My Wedding in Provence - Part 2 - Portraits

During the reception of our wedding in Provence, we snuck off with Chloé from Caught the Light to have our portrait pictures taken. As luck would have it, there was a gorgous field just outside the Château's grounds, with tonnes of poppies, which made for a beautiful backdrop. My dress and veil were by Delphine Manivet, and my sister gave me a silver Tiffany key-charm as my 'Something New', which I sewed to my pink peony bouquet. The Boy's buttonhole was made out of baby's breath, and carried a vintage key kept for years by my grandmother. His shirt and tie were from Start London. Come back to the blog on Saturday for the reception pictures - if you're a wedding detail fanatic, you're in for a treat!

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My Wedding in Provence - Part 1

Deep breath... It's time for me to feature my own wedding in Provence. Today, it is our five month anniversary {already!}, and it's taken me months to narrow down the hundreds of gorgeous Caught the Light and Jemma Harding Photography pictures to these blog postings, so I hope you won't mind me putting up quite a few photographs. It's SO hard to edit your own wedding. Next week, I'll also do a posting with all my fantastic wedding suppliers, so for the next few days it's going to be all about me. {I hope that's okay!}. So, here goes.... We celebrated our big day, at the end of May, near Aix-en-Provence. We hired Chateau Grimaldi for three days, and hosted the bridal party in the house, with the wedding on Saturday and a drinks party on  Sunday. We were SO lucky with the weather, as the sun shone for the whole three days, only to pour with rain on our honeymoon! By that time though, we didn't care. As you can imagine, for a wedding blogger, it was all about the wedding. Here are the first set of pictures, more to come later this afternoon.

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Our Wedlock Wedding Tradition

My favourite moment of our wedding actually happened the next day. We stole away near the end of our evening drinks, and locked a padlock onto a metal arch in the garden, that was covered with jasmine. There's a Chinese or Russian wedding tradition that suggests that if a couple attach a lock to a gate and throw away the key, then they'll be together forever. We decided to make this tradition our own, but I decided to keep the key safe and sound in my jewellery box. One day we'll go back, and check that it's still there!

{Photo Credits} 1. Before the Big Day, 2. & 3. Jemma Harding Photography, Dress: Temperley London

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Your Wedding Flowers for Less

Wedding flowers can blow your budget. They certainly blew mine, and that's despite me knowing all the secret tips. Unfortunately most of my wedding tips didn't translate into French for my wedding, but if you're getting married in the UK, then this advice on wedding flowers is going to save you a fortune. If you're looking for super-high end designer flowers, then this is not the feature for you - but right now, most of us are trying to save a few pennies on our wedding budget, and I'm all about cheap and chic. To get you in the mood, here are a few pictures of my own wedding flowers, taken by the lovely Chloé from Caught the Light. We couldn't DIY all our wedding flowers, because we needed to hire the vases from the florist, and it worked out as more economical to keep him on-side. But we saved a fortune by buying clouds and clouds of baby's breath from a local market. Our wedding planner Kerry Bracken collected it on the night before the wedding and it stayed lovely and fresh. Our Provencal florist, Stéphane, was wonderful - I'd recommend him to any bride planning to get married in France.

Before the Big Day Tips - Your Wedding Flowers for Less

1. Keep it seasonal. For a list of what flowers are in season for your wedding, click here.

2. Consider using plants rather than cut flowers for your table displays. Some garden centres will rent you plants, but even if you need to buy them, you can give them away as lovely presents after your wedding. You could even grow your own plants, whereas growing enough flowers is a mammoth task.

3. Keep it simple. Single blooms in lots of vases take a lot less time to arrange, and that means the florist will charge you less for their time. This isn't going to give you a luxury look, but elegant simplicity is very in right now!

4. Choose a cheap variety of flower, and buy tonnes of it for a dramatic effect. For example, I used baby's breath - a flower I hate when mixed with roses, but adore on its own. Carnations have the same effect. They're dreadful dotted in bouquets, but when you mass loads of them together, the effect completely changes, from awful to awesome.

5. Buy direct from a flower market and ask a friendly florist to moonlight on your behalf. This probably only works if you have a friend or a friend-of-a-friend who's a florist, but it's worth asking around. They could do your wedding flowers instead of giving you a wedding present.

6. DIY. Now I say this with huge caution. If you're doing simple single blooms as suggested in Hint 3, then you're not going to find this too traumatic. If, however, you're thinking luxurious mixed and hand-tied bunches, then you're not going to be able to produce the effect you want. Plus it takes hours, and it has to be done really near the wedding. You do not want to be arranging flowers the morning of you wedding. Really, trust me, you don't.

