Rainbows and Unicorns

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Relaxation Techniques for Wedding Day Anxiety

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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.)

—Bride Society

Lavender’s Blue…

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DIY Dried Lavender Wedding Table Centrepiece

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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.

A simple 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!

—Bride Society

Searching for Perfection

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Vlog review of Unico 20°N 87°W, Riviera Maya, Mexico.

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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.

Unico’s website can be found here.

—Bride Society

NB. This video was not made in partnership with Unico and is a completely independent review. Visited December 2018.

It’s Not Exactly Roller Skating

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Origami Heart (Free-Standing) Wedding Name Card

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Over the last couple of months a childhood pastime has been reignited in my life; Origami.  (FYI, in case you’re reading this like, “say what?!” then Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes.)  Perhaps this seems a little unlikely…you might think my pastime could be something more mainstream like cycling or retro-cool like roller skating – if you’re of a similar generation to me, but no, for me it was origami.  Let’s just say my childhood / teenage years predated smart phones and Wi-Fi, my attention was not firmly planted on Instagram or Snapchat (but don’t get me wrong, nowadays I spend my fair share of time glued to my phone and my having an internet-based job is mostly just a convenient excuse), and so apparently in the absence of that, 12 year-old me thought folding paper was exciting!  Now I think about it, I’m suddenly feeling kinda surprised I didn’t have fewer friends! 

Now skip forward a couple of decades, having completely forgotten this part of my childhood – sorry Dad, Christmas Day 2018 arrives and in my stocking courtesy of Santa (via my Mother-in-Law) I open a calendar which has an origami activity for every day of the year and the memories come flooding back in.  At this point my husband has a whole menagerie of paper animals around his home office and we’re only 1.5 months in, little did my Mother-in-Law know what she was starting, or re-starting I guess!  But aside from the slight fire hazard I may be creating it’s been a fun memory to revisit and a small sense of satisfaction each day when I manage to create something that actually looks like the picture out of a single square sheet of paper.

So now that you all think I’m super cool…this brings me to today’s wedding DIY! As Valentine’s Day was only yesterday, and because, well, we’re a wedding blog/channel, we’re still definitely feeling the romance factor.  So these two things collided in my head and I thought an origami heart would make a really sweet, yet cost effective wedding decoration.  But, in my evidently geeky mind, what is extra cool about this one is that the heart stands up on its own – which lends itself really well for use as a name card for your reception tables or reserved ceremony seating (assuming that your location is not outdoors with a possibility of strong winds.  It is just paper after all!).

Grab a square piece of paper and have a go!  We’d love to see what you do with yours, and maybe I’ll update you later in the year on how our menagerie is progressing.

(The paper used in this video was purchased from The Works)

—Bride Society

Resistance is Futile

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DIY Giant Valentine’s Day Cookie

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Happy Valentine’s Day!  We hope you and your fiancé have some romantic plans for next Thursday … and hopefully they will involve a ginormous cookie!  Our other halves were pretty excited when they came home and saw what we’d been up to in the kitchen. 

We suggest you basically make this cookie for anything you want someone to say “yes” to!  Because let’s be real, it is a physical impossibility to refuse anything when faced with a cookie bigger than your head, you might even get results from writing, “Empty the Dishwasher” on it! If your cookie is big enough, do feel free to add a “please”, but not essential. 

Maybe it’s a proposal cookie – to your partner, or if that’s already covered, then your bridal party?  Perhaps a tasty Valentine’s gift, or, best of all, if you’re having your wedding around Valentine’s Day, you could make it part of your cake table by icing “Mr and Mrs Jones” on it!  O H Y E S !  I guarantee your guests will be excited! 

(To be clear to all our North American viewers out there, when I say, “cookie”, I mean it in the British sense of the word…I’m not using it interchangeably with “biscuit”.  We’re talking soft, chewy centres and chocolate chips.)

Anyway, back to what’s important…if you’re going for the title of Best Fiancé Ever, you need to watch our video and roll up your sleeves!

Make sure you catch every last delicious crumb.

—Bride Society

The Perfect Gift

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Wedding Gift Ideas for your Wife/Husband to Be

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Picking the perfect gift for your partner may be tricky at the best of times, but when it comes to choosing something to give to them on your wedding day you may be struggling for ideas.

In this week’s video we’re chatting through some of our favourite ideas for wedding day gifts for your other half, for all budgets.

We’d love to hear if you have any other suggestions or what you’re planning on getting (if anything!) for your wife/husband to be. Let us know in the comments below.

— Bride Society

The Meaning of Life Itself

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Wedding Cake – everything you need to know about booking a Wedding Cake Supplier!

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Was there ever a better topic than cake?  At the centre of all that is meaningful in life, there is cake.  And there is no greater, more exciting a cake than a wedding cake.  If you’re not a cake fan, well then you can keep on moving, we are not likely to become strong friends any time soon.  Sorry. 

