How to Buy Your Wedding Dress For Less

As soon as you get engaged, people are going to start asking you about your wedding dress. Have you found one yet? Do you know what style you're going to go for? Which is your favourite designer? I had no idea. In fact, I found the whole process just a little daunting. There's a certain amount of pressure to go with a group of girlfriends, and drink champagne, and enjoy that moment when they put the veil on, and everyone cries a bit. That wasn't ever going to work for me, because I like shopping on my own, and I was very conscious that all my girlfriends have busy lives, and I didn't want to be all bridezilla and insist they came with me shopping every Saturday. So I did a bit of shopping on my own, and quickly realised that I didn't like most dresses. I also found it hard to organise appointments, and I got a bit fed up having to travel all around London to go to all the shops. Why can't they all just be on one street? So it was a grumpy bride that stumbled out of the rain into Delphine Manivet. That's where I found my gorgeous gown, the Anatole. But man was it pricey! And that's why I loved this email from a Before the Big Day Reader, Annie.

Hi - Just stumbled on your blog, I absolutely love it! That's been the best part of wedding planning reading all of these amazing blogs! I was just wondering if your Delphine Manivet wedding dress was the Rapheal style and if you were thinking about selling it at all as I am trying to buy a second hand one as it is over my budget but completely to die for! Annie x

My Secret Garden Wedding in a Provence Chateau - The Reception

Our wedding reception passed in a flash! I think every bride and groom feels that their big day passes too quickly, partly because you have to step away at one stage for your wedding photographs. We were thrilled with our portraits by Chloé from Caught the Light, and it's definitely worth making time for your photographer. You'll see in this blog post, all the little extras that I added to personalise our big day. We chose a Secret Garden theme, as we hosted our reception in an historic walled garden. Our colour palette was soft grey, pink and sage green, and I chose a key motif, which appeared on all the stationery, place-markers and we gave each guest a vintage key as a wedding favour. I bought grey and white striped straws, and made little drinks flags to go in our signature cocktails. Looking back - I can't believe how many details I managed to squeeze into one day! These are the reception pictures, you can see the ceremony pictures here.

We celebrated our wedding on 28th May 2011 in a tiny French village called Puyricard, just outside Aix-en-Provence. We hired a private house called Château Grimaldi for three days.

The walled gardens inspired me to choose a secret garden theme, with a key motif. Our colour palette was soft grey, dusky pink and sage green.

My Secret Garden Wedding in a Provence Chateau - The Ceremony

As promised, I'm marking our fourth wedding anniversary by republishing our photographs from our French wedding. It's crazy how quickly the time has gone! Although this wasn't our legal wedding, it's the one that felt most real. We invited ninety of our closest friends and family out to Provence for a three day party, and I loved every minute. As a wedding blogger, I spent many days agonising over which theme to choose. In the end our stunning venue, with its walled grounds, led me to pick a Secret Garden theme, and a colour palette of soft grey, dusky pink and sage green. We had a key motif which appeared on all the invitations, place markers, programmes and pashmina favour tags. There were endless wedding details, all captured perfectly by our brilliant wedding photographer Chloé from Caught the Light and my friend Jemma Harding Photography. Four years on, it's true what they say - your pictures are the lasting memories of your wedding day, so it's worth hiring the best.

My Secret London Wedding Anniversary - Part 2

So here we go ladies, Part 2 of my vintage tea-party themed wedding. After our quicky wedding ceremony in Hackney Town Hall {our local}, we headed to Victoria Park for our pictures, where {joy of joys} we found the best photo-prop ever. An ice-cream van! I'd really recommend trying to organise a few photo props - it makes for much more natural portraits, particularly if you're feeling a bit stressed on your wedding day. After our pictures we headed home for our vintage tea party reception. We decorated our Shoreditch flat with handmade white pompoms, white bunting bought from eBay, and a dozens of roses bought from Columbia Road Flower Market on the cheap! Stunning photographs published with thanks to Caught the Light, and I've filled in my own Before the Big Day Bridal Questionnaire, so check out my answers below for all my suppliers and wedding DIY projects.