7. Don't DIY your buttonholes. They're harder to produce than you think, and they're going to be in every photography. Ditto for your wedding bouquet. Even if your budget is tiny, splash out.

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My Vintage Tea-Party Wedding - 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'm not sure what the little girl in front of us in the queue thought, but our 99 Flakes were delicious! Although that might have been because I'd been on a diet for a few months. 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 DIY projects.

The Before the Big Day Bridal Q&A

Where and when did you get married?
We got married at Hackney Town Hall on 5th May in front of 20 family and close friends.

What was your thinking behind choosing the venue and the decoration of the reception?
This was our secret wedding before the big official day in France, so we kept it simple with a tea-party back at our flat in Shoreditch. It was lovely for closest family to see us in our home - many of the grandparents hadn't seen it before. For our decorations, we used white bunting and handmade white tissue pompoms, that looked like peonies.

Did you have a theme, colour or motif in mind?
As we got married at 3pm, we settled on a tea party. I considered an Alice in Wonderland theme, but settled instead on a vintage tea-party, complete with cucumber sandwiches and my mother-in-law's vintage china.

Who made your wedding outfit, and how did you come to that decision?
My dress was from an Australian designer called Rose & Ruby. They've actually stopped trading, but I managed to find this one on Australian Ebay, and I took the plunge and bought it without trying it on. Luckily it fitted perfectly, and if you want to buy it, I'm open to offers! (It's a size 8). My shoes were gold strappy stilettos from Halston Heritage with blue sequinned I Do stickers on the soles. I wore my mother's vintage sapphire engagement ring, and diamond studs my mother gave me for Christmas.

What type of cake did you go for, and how did you come to that decision?
My mother actually chose and organised my cake, and my grandmother paid for it. I'm not actually sure who made it, but it's a lady in Dorset. I'll find out and update! We bought all the rest of the tea-party food from Marks & Spencers. The champagne and the hired glasses were from Majestic.

Did you have any favours? What were they? Was there any particular reason why you picked them?
We chose to give little pots of Dorset honey as favours, because that's where I grew up. Guests also took a cupcake with them as they left.

Who was your florist, what flowers did you choose, and how did you come to that decision?
We DIY'd our flowers, with blooms bought from Colombia Road Flower Market the Sunday before. We kept them in a darkened room, but they still opened a bit too much - so in some ways I wish I'd spent a bit more money and bought them from a florist on the day. My mother bought up flowers from her garden for my bouquet and the boys' buttonholes. She made me a lily-of-the-valley bouquet, and the buttonholes were roses from a bush that my grandfather had given her as a present. 

Who was your photographer and how did you choose them?
I can't remember how I found Chloe from Caught the Light, but I've long been a fan of her work here on Before the Big Day, and I booked her over a year in advance for my French wedding. When we decided we wanted our London wedding to be photographed as well, she very kindly agreed to help out. Chloe's work is stunning, and I can't recommend her enough. Serious praise from a wedding blogger.

Did you enjoy planning your wedding?
YES! I started Before the Big Day because I love weddings and thinking creatively about how to make them stand out from the crowd. However, it was A LOT more stressful than I thought it would be. With hindsight, I probably should have taken on a few less DIY projects, but it saved us lots of money, and it made our wedding personal to us. 

Did you have any DIY projects?
Lots! With the help of my mother, we made the tissue pom-poms and the stationery, and arranged the flowers, my bouquet and the buttonholes.

Who designed your stationery? What did it look like and how did you come to that decision?
I designed our stationery, and I organised for it to be printed at our local KopyKat. It was a serious labour of love, but worked out a lot cheaper than the Follow Studio wedding stationery that I'd fallen in love with but couldn't afford.

What advice do you have for brides planning their big day?
Read Before the Big Day! Come up with a theme idea, and start your DIY projects early. Eat properly on the day of your wedding - I got grumpy just before the ceremony - not a good idea! And leave yourself lots of time to get ready. You'll want to have time to compliment your bridesmaids and your mother on what they're wearing, and if it's all a bit of rush you won't have time to savour every special moment.

Also - get your eye-lashes done, but Chanel foundation and have your hair done professionally. My recommendations are Lash Lab and One Drayson Mews Hairdressers in Kensington {ask for Tracy}.

