Delicately Decorated Wedding Cakes

Wedding cakes don't get as much of a look-in on this wedding blog as they probably should. To be honest, I get more excited about wedding stationery and wedding decorations. But the cake is pretty key, as it usually ends up in hundreds of photographs, and there's the whole cake cutting pageant {which I love}. So I'm thrilled to feature these gorgeous shots of Jane Rose Cakes' incredible wedding cakes. Aren't they stunning? I can't get over the intricacy of the sugar flowers. Yes - all those flowers are handmade out of sugar! Do take a look at Jane's website - it's packed full of prettiness, and I hear her cakes are seriously delicious too!

{Photography & Styling} Fiona Pitts from Sugar For My Honey blog

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Vintage Tearoom Engagement Shoot

Engagement shoots very rarely make their way onto Before the Big Day - unless there's a serious theme, or some very clever portrait ideas, I don't think they're very interesting for anyone but the friends and family of the happy couple. But for I had to make an exception for this fun shoot by Victoria Mitchell Photography. It took place in the cutest little vintage cafe in Southall, and it involved cake, books and tea, three of my favourite things in the whole world. Enjoy the pics - great inspiration for your own engagement shoot, no?

Real English Garden Wedding: Krysten & Matt - Reception Details

With tonnes of English garden wedding details, you're going to love the pretty in pink reception pictures from Krysten and Matt's beautiful big day! Krysten organised many of the DIY projects herself, with a little help from her family. Matt's mum made the wedding cake, his aunt arranged the wedding bouquets, and their friends all grew English garden wedding flowers to decorate the reception venue. With tonnes of money-saving tips, you're going to love reading Krysten's wedding advice, and you'll want to copy all her stunning shabby-chic wedding details. Huge thanks to Sam Johnson for his beautiful pictures - don't miss Part 1 here.

We got married on Saturday 7th July 2012 at noon in our church in Long Itchington. Our reception was at Matt's parents' house – a beautiful old farm. We always knew we would want a summer wedding there as it’s very personal and special to us, it's a stunning English setting and had the space we needed. 

Our theme was English Summer Country Garden – we had different coloured flowers everywhere and our day had a real personal DIY feel. Family and friends had grown all the flowers in the pots that surrounded the marquee and courtyard, and a close selection of family arranged all the table flowers.

Our photographer was Sam Johnson. We went to school with him and I knew he had a very good reputation. Ahead of our wedding he came to visit the church and venue, and we spent time deciding on the types of shots we wanted. We are so pleased with our photos, particularly the ones of us on our own in the garden - they're gorgeous pictures that we will cherish forever.

I found my Rachel Simpson shoes at a vintage wedding fair. They were reduced to £50 on the day and a percentage of the money was donated to Breast Cancer Research UK. I love pink, so they were perfect and fitted my vintage style dress.

Matt and I met at secondary school when we started taking GCSE Maths and History lessons together at the age of 15. Matt asked me to our Year 11 summer ball and 10 years later asked me to marry him on my birthday weekend away to Lake Windermere. 

It was April Fools Day, we went for a long walk in the rain with our puppy and he kept checking his phone for the time and then proposed after midday {April Fools don’t count then apparently!}. I was very shocked when I saw him on one knee and of course said yes! It was very romantic. Minutes later we bumped into a couple who were celebrating their 50 year anniversary – they said it must be a good sign for us!

Our wedding reception started with prosecco and canapés in the courtyard, with a string quartet and then we chose a really unusal marquee from Artisan Marquees for the reception. It was plain white, so we decorated it with lots and lots of beautiful colourful English garden flowers, large colourful flower paper pom poms, and white paper globes.

My exceptionally creative and talented friend Milly Carter designed and printed our gorgeous invites, order of service, place names, table names, table plan. They all had a floral, vintage theme. 

Our wedding invitations, Order of Service and place-names were printed on brown eco paper and our table names and table plan were hand painted black and white with pink flowers. We chose a theme of 'These are a few of our favourite things' so each table had names including 'Lady Coco' {our dog}, 'The Beatles', 'Lake Windermere' and 'Trinity School' {where we met}.

For wedding favours, we had Matt's mum traditional chutney in little glass jars topped with floral material for decoration, plus a brown luggage tag stamped with 'Spread the love. Matt and Krysten. 7th July 2012'. They fitted perfectly with our DIY country theme, and were very cost-effective.

We had lots of DIY projects. We made the flower pom-poms, decorated the chutney pots for favours, created our favour sweetie table and a photo wall with pictures of all our guests. But the biggest project was probably the wedding flowers!

I love flowers so this was a huge part of our wedding theme. From the start I knew I wanted as many flowers as possible – lots of different colours, with little dainty garden flowers in teacups on the tables. We asked our family to grow pots of flowers and help with the decorations, and the scent on the day was glorious. 