My Secret London Wedding - Our 4th Anniversary

Four years ago today, we celebrated our secret wedding in London. Why secret? Well our 'real' wedding was in Provence, but legally we had to get married in the UK first. At first we thought we'd just sneak off on a Tuesday afternoon and get married privately with just two witnesses. But then our parents wanted in. And then we realised that the grandparents weren't going to make it out to France, so they snaffled invitations. And then, being a wedding blogger, I got all excited about a vintage tea-party wedding theme, and Chloe from Caught the Light offered to do our pictures. So before we knew it, we were planning two weddings. That's two ceremonies, two themes, two dresses {lucky me!}, and double the details! Take a look, and see what you think!

My DIY Wedding Ceremony & Advice

Before I got engaged, I presumed that the type of couple that wrote their own wedding ceremony were either massive hippy-types, or hugely arrogant of their own writing skills and a bit sappy. As we're neither, I'm not sure how we ended up writing our French wedding ceremony. It was partly thanks to our friends {The Ducks}, who hosted their own fabulous Caribbean-themed wedding with their own inspiring ceremony, and partly because we don't believe in God. With a church wedding firmly off the cards, and the civil ceremony so depressingly meh, we weren't left with many options. I did buy the Humanist wedding ceremony guide, but deary me, that booklet knows how to take the romance out of vows. So we wrote threw caution to the wind, and using the Church of England ceremony as a template {minus God}, we came up with our own. And now you can read it, and hopefully see that it wasn't a naff sludge-fest, but actually quite meaningful and dead romantic {my Boy's terms}. Hopefully it should still act as a decent template, should you be looking for one! Click here to take a look. You'll notice from the gorgeous Caught the Light pictures below, that we said our vows in a churchy-looking place. We were very lucky that our venue had an unconsecrated chapel, so we had the beauty of an historic building, without the religious obligations.

{Photo Credit} Our wedding by Caught the Light

P.S. Remember that to legally get married you have to either have a civil ceremony or a religious ceremony of some kind. We had our civil ceremony in London, so strictly speaking the French wedding didn't count. Although for us, it was our wedding day, and the 28th May is what's engraved in The Boy's wedding ring {mine is too narrow}.

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Before the Big Day - In A Magazine

Hugely exciting news! It turns out our wedding is the gift that keeps on giving, thanks to our fabulous wedding photographer, Chloé from from Caught the Light. She very kindly sent our pictures to photography magazine, Photo Professional, and they've featured us in their article on Destination weddings {that's us on the right}! For more of Chloé's lovely wedding photography, check out her blog....I'm off for a quick glass of celebratory fizz in the sunshine!

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My Wedding Anniversary

Today is my wedding anniversary! We actually celebrated over the weekend, because both of us are working tonight. We had glamorous Victorian-themed cocktails at the Whistling Stop followed by an amazing seven-course tasting menu at the Michellin-starred Galvin La Chapelle, which was delicious. The English asparagus with truffle vinaigrette blew my mind! The restaurant is described as the most romantic dining room in London, and it's stunning, with a high arching roof and lots of low lighting. I can't believe it's already been one year since our amazing weekend in Provence. Here are just a few of my favourite pictures from the day - by Caught the Light and Jemma Harding Photography.

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My Wedding - DIY Wedding Stationery

A sure-fire to way to make certain that your wedding stationery is truly personal to your big day is to create DIY wedding invitations. I couldn't afford the wedding stationery package that I wanted, so I designed it all, and had the invitations and RSVP cards printed at my local printers. {See the pictures below by Caught the Light}. But what if you're a bride & groom without any artistic aptitude!? Well the good news is that you can still get on the crafting train, because tonnes of companies now design card packages that you can easily DIY at home. From print-at-home designs, to the perfect paper, and cute embellishments like seals and ribbons, you'll find that inner creative before you know it! For more on how I created my own wedding stationery, click here.