As you may know, one half of the Bride Society team, Laura, also owns her own Wedding Cake company, Green Kitchen Cakes.  It is perhaps becoming clear to you one of the central reasons this friendship bond has lasted so long!  I’m no fool!

We know that when you’re planning a wedding for the very first time, there are a lot of new experiences coming at you all at once and booking a cake supplier may well be one of them.  So we thought we’d bring you the insider knowledge from Green Kitchen Cakes about how the wedding cake world works.  We cover everything you need to know, from when to book, what to expect at a cake tasting, what you need to do and what the supplier will do, plus words of wisdom so you know what to expect and how to make your experience run as smoothly as possible.  But essentially all you need to know is that you will be talking about and eating cake – so this will be a wonderful experience!

Ok, let’s start the cake talk…and hopefully it will lead to cake eating *fingers crossed*…

If you’re thinking about your cake design and wondering what’s on trend this year, check out our Wedding Cake Trends for 2019 video here.

Interested in booking with Green Kitchen Cakes? Take a closer look here.

—Bride Society

You Shall go to The Ball

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Wedding Dress Try-On Tips

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You’re seeing a sea of white, off-white, ivory, cream, sparkle, lace, satin, tulle, mermaid, A-line and princess dresses blur before your eyes, you’ve got 10 people asking you questions you don’t have the answers to and 5 more giving you their unsolicited opinions and you’ve only just walked through the door!

It’s like trying on shoes with the shop assistant stood over you – we’ve all been there – feeling like we can’t say what we’re really thinking, aka “they look like clown shoes, get them off me!” and wishing we hadn’t put on our Hello Kitty socks that morning. Breathe.  Bride Society are coming to the rescue with our top wedding dress try-on tips to help you seamlessly glide through your first wedding dress-shopping appointment.  From our collective experience of dress shopping for our own weddings, we picked up a few ideas about how to make those appointments go smoothly and how to get the most out of them. 

Oh, and first things first, our very first insider tip – usually bridal boutiques are by appointment only, particularly if you want to try a dress on and Saturdays are their busiest day, so book ahead on the off-chance you see something interesting when you’re browsing.  Appointments usually last up to an hour, so that typically works out somewhere in the region of 4 to 5 dresses.  We hope that helps!

Got any more tips, one BSoc member to another?  Share your wisdom in the comments below.

—Bride Society

Suited, booted and now floral’ed!

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How to make an easy wedding Buttonhole/Boutonnière

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This week we’re turning to the smaller floral details for your wedding and showing you how to make an easy buttonhole/boutonnière.

For our buttonhole we’ve used a rose, sprig of eucalyptus and some hypericum berries. Choose flowers and foliage to match the colours and style of your wedding. Try to pick flowers that will hold up well to being out of water all day. You don’t want a droopy buttonhole on your wedding day!

Tip: Place the foliage you are using at the back of the arrangement. It will protect the flowers while the buttonhole is being worn.

You should be able to make your buttonholes/boutonnières the day before the wedding. Just remember to keep the stems in water overnight. We’d suggest waiting until the morning of the wedding before adding any twine or ribbon.

If you have a go at this DIY we’d love to see your efforts. Tag us on Instagram so we can admire your work!

— Bride Society

Popping the Question

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How to ask your bridesmaids to be in your bridal party

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You’ve had the proposal (or maybe you proposed) and now you’re thinking about who else you’d like by your side on your wedding day.

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Now we all know there are lots of things to think about when planning your wedding, so coming up with elaborate ways to ‘propose’ to your bridesmaids may not be top of your list! However, if you’re thinking you may like to do something more than just ask them, then we’ve rounded up some of our favourite ideas.

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We’d love to hear if you used any of the ideas mentioned in the video, or maybe you asked in a different way. Let us know in the comments.

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Products shown in the video:

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Bride Society

All That Glitters

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DIY Glitter Letter

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I don’t know about you, but we’re still very much in the twixmas lull where you’re not really sure what day it is and copious amounts of Christmas chocolate/leftover turkey is still on the menu.

It’s also the perfect time to be thinking about some wedding planning (especially if you found an engagement ring under your Christmas tree). And we couldn’t do a DIY at this time of year without including some sparkle!

Enter our DIY Glitter Letter.

This DIY can be used like we have here, as a way to decorate your reception chairs with the addition of some ribbon.

Or why not use your own initials and add them to your top/sweetheart table? You could even spell out a sparkly word.

We picked up our & symbol at Hobbycraft.

Q&A Christmas

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Bride Society Q&A, 100 Subscriber Thank You AND Christmas Message, 2018!

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It’s Christmas y’all!!!!  Sorry, I’ve been around a lot of Americans lately – it’ll wear off and I’ll go back to being middle-class British soon.

Hopefully today lots of you will be officially starting your Christmas holidays.  You’ve got that early morning alarm switched off, in fact now it’s all, “alarm, what alarm?”.  You’ve got your favourite A-Z of Christmas movies lined up with a tub of Celebrations firmly planted next to your favourite chair, your jigsaw puzzle is picked out and you’re making a bee-line for that mug(s) of mulled wine…clear the way, Christmas is coming and you’re all over it!