I loved planning our wedding! I followed lots of bloggers on Twitter and had two books; a scrapbook with ideas, and a wedding planning book full of lists and deadlines. I found the more organised I was the more I could enjoy the creative side.

I really miss planning it now! It was special and fun to be able to chose everything and develop a theme. Matt was happy to leave me to do the 'look' so long as he tasted the food, and chose the wedding band. He picked Anthem who are based in Brighton, and they were absolutely fantastic!!! We've never been to a wedding with so many people dancing wildly to a band!

Our favourite cake is Matt's mum's freshly baked Victoria sponge with cream and strawberry jam. The strawberries added a summer feel. She made this with our sister-in-laws company Sweet As in Leamington Spa. It was simple, classic and delicious. We served it as pudding with fresh cream.

My advice for brides is to set a budget from the outset and work out your priority items – we were fortunate to have people to help with flowers, so that £100, which we could put towards a fantastic band. I got at least three quotes for everything too – it's astonishing the price difference between companies. Our marquee was a third of the cost of another company, and by driving an additional 5 miles we saved £100 on the bridesmaid dresses! Our friend recommended a string quartet at a music college who were significantly cheaper as they are not yet graduated so charge less – they were superb.

Also, use talented friends and family – they can offer a wonderful personal touch, you can save lots of money and people love to be involved and be apart of your special day! It’s easy to focus on the wedding but your committing to a lifelong marriage - so don’t forget to make plenty of time for each other before the big day.

More posts like this one: 
✽ Shabby Chic London Wedding
✽ Anthropologie-Style Wedding

♥ Want to see marquee weddings? ♥ Or how about more church wedding ideas? ♥

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Real English Garden Wedding: Krysten & Matt

I'm taking a quick break from my Before the Big Day Wedding Trends of 2013 series today, to feature this incredible English Summer Garden themed wedding. With pretty pinks, stunning stationery, buckets of garden flowers, and a gorgeous bride and groom, I couldn't wait to show you Sam Johnson's beautiful pictures. Krysten and Matt planned many of the DIY details for their wedding themselves, and created a truly personal big day. Krysten even designed her own wedding dress, with the help of her local seamstress, Julie Dutton - a fantastic idea if you can't find a gown in the shops. Feast your eyes on all the wedding pictures, I've got more of their stunning marquee reception to publish later today!

We celebrated our wedding on Saturday 7th July 2012 at noon in our church in Long Itchington. I was christened there when I was a baby so it's very special to me. My stepdad had been ordained a year before our wedding, so he married us.

Our theme was English Summer Country Garden – we had different coloured flowers everywhere and our day had a real personal DIY feel. Matt's incredibly talented Aunty Luciana made my bouquet and the wedding party flowers – they were perfect!

I searched through several wedding dress shops and couldn't find a gown for me, so I searched the internet for ideas, and then took these ideas to my fantastic seamstress, Julie Dutton, who worked with me to select the lace and tweak the style until I was happy. 

I always wanted bright fushcia dresses for my bridesmaids and I loved Alfred Sung from Dessy. They were ideal for a summer wedding, and I wanted each of my bridesmaids to have a different style {I didn’t want them looking like identical triplets}. I was keen for them to feel unique, comfortable and special - and with plenty of style options, they could choose their own look.

I loved my dress so much - it was perfect and exactly what I'd always pictured. I would recommend having a dressmaker to all brides who have a specific idea in mind – the final cost worked out similar to buying a wedding gown, but it was one of kind, especially for me! I’m very traditional so I decided to have a veil for church, after all, when else would I get the opportunity to wear one, plus I felt it completed the look.

I found my Rachel Simpson shoes at a vintage wedding fair. They were reduced to £50 on the day and a percentage of the money was donated to Breast Cancer Research UK. I love pink, so they were perfect and fitted my vintage style dress. I wore dropped pearl earrings – a wedding gift from my mum, and Matt's mum gave me a wedding gift – a beautiful gold Rolex watch that her mum bought her for her 21st birthday. She also lent me a simple gold bangle with a diamond on it. 

I love flowers so this was a huge part of our wedding theme. From the start I knew I wanted as many flowers as possible. My bouquet and wedding party flowers {bridesmaids bouquets, button holes, flower girls' head-dresses} were all beautiful large English roses, gypsophilia, wax flowers, sweet peas and more!

Matt's outfit was a Ted Baker three piece suit, Next shirt, black skinny tie and Dune shoes – all very classic and to his taste.

Our photographer was Sam Johnson. We went to school with him and I knew he had a very good reputation. Ahead of our wedding he came to visit the church and venue, and we spent time deciding on the types of shots we wanted.

