Real Rustic Vintage Wedding: Camille & Chris

Here at the Before the Big Day studio, we're welcoming in the New Year the way we plan to continue; with a gorgeous, inspirational real wedding. I've fallen for Camille and Chris, individual rustic style, and I love how their DIY wedding reflects their personalities. Take a look at Camille's stunning layered wedding gown from BHLDN, Chris' stylish wedding look {love his checked shirt & the ushers' bare ankles!}, and the bridesmaids' fun parasols. Now that's a well-dressed wedding party! 
Huge thanks to Camille for filling in Before the Big Day's Bride's Questionnaire - don't miss her advice, and keep an eye out for Part 2, and even Part 3, going live later today. Beautiful pictures published with thanks to the hugely talented Jonny and Morgane from M&J Photography.

We got married on July 7, 2012 in Mille-Isles in the province of Quebec, Canada, at the Fiddler Lake Resort. We visited several venues looking for a country-ish place where we would be celebrating our wedding outdoors, with the sun and mild temperatures of summer. 

We opted for the Fiddler Lake Resort because all our guests would be able to enjoy great authentic country cottages for a weekend {and week for those coming from overseas}. Also the Resort gave us 'carte blanche' for our wedding preparation, including no time limit for the party!

We picked our wedding flowers at the last minute from a local florist, and ordered by phone a week before the wedding! The florist ended up being so helpful - after asking me about my wedding outfit, she included my bouquet enhanced with a couple of orange roses and pearls, and a boutonnière for my Dad with the same kind of rose. I was so touched! Without her help and anticipation, I would have made my own bouquet with flowers found onsite.

My dress was a love at first sight on the internet! I spotted it on the BHLDN website. It had everything I was looking for: cream and not white, the bottom looked like lace and the top was so refined, with touches of gold. I pictured the dress with some rays of sun shining through it, so it didn't take me more than a day to think about it, and order it. I felt like the wedding dress didn't need a lot of accessories so I only wore pearl earrings my husband got me, and a vintage look turquoise ring. My golden shoes were a steal at a sale from BCBG!

Chris wanted a sleek blue suit and found one from Tiger of Sweden. He accessorized his look with touches of golden yellow {ties and silk square from Valentino} and brown suede shoes from Minelli.

I let my bridesmaids pick whatever they wanted to wear, and they came up with a white chiffon dress from IKKS in France. They were perfect for our country ceremony. Their shoes were low beige leather boots, which stayed comfortable til the end of the night. We accessorized the outfit with nacre and gold rings from BCBG and a hair leather band, brown with a couple of feathers from Zara.

We chose M&J Photography for our wedding photographers. We flew them all the way from France because they capture moments in a way that is so natural, without posing too much and from two different angles. Each one of them also accompanied my husband and me while we were getting ready, to be pictured separately. 

Jonny and Morgane are so easy to work with, and use everything they can to make the shots interesting and reminding us of the venue we chose. They just blended in with our guests so naturally that we did not feel that we had "paparazzi" at our wedding, something that often annoying for guests who want to approach the bride and groom!



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Happy New Year's Eve from Before the Big Day

This year, everyone I know seems to be abroad for NYE, so I'll be wishing people a fabulous 2013 almost every hour! Wherever you are, I hope you have a fantastic evening, and I wish you all the luck and love in the world for the next 12 months. It'll be an exciting 2013 for us, because we'll be welcoming our son into the world at the end of March. And I imagine for most of you guys, 2013 will be the year you get married - amazing!

P.S. I found this picture nearly a year ago, and I don't know the credit! If you do, please tell me!

P.P.S. Would you consider a NYE wedding?

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Personalised Mexican-Style Paper Lace Bunting

Ever since my trip to the craft markets in Mexico, I've been a huge fan of their amazing paper decorations. Take a look at this romantic laser cut banner by Comeuppance. It's created in the style of traditional Mexican papel picado, and it's the perfect addition to your wedding decorations. Take a look at the Comeuppance website for more pretty designs, and wedding inspiration.

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Bank Holiday Wedding Sale Links

If you're planning a summer wedding, this might seem a little crazy, but the Christmas Sales are the perfect time to buy your wedding details and decorations. With huge discounts off fairy lights, paper decorations, table details and fancy dress, you can save yourself a fortune. Here are just a few of my favourite wedding sale links from Cox & Cox.

♥  250 warm pea lights - perfect wedding decorations (save 20%)

♥  Famous face masks - fun wedding favours (save 20%)

♥  25 wooden tags - fab wedding place-markers (save 20%) 

♥  Grey willow wreath - adaptable to any wedding theme (save 50%)

♥  Save the Date cards from Cox & Cox (save 50%)

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Happy Christmas from Before the Big Day!

A huge and heartfelt Happy Christmas to all Before the Big Day brides and grooms! This year I'm celebrating Christmas in the English countryside, surrounded by fairy-lights, flickering candles, and a giant Christmas tree. I hope you have a wonderful festive season, and I'll be raising my glass to all the couples who get engaged on Christmas Day.....remember to tell them all about Before the Big Day!

