Keep Calm and Drink Tea

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David and I have always enjoyed about 5 cups of tea a day (give or take depending on what kid of day it is!), and have my own nice little collection of vintage tea cups and pots, so when I heard there was a real teahouse opening in Middlesbrough I was one of the first ones through the door! I knew Carli, who owns and runs The Olde Young Teahouse, as she is David’s friend’s girlfriend, and we found ourselves visiting her shop to try as many of her different teas as possible.

Carli's Teahouse

It’s such a beautiful place, vintage style wallpaper, teacups, teapots, vintage crockery and French bistro style tables and chairs. I started chatting to her about ideas for my wedding, and, after sampling so many, said that it would be such a nice idea to have a selection of teas (along with coffee) to serve after the meal, and to serve them using her beautiful collection of cups and saucers. It just seemed so British to really honour how much everyone seems to love a good cup of tea! Carli jumped on the idea and pretty soon we were sorting out how to make it work and which teas to serve. See more...

The wedding show where YOU will be the centre of attention!

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Wedding shows are definitely changing for the better. Recent years have seen vintage fairs, specialist wedding shows and now it’s time for The Wedding Sanctuary to change your expectations even more!

I love the concept of The Wedding Sanctuary – which is at Somerset House in London this Sunday. The event promises to offer you “personal style advice and the best one on one planning support available“.

Top names from the UK wedding industry will be at The Wedding Sanctuary, to give you the opportunity to ask questions about everything from your wedding photography to cakes and flowers.

The boys from Staggered wedding blog will be there sharing advice for grooms as well, and organisers The UK Alliance of Wedding Planners (UKAWP) will also be offering a range of talks addressing the trickier issues when planning your wedding like how to set and stick to a budget, and how to get the best from your suppliers.

The Wedding Sanctuary design inspiration board by Always Andri UKAWP

Inspiration by Always Andri - click to see credits See more...

A very special wedding fair this weekend

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There are so many wedding fairs going on at this time of year that I don’t blog them as a rule. But this one’s special – it’s my favourite venue in the UK for weddings, only minutes from my childhood home in the Lake District and a beautiful, enchanting location.

Lake District Wedding Fair at Muncaster Castle

Muncaster Castle wedding fair March 2011

Photo Credit: www.lakedistrictletsgo.co.uk

Muncaster is a charming, historic and stunning venue for your wedding day. The castle overlooks a beautiful valley and is set on the main road around Cumbria’s west coast. It’s the perfect idyllic wedding venue, licensed for civil ceremonies and with grand reception rooms and a beautiful private garden for your guests to enjoy.

Muncaster Castle opens its doors for the wedding fair on the 19th & 20th March. There will be 60 exhibitors, fashion shows and more, as well as a chance to win some Jimmy Choos!

Full information is on the Lakeland Bride website.

The English Wedding Showcase is here!

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The English Wedding Showcase launches this morning – the best new way to find wedding suppliers who are in tune with the UK blog scene. The English Wedding Showcase will bring brides and grooms together with the very best wedding businesses in the UK.

We’re building a Showcase for our friends and sponsors in the wedding industry. If you’re looking for a wedding photographer, dress shop or entertainer the English Wedding Showcase will be the place to go. Every supplier will have their own page packed full of information and pictures, and they’ll share offers, shoots and latest designs via the English Wedding Showcase blog page.

The English Wedding Showcase is ready for wedding business submissions from today! Get your very own SEO-tastic page full of images, text and links back to your website. See your logo or ad in our sidebars on every page. Get your own login and password and share your latest designs and projects right here!

This is wedding advertising for the blog generation. Use it…

Monday Makerie: easy moroccan inspired lanterns and more…

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This week’s Monday Makerie is dedicated to I Am Staggered. Hello fellas!

This week I want to share ideas for all of you creatively minded brides- and grooms-to-be. Whether you want to make your own wedding crafty bits or buy handmade treats for your wedding, you’ll find something to inspire you here!

Table decorations, wedding favours, or just something to make on a dull Monday: Moroccan inspired mini lanterns from Design Sponge

Aren’t they gorgeous? There’s a full how-to blog post over at Design Sponge, and they’re easy to make from sauce or jam jars – it’s just glass paint on the inside and gold paint on the outside (the stuff you get in a little tube that’s quite chunky).

How about some air plant wedding favours to decorate your offices? I found these on the Project Wedding Blog, they’re by Mary Swenson and they’re just mad enough to be gorgeous!

Our very own Star Bride Sally blogged a little how-to feature for origami fortune teller wedding favours. These are so much fun… I followed her instructions and made one in minutes. See more...

Quick! Places left on the Bridal Workshop for the 27th March

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I wrote last week about The Wedding Genie’s Bridal Workshop on the 27th of March – it’s a fantastic idea, and brilliant value for money at just £35. If you could use a little advice about budgeting, planning and staying sane in the run up to your wedding, I’d recommend you check it out!

Have a look at The Wedding Genie’s bridal workshops today. I think they’re a great idea and worth every penny. (For the price of a meal or a bunch of flowers, you can’t go wrong!) Over to Julie Dawson aka The Wedding Genie to tell you more…

Bridal Workshop 27th March: Plan Like a Professional

Spend a fun and practical morning with The Wedding Genie (aka lovely Julie Dawson) learning how to plan your perfect day, without running up your own contribution to the national debt. See more...