Naturally we wanted Sam to take as many photos on the day as possible but we were adamant that we didn’t want to spend hours having our photos taken, so we were keen to be organised with a list of photos we wanted. We assigned the organisation task to the ushers, so we didn't have to spend ages trying to find people. We are so pleased with our photos, particularly the ones of us on our own in the garden - they're gorgeous pictures that we will cherish forever.

More posts like this one: 
✽ Pretty Pastel Real Wedding
✽ My Wedding in Provence

♥ Want to see pink themed weddings? ♥ Or how about more garden wedding ideas? ♥

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Do or Don't? Gifts For Your Bridesmaids

Are you planning to give your bridesmaids a wedding day present? I can still remember the gold necklace my cousin gave me on her wedding day - my sister and I were her flower girls. It was stunning, a simple delicate chain, and I wore it for years. It was an amazing momento of one of the best days of my childhood. If you're keen to buy your bridesmaids a present, but your budget doesn't stretch to gold jewellery, how about a personalised gift? Printed photo books for bridesmaids are a fantastic idea; include all your favourite pictures from the years you've known each other. Similarly, photo books from Blurb make for great post-hen night presents - full of pictures from the bride's last night of freedom. Alternatively there are tonnes of original ideas on the handmade shopping site Etsy, from personalised totes and kimonos, to sewing kits, posters and stationery sets. Here are a just a few of my latest must-haves.

{Product Credits} Clockwise from top left, 1. Personalised Stationery Sets, 2. Personalised Name Poster, 3. Bridesmaid Kimono, 4. Bridesmaid Tote, 5. Monogram Star Necklace, 6, Monogram Stitched Lavender Sachet, 7. Monogram Mini Sewing Kit.

♥ Want more bridesmaid ideas? ♥ Or how about more pretty wedding ideas? ♥

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Real Pretty Marquee Wedding: Lottie & Jake - Part 2

With a little bit of vintage and a lot of charm, stand by for Part 2 of Lottie and Jake's gorgeous shabby-chic marquee wedding. There's tonnes of wedding ideas you'll want to steal for your own wedding day, from the elegantly lined marquee, to the gorgeous hedgerow-style table flowers from The Real Cut Flower Garden. I'm loving the dark blue accent details; the napkins, the pottery vases and the table stationery. Nearly every wedding detail was DIY'd - including the music, most of which was arranged by Lottie's father and performed by members of her family. As you scroll through the pictures, do take a look at Lottie's answers to the Before the Big Day Bride's Questionnaire to find out more. Beautiful pictures published with thanks to Fiona Kelly from Fiona's Wedding Photography and FO Photography, with a helping hand from Lisa at County Marquees. Don't miss Part 1 here.

Music was an incredibly important part of our day. We didn't want to go with standard ceremony music, we wanted it to really be about us. We walked in to 'Absolute Beginners' by David Bowie {brilliant lyrics for a wedding!}, during the ceremony Jake's sister sang 'Stay With You' by John Legend, and we walked out to Jackie Wilson's 'Higher and Higher'.

We really enjoyed planning our wedding, although it did get a little stressful at times, particularly with concerns about a venue for the ceremony. It was very difficult to find a registry office big enough for all our guests, and for a while it looked like we would have to cut down our guest list, which would have been very difficult. I really wanted to married in front of everyone.

In the end we came up with a fantastic compromise. We partitioned off part of the marquee and had our ceremony in there, officiated by one of our close friends. Afterwards, we hopped in a taxi with both sets of parents and drove two minutes up the road for a five minute legal ceremony, and got back before any of our guests noticed we were gone!

My grandmother’s house is basically the hub of my family. My mum grew up there, my parents had their wedding reception there, and various bits of the extended family go there for lunch on a weekly basis. I have always known that I wanted to have my wedding there in the garden.

A marquee {from County Marquees} was a no-brainer as August is pretty unreliable in terms of weather. The decorations just came together by themselves – I really liked the idea of having bunting, and I wasn’t keen on having everything perfectly colour-coordinated.

We initially wanted to have a great big chocolate wedding cake, but we were concerned that in August it might melt and/or not be eaten on a hot day. Instead we decided to have five flavours of cupcakes from Primrose Bakery which went down very well. Lots of guests took them home with them as wedding favours.

Our photographer was the wonderful Fiona Kelly. We looked online at lots of photographers and we really liked Fiona's pictures, as well as her easygoing and friendly personality, which was really clear from her website.

Our good friend Jenny Shayler designed our wedding stationery. During the design process she emailed asking for photographs of us both in profile, as she wanted to try out an idea using our silhouettes. We were both sceptical, but we really liked the final result, and ended up using them for our orders of service as well.

My advice to other brides is, don't feel like you have to do things in any particular way, than how you want them. We didn’t really have a wedding theme colour {other than touches of navy blue} or a wedding theme. For us the most important thing was celebrating with our family and friends.

♥ Want more shabby-chic themed weddings? ♥ Or how about marquee wedding ideas? ♥

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