Real Vintage Seaside & Sweetie Wedding: Kate & Iain - Part 2

Any bride planning to hire a 'blank canvas venue' will find huge inspiration from Katie and Iain's clever vintage theming of their local Town Hall in Part 2 of these gorgeous wedding. With the help of their florist, Foxtail Liley, they created a pastel and seaside wedding wonderland, with hundreds of pretty flower displays, pastel bunting, swathes of wavy fabric, a vintage suitcase for guests' messages and pretty birdcage details. With subtle seashells on the chandeliers, and vintage seaside postcards, Katie and Iain reflected their seaside location without going overboard and spending a fortune. Thrifty DIY ideas to steal include the vintage sweetie favour bar, the gorgeous Waitrose wedding cake and asking your florist to help set up, saving the cost of a full wedding planner. Big love to Laura Babb for sending over this fabulous wedding, don't miss Part 1 here.

Our photographer was Laura Babb. We found her after we had a difference of opinion with our previous photographer over our engagement shoot - which we just weren’t happy with. Laura was recommended by a friend and we knew as soon as we saw her work that she fitted our style – soft, quirky, fine art photography - exactly what we wanted.

Our wedding theme was 1950s Vintage Seaside with pastel colours.

My Uncle is a trustee of the newly refurbished hall so it was an obvious choice – it is also a five minute walk from the church! The hall needed a lot of work to make it look 'wedding' so we hired local Southwold florist Foxtail Lily and discussed a Vintage Seaside theme. 

After many meetings we came to the eventual vision – soft blues and ice cream colours, bunting, a vintage suitcase and lots of beautiful floral displays.

Our DIY projects included the vintage suitcase for guests' cards, which I created using ribbon and vintage postcards. We also designed the sweetie favour bar. Everything was set up by our florists, Foxtail Liley.

For our wedding favours, we had a pick-your-own sweetie bar, with old-style vintage sweets, bought by my husband’s parents from their local Olde Watermill shop in Lancashire. We bought glass apothocary jars online.

Our wedding cake was bought from Waitrose. We loved the vintage look and cream colour and thought it fitted the theme perfectly. We had layers of fruit and Victoria sponge. It was lovely.

My advice for future brides, is that in an ideal world hire a wedding planner! Other than that, try to relax – your big day will happen and it will be wonderful, so try not to get bogged down chasing suppliers. It all comes together in the end. Also – keep lots of lists!

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Real Vintage Seaside & Sweetie Wedding: Kate & Iain

With my summer holiday due to start in the next 12 hours, my mind is on the beach, so what better big day to show you than this gorgeous seaside wedding. Fab couple Katie and Iain celebrated their big day in Southwold, with the fabulous Laura Babb from Babb Photo on hand to picture every glorious wedding detail. With dozens of beautiful pictures, I've split the wedding in two, starting with the stunning church ceremony and portrait pictures, and moving on to the reception in Part 2. Katie and Iain rocked some serious wedding style, with Katie in a feminine 1950's-style princess wedding gown from Chanticleer Brides, and Iain in a morning suit, complete with extravagant buttonhole and vintage pocket watch. I loving Katie's elegant cathedral length wedding veil and tiara, and her bridesmaids look fab in Autograph dresses, which you'd never know where high-street. Huge kudos for the vintage car, I've no idea what type it is, but I love how it fits in with their colour scheme! Big love to Laura Babb for sending over this fabulous wedding, don't miss Part 2, coming soon!

We got married in Southwold in Suffolk on 7 July 2012, at St Edmund's Church and hosted our wedding reception at the Millenium Hall – the town hall.

My wedding dress was made by Chanticleer Brides and I bought it from Marianne Jessica in Bromley. I loved the Chanticleer dresses, so when I heard the designer was doing a day at my local shop I was very excited. I knew my dress was 'me' as soon as I tried it on. 

My dress had a 1950s style but was very princess-like and made me feel like a proper bride. I loved the high waist and tulle skirt as well as the pearl buttons. It was perfect. My shoes were from Office - £25 in the sale!

My husband hired his grey Morning Suit from Moss Bros. His brogue-style shoes were from Jones the Bootmaker and his gold pocket watch was a wedding gift from his parents.

Our wedding florist was Foxtail Liley in Southwold. We wanted colours that would reflect our theme so put our trust in Mischa at Foxtail Liley to match them to that. My only specification was that we wanted white roses, and Mischa added splashes of colour with blooms of her choice.

We met through a friend in a flat share in London. We became friends and it grew from there! We got engaged after watching The Graduate. Some may think this isn’t a romantic film but we would disagree.

My bridemaids’ dresses were bought from the Autograph collection at Marks & Spencer. The bridesmaids also wore flowers in their hair, which were handmade with real flowers by our fabulous florist, Foxtail Liley. I gave each of my bridesmaids a pearl bracelet from Lime Blue, as a present on the day of the wedding

Our photographer was Laura Babb. We found her after we had a difference of opinion with our previous photographer over our engagement shoot - which we just weren’t happy with. Laura was recommended by a friend and we knew as soon as we saw her work that she fitted our style – soft, quirky, fine art photography - exactly what we wanted.

