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!!