OK, so I’m mixing up my supermarket slogans but we all know the wedding budget can start to mount up once planning begins. So anywhere you can make savings can only be a bonus. This is where this week’s video comes in. We’ve been wedding shopping along with our weekly shop at Sainsbury’s!
It might not be the first place that springs to mind when you’re planning your wedding decor, but Sainsbury’s have created a collection of coordinating wedding decor which could be perfect for your Big Day. (And even better, won’t break the bank.)
Items mentioned in the video:
Hoop Table plan – £16
Letter Memo Board – £12
‘Bride’ Hoop (Groom also available) – £8
White and rose gold faux floral place setting – £4.50
Are you a morning person? Yea, me neither. Though if I woke up to a box of treats I’d definitely be more motivated to crawl out from under the duvet! Of course your wedding morning is a little different and if there were ever a time, as an adult, you were going to leap out of bed with excitement, this would be it! Even so we still think a box of treats to aid the getting-ready fun on the morning of the wedding is a thoughtful and special way to kick the day off. If you’re the bride you could put a box together to share with your ‘maids, or if you’re a bridesmaid reading this, you could do it to treat the bride.
We’re talking you through what we think makes up the perfect Wedding Morning Bridal Box, from snacks to keepsakes. I was just trying to think about what my favourite item in our box is, but I can’t decide! Maybe the slouchy personalised pyjama top, cos I do like being cosy, but then I LOVE Mallow & Marsh’s chocolate coated marshmallows, but then what is chocolate without tea…argh! It’s too hard, basically I need/want it all!
Like what we’ve put in our box? Will you be adding anything
extra? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be snuggled up with a cuppa eating marshmallows in my pjs. See ya!
P.S. If you’re looking for our video on how to make the personalised pyjama top featured in this video, you can find it here.
One of our 2019 wedding cake trend predictions was couples choosing more unusual cake flavours for their wedding cake. Now, if your favourite is fruit or can’t resist Victoria sponge, go for it, but if you’re looking for something a little different we’re showing you how to make an apple crumble cake with spiced apple buttercream.
Recipe
Cake: – 490g plain flour – 500g caster sugar – 160g dark brown sugar – 2 eggs – 340g butter – 1 1/2 tsp salt – 1tsp baking powder – 2tsp bicarbonate of soda – 2tsp cinnamon – 1tsp allspice – 1tsp nutmeg – 280ml apple sauce – 2 Granny Smith apples (diced)
In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and set aside. In a stand mixer, add the butter, eggs and apple sauce and beat. Add in the dry ingredients and mix on a slow setting. Once combined add the diced apple. Divide the mixture into three 6″ cake tins and bake at 160C for 50 minutes.
Rub all the ingredients together until you have a breadcrumb consistency. Spread out on your baking tray and bake at 170C for approximately 20 minutes.
Let us know if you give it a go or if you’re choosing something a bit different for your wedding cake flavours.
You’ve been given the task of organising an epic Hen Party, (or maybe you’re organising your own) but are getting daunted by the idea of asking all the guests to contribute an ever increasing amount of money towards the festivities and to make it really personal for the VIB (Very Important Bride)!
After the success of their SS19 wedding range, we’ve been back to Paperchase to check out their Hen Party provision. It’s all purse friendly which means you can spend the budget elsewhere while still giving the Bride a special send off into married life!
We’ve picked up some of our favourites but you can check out Paperchase’s full Hen Party range on their website here.
Links and product info for items shown in this video:
Bonjour! And that’s where I’m going to leave the French, as it’s been a little while now since I was at school (shhh! Be nice!) and it was never that strong to start with!
Now, I say mini-moon because Paris is a quick hop, skip and a swim away on the Eurostar for us Brits, so it’s easy to go for just a couple of nights. But of course if you’re coming from further afield for a full honeymoon you can make much more of it and hit all the key European cities whilst you’re at it!
On this trip, we visited Paris for 3 nights in the spring and stayed in the 5 star hotel, Le Cinq Codet. This vlog is here to help you decide if a mini-moon in Paris is for you and provide a little inspiration for what key things you might like to fit in to a short trip. What we didn’t realise when we booked this trip was that it fell within the school Easter break (we’re not teachers and don’t have kids, so we’re a little oblivious!) and over the Paris marathon (which was kinda gutting because my husband would have run it if we’d known!), so I’m thinking things were a tad busier than they might normally be in Spring as a whole. What you might be taking from this is that we didn’t research our trip very well, and this is probably true! Our general plan going in was to eat brunch, walk a lot and see the main sights – which we did achieve! Including the Notre-Dame in all its glory (plus some scaffolding)…please note there is some footage in this video of the Notre-Dame which was filmed the day before the major fire in April ’19, we were so saddened to hear the awful news upon our return home – so obviously it no longer looks as shown in this vlog. However, whilst this major tourist attraction may be out of action for a while to come, Paris still has so much to offer a couple on a romantic getaway.
