Unique Etsy Weddings: Peach Blossom UK

Every day this week I'm going to introduce one of my favourite UK Etsy sellers. If you haven't discovered Etsy yet, you are M-I-S-S-I-N-G out. It's an amazing website, filled to the brim with creative people selling their handmade crafts or vintage finds. I've been known to spend entire days lost on Etsy in a world of imagination. Most importantly, it's the best place to find original and unique items for your wedding day, and pick up some fabulous wedding ideas along the way. Today's seller is Peach Blossom UK. This colourful online boutique offers stylish and pretty party products and decorations to make your wedding sparkle. Here are a few of my favourite products, but do check out their site for more wedding inspiration!

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Real Glamorous Detail-Filled Wedding: Jude & James - Part 2

The glamorous wedding has a special place in my wedding blogger's heart, because it's so similar to my own! Lovely bride Jude chose a similar colour palette and wedding style, and read Before the Big Day in the run-up to her wedding day, so I'm delighted to introduce you to her incredible wedding reception. With a huge selection of perfectly matched wedding details, you're going to feel seriously inspired by all the work that went into making this wedding pitch-perfect. From the airy marquee, to the lace bunting, to honeycomb paper lanterns, glamorous candelabras and fairy lights, everything fits in with Jude and James' romantic wedding theme. Don't miss Jude's answers to the Before the Big Day Bride's Questionnaire - she's listed her favourite Etsy finds, plus a few of her DIY projects. Huge thanks to Mike Legg Photography for his stunning wedding pictures.

We loved the idea of hosting our wedding reception in a marquee – it felt more festive and fun. We decorated with white lace bunting from Devon Bunting, white honeycomb lanterns from eBay & Cox & Cox, and fairy lights from Lights 4 Fun. I wanted to keep the marquee decorations quite neutral and loved the idea of white decorations, so the flower displays and candelabras would really stand out. I hung a lot of lanterns - I discovered that you needed quite a few to create an effect because they white against a white background.

As we had 140 guests I wanted a big four-tier cake and I really wanted a lace design. I'd seen the perfect wedding cake at wedding fairs, but we couldn't afford the £800 price-tag. Luckily, my mother-in-law's friend happened to make wedding cakes, and did one for her son the year before in exactly the style I was after, at a price we could afford. We had chocolate, victoria sponge and lemon as the flavours - it was delicious!

Our florists were Stemtation in Henley-on-Thames for the reception venue flowers, and a local village florist for the bouquets. Both did an amazing job. For the tables we had arrangements of hydrangeas, peonies, sweet avalanche and amnesia roses with gypsophila and astilbe. We also had miniature cut glass bud bases filled with roses and peonies on each table and dotted around the venue.

We had a few DIY wedding projects. Our guestbook table included old photographs of our grandparents in vintage frames, plus a Polaroid camera for our guests to take candid snaps of each other to stick in the guest book. I also made blackboards out of white shabby chic style photo frames for the table numbers, and a big blackboard for the menu which we later used as the cocktail bar menu as well.

Another one of our DIY wedding projects was the place name cards. We created them using typewriter-style letter stamps and glued on with pretty bows made out of a selection or ribbons.

Our wedding favours were tiny bottles of sloe gin, handmade by my mum and stepdad. They picked sloes in the village during the autumn before our wedding, and James’ artist granddad designed the label – a drawing of the village church which we also used on the order of service. We particularly wanted to give favours that wouldn't just get left behind on the tables. So, one of the after-dinner cocktails was a BYO sloe gin fizz - the guests had add their own sloe gin to the drink. It worked perfectly – there weren't many left over!

Our other wedding favours were personalised wedding crosswords from B is For Brown and a wedding message game from Meg Mac Design. These worked really well as fun things for our guests to do in-between courses, and we have some funny messages to keep as momentos!  Fun vintage fork stands from Moustaches In The Post held them in place.