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My Wedding - Flowers & Pom Poms

Now that my wedding is all finished {sad face}, there's nothing I like more than helping other brides with their wedding details and wedding ideas. I can remember oh so clearly how important every little detail can feel. For me, our wedding decorations were really important, and I was really keen to have truly beautiful flowers. The only problem was our budget, which was seriously tight, and didn't allow for big, extravagant displays. I was also worried about the flower containers, and I became obsessed with vintage, galvanised watering cans. I seriously considered buying about 30, until I realised it would end up costing about £900. Then, while in a florist, I spotted their old galvanised flower cans, and I had my stroke of genius! I'd forgotten about this detail, until I got this lovely email from a Before the Big Day reader {see below}. If you'd like to get in touch, do send me an email, or leave a comment below this posting.

Hi Georgia,

Having fairly recently got engaged, I stumbled across your blog, and I have to say I am now hooked! If you don't mind, I had a couple of questions about your own wedding, some of the details are gorgeous! Firstly, the baby's breath in the ceremony room looks so good - where did you get those holders from (the metal ones with a handle)? And secondly, I love the pom pom idea (and the idea of getting my boy to do it!) What material did you use for yours and how did you find out how to do it? Hope you don't mind me getting in touch, Kate x

ANSWER

Hi Kate! Lovely to hear from you! I'm so pleased you're enjoying the blog!

The metal containers for the baby's breath are standard florists vases - the types that they have in the shops. I actually borrowed them from our French florist, but you can buy them in the UK. If you search for wholesale galvanised florist vases, they usually come up. Here's one example. The only thing is that they're often a bit shiny and new, so if you're going to buy them, it might be worth buying them early, and then leaving them outside, for the vintage look.

The pom pom idea is one of my favourites! We recently did black ones for our Halloween party, which worked out really well. They're surprisingly effective. Here's a link on how to make them! They ended up in nearly every picture!

Good luck with all your wedding planning - do stay in touch! xGeorgia

Picture Credits {top two} Caught the Light, {little bottom one} Jemma Harding Photography.

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My Wedding in Provence - The Star Suppliers

Before I got married, I used to read all the wedding blogs where brides gushed about how their wedding suppliers were 'fabulous' and ended up being 'like friends', and I never really understood. Surely the caterers / wedding photographer / florist were just good people doing the job you'd hired them to do? Now that I'm on the other side, I completely understand. I LOVE all my wedding suppliers. They were the BEST team ever, and this feature is all about gushing about their fabulousness. If you get married in Provence, or anywhere on the Riviera, you should definitely hire these people.

Kerry from Lavender & Rose Weddings
aka The Best Wedding Planner in the World. I can not gush enough about Kerry. She is amazing. I still don't think I have a full handle on how hard she worked on my wedding day, because she's like a swan - furiously paddling underwater, and magnificently smiley and serene above. Let's just say I had a lot of wedding details, and a very clear idea of where I wanted them to go, and she made everything perfect. And that's just the work she did on the day. In the months before my wedding she found us a caterer, a florist, a wine merchant and dozens of other suppliers {some of which I didn't use....hello synchronised swimmers for £5000 for one song??!}. She worked to our tight budget, and was unfailingly friendly and kind, even when things got tense. And when the Ash Cloud threatened to prevent all my guests from flying out from the UK, things really did get tense. I love her. You'll love her. Hire her. She's worth every penny.

Chloé Brown from Caught the Light
Another incredible human being. There's not many people in the world who are through-and-through nice people. Chloé is one of them. She's generous and charming and the perfect guest at your wedding. And she takes the best pictures ever. I'm still absorbing the fabulousness of our wedding photographs, and I'm thrilled we had two bites of the Chloé-cherry with our two weddings. Apparently some photographers clock-watch and charge you at every turn. Chloe is the opposite. Hire her too. She's based in London, but she's happy to travel.