How’s your French? A little on the dusty side like me? I like to try as I don’t want to be rude, but it helped travelling with a Canadian who did French-immersion schooling for a few years! If your language skills are not the hottest either and it’s causing you to worry about honeymooning in Paris, fear not – every staff person I encountered from cafés to museums to hotels were fluent in English and we didn’t run in to any problems. Well, except their menus tend to be less than descriptive – so being a fussy eater I ran in to the occasional problem where my food would come covered in various things I was not expecting, and not in a good way! I’d take the cautious route and be specific when ordering!
Quick things you need to know:
Drinks, even soft drinks, are EXPENSIVE!
The bread is amazing everywhere you go.
Basically everything is closed on Sundays except the shopping malls.
Check out the vlog for a Parisian adventure. Been to Paris? Where was your favourite spot to visit?
How’s your nose looking? Not a phrase I hear on a daily basis, but a polite way to excuse oneself whilst in polite company in days gone by was, “I’m going to powder my nose”. A somewhat ‘catch-all’ phrase to conceal the true nature of their visit to the washroom, but its origins are to do with touching up your make-up. Seeing as a wedding is a somewhat gentrified event, we’re revisiting the idea of the ‘powder room’, by putting together a small box of luxury and practical items your guests can use to spruce themselves up with when they excuse themselves!
This is something I (Rebecca) actually did for my wedding
and I got so many comments from guests about the extra little touches like
this, saying how thoughtful it was. My (now)
husband and I felt that part of what would make the perfect day for us, is our
guests having a great time. So putting
together a little box of helpful luxuries was one way for us to show them we
had thought of them and appreciated them being there to celebrate with us.
In today’s video, we’re showing you what we put in our pamper box for some inspiration for your big day. We have included pain killers – for those headaches that can creep in during a long day, but of course be mindful that these should be kept out of reach of children as you will not be playing bathroom monitor on the day of your wedding!
Like what we’ve put in our box? Will you be adding anything extra? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you.
The Easter bank holiday weekend is here! And what better way to celebrate than with chocolate! If you’re planning a wedding around Easter, your guests will love these chocolate Easter nest place settings which also double up as delicious wedding favours.
Really simple to make, and let’s face it, Creme Eggs may get all the hype at this time of year, but we all know Mini Eggs are the best Easter chocolate!
The quantities we’ve used in the video make 6 nests. Multiply the quantities to make the number you need for all your guests.
***
Easter nests (makes 6)
200g chocolate (we used Cadbury’s Dairy Milk)
80g Shredded Wheat
18 Mini Eggs (3 per nest)
Edible Flowers (Optional)
***
Maddocks Farm Organics have a great guide about using edible flowers . Worth a read if you’re planning on adding edible flowers to your chocolate nests.
Check out more of our Easter wedding ideas over on our Pinterest page.
For spring-summer 2019, Paperchase have gone all in this wedding season. They’ve waved their arms in the air, done a little dance and are oozing those wedding vibes!
Online they’ve got a wide range of wedding products that go way beyond name cards and a nice pen, and in-store they’ve handed over a surprising amount of retail space for it. We thank you Paperchase! They may be a stationery store, but they have got it all from bridal llamas to reception games! Yes, you heard right, I said llamas…there are even flamingos too! So even if you’ve already got your wedding stationery vendor booked, that’s no reason to skip this haul.
Bride Society believes it’s making it personal and those finishing touches that makes a wedding. And from our shop around Paperchase, it looks like they’ve got lots of choice for decorative finishes and even personalisable guest books.
We picked up a range of items in our Paperchase Haul, focusing on the wedding day itself, to give you an idea of what is on offer this year and what’s worth it.
Spoiler alert: Our personal faves are the bride and groom llamas!
We couldn’t buy it all, so you can check out Paperchase’s full wedding range on their website here! We’re also loving their new partnership with party supplier; Ginger Ray, which can also be found on their website.
