Independent Bride

Ladies looking to be original, listen up! If you really want your dress to be one of a kind, and you don't want to make it yourself {gulp!}, then I'd really recommend heading over to Etsy. It's one of the best sites for handmade and vintage gorgeousness, and it's chock-a-block with talented dress designers from around the world. The best news? Their prices are tiny compared to the big names. *Plus don't miss exclusive offers for Before the Big Day readers detailed below.*

Product Credits - {clockwise from top left} 1. Wedding Heaven, 2. Magnolija Dress, 3. For Your Wedding, 4 & 5. Claire LaFaye

Product Credits - {clockwise from top left} 1. Cow Girl Heaven, 2. For Your Wedding, 3. The Peppermint Pretty, 4. Tutus Chic, 5. The Peppermint Pretty

We ♥ Offers
Cow Girl Heaven are offering free shipping with the code Big Day

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Real Wedding: Amy & Jonny

You're going to love this wedding so much that you're going to want to eat it up with crumpets and honey. It's a classic English countryside affair, with lots of sweet floral accents. Amy and Jonny's chose the charming St Peter’s Church in Ightham for their ceremony, and made it extra special with singing from members of the City of London Choir. This was followed by a reception in Amy's family garden, held in a marquee decorated with stunning florals and white lanterns, plus loads of personal touches. Check out the cute lavender bags made by Amy’s mum and the Cabbages and Roses fabric napkins handstitched by the bride herself. Also loving Amy's gorgeous Amanda Wakely Sposa dress and veil, and her peony hair-clip, designed by Yasmin Rizvi. Great bridesmaid dresses too - midnight blue is such an elegant colour. Gorgeous photos, as ever, from the lovely Marianne Taylor.

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Love-Light

A little bit kitch, a little bit cutesy, but a lot cool, I love these lamps! Unearthed by uber-cool style-boutique Caravan in Shoreditch, and available online, they're the latest in lighting. Decorate your rural themed wedding with a couple, and add a smidgen of forest fantasy. Alternatively, put them on your wedding list, and welcome them as low-maintenance pets into your home. Not just for Christmas, but for weddings too!

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Real Wedding: Alison & Rob

Vintage, feminine and totally gorgeous. That's three words to describe Alison and Rob's exquisite English wedding last autumn, but I've got a lot more! Pretty pink and baby blue were their signature colours, and they themed their wedding in an old-fashioned style with mismatched antique tea-cups, cupcake-stands, rose-studded lavender bag favours and minature luggage tags as place-markers. It poured with rain on their big day, but it didn't spoil their reception, which the happy couple hosted in the beautiful Sun Pavilion, with its stained glass, domed roof. I love how Alison and Rob chose a flowering plant on each table, instead of cut blooms - so much more eco-friendly, and fitting with their English garden theme. Other stealworthy ideas include the bridesmaids' corsages, the simple scrolling font on their stationery, and the Elvis song table names. All these gorgeous pictures published with thanks to Olivia Brabbs Photography.

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Love Lobster

So I'm not sure why you might want to theme your wedding around the symbol of a lobster, but for some reason, I've fallen in love with it. There's something so bold and red and nautical about it. My only defence is that lobster does taste good, and a lobster dinner would be a fantastic {if messy} way to celebrate your big day. Also...I'm not the only one - check out this wedding for evidence. All this is proof that you can pick whatever you like as a symbol of your wedding, even a whiskery, stinky crustacean, and it'll still be cool. *Update* Don't miss the exclusive offers for Before the Big Day readers below.

Product Credits {from top left} 1. Creative Ris, 2. D Dots, 3. Royal Kane {from bottom left} 1. Mad Meringue, 2. Becca Michele, 3. Royal Blue Papers

We ♥ Offers - mention Big Day at check-out to receive the discount
Royal Kane are offering 10% off their whole range, including t-shirts and pillow cases
Royal Blue Papers are offering 10% off their stationery.

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Badge Save the Date

In the constant quest to find an original angle to anything wedding, I stumbled across these fantastic Save the Dates. Created by Toast Events in their New York studio, these badge invites can be customised anyway you like. I love the idea of choosing four motifs for your wedding, what symbols would you choose? I reckon all your guests would turn up on the day wearing the badges, and they'd all feel part of your special wedding club! *Update* Toast are offering 10% off all purchases, exclusive to readers of Before the Big Day - just mention Big Day at check out.

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That Friday Feeling ♥ 7

Ooo, lucky number 7. Huge apologies for missing last week, I went dress shopping at the Jenny Packham sample sale {naughty}. I didn't find a dress, but I did buy a gorgeous gold sequin shrug, which glams up any outfit. I've had a very successful web surf this week, check out my fabulous finds, starting with these two fabulous photographs which made me smile. I want a giraffe at my wedding! {Credits - Giraffe: Max Wanger, Confetti: Celine Chaplin}.

♥ When something blue becomes everything blue, and rocks! {via Once Wed}
♥ A masterclass in using fruit at your wedding, in this case orange {via Ruffled}
♥ It's all about textual relations at this stunning vintage wedding {via 100 Layer Cake}
♥ Our very own Marianne Taylor on Style Me Pretty, with a fantastic London wedding
♥ Love, love, love this bride's ruffled dress from J Crew, and the groom doesn't look to shabby either! {via Rock 'n Roll Bride}
♥ And the bride wore....yellow? {via Once Wed}
♥ I'm seriously thinking of sending this DIY bridesmaids' cards to my own ladies

And if you're looking for some vintage Before the Big Day features, you can't do better than these archive postings.....
♥ Being British theme
♥ Rubber Stamp your big day
♥ A gorgeous rustic eco wedding

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DIY Pom Love

Pompoms. I'm obsessed. They're something about their frothy loveliness and their vulnerable tissue petals that makes me want to hug them. Of course I can't, because that would crush them, but that just adds to their hugability. It's the same feeling I get when I see kittens, or pugs, or babies' fat legs. {Ahem, moving swiftly on...} Anyway, I'm seriously thinking of decorating my own wedding with hundreds of them, so I started to look into how easy they are to DIY. The good news is that they're incredibly simple. The bad news for my girlfriends, is that my hen party is now going to be a pom-pom making party. If you don't want to spend the next few months up to your elbows in tissue paper, you can buy them from Pom Love, but if you want a DIY tutorial...check this out! P.S. You can make confetti out of the leftover bits of tissue paper, if you buy a paper stamp from here.

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