Marrou
Fantastic caterers found for us by Kerry from Lavender & Rose Weddings. She negotiated a fab price for us, and on the day they turned up with all the tables and chairs and everything else needed for our wedding feast. The food was incredible, the serving staff charming and attractive, and they would have stayed till dawn for no extra cost. Beat that!

Stéphane Tévenin
Stephan is a brilliant florist. He's charming and kind and happy to listen to a bridezilla speak broken French to him for hours. French florists are often old-fashioned and like to do things 'their way'. Stephan is the opposite - he designed the flowers exactly how we wanted them, and didn't even take offence when we chose to buy the baby's breath at cost from the market. I say we - that was another job that Kerry did for us.

Quatuor St Jean
Our lovely string quartet, who played their hearts out and made our wedding sound beautiful. They were so good that some of the guests in the church thought that we were playing a CD! They're run by the lovely Jenny How who is Australian {English-speaking, yippee!} and hugely helpful with music choices and suggestions. Jenny even recommended her hairdresser, who made me very happy and my hair very beautiful.

Joel at Kératine in Aix-en-Provence
A lovely man, and a talented hairdresser, he also tolerated my broken French, and made me feel gorgeous for my wedding day. Love him!

Other Star Suppliers - Wine & Champagne: La Cave Aixoise {Puyricard: 04 42 92 06 83}, Wedding Dress & Veil: Delphine Manivet, Bride's Shoes: Halston Heritage, Bride's Eyelashes: Lash Lab.

Picture Credits: All the photographs by Chloé at Caught the Light
Wedding Venue: Chateau Grimaldi near Aix-en-Provence

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My Wedding in Provence - Part 4 - The Evening

Another day, another set of pictures from my wedding. The last ones! We hosted dinner for our guests outside on the terrace in front of the Chateau, but we were worried everyone would be too cold for dancing. So instead, we ventured indoors into the basement, where we'd created a nightclub, with a bar and dance floor, and our incredible DJ, Sophie Callis. The large white helium balloons were originally intended to float above each table at dinner, but there was a bit of a breeze, and everyone was worried that they'd knock over glasses, so our wedding planner, Kerry from Lavender & Rose Weddings,, found a different home for them. They looked great against the ultraviolet light! We chose a traditional French wedding cake called a croquembouche, which was as delicious as it was dramatic. For more info about my wedding, do check out the Before the Big Day Questionnaire, which I've filled in below the pics! Gorgeous photographs published with thanks to the amazing Chloé from Caught the Light.

The Before the Big Day Bridal Q&A 

Where and when did you get married?
On 28th May 2011 in a tiny French village called Puyricard, just outside Aix-en-Provence. We hired a private château for three days.

What was your thinking behind choosing the venue and the decoration of the reception?
We really wanted a garden wedding, where we spent most of the day outside. So a warm day was essential. I wanted the day to feel chic, but relaxed, with a touch of fun. Bunting and DIY'd tissue pompoms ensured the venue didn't feel too grand.

Did you have a theme, colour or motif in mind?
Yes! As a wedding blogger, I spent many days agonising over which theme to choose. In the end I chose a Secret Garden theme, and a colour palette of soft grey, dusky pink and sage green. We had a key motif which appeared on all the invitations, place markers, programmes and pashmina tags. My sister gave me a Tiffany key charm, which I sewed onto my bouquet, and The Boy had a vintage key tied into his buttonhole. 

Who made your wedding outfit, and how did you come to that decision?
My dress and veil were by Delphine Manivet, and I felt gorgeous. Shortly after buying the dress, I had huge buyer's remorse. I'd never intended to spend that much, but after trying on dozens of cheaper dresses, and even travelling to New York in my quest, I kept coming back to the 'Anatole'.  My shoes were Halston Heritage, a bargain buy from The Outnet.