Links and product info for items shown in this video:
Welcome back! This video picks straight up from where Part 1 left off. Once Ana (of Ana Rancourt Photography, based in Toronto, Canada) and I got talking we realised there were a lot more differences between how our countries say their “I do’s” than we first thought, so we had to split it in to two parts! So, if you haven’t checked out part one, definitely do that first – that focuses more on what happens between the being-down-on-one-knee bit to the start-of-the-wedding bit, from engagement parties to the ‘Stag and Doe’, to Bachelorette and Hen parties, there’s a lot going on! Today we are more focussed on W. day itself; we talk vows, garter tossing, open bars and ‘evening reception’ invitations, spoiler: seems one country flashes the cash way more than the other!
It turns out that much in the same way that both countries are predominately English speaking, but the way in which we say things can be very different, so too are our weddings. On the surface it’s all very recognisable – 2 people: check, 2 rings: check, flowers: check, big white dress: check. But if you think you’ve watched the Royal Weddings and therefore have British weddings sussed, well, you may have had a glimpse into our traditions but there’s so much more than you will ever have realised! Tell us in the comments below where you’re tuning in from and which tradition you are most surprised by.
Fun fact for British viewers: If you’re thinking of getting
married abroad, your marriage is usually recognised as legally binding in the
UK if it is legal in the country you are married in and the marriage
certificate is written in English.
Again, special thanks to Ana of Ana Rancourt Photography for taking part in today’s video, and for keeping chatting with me all that time, it was no small feat! If you would like to know more about Ana and her photography services, her website can be found here.
Did you know in the past, wedding guests used to tear bits off the Bride’s wedding dress as they believed it brought good luck? Nowadays the tradition is slightly less destructive and a garter plays the same role.
In the same way as tossing your bridal bouquet to all the single ladies at the wedding and the lucky recipient will be the next bride, the garter is tossed to all the single men.
Whether you choose just to have one garter and use that for the garter toss, or have two to keep one as a keepsake or even heirloom for after the Big Day, we’re looking at the different styles you can choose from.
Curious about how they do things the other side of the
pond? Me too! It feels like there has been a long-standing
tradition of looking across the Atlantic, being intrigued by how each other
live their lives.
When I speak to Canadians I know who are living in the UK, they talk about the culture shock they first felt when they moved here. On the surface of things, you would think we are not that far apart; we are both developed, western countries, predominantly English speaking, we share a lot of the same TV shows / movies and Canada even has the same Queen! However, I’m told that’s the very thing that catches you out…on the surface things seem the same, but it’s all subtly different, to the point of being unnerving. You think, “I’ll catch the bus”, but then how do you actually catch a bus? Or, “I’ll take a walk”, but then you’re looking the wrong way to cross the street and keep getting lost because UK cities are not built on a grid. M i n d b l o w n!
After my latest trip to North America where I met up with Ana of Ana Rancourt Photography, a Toronto (and surrounding areas) based photographer to talk weddings, I was shocked to learn how different our weddings actually are, from the moment the question is popped until we hang up our dancing shoes! It’s surprising because again, I feel like this is one of those things where on the surface of it, we would very much recognise each other’s weddings as weddings! Plus surely we’ve all seen enough Four Weddings and a Funeral, or Bridesmaids to know what it’s all about, not to mention Meghan and Harry’s big day! But turns out, the way we go about it all is, again, subtly different at almost every turn…and I’m not just talking about how us Brits feel the need to stick a bird cage on the side of our heads as part of our wedding-guest attire! And no, that wasn’t just a royal wedding thing, it’s normal here I’m ashamed to say.
Ana and I both decided there are definitely elements from each other’s traditions that we hope might catch on in the future. If you’re left wanting to know more, check out the video we’ve put together for you and let us know your favourite traditions you want to adopt!
With special thanks to Ana for taking part in today’s video and being a great guest co-host. If you would like to know more about Ana and her photography services, her website can be found here.
The use of foliage in weddings has seen a massive increase over the past couple of years. It can create a real impact plus it has the benefit of being more budget friendly than choosing to go with a majority of flowers.
You can either mix and match with some statement blooms (therefore making your floral budget go further) or just go completely green and have a foliage only wedding!
And you don’t just have to have large quantities of foliage to make an impression with your wedding décor as our DIY Foliage Wedding Décor video demonstrates.
Some glass bottles, a few sprays of foliage, and some water is all you need to add a bit of greenery to your big day.
Why not use them to line your aisle, dot them around your wedding reception room, add interest to a mantelpiece or even group some together of different sizes and use as your table centrepieces.
Want to add a cosy glow to your venue when the sun goes down? Pop in a tapered candle in your chosen colour, et voilà, the perfect botanical candle holder.
Mix up your foliage of choice with different leaf structures and shades of green to add variety and interest.
