Heart Wedding Lanterns

These stunning nightlights would add a magical soft glow to your wedding reception. Pretty by day and night, the hand pierced domes are moulded in off-white porcelain by Wendy Jung in Hastings. Inspired by sea forms, they're available plain pierced or with an indented heart, and both are gorgeous!

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Real Wedding: Whitney & Mike

This gorgeous farm wedding includes the most ridiculous amount of stealworthy ideas. I defy you not to be inspired! You'll want to use fresh peaches, hay bales and burlap in your wedding.You'll want get married under a huge oak tree.You'll want to use that tree as a logo for your wedding, because it represents strong roots, a flourishing life, and a growing future. And you'll  a swing in your wedding photos. Yup - this is the perfect classy country wedding. Fabulous photographs published with thanks to the team at Simply Bloom.

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Wedding Badges

Finding a truly original favour idea is pretty difficult, and I'm not saying that button badges are brand new, but they are my favourite trend for spring. Design your own, or pick them up via Etsy, they're a brilliant way to personalise your wedding, and they'll be a lasting momento. Just imagine spotting one on a friend's lapel or bag-strap, two years after your big day. It'll bring back on the memories! These are from  Kikichoo {top collage}and Button Empire {bottom collage}.

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Perfect Favour Bags

These favour bags seriously float my boat. Now I've just got to figure out what to put in them. Any ideas? Maybe a little message to each of my guests? Or could I use them as a part of my wedding stationery? Created by Junghwa in Washington, they work out at 100 for £85. * Good news! Amy from Junghwa is offering 15% off any item until the end of 2010 - woohoo! Just mention Before the Big Day at check out. *

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Mirror Mirror Sample Sale

Exciting news! Famous Islington bridal boutique, Mirror Mirror is hosting a one day sample sale on 28th November. Amazing dresses will be on offer, with prices from £375-£1000. The sale will include top brands like Charlotte Balbier, Gemy and Luci Dibella. I'll be there!

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Puzzle Wedding Guest Book

Wedding guest books are a huge trend right now, and brides are coming up with clever ideas to encourage their friends and family to leave a message. From plates to wish trees, and vintage post boxes and recipe cards, there's plenty of options, but none as original as this one. BellaPuzzlesToo create bespoke jigsaw puzzles for your big day, and package them up with two special pens so your guests can sign a piece each. Choose the number of pieces you want, the shape of the puzzle {a heart, your state, a tree} and any special pieces you want {names or initials, a short phrase, wedding date, a figure like a heart}. Aren't they amazing?

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My Wedding - The Planner

This is where I tell you all about planning my own wedding. After all, if I'm publishing all these Real Weddings, it's only fair I share my trials and tribulations. Read the rest of my wedding diary here.

When it came to wedding planners, I always swore I wouldn't get one. To start with they sounded like a waste of money, and something only extremely wealthy people could afford, and secondly, I'm pretty organised and we had a year and half to get everything booked - I mean how hard can it be?

{Photo Credits: Follow Studio stationery, Mint Photography, via Once Wed}

The answer is very hard. The thing is, we're getting married in Provence, and although I speak French, I don't have the specialised vocabulary needed to talk catering {traiteur}, string quartets {quartor à cordes} or portaloos {still not sure}. Then there's the issue of hiring lighting and sound systems, crockery and cutlery, and communicating with the caretaker - aaah! Back in August, my stress-levels were rising, and it was all becoming distinctly not fun. I was panicking and avoiding thinking about our wedding, and I was getting secretly pretty angry with The Boy not helping out. Eventually it all came to a head, and somehow we didn't have a huge row, but a sensible grown-up discussion {astonishing}, and The Boy insisted on The Planner option.

 But who? This is the problem with weddings, there's just too many decisions! You come to one, only to discover there's another to be made. There are a couple of very good wedding planning companies in the south of France, but I didn't want my wedding to become formulaic, so really I wanted an individual to help out. I was lucky. Thanks to my endless research earlier this year into venues, I'd stumbled upon a fantastic blog called My Riveria Wedding. The author, Kerry Brackan, is a French speaking, English events planner in Cannes {uber-glam!}, and she was starting to consider moving into wedding planning on a private basis. I'd written to her back in March, but she hadn't quite started out yet. I emailed her again on the off-chance she'd change her mind, and in a fantastic turn of fortune, she said she was now available. Woohoo!

Straight away, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It was amazing. I started looking at wedding blogs again, and indulging in the details and the ideas. Kerry started making phone calls right away, and we've already got two catering quotes, which she's assiduously translated for me. She's also going to coordinate the wedding on the day, which will mean we can enjoy every minute, without worrying about whether there's enough loo roll or who's going to light the candles. So the moral of this story? Hiring a wedding planner isn't cheap, but once you've got one, you realise they're worth ten times what you're paying for them. After all, what's the point in spending all this money on a wedding, if you don't enjoy it?

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Real Wedding: Jordan & Josh

This real wedding is pure sunshine, from the colour palette to the heavenly beach location. Designed by the amazingly talented Jesi Haack, the details are to-die-for! Everything from the table decor to the flowers, fabric runners and buttonholes were specially created to reflect Jordan and Josh, and the pictures are real feast for the eyes. My favourite details? The white cabbage flowers in Jordan's bouquet, the fabric aisle and the mistmatching table numbers. Gorgeous pictures published with thanks to Stephanie Williams Photography.

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