one will be in one box with the place name sittings and the table plan for that table. So those shoe boxes are all piled in a corner of the living room.

My h2b is also planning on making a photobooth for the wedding, which means we have photo frames leaning against the living room walls.

“I thought YOU were booking the band?”

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wedding music advice (6)

Weddings used to be simple affairs; registry office in the High Street, a few pals as witnesses, bowling club for some egg sandwiches. After a few dances one of your cousins has too much to drink, starts a fight then all the pre-ordered cabs show up at 1am. Job done. Oh, how things have changed. Today’s bride expects a proposal in a gondola, the ceremony must be at the base of Victoria Falls and catered by Gordon Ramsay and that’s before you’ve even thought about the entertainment.

Ask ten people what’s the most important part of a typical wedding and you’ll likely get ten different answers. Ask the same people what type of music goes down best at weddings and you’ll get another ten.

MIB See more...

Anya and Mikey’s real wedding (Showcase)

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Please forgive me for a little lapse in brand new blog posts this week – if you saw yesterday’s post you’ll know why. In the meantime – brainwave – I am sharing real weddings via my friends and sponsors from the English Wedding Showcase. You’ll love this one from documentary wedding photographer Martin Beddall – enjoy!

Last Sunday’s wedding at Nutfield Priory hotel near Redhill, Surrey for Anya and Mikey …and their son, Leo, not to be left out of the action, he crashed the vows! A great, fun, laidback couple ( they met at Glastonbury ), I posted their engagement shoot – in the Dragon’s lair, a few weeks back – and the wedding was a fun, happy day, with Leo grabbing as much attention as the bride and groom!

My Grandma’s real vintage wedding day

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Having written about my parents’ vintage wedding recently, I wanted to tell you about my Grandma’s wedding day too. My Grandma is an amazing lady, in her late eighties and as witty and forward-thinking as anyone I know.

Dorothy and Dave, April 1949

Grandma was married in 1949, only a few years after the end of the second world war. She was 26 and Grandad was 27. They were together for 37 years and I have the loveliest memories of playing in the garden and feeding the ducks as a little girl in Buxton where they lived. My grandparents’ wedding was all about the marriage itself: no fuss, just a very personal celebration with family and friends. Rationing was still in effect in the UK at that time so budgets were pretty tight, but my grandma still has fond memories of her wedding day to share…

Grandma’s wedding was an intimate affair, with about ten people at the church service and then a reception at my Grandad Dave’s parents’ home. They invited closest family and friends: there was no need for distant relatives to travel; it was a simple, intimate and personal celebration. See more...

Our wedding – the day in pictures

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I can’t believe that it’s already been a month since the wedding. Time really has flown – our honeymoon seemed to flash by in the blink of an eye, and we’ve settled into married life so easily that it feels things were always this way (in a good way, of course!). I’ve not experienced the post-wedding blues that so many people talk about – we had our special day and yes, it’s over, but now we’re embarking on an even more exciting stage of our lives.

I’ve already wittered on about many of the details of the wedding in my Blogger Bride planning posts, so I’ll try to stay schtum and just let the pictures do the talking (with the odd caption here and there). But first I’d just like to say a huge thank you to Claire for allowing my ramblings to appear on her site, and for the opportunity to be able to be a part of such an exciting project – I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. See more...

Autumn, the wedding industry and Narnia

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Do you love or hate autumn? When there’s a crisp chill in the air, you wake up in darkness at 7am, the heating goes on and winter woollies come out – do you hide or rush out to play in the rusty leaves?

I had the idea of a new wedding blog post with my friend and Tiararama designer Suzanne Laughlin: to shout out and share the things we love about autumn. Because at the end of the wedding season the wedding industry doesn’t sleep: instead, we get inspired. The smell of autumn on the air, the hazy sunshine and being all toasty inside… it kicks off that creative buzz. I wanted to share some of that with you!

Tiararama on Autumn…

Tiararama unique bridal tiara designs from the UK (1)

"Autumn" tiara design by Tiararama; Photography credit Hannah Duffy www.hannahduffy.co.uk

Tiararama’s bridal collections are inspired by the seasons. Suzanne explains why autumn is such an inspiration for her bridal designs: See more...