Happy Fish, Happy Marriage

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Eco / Green / Ethical / Sustainable Wedding

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Ever hugged a tree? Swam in the ocean? Or wanted to invite David Attenborough over for a cuppa? I have definitely swum in the ocean, and I was about to say that I’ve never hugged a tree, but I don’t think that’s actually true, though I can say with confidence I’ve never gone as far as chaining myself to one!  And sadly I’ve never shared a brew with David either.

Maybe you’re full eco-warrior, or maybe you’re just embarking on small changes, but either way, you’re doing the planet, and the lovely Sir Attenborough, proud.  I personally fall into the category of making simple swaps on a day-to-day basis, like always taking my reusable cups/bottles/bags with me and putting my recycling bins out every fortnight, so I’m no pro and not here to judge, just striving to do better too.

This video is packed full of our ideas and tips on how to turn your wedding eco-friendly and sustainable.  Go all in or just use a few…some will also help you save $$$, others might cost you a little extra, but no matter how much you do, it’s something. 

Got any more ideas?  Share them with us in the comments below or over on the YouTube video itself so other brides and grooms can save the planet with you.

Links to other videos mentioned:
DIY Confetti Cones
DIY Eco Leaf Confetti

As promised…Here are links to our examples of how to combine Favours with Place Settings / Name Cards and thereby use less resources:
DIY Personalised Cookie Wedding Favours and Name Setting
How to Make: Chocolate Easter Nest Place Settings
Winter Wedding Favour / Bauble Place Setting
Christmas Bauble Name Card and Favour
Spring Wedding: Mini Egg Favours

—Bride Society

All in the Name of Research

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Press Event with Paperchase | London | June 2019

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Last week we found ourselves drinking prosecco at a rooftop bar overlooking the London skyline. A slight change from our usual filming location! But we were kindly invited to celebrate the Paperchase wedding and hen party ranges at Paperchase’s ‘Bridal Shower’. We filmed some clips from the day as well as what we got in our goodie bags!

Along with being able to see the full wedding and hen party ranges, we were also treated to workshops. We didn’t quite get round to taking part in the calligraphy workshop with Mathilda Lundin Atelier, but other guests were honing their skills and then personalising notebooks.

We did get the chance to make a paper floral wreath with Lora Avedian which was great fun and a lovely keepsake from the afternoon.  

Thank you to the lovely team at Paperchase for inviting us to the event.
You can check out our recent videos showing the ranges here.

-Bride Society

Do I have brown feathers?

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Hen Party Game Ideas

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We’ve all seen a hen party staggering through the local high street with matching tees and feather bowers, but if you want to keep things interesting, and classy, then we’ve rounded up our favourite hen party games for inspiration.  These could all be played at home or some could even be done on the move, but wherever you play them, it’ll get your hens laughing and enjoying themselves.

Now we should preface this by saying that, as boozy nights on the town are not at the top of our personal favourite things to do, these are all games that are not based on having to drink (though naturally, you can always adapt them!), plus they are tame enough that they can be played with any ‘PG’ guests, i.e. you won’t be left cringing sat across from the future M-I-L … probably!  Though again, they can easily be spiced up, we’ll let you gauge the room!

What’s your favourite hen party game that’s always a winner? Share with us and the rest of BSoc in the comments below!

Have a great time!

—Bride Society

Every Little Helps…

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Sainsbury’s Wedding Decor

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
  • Faux floral garland – £15
  • ‘Bride’ Hanger – £6
  • Wedding fund jar – £12
  • ‘Scatter the love’ Table confetti – £2

-Bride Society

Hand Me the Marshmallows and No One Gets Hurt!

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Wedding Morning Bridal Box

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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.

—Bride Society

It Doesn’t Have to be Vanilla

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Bake with Us – Apple Crumble Cake

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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.

Buttercream:
– 250g butter
– 600g icing sugar
– 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
– 2 tbsp apple sauce
– 1 tbsp milk

Cream the butter, sugar and milk together. Once pale and fluffy, add the cinnamon and apple sauce and beat again.

Crumble:
– 50g butter
– 50g demerara sugar
– 100g plain flour

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.

—Bride Society

Kiss the Miss Goodbye

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Paperchase Hen Party Haul SS19

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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:

Disclaimer: This is not a paid advertisement.

—Bride Society

A Hop, Skip and a Swim

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Weekend in Paris Vlog: Mini-Moon Inspiration

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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?


The hotel we stayed in: http://bit.ly/2XNJuFP

—Bride Society

Powder My Nose

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A Pamper Kit for the Powder Room

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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.

Women’s washroom kit checklist

— Rebecca and Laura at Bride Society

An Egg-cellent Idea

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How to Make: Chocolate Easter Nest Place Settings

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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.

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Easter nests (makes 6)

  • 200g chocolate (we used Cadbury’s Dairy Milk)
  • 80g Shredded Wheat
  • 18 Mini Eggs (3 per nest)
  • Edible Flowers (Optional)

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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.

–Bride Society

Having a Llama

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Paperchase Wedding Haul SS19

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:

• Wedding Floral Guest Book, £12.00.

• Pastel silver foil place cards – set of 10, £3.00.

• Llama bride decoration, £9.50.

• Llama groom decoration, £9.50.

• Gatsby newlywed quiz cards – pack of 8, £3.00.

• Talking Tables Foil Love Balloon, £5.00.

• Bride wedding flamingo, £8.00.

• Groom wedding flamingo, £8.00.

• Wedding speech bingo cards, £6.00.

Disclaimer: This is not a paid advertisement.

—Bride Society

Trainers vs Runners

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British vs North American Wedding Traditions, Part Two!

If you missed part one you can find it here.

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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.

—Bride Society, with guest host, Ana.

Good Luck Garters

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Wedding Garters

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A symbol of good luck for your wedding, we’re talking wedding garters.

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.

Links to everything mentioned/shown:

Traditional:

Embroidered:

Beaded:

Something Blue:

—Bride Society

Four Weddings’ vs Bridesmaids

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British vs North American Wedding Traditions

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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.

—Bride Society, with guest host, Ana.

A Botanical Big Day

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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.

-Bride Society