And how about your bridesmaids’ outfits?
I was determined not to turn into bridezilla, and I couldn't afford to buy my 5 bridesmaids dresses, so instead I asked them to pick a dress of their choosing in soft grey. This was a fatal decision! None of their dresses were the same shade of grey, so it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. If I had my time again, I would have insisted on the same dress!

Did you have any favours? What were they? Was there any particular reason why you picked them?
Every person had a vintage key and a fortune teller at their table place. The fortune tellers contained fun facts about me and The Boy, and inside was the menu. Everyone also had an envelope containing an invitation to the drinks party the next day, and a fake stick-on moustache. The moustaches were a hilarious ice-breaker - we had everyone wearing them by the end of dinner. All the female guests were given grey pashminas at the start of dinner to ward off any chill.

Who was your florist, what flowers did you choose, and how did you come to that decision?
Our amazing wedding planner, Kerry Bracken, found our florist for us. His name is Stéphane Tévenin, and he's the local Puyricard florist. He's wasted there, we should ship him to London!

Who was your photographer and how did you choose them?
I can't even remember how I found Chloé from Caught the Light, but she was our best decision ever! It's scary when you book your wedding photographer, because it's often one of the first wedding things you do, and it's an expensive step. Chloé was worth every penny.

Did you enjoy planning your wedding?
Honestly? No, not all of the time. I got really stressed at times, and we had some very difficult times. The evil Icelandic ash cloud nearly ruined the wedding by stopping all flights out of London, but luckily stopped spouting ash just in time. Also we had problems with the owner of our venue. Make sure you get everything in writing when you book a venue, as things can go wrong, and you don't want to have to threaten to sue someone 3 days before your big day. That said, planning my wedding was also a fantastic experience. I discovered a creative side to myself which I didn't even know existed, and The Boy discovered he is very good at making pompoms!

Did you have any DIY projects?
Tonnes! We were on a budget, but I was determined to have as many wedding details as possible. The wedding stationery, the fortune teller menus, the white pompoms, the place cards, the programmes - everything! The Boy's brother made all our wooden signs, and our lovely wedding planner, Kerry, arranged the clouds of baby's breath for the chapel. My family and bridesmaids and their lovely boyfriends helped decorate the venue, and I'm eternally grateful for their pompom pouffing, candle placing and bunting hanging.

What advice do you have for brides planning their big day?
Read the wedding blogs! Scroll through tonnes and tonnes of real weddings and save pictures or make notes about your favourite wedding ideas and details. Then try to narrow them down to one unifying theme or colour palette. Then get creative! You'll be amazed at how much fun it is doing wedding DIY projects. Rope all your friends and family in to help you out, and try to stay organised. Finally, have a real think about how to make sure you enjoy our wedding day. You don't want to have a headache or a tummy-ache, or to be worrying about when the caterers are going to arrive, or to forget to eat. If necessary, hire someone to coordinate your wedding day. But make sure you enjoy yourself!

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My Wedding in Provence - Part 3 - Reception

Day 2! If I haven't exhausted you already, this is the second half of the pictures from my wedding in Provence. If you're into wedding details, this is going to be the posting for you, as you can see all the little extras that I added to personalise our big day. We chose a Secret Garden theme, as we hosted our reception in a walled garden. Our colour palette was soft grey, pink and sage green, and I chose a key motif, which appeared on all the stationery, place-markers and we gave each guest a vintage key as a wedding favour. The tables were named after vegetables {as a private joke}, and we used vintage postcards as labels. The menus were printed on fortune-tellers DIY'd by my husband, which also included facts about us as a couple. Our lovely wedding planner, Kerry from Lavender & Rose Weddings, handed out pashminas to all our female guests as the sun went down, and we encourage our friends and family to take pictures of themselves with a polaroid camera and sign our guest book. We decorated the garden with reams of white bunting {bought from eBay} and DIY'd white pompoms, plus florists' vases of baby's breath, which our planner Kerry bought wholesale the day before the wedding. Huge thanks to the fabulous Chloé from Caught the Light for our wonderful wedding pictures. More to come tomorrow!

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