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Real Rustic Picnic Wedding: Michelle & Paul - Part 2

Brides planning a backgarden wedding are going to love all the DIY wedding details in this pretty rustic big day. With tonnes of vintage and homespun wedding inspiration, you're going to want to add every picture to your Pinterest wedding boards. From Michelle's pretty-as-a-picture wedding gown, to Paul's cute bow-tie and linen suit, this stylish couple created the perfect picnic wedding. I love the popcorn favour bar, and, the vintage desert table display, and the yummy pastel cupcakes. Huge thanks to the team at Simply Bloom Photography for their beautiful pictures - and don't miss Part 1 of this wedding here.

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Real Rustic Picnic Wedding: Michelle & Paul

It's hard to imagine sunshine days with all this rain pouring down, but take inspiration from this gorgeous summer picnic wedding. If you're planning your own garden wedding, you'll love Michelle and Paul's pretty homespun wedding details, from the DIY'd twine-tied buttonholes, the homemade quilted picnic rugs, and the picnic baskets filled with foodie treats. I love the rustic, wooden wedding signs, the mason jars filled with wildflowers, and the cute bicycle photo prop. Tonnes more pictures on their way in Part 2, huge thanks to Simply Bloom Photography for their stunning shots.

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Tie the Knot Wedding Rings

Spotted! This gorgeous ring from fabulous Etsy-seller Sparklethots.  Each ring is individually handcrafted and made to measure - perfect for a promise ring, if you're planning to pick out your engagement ring together. Or they'd made fantastic bridesmaid's presents - a lasting momento of the day they watched you tie the knot!

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Real Stylish London Wedding: Caroline & Matt - Part 2

London brides are going to love this inspirational wedding, with its fun pub venue, shabby-chic wedding decorations, and pink and gold colour palette. Caroline and Matt stamped their personality on their big day with unique DIY'd wedding details - Matt designed their wedding stationery, Caroline's mum made the wedding cake and Caroline created the tankard table plan. Stunning table flowers as well - I love David Austin roses! Huge thanks to Erica from Photo Madly for capturing the wedding so perfectly, and to Caroline, for filling the Before the Big Day Brides' Questionnaire. Don't miss her fab hints and tips, and take a look at Part 1 of this wedding here.


Matt and I met at work but we didn't get together until one Christmas party when Matt was dressed as a Lego man and I was dressed as Madonna in the Material girl video. 

We were together for 3 and a half years when Matt surprised me with a weekend away to Norfolk which is where we went for our first weekend away together. He'd booked us into a romantic yurt and took me out for an amazing eight course meal, when we got back we sat next to the camp fire with our glasses of champagne and Matt got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

We got married on 21st September in London, our ceremony was in The Old Marylebone Town Hall and held our reception in The Londesborough pub in Stoke Newington.

We looked at lots of different types of buildings for our reception but decided a pub would work well for us as we really wanted the day to be really laid back and relaxed. I was also determined that our venue should have just one room to create a really intimate atmosphere. 

The Londesborough is one of my favourite London pubs and they really ticked all the boxes for us, we had the whole pub to ourselves and they have outside space and the food was amazing! We felt bunting would work best in the pub and other than flowers we didn't need to do much else as its such a lovely space already. We really couldn't have been happier with our venues.

I didn't want a particular wedding colour theme, but instead worked to a colour palette of soft pinks, greens, white, pale gold and navy.

My florist was Elinor Walsh from Marlow, Buckinghamshire. She did such a good job, the flowers were exactly what I wanted. I really wanted pink and white peonies but in September that's not really an option so we chose pink David Austin roses mixed in with white hydrangea. I chose to have them tied with twine.

I was very keen that the table decorations should be in low vases as I wanted people to be able to chat over them easily without wanting to move them out of the way. The flowers were one of my favourite things about the day as it was so exiting seeing them in the pub, I was so happy with how they turned out.

Matt is a graphic designer so he designed our wedding invitations. I came up with the idea of using beer mats, and he created the look. We used the same design for our wedding menus, which also doubled as the table place names.

My DIY projects included our table plan. I wrote the names of our guest on glass tankards, using chalk pen, then stacked them on a set of shelves. We also made the table names by buying clipboards and sticking struts on them. We then printed out each table name to look like a pub sign, and clipped them on.

We wanted wedding favours that were fun, and we spotted the chocolate lips and moustaches in a wedding magazine. We bought them from Creightons Chocolatiers in Leighton Buzzard, and were so pleased with them. They looked great and tasted amazing, and everyone commented in how fun they were!

I saw a cake online that I fell in love with, and my mum said she would try and replicate it. I bought the cake stand online and my mum did the rest. I don't like fruit cake so we had a lemon drizzle cake. It was delicious and looked amazing, I'm so pleased my mum made it, as it meant so much more.

I loved planning my big day! There are so many different ways you can do a wedding and they're all amazing, I could do it all over again - although only if it was with Matt obviously!!

Our photographer was Erika Szostak from Photo Madly. We picked her because we loved her work, and we felt really comfortable with her straight away. Your photographer is such a big part of your day it's so important you choose someone who you like having around! We're thrilled with how our photos turned out.

My advice for future brides is to remember that on the day you can't change anything so just enjoy it! Things will go wrong but it's not important, the main thing is that you enjoy the day you've spent so long planning. Also don't stress about your decisions once they're made, I can't tell you how much I stressed about things that looking back on it just weren't important!

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