Granny's Teaparty

Pete and I took my In-Laws to see the wedding venue this week. Going to see it again I was just as impressed and  *sigh of relief* they liked it too. It all became real for us again, it was no longer out of sight out of mind, in just less than a year we would be back here getting married. I welled up!! Also Revisiting was extra good for me as it galvanised me to continue collecting and finding pretty ways to decorate, I feel lots of charity shop runs coming on.

Already I have collected a vintage china trio for every guest from gift and charity shops, boot sales and eBay. There is method in my madness as these are going to be place settings, with individual luggage tags attached and for afternoon tea later. I got my inspiration from my favourite tea shop in Cardiff - The Pettigrew Tea Rooms. They use vintage cups, plates, teapots and 50's music which gives a lovely ambiance I want to recreate. I am a sucker for a cream tea!

Also I was going to turn some of the leftovers into teacup candles to be lit in the evening, a tip from Kirsty's Home Made Home. http://www.channel4.com/4beauty/style/budget-fashion/how-to-make-a-teacup-candle
Luckily I have particularly crafty bridesmaids who have already offered to help out, an offer I'm sure they will come to regret!
           

With these already on the table, I started looking for a small centrepiece to tie everything together. My friend had cake stands on her tables, with roses heads and cupcakes decorating them. Another friend had teapots on vintage books. Both looked amazing on the day.

My original thought was birdcages. There were so many nice designs to choose from. However after looking through bridal magazines some brides had really gone to town with beautiful flowers inside and outside, trailing ivy and roses but I wanted to do
something a bit different. 

After I considered candelabra, again stylish and not difficult to pick up. These were more what I had envisaged, but the extra tall metal ones were too formal for me. So I have currently set about trying to collect miss matched candelabra.  Nothing ever matches with me including my socks! I love the Laura Ashley white and crystal ones but the old fashioned Silver ones have an old school glamour to them. I have decided to layer lace and crochet doilies underneath which my grandma has kindly agreed to make

In thinking about centrepieces, I began wondering what to give our guests as
favours. Out of all the ideas I had seen little pots of jam and honey with "Spread the Love" tags were the cutest. I found that pots were relatively cheap and I have been making jam (how WI of me) for a while. But my head has been turned lately by the Candy Bar craze, the idea of collecting vintage sweet jars and filling them with old fashioned sweets really appeals. Also with a few children at the reception they can tuck into them when it all gets a bit boring! Personalised bags are cheap on EBay and I'm hoping this will bring the look together. I have bought a few cut glass bowls and barrels from charity shops and I have seen some large ribbed jars which will complete the table. I am going to use the left over lace to make some bunting to deck the table.

My New DIY project of the week is to renovate a Vintage suitcase to hold cards. I have bought a small suitcase and some Cath Kidson material to line it. I will show you the finished project!

http://www.mrsaveragebride.com/2012/08/diy-vintage-gift-card-suitcase.html

I'm following this guide from another Bride blogger, I'm hoping it will look like this when its finished.

My wedding is definitely going to look like granny's tea party!

The W day dress

 On the journey to find my wedding dress I had been told that you WILL find THE perfect dress, from the moment you try it on you will just “know”. But what did this “knowing” involve? That you cry uncontrollable, your mother swoons and faints or you become overcome and want to part with thousands of pounds. I just didn’t think I would ever experience this.

I really wanted to find a lace vintage style dress, the satin diamante puffy creations just weren’t for me, I wanted something quietly sophisticated and more traditionally vintage.  I researched a few designers that created vintage inspired dresses. The first one I found was Justin Alexander. The glamorous new collection oozes vintage charm, with timelessly beautiful dresses.

 

Then I found on my travels Lyn Ashworth; the dresses are captivatingly understated with amazing silhouettes. Accented with elegant lace and vintage style brooches. Mori lee, which create feminine dresses with amazing embellishment however some dresses were on the puffy side. Lastly Pronovious who’s lacework is second to none but are a bit pricey.

 

If all these modern designers failed me I located The Vintage Wedding Fair which sells over 400 vintage dresses from various eras. So I would find myself an original dress to love which was just as appealing.

So my maid of honour and I hot footed it to these chosen boutiques. I initially tried on Tea length dresses channelling my inner Audrey Hepburn. Although at being only 5ft 3, I felt these actually accentuated my height deficiency. After rattling through 15 dresses I thought I would never find it. The first dress that made me draw breath was Justin Alexander’s 8530, however I had to add an embellished belt as the long length meant my waist needed accentuating. The vintage styling made me feel very elegant. Although returning a week later the dress did not hit the same high notes and no motherly tears were shed. It was back to the drawing board. I was beginning to feel that I would never find a modern dress to fit my vintage styling and began looking more into the original vintage route.

However, in another boutique my mother found a Pronovious Sample sale that I had looked at the previous week. From the moment I tried on their Menorca dress, I had this peculiar magical feeling of this being the dress for me. I didn’t want to take it off it was so beautiful and when my mother burst into tears it sealed the deal. As it was a sample it was £600 reduced from £1800, a steal! We took it out there and then before another bride got her mitts on it. I have now refused to look at any other dresses as I can’t afford to change my mind (I have seen brides end up with 3 dresses eek!) but every time I look at it it’s just as beautiful.

So my message to other brides is, keep calm, everybody is different and that perfect dress is out there for you. But I’m afraid I’m just as ambiguous as all the rest in saying “when you find the one for you, you will just Know”. Damn!

I love a good Mood Board

When I started wedding planning I created a few mood boards to decide where I wanted to go with the wedding. If you are having a wedding planner, a mood board is essential to get your ideas off the ground and get a grasp on what you really want the details to be.