My advice for brides is use blogs! They’re much cheaper than magazines for getting inspiration, and I found so many ideas and recommendations. Also, get a good night's sleep the night before {not 5 hours like I did!}, and remember to let go and enjoy the day. Take a moment to turn around at some point to take in the whole scene, as your wedding day passes in in a second…And get video – even if it's just a relative {like we had}, watching back the ceremony, speeches and first dance is amazing and I’m so glad we have the footage.

Our photographer was Mike Legg Photography based locally in Berkshire. We found Mike online and met him a year before the wedding, we loved his style of photography which seemed focussed on capturing the emotion and atmosphere of the day. The pictures he took are beautiful.

More Wedding Vendors
* For the bar we had bride and groom cake pops from Pop Bakery
* Personalised Wedding Cocktail Stirrers from For Your Party
* Edible flowers to decorate the cocktails from Greens Herbs (_)
* Wedding Stationery by Emma-Jo

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Real Glamorous Detail-Filled Wedding: Jude & James

There's huge excitement here at the Before the Big Day studio, because there's nothing we like more than a Before the Big Day bride. Beautiful Jude regularly read Before the Big Day in the build up to her wedding, and we even bumped into each other at the Designer Wedding Show! As you can imagine, this makes every detail of Jude and James' wedding extra-special, and I'm hugely grateful to Jude for filling in our Bride's Questionnaire, listing all her wedding suppliers. There are so many beautiful wedding details, it's hard to choose which one to mention first. I love the dusky pink and grey colour theme, Jude's stunning romantic Jenny Packham wedding gown, and the complementary Dessy dresses she chose for her bridesmaids. With the elegant vintage car, super-cool jazz trio, and resident wedding artist, Jude really thought of every wedding detail. Just wait till you see the reception pictures in Part 2 this lunchtime! Fabulous wedding photographs published with thanks to Mike Legg Photography.

We celebrated our wedding day on 26th May 2012, with a service at St Andrew’s Church in East Hagbourne in Oxfordshire where I grew up. Our reception was held in the gardens at Basildon Park, a beautiful National Trust property in Berkshire.

My dress was the 'Minerva' design from Jenny Packham, and my headband was also Jenny Packham. My veil was from a separate bridal shop, it was a single tier veil, studded with tiny crystals. My shoes were Christian Louboutin - I wanted to splash out, but buy a pair I knew I could wear again, so went for silver peep-toe heels. They were so comfortable despite having a huge heel!

I gave my bridesmaids jewellery as thank you presents – long vintage style earrings, and a brooch from Oliver Laudus to pin on their dresses.

My bridesmaids wore long, floaty chiffon dresses from Dessy in 'platinum' - a silver, blue grey colour, which made for a lovely contrast to all the dusky pink flowers. The dresses tied in with my softer dress style – anything structured wouldn't have really matched.

Our florists were Stemtation in Henley-on-Thames for the reception venue flowers, and a local village florist for the bouquets. Both did an amazing job. The bridesmaids bouquets were peonies, sweet avalanche and amnesia roses, with gypsophila, so soft romantic dusky and very pale pinks. My bouquet was slightly bigger and had ranunculus, spray roses and astilbe in as well.

James wore a slate-grey morning suit with a dove-grey double-breasted waistcoat, hired from Austin Reed. We organised hired morning suits for the Best Man, the Dads and all six ushers as well. James wore a silver-grey flower-patterned tie from Thomas Pink to match the bridesmaids' dresses, and all the groomsmen wore a dusky pink tie from Jaegar.

A year before I started planning my wedding it all felt very daunting, with all the decisions that had to be made. But I definitely got more into it as time went on, and a few months before my big day everything seemed to fall into place. It’s a very fun time, but can be overwhelming as well!

Our wedding theme centred around our wedding colours. Our flowers were all soft and dusky pink colours, and the bridesmaid dresses and ushers waistcoats were dove grey, so those were the main colours of the day. If there was a theme, it was 'romantic' and 'soft' to match my dress style, with some glamourous touches at the reception with the the candelabras and cocktail bar.