Have you just got engaged or know a friend who has?
Don’t know where to start with your wedding planning?
How are you going to capture your dream wedding with the budget that’s available?

Music for your vintage wedding – one way to get it spot on!

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A very quick blog post for you this afternoon… especially for brides and grooms planning a vintage wedding. You’ve planned it to look fab? Great. Now how about making it sound really special?…

Set the scene for your vintage wedding day

Turn your speakers on and click play first: [mp3player width=300 height=30 config=fmp_jw_widget_config.xml file=http://english-wedding.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Tea-For-Two-mixWS.mp3]

Vintage wedding accessories by Vintage Twee

Credit: VintageTwee.com

As you listen, imagine it’s your wedding day. You’ve got that perfect vintage dress, your hair is perfectly set and beautifully accessorised, and your gorgeous groom is on your arm….

You stroll across the sunny lawn at your wedding venue, chatting to guests as you see them and everyone’s smiling and congratulating you both…

You have a glass of Pimms in one hand, a bijou little bouquet in the other and your arm is interlinked with your new hubby’s – everything’s as pretty as a picture…

Credit: VintageTwee.com

While all this is going on, you’re listening to love songs from your favourite era – not only is your wedding visually themed around the 1950s, your music creates a wonderful atmosphere of nostalgia. See more...

Your wedding in the roaring twenties – at the delectable Daffodil

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Sometimes a breathtaking wedding venue can set the tone for your entire wedding day. If you book The Daffodil in Cheltenham you’ll be whisked right back to the art deco era, as Duncan and Natalie found, much to their delight!

Setting the scene... the beautiful art deco detailing inside The Daffodil

I was completely bowled over by this incredible wedding venue and the beautiful ambience Duncan and Natalie created for their wedding reception.

Inside The Daffodil - beautiful art deco styling

Duncan told me, “We love The Daffodil and it sort of dictated the theme, being an art deco cinema. We encouraged fancy dress and were delighted with the effort that everyone went to.”

Vintage art deco inspired bride Natalie - she looks stunning

Enjoy the gorgeous images by Photoglow’s charming and talented wedding photographer Jonathon Watkins and be inspired by the amazing look of this wedding day.

The bar at The Daffodil, Cheltenham by Jonathon Watkins See more...

DIY Origami Fortune Tellers

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On one of my favourite sites, Cox & Cox, I had seen origami fortune tellers as a conversation piece to put on each table for the guests to play with, I remember making them when I was younger and thought ‘why not?’, they’re simple to do and a nice way to get guests talking.

So, here is my how-to if you wanted to make them yourself, they only take a minute or so each! I bought 6”x6” scrapbook card (you could go larger, just make sure it’s square), easily found in places like Hobbycraft, eBay or art shops, and used my rubber stamps with black pigment. I chose colourful patterned stock but you could make them look contemporary and more bridal with cream or white card.

1. Take the card and fold it diagonally each way, if you keep your folds as accurate at this point your fortune teller will look neater when it’s finished See more...

Inspiring wedding with customs from around the world

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Viv flashes a gorgeous smile

Here’s an inspiring wedding for you: Viv and Ben used customs from all around the world to make their wedding celebrations a whole lot of fun. I love the Wife Cakes, napkin waving, shouting on chairs and lining up to kiss the bride and groom! They also chose a venue for the wedding reception in eco-tastic Bordeaux Quay (lots of pics towards the end of this post).

Viv and Ben’s wedding photographer was Izzy Hudgins (who’d travelled from Madrid to shoot the day!) and I have to thank Izzy for sharing the images, as well as lovely bride Viv for sharing her story of the wedding.

Enjoy! (I’ll leave the words to Viv this time 🙂

Viv's beautiful wedding dress

“Many people say that the wedding day is the most stressful day of their life – you hardly have any time to spend as a couple, you don’t get to talk to many of your guests who attended, and you’ll be running around from place to place. I think this is true to a certain extent. See more...

No. 9: Coming Up!

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Days to go: 56

Tomorrow we are meeting with our videographer and florist to finalise arrangements and plans for the day so I’ll let you know the score when I do!

Also, I hit upon a legendary idea yesterday when I went to meet Emma Gore at Frill Designs who will be designing and making a bespoke bracelet for me. I don’t know whether I can pull it off, or if I ever will, but the ideas have started and the research has begun and the light bulbs are ON ON ON!

All I will tell you is that I think I’m going to be one of those people that doesn’t stop with the whole wedding this after she is married.

Toodles!

(does anyone say that anymore?)

Dried hydrangea and getting experimental!

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This is just a short post because of an accidental discovery! I’ve been in the back garden spray painting the inside of jars with a cream paint to create a ‘milky’ effect (when they’re done there’ll be a post on this!), and for no real reason decided to be experimental, and sprayed the hydrangea plant next to me, which had dried out and started shedding its whole, ball-like flower heads.

I loved the effect! The flower heads looked like intricate hand-made paper flowers, antique-white and pale brown. I’d been thinking of having hydrangeas as part of the table decorations, and I’d heard of people using dried hydrangea instead of fresh, but I’d never seen anything like this. I experimented with a few of the jars I’ve been collecting for the table decorations and I think they look pretty good, especially the metal bucket plant pot. If I can make them last without shedding their petals I’ll definitely be using them mixed in with fresh flowers on the day!