I used Pinerest to start collecting images to use as inspiration. I can’t recommend this as a place to start, I was bullied into joining by one of my friends at work and I owe her now. I initially thought the magazine perfect venues and brides were never going to be something I could achieve but that is the extreme and so many ideas can be shaped to fit your wedding. Also so many brides post their DIY ventures that you can’t fail to get inspiration.  This is my board here, feel free to follow. http://pinterest.com/sazzhardie/my-vintage-wedding/  

Just a slight flavour of the pictures I have collected…..

All venues great and small

The first thing me and Pete decided pretty much first off was the venue. However this wasn’t without trial. We have family spread literally all over the land. I’m from London originally and Pete is from Greater Manchester. We have family in Norfolk, the Midlands, Manchester and Newcastle. As we live in Cardiff we set about looking here but were greeted with nervous texts and calls from family members about the distances they were being asked to travel. We therefore set about trying to find a compromise.  I know a lot of people told me “It’s your day you should do what you want!!” but there are nice wedding venues all over the land,and it meant more for my family to be to be there.

I always wanted to hold my reception in a marquee, I think is screams vintage English fete and I do have a soft spot for a bit of bunting. However none we looked at really made my heart miss a beat and make me want to part with muchos pennies. The plastic sides and cold cavernous feel turned me right off and I was shocked that I had changed my mind so early on.

Although some people do get Marquee chic right, on a warm day with a glass of Pimms you can’t get better than this.

So with an inside venue needed I turned to a family friend Dawn who runs wedding Fayre's in Nottingham and Derbyshire and is also a wedding planner (http://www.edwardlewisweddings.com/). Luckily her sister Helen is the wedding coordinator of The Dovecliff Hall just outside Derby. Talk about keeping it in the family! She suggested we come and have a look at her venue to see what we thought. The moment we drove up the drive we knew. Inside the chintzy wallpaper was well up my street and the old manor house feel fitted in so well with the vintage vibe it hurt. We signed up straight away!

However in wanting to marry out of area we did have to sacrifice getting married in church, and opted for a civil ceremony in the venues conservatory. As I'm not religious this didn’t matter to me, but with Pete being Roman Catholic he sorted out a blessing in his local church. This was right up my street as I now needed a Wedding and a 2^nd blessing dress haha!

I did learn in all this that venues do charge the earth (understatement of the century) but many will waive certain things like venue hire charges, or reduce exclusivity or prices per head if pushed. In having to have a civil ceremony some venues charged us twice for venue hire which I questioned and got removed in quotes. In this recession venues want your custom, remember you are the customer and try and get more for your money! They are the ones that will lose out if someone offers you a better deal, when presented with other cheaper or better quotes this did make many a wedding coordinator reach for the manager. Be cheeky!

So we are all set 7^TH Of September 2013.

The proposal.....twice!

To know my Husband to be, Pete, is to know that things don't always go his way. Sometimes things turn out so much better than expected for him and sometimes things go terribly terribly wrong! This certainly keeps me on my toes and is part of why I love him so much. This certainly applies to his proposal.

One day while on holiday, we had been together for 6 months, we walked past a jewellers and I joked about maybe one day he could buy me one of those sparkly things. This obviously sent his cogs turning and later that night we had our first conversation about marriage, kids and decided we wanted the whole 2.4 package! We never guessed we were so traditional haha! We went home, moved in together, and I went back to reality but Pete's cogs were still in motion.

Fast forward 6 months I was packing, Pete was whisking me away for a birthday weekend to London. A few days before we were due to go Pete suggested we go out into the countryside for a drive. There on a beautiful welsh mountain side overlooking Cardiff he got down on one knee, and proposed. I said Yes, jumped up and down, and went all girly overcome with emotion. However Pete's predicament came back to bite him on the ass. Unbeknown to me he had paid for the ring to be bespoke designed and they had made a bit of a bodge job of it. He didn't know how I would react, told me the story and gave it to me anyway. I got really angry that they would rob him of his hard earned cash in this way, said many an expletive (!) and we both went home slightly deflated.

The next day after many angry phone calls I sent the ring back to be redesigned, and we went away determined to sort it out on our return and to have an awesome time! However this time luck was on my fiancees side! Again unbeknown to me he had also made many angry phone calls (where my mild manered Pete had threatened to kneecap the manager!) and they put through a rush order and sent the new ring to the hotel a few days later! On my birthday completely unaware of anything we went out for a fancy meal and after a late night stroll along the Thames we ended up on Westminster bridge where he proposed again. This time the ring was fabulous and again I came over all of a dither, after a screechy phonecall to my mother we skipped back to the hotel happy ever after!!

Then the wedding planning began......................................!!

About me.....

Where to start?!.......

I'm Sarah and I recently became a Bride-to-Be in May, after my lovely fiance Pete proposed after a year together.
After all of the big details were decided e.g venue booked, registrar confirmed and usual freak out about how much it was all going to cost was over things have turned to the more fiddly details.
I knew from the moment I was asked "What type of wedding do you want?" I wanted a vintage retro wedding as Ive always had a massive interest in vintage clothing and homewears, especially 50's England . However I felt the word theme was too rigid and prescribed and wanted something more tangible and fluid rather than everything having to look a certain way. I went to the Internet for inspiration as I wanted to do something different, and found so many awesome websites. The main one I used was Rock My Wedding. Reading the Real Brides blogs I knew I wanted to do my own so here we are. I hope this provides inspiration for other brides or provides a discussion page for people to share ideas as I need reigning in sometimes!!