We chose Basildon Park as our wedding venue because of the beautiful and relaxed style of their gardens, and the views from the back lawn. The house itself is stunning, but that wasn’t what drew us to pick Basildon Park, it was more the beauty of the landscape around it that we loved. We were lucky enough to have a beautiful sunny wedding day, so the whole drinks reception was outside on the back lawn. We entertained our guests with a jazz trio called The New Orleans Footstompers, and garden games. 

The flower girls wore floaty chiffon ivory dresses from Monsoon, which were a similar shape to my dress, with flower detailing at the shoulders. I also bought them flower headbands from Etsy shop The Red Magnolia to tie in with the bouquet flower colours.

Our photographer was Mike Legg Photography based locally in Berkshire. We found Mike online and met him a year before the wedding, we loved his style of photography which seemed focussed on capturing the emotion and atmosphere of the day. The pictures he took are beautiful.

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Will You Wear Glasses On Your Wedding Day?

My first pair of glasses were proper NHS-style specs - the type that strangely, are now in fashion! They definitely weren't cool then, and it's left me with a long-standing hatred of being seen in glasses. I own a pair, but my husband didn't even see me in them until we'd been doing out a year, and I'd probably rather go out in a bikini in winter, than without my Acuvue lenses. So there was never any chance of me wearing glasses at my wedding, but there's definitely a growing trend towards brides and grooms walking down the aisle, all spec'd up. What are your thoughts? More wedding picture inspiration on my Pinterest board.

{Photo Credit} Clary Photo via Ann-Kay Weddings

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Would You Rent Your Wedding Dress?

Would you ever rent your wedding dress? One of my friends is having two weddings, one secret and civil, and the other in a field on her parents' farm. She can't afford two wedding gowns, so she's planning to borrow her civil ceremony dress from Wish Want Wear. I've recently tried their service out, and it's amazing! You can borrow wedding dresses worth over £2000 for a tenth of the price, which leaves plenty of pennies left over for your wedding reception, or perhaps a change of outfit half-way through the reception {double-wedding-dress-oh-yes!}. It would work for bridesmaids dresses as well, because you can search by colour, and pick and mix outfits that best suit your maids and your wedding theme. See what you think of the dresses below, but it's worth checking out the Wish Want Wear website as well.

{Product Credit} 1. Temperley London mini wedding dress, £115 to rent 2. Temperley London wedding gown, £265 to rent, 3 Erin Featherston lace dress, £55 to rent

{Product Credit} 1. Ruth Tarvydas sparkly wedding gown, £110 to rent, 2. Jovani mini Prom-dress, £65 to rent, 3. Badgley Mischka wedding gown, £115 to rent

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Perfect Pastel Wedding Cake Cake Stands

How gorgeous are these cake stands? Whether you choose a three-tier wedding cake, or millions of delicious cupcakes, these perfect pastel stands will add pizazz. Etsy seller, Wendy from Marsh Home finds vintage glass cake stands and brings them back to life with a permanent glass glaze wash. Request your favourite colour, and she will hand-paint it to perfection. Love!

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Real Vintage Rustic Yurt Wedding Shoot - Part 2

Would you consider a yurt wedding? With marquees fast becoming the reception venue of choice for budget-conscious brides, and back-garden weddings popular with DIY-minded couples, wedding vendors are getting in on the act with a fantastic range of unusual tents. Medieval-style, striped pavilion tents and giant top hat tents are some of my favourites, along with cosy yurts like the one by Yurt Viva featured in this wedding shoot. Isn't it lovely? Add in vintage crockery and accessories by The Vintage Hire, rustic woven tools, a delicious Sweetie Favour Buffet by The Gloucestershire Wedding Company and a beautiful wedding cake and cupcakes by The Chocolate Strawberry, and it all starts to look rather perfect. I'm loving the mismatched wild flowers, the succulent planters and the seed wedding favours. Other pretty wedding-details-to-steal include the vintage music bunting {so easy to DIY}, the medieval-style chandeliers, and retro-striped sweetie bags {buy yours here}. Huge thanks to Christy Blanch Photography for these lovely pictures!

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