First up on your Christmas viewing list is hopefully our latest YouTube video!  I mean, if you’re feeling hardcore, we’re totally up for a BSoc. binge-watch, “do it, do it, do it” *coughs*.  But if you’re just easing in, check out our Christmas message – this year we’ve brought you a Q&A, answering your questions so you can get to know Laura and me (Rebecca), the heads of the Society, a little better.

Also, pretty recently Bride Society reached its first 100 subscribers on YouTube!  We could probably never truly convey just how excited we were to reach this landmark, but we want all 100 of you (and those of you who subscribed since!) to know that we genuinely appreciate the time you take to watch our videos and support us in what we do.  We hope you’ve been enjoying watching us and have picked up some helpful advice or useful ideas along the way.  We really do love hearing from you, so if you have tried any of our DIY’s let us know how you got on, send photos!  If you have any tips to share, one Bride Society member to another, we’d love to be able to pass it on.

We hope you enjoy our video.  We wish you and your fiancé(e) a joyful and relaxing Christmas and a very Happy New Year of wedding planning!


Love, Bride Society

Oh Christmas Tree

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Christmas Bauble Place Setting / Wedding Favour

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Let me just say, this week’s DIY is one of my favourites to date…super-cute bauble place settings / favours…I’m loving them to the point that I am pretty tempted to organise a winter-time vow renewal for my husband and me just so we can have these! (And because I still kinda love him, but mostly for this festive DIY, shhhhh.)  “Why don’t you just host Christmas and make them for your Christmas table?” I hear you say, well ok, in my case that might be the way to go (for now!), but I REALLY want/need someone to make these for their wedding!  So please let us know if you do and send us photos, we’d be so excited to see them.

We kitted ourselves out with all the components to make this DIY from Hobbycraft – they have a really good range of bauble types to pick from this year and so many fun things to put in them, so if you’re not feeling our bottle-brush miniature trees, check them out for alternatives.  What’s great about these (other than them being adorable and full of festive joy) is that whilst they will function as name place settings for your tables, they are also a favour your guests can take home to put on their trees year after year, always reminding them of the special day they shared with you.  We’re all for favours that last, though don’t mistake me, as a wedding guest I’m still 100% for edible favours, cookie me up any day of the week and I’m a happy guest, but we think items with a keepsake element may just have the edge.  I (Rebecca), still get pretty excited when I spot elements of my own wedding favours at the homes of friends and family.

Eager to get crafting?  Click the link to view our YouTube ‘how-to’ video.  It’s fast to make and suitable for all skill levels. Don’t forget, send photos!

N.B. This video was not made in partnership with Hobbycraft, we are just genuinely loving their range this year!

Here are the product links for what we used in this video:

Frosted GreenBottle Brush Christmas Tree, 4 Pack, £1.00

Artificial Snow, 100g, £2.00

Fillable Glass Hanging Snow Globe, 8cm, £2.00

For more Winter-Wedding crafts, check out our YouTube playlist, click here.

—Bride Society

Trend Setter

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Wedding Trends for 2019

The end of the year is fast approaching so it’s the perfect time to be looking ahead to our wedding trend predictions for 2019.

We’ve rounded up some of the trends we think we’ll be seeing much more of in 2019 and one we think really should happen!

With the announcement of the Pantone Colour of the Year for 2019 yesterday (announced after filming the video), it’s probably pretty safe to say we’ll also be seeing lots more ‘Living Coral’ creeping into the world of weddings next year.

If cake’s more your thing, we’ve also looked specifically at wedding cake trends for 2019.

Let us know if you’re planning to incorporate any of the trends mentioned in the video as part of your wedding, especially if you’re planning a frosé drinks reception!

— Bride Society

With the Help of some Wedding Elves

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Winter Wedding: Mini Wreath Name Cards

If you’re looking to reinvent the humble wedding name card on your reception tables for your Winter Wedding, then these miniature wreaths could be what you’re looking for.  They’re definitely what we’re (aka Bride Society) looking for!  We think they are SO on point for a festive wedding – yes, I’m apparently not afraid to toot my own horn!  Or for any festive celebration for that matter…these would look just as great on your Christmas table at home.

 

If you’ve already got your Christmas tree in situ then you can make use of any fallen needles, but otherwise use sprigs of rosemary like us.  Of course rosemary comes with the added bonus that if any of it comes off on your guests’ plates, it’s all good as it’s edible and will just add a touch more seasoning to your starters!

 

Fair warning, this is not the quickest wedding DIY we’ve ever shown you (although we think they’re well worth the time) but of course you’ll get faster with practice, and they are still economical.  We recommend getting your wedding elves in to help you with this one by getting a bit of a production line going, especially as it’s not exactly something you can prep months in advance as they’ll wilt eventually.

 

 

Got questions? Get in touch and leave us a comment, we’d love to hear what you think.

 

—Bride Society