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My Vintage Tea-Party Themed London Wedding - Part 1

Deep breath! Here we go - my secret London pictures. Why secret? Well our 'real' wedding was in Provence, but legally we had to get married in London 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. There were moments when I thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew, and there are a couple of things I would change, but when we said our vows, it felt pretty real, so I'm thrilled we had our family there watching. So how did I come to choose all my details? Well I've answered my own Before the Big Day Bridal Questionnaire, which I'll be publishing with Part 2 tomorrow...so check out the blog tomorrow, or sign up to get it delivered {for free} to your inbox.

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My London Wedding

Crazily, it's just over two months since my London wedding and I still haven't blogged my gorgeous pictures taken by Chloe from Caught the Light. I think we wanted the dust to settle a bit, before we revealed our wedding to the world {or just Before the Big Day readers!}. Also I'm finding it impossible to edit. When you're looking through another couple's wedding pictures, it's easy-peasy to select which pics you like the most. When it comes to your own it's a nightmare! So here's a sneak-peak...with a promise that tomorrow, I will publish our London wedding. There - now I've got to!!

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My Wedding Favours: Fortune Tellers & Vintage Keys

Wedding favours are a touchy subject. Some people think they're naff, others think they're a waste of money. Personally I think they're another opportunity to personalise your wedding, with the added benefit of giving your guests a warm and fuzzy feeling. At our wedding, we chose to give everyone a vintage key and the girls got grey pashminas, handed out by our amazing wedding planner, Kerry Bracken, as the sun set. The keys fitted in with our secret garden wedding theme, and everyone loved them! Lots of the ladies are still wearing them round their wrists or as necklaces, so they were definitely a hit. My Boy also created wedding fortune tellers, which included a Q&A about our relationship, plus the menu. It was fantastic to see people working out how to use them as they sat down to dinner. For a fortune teller tutorial, click here and search for Cootie Catcher {that's what Americans call Fortune Tellers}. Alternatively, you can buy them via Etsy seller Kat's Crafts. Gorgeous sneak-peak pictures by Jemma Harding Photography.

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Your New Married Name - After the Big Day

In case you're new to Before the Big Day, I got married on Saturday {woohoo!}. And that means I have a brand new name - Georgia Tolley. I've always planned to take my husband's name, but I never realised how time consuming and complex it would be to make the changes. In the real world, there's passports, drivers' licences and bank accounts {what do you do in-between bank cards?!}, and then in the online world there's email accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and the all important Before the Big Day Wedding Blog profile. Gargh!! As a quick reminder of why it's all worth it, here are a couple of sneaky-peak pictures from my wedding, taken by one of my best friend's Jemma Harding. My official wedding photographer is the fabulous Chloe from Caught the Light, but Jemma's a wedding photographer too, and she snapped a few {amazing} photographs for my wedding present. Official pictures from Chloe coming soon!!

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My Wedding - Three Days to Go!!

You might have noticed that the blog postings have been slightly erratic over the last two weeks. That's because my French wedding is now in three days - eeeeeeeeek! We're already in France, and the weather is beautiful - I'm just praying it holds out for Saturday and Sunday. I'm carrying around my Delphine Manivet dress in its protective bag, plus the veil in another bag, and I'm worrying about creases, almost as much as I'm worrying about rain. Then there's the ash cloud....which right now is due to hit London on Friday, just as most of my guests are hoping to leave for France. This bridal business is just one long anxiety attack! The good news is that we visited the venue again yesterday, and it looks gorgeous. Plus my fabulous French hairdresser made me look super-chic in our practice run. All I can hope is that my stress is making me burn up more calories - a week in France is not conducive to dieting before your wedding! I'm reposting my wedding mood boards here, partly as a fond memory of how it all started.....

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My English Tea-Party Themed London Wedding

My London wedding was last Thursday! So I'm legally married, but as it wasn't our official wedding, we're keeping it secret. Well as secret as we can! The wedding passed off without a hitch. I had a mild bridezilla moment, when the O and the V of our big silver LOVE helium balloons deflated, and The Boy had to make a last minute run to our local joke shop to beg them for more helium. After that I settled down! We decorated the flat with white bunting and DIY tissue pompoms {tutorial here}, plus DIY arranged flowers from Colombia Road Flower Market. My mum made my bouquet out of lily of the valley from her garden, and the buttonholes were rose buds from my grandmother's garden. It was fantastic! The lovely Chloe from Caught the Light was our photographer - here's a taster - didn't she do an amazing job? More pictures coming soon!

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