We’ve all heard it said that your wedding day is the happiest day of your life (or one of, at least!). You’re marrying the love of your life, celebrating that truly precious bond with all the people who care about you most in the world. Sounds euphoric! But at the same time, we know that for many people it’s not all rainbows and unicorns – there can be other emotions mixed in too; the thought of everyone looking at you can fill some people with panic, the idea of having to give a speech in front of a crowded room can cause some to break out in a sweat, or the anxiety of whether your estranged parents will have a showdown during cocktail hour has others reaching for a paper bag. If even the very contemplation of those has raised your blood pressure, firstly, sorry! But secondly, we’re here to say that we want you to be able to enjoy your day as much as is humanly possible, so in today’s video I am delivering a few tools and techniques that you can use on the day to help keep your anxiety in check.
Who is this person spouting this information you may be wondering…fair enough…I am Rebecca. In my life before all-things-wedding, I did a degree in Counselling Studies and volunteered as a Counsellor for Women’s Aid, and later completed post-grad. studies to become a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner within the NHS. Enough with the CV…let’s get down to it!
Check out these techniques now so you can practice ahead of the day, that way you can call on them at a moment’s notice. Even the simple knowledge that you have them at your disposal could give you the confidence to sail through the day problem free. All this said, please note that these are simply anxiety-management techniques. They are not going to resolve underlying issues that may be at play or provide a long-term solution for anxiety or panic. If you require further psychological assistance, please contact your local GP or IAPT service.
We hope this video helps you to feel more confident and freer to be excited about the prospect of your wedding day. If you have any other tools you’ve used that you think other bride and grooms-to-be might find helpful, share them in the comment section below.
(The mindfulness/meditation app, Headspace that is mentioned in this video can be found here.)
If you’re wondering how to bring a summer, Tuscan flavour to your wedding decor, this lavender wedding centrepiece may be the DIY you’ve been looking for.
Asimple way to add some colour and flowers to your wedding tables, without breaking the bank. Plus, in the evening, lighting the candles will transform your reception space with a warm and cosy glow. (Hint: Double check with the venue that open flames are permitted, and if not, use battery powered candles!)
The great thing about using dried lavender is that this DIY can be done well in advance. No last minute panic on the wedding morning trying to wrangle fresh floral centrepieces!
If you’re careful, after the Big Day, you should be able to remove the hardened glue from your glass vases and re-use them.
For our example we used a 25cm tall vase with a 12cm diameter. Why not mix and match the heights of your vases to add interest on your tables. All you’ll need to change is the length you cut your lavender stems and possibly the height of the candles.
Don’t forget to tag us in your Instagram photos if you give this DIY a go!
I’m going to be first in line to go back to Unico 20°N 87°W on the Riviera Maya in Mexico. They had me at all-inclusive room service and ocean views! Are you sold yet?
Bride Society have been back on sunnier shores (sort of, read on) and warmer climes to suss out the ultimate honeymoon (or romantic holiday!) destination for you and your person.
When you travel a long way from home, it’s hard to be confident of what you’re getting yourself in to and when it comes to planning your honeymoon, understandably you want to be as close to perfection as is imaginable. Having done most of my own travel in the era of TripAdvisor and Facebook reviews, Trivago and Kayak search engines…well, let’s just summarise and say, ‘in the days of the internet’, I find it hard to comprehend how my grandparents’ or even my parents’ generation planned their honeymoons. I hold my hand up in saying that I would probably never step foot on a plane without accessing the hotel’s website, trawling through photo galleries and looking on comparison sites for the best deals, and I’m pretty confident I’m not in the minority.
I’m definitely the product of my time and take for granted having knowledge at my fingertips, but I’ve heard some holiday-horror stories and whilst you can’t guarantee anything, I like to do whatever is reasonably within my power to make sure that our hard-earnt money is being well spent and that we are going to get what we want out of our precious time-off. I know, I know, ‘control freak’, but I mean, remember Teletext, eep!
So, Unico 20° 87°. I won’t give it all away, I still believe a little mystery is good for the soul – I want you to still feel like you’re discovering Unico for yourselves, whilst feeling confident you’re set to have the time of your lives! I am taking you with me as I vlog my way around 5 days in this beach-side, all-inclusive resort, so you can see it for yourself and not just have to take someone else’s word for it. Worth watching? Well if you’re keen to sneak a peek inside one of their ocean front rooms, to discover if the food quality is worth the flight and to see if the beach can provide the romance you’re looking for, then that’s just us getting started.
Let’s just say this; we had terrible weather for a significant portion of our trip and I was poorly the whole time (I should point out this was in NO WAY Unico’s fault!) but it was still easy to love it! In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s my top all-inclusive resort to date.