♥ Want more seaside wedding ideas? ♥ Or how about pastel-themed weddings? ♥

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Cute Homespun Bespoke Bridesmaid Presents

Traditionally the groom gives all the bridesmaids a present on your wedding day, to thank them for helping out. We'd run out of money to be able to give our ladies anything truly valuable, so I wish I'd discovered these pretty homespun necklaces before our wedding day. Each one is hand-embroidered, reflecting the make-do-and-mend mood in weddings this season. You could wrap one around each of their bouquets, and pick a colour that suits their style. Only £25 from Etsy shop The Merriweather Council, who also make darling samplers and signs.

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Winner - The Greedy Book Wedding Prize

The wait is finally over...we can finally announce the winner of The Greedy Book's sensational £750 prize! {Drumroll please} Congratulations to Lucy Burgess, an email is winging its way to you now! Even if you didn't win, make sure you check out  The Greedy Book - it's website where you can make and share 'gift lists' {greedy books} of any items you desire from any online store. The idea is that you don’t have to restrict yourself to any one retailer for your wedding list; instead you can have a truly original and quirky 'wedding greedy book' that reflects your unique style as a couple. For top tips on how to use The Greedy Book for your wedding list click here!

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Real Humanist Rustic Chic Wedding: Kia & Sam - Part 2

Boho brides are going to love all the wedding ideas they'll get from this stunning teepee wedding reception! Kia and Sam's celebrated their big day in Sam's parents' garden, surrounded by beautiful countryside, and tonnes of wedding details. I'm completely in love with their two giant teepee marquees, and the family-style dining tables. With a hog roast and a picnic feel, this lovely informal wedding kept their guests entertained all the way through to breakfast the next morning! Other stealworthy wedding ideas include the colourful handmade and hand-embroidered bunting, the DIY'd log cupcake stand, the fabulous VW van. Kia and Sam's whole family chipped in to help DIY this beautiful wedding. Don't miss Kia's answers to the Before the Big Day Bride's Questionnaire - she has tonnes of helpful hints for DIY brides-in-the-making. Huge thanks to Sharron Gibson from The Image Garden for her stunning pictures - don't miss Part 1!

We celebrated out wedding in June at my husband's parents' farm where he grew up, on the Beds/Bucks border. We had a Humanist ceremony besides an old tree in the meadow and two huge Scandinavian tipis.

We wanted an English country wedding with a Swedish influence {as I’m half Swedish}. It was important for our wedding to feel romantic, easy and fun, with no real formalities, a touch bohemian, rustic and 'us'.

We mostly enjoyed planning out wedding. We loved coming up with ideas – we have to be creative in our jobs every day for other people so it made a nice change to do that for ourselves. It did get to a point where we were so focused on our guests having the perfect day that we’d forgotten about us, but that was just a blip. We got back to the real reason we were getting married and wouldn’t change a thing about the build up or the day itself. All in all it was a lot of fun because we did so much ourselves.

We had tonnes of DIY wedding projects! We created that entire venue from the ground up – apart from the tipis themselves. We bought or made most things with the help of family and friends. 

We didn't have any particular theme for our wedding. In fact we wanted anything but a theme and absolutely no matchy-matchy colours. We just wanted the decoration to reflect our passions and interests with something different everywhere you looked.

We used a lovely local florist in Frosts at Woburn, who was really creative and so passionate about floral design. I wanted something unstructured and wild looking so chose a mix of brightly coloured flowers including snapdragons, sweet peas, sunflowers, dill and corn.

Sam made all the signs and the candelabras for the tree. Our parents made the flower arch and birdseed hearts. My husband’s brother made the cake stand.

We made a cake stand out of tree trunk slices and terracotta plant pots and covered the tiers in individual cupcakes, carrot cakes and plants. We wanted to echo the tree backdrop from the ceremony and the rural setting.

For wedding favours, we had chocolate moustaches and lips on sticks made by a local chocolatier. The inspiration came from my husband’s moustache!

My maid of honour and her mum made the bunting out of specially chosen fabrics and embroidered them with special words. Sam and I folded 500 origami peace cranes to hang on the trees {with the help of the best man and my brother}.  I wrote 'our story' which was printed onto elephant poo (!) paper and turned into paper hearts, which were hung on the backs of chairs.

Our photographer was Sharron Gibson of The Image Garden. We chose her because her photography style was exactly what we wanted – creative, observant and natural. She really 'got' the detail we had put into the wedding, and loved the surroundings we had chosen which meant a lot to us. We wanted someone who could just wander round capturing the feel of the day which she did wonderfully.

My advice for upcoming brides is don't forget why you’re doing it. As important the small details may seem to you, all your friends and family really care about is seeing you get married and having a bloody good party afterwards {a friend told me this and it helped loads!}. Speak to friends – they'll keep you sane and keep your feet on the ground. Let go and enjoy every single second – people will look after themselves. We were amongst the last to leave at 5am – we didn't want it to end. It was the best day and night of our lives.

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