How to keep your wedding day running on time!

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The common issues that cause weddings to run seriously behind…and what to do about it!

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By no means is it the end of the world if your wedding day runs a little behind, nor does it have to be planned out to the second, BUT….a lack of planning and foresight can quickly cause a cascade of small delays to turn into bigger and bigger problems. I mean, imagine you start the day with a bridesmaid who can’t find the hair salon or your mother having a melt down because she hates her make-up, then your ceremony venue is telling you things need to hurry along because the registrar has to leave to get to their next wedding. Then it’s time for everyone to sit down for dinner but, oh no, 10 guests are still circling the reception venue looking for parking…before you know it you’re cutting your cake and slapping a slice directly into your guests’ hands on their way out the door and the night’s over! Disaster! Ok, so we’re being a little dramatic, but you’ll end up having to borrow time by removing things that aren’t essential, but may be still important to you, i.e. dropping some group photos, losing the father-daughter dance or bouquet toss…or at the very least, you’ll be hurrying through certain things instead of being fully present and enjoying them.

Of course, the world still will not end even if everything we’re talking about in this week’s video happened, nor are we trying to make you panic about all the variants that could rear up and de-rail your day!  Our goal is to help you have a stress-free, smooth-running day by being aware of the potential issues and having a plan / buffer-time for them, so that you can get on with being loved-up and enjoying yourselves.  And so you can be legally married by the end of it…definitely not ideal if your registrar had to leave BEFORE you’ve even walked down the aisle! Find all the common things that delay the running of wedding days, and our tips to make sure they never even come up in this week’s YouTube chat:

Thanks for watching!

We hope you are feeling more confident about your wedding day. Any comments / questions / video requests, drop them in the comments box and we’ll do our best to help!

For even more content and to be a part of the Society, join us in all these places:

–Rebecca and Laura, Bride Society.

Classic Wedding Ideas and Inspiration

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The second instalment of our new series of wedding theme inspiration videos, we’re giving you a complete guide to creating the classic wedding of your dreams in 2023 (and beyond!). From the flowers to the outfits, to the decor and more. If you missed part one, you can see the complete guide to Boho weddings here.

The modern, classic wedding is a timeless affair. Elegant, sophisticated and never goes out of style so it’s no surprise it’s a popular choice for couples. Classic doesn’t have to mean traditional (no little cake topper figurines here), and it certainly doesn’t mean you have to opt for chair covers!

To see all the images featured in the video and more, check out our Classic Wedding Ideas Pinterest board.

Are you choosing a ‘Classic’ wedding? We’d love to hear about your plans. Let us know in the comments below or join us over on Instagram.

-Bride Society

How to Make a Beautiful Cake Topper with Cricut

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Beginners Cricut Tutorial: Step-by-step instructions to personalise an acrylic cake topper

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Cake toppers really have that ability to elevate any cake to the next level, either by adding that ‘bit of something’ to a relatively simple cake design or by creating that personal touch to a focal piece of any event.  Let there be cake!  Whether it’s your engagement party, bridal shower, hen party / bachelorette, wedding, baby shower, birthday, retirement party…the need to cake is endless!  And we’re here for it – hand me a slice any day of the week!  Please and thank you.

We’ve got a few different styles of cake toppers on our YouTube channel but this week’s tops them all.  We’re taking a blank acrylic cake topper (ours is a hexagon (link below*), a circle will work too) and decorating it using our Cricut to cut vinyl and we’re getting the paint brush out – choose a colour to match your theme. 

What is extra special about the look we’re creating is that we’re retaining what makes the acrylic great…it’s transparency.  We’re showing you how to use Cricut vinyl as a stencil, which when removed reveals the transparent element to our design, giving it that added interest that will get the compliments flowing from your guests.  And what’s more, we’re using Cricut vinyl to make it personal.  We’ve made our cake topper for a hen party/bachelorette, and of course couldn’t resist a Friends reference, but the whole tutorial is easily adapted at every stage to any theme, name, wording, colour needed whilst still using the same steps and techniques we’re showing you.

There’s step-by-step instructions for every element, so if you’re a beginner or simply just curious how we did it, we’ll get you from start to finish, no stress.  Only looking for tips / instruction on a particular step?  Jump ahead with our time stamps in the video description box over on YouTube.

What we used:

(*Affiliate Links: links marked by an asterisk below are affiliate links, meaning we get a small percentage of the sale for making the referral, at no extra cost to you.)

Got any questions or video requests?  Drop them in the comments, I’ll help if I can!

Looking for even more wedding content?  You can find us over on all of these platforms, come join the Society:

–Rebecca & Laura at Bride Society x

Personalised Bride to Be Sunglasses

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Just like the wider wedding world, there are trends in hen parties too. 2022 was the year of the bejewelled, bride to be, hen party hat. 2023 is all about the personalised shades! Perfect for summer hen weekends and what’s even better is they’re so easy to DIY, and affordable too!

And if you’re planning a crafternoon as part of your celebrations, creating your very own customised sunglasses could be the very first activity for you and your hens. Add names, roles or just lots of embellishments to zhuzh up your shades!

What we used:

(* = Affiliate links: we get a small amount of commission from the retailer for the referral at no additional cost to you.)

  • Heart shaped sunglasses
  • Flower embellishments and plastic gems

Having a go?  We’d love to see how you’ve decorated yours, simply tag us in your photos over on Instagram @bridesociety_uk.

Looking for more DIY ideas for your wedding?  Check out our YouTube playlist.

For even more wedding content, join Bride Society on our socials:

— Rebecca and Laura, Bride Society

Personalised Bride – Bridesmaid Wedding Robes with Cricut

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Cricut Tutorial: How to design, cut & apply iron-on vinyl (HTV) to create personalised robes for your wedding!

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Weddings aren’t just about the wedding itself, oh no!  It’s the whole experience!  There’s a series of events from engagement parties to bridal showers to bachelorettes to rehearsal dinners and more.  There’s also those slightly less well defined ‘events’, such as the ‘Wedding Morning’, where you and your bridesmaids, with the help of your hair/makeup suppliers, are getting ready for the big moment.  It’s a fun, bonding, exciting, potential slightly nervy, time.  It’s all part of the build-up and all adds to the magic of the day.  Your photographer typically arrives during this time too, capturing some of those special getting ready moments.  If you’re trying to think through the planning of your wedding morning, check out this video, “Wedding Morning Planning Tips”.

Personalising items such as coordinating robes and slippers for the bride / bridesmaids is a lovely treat for everyone, makes the group feel connected and cohesive – especially if not everyone knows each other well, and looks great in those first photos.

Our latest Cricut tutorial shows you how to customise those robes yourself and sits perfectly alongside all these tutorials we’ve already made for you (pictured above)!  We take you step-by-step, so if you’re a complete beginner to Cricut, you’ll definitely be able to handle this project and craft your way into wedded bliss!

Looking for tips on a specific step? Jump ahead to the section you’re looking for with our handy time stamps in the video description box over on YouTube.

Materials we used (with product links if you need them!): 

(* = Affiliate links: we get a small amount of commission from the retailer for the referral at no additional cost to you.) 

If you’re in Canada, you can find the HTV here* and USA here*.

NB. This video is not made in association with Cricut. Some materials listed above are affiliate links, these are clearly marked by an asterisk* where applicable. This means we get a small amount of commission from the retailer for the referral at no additional cost to you.

Got any questions?  If you get stuck, drop us a comment either here or in the YouTube comments – we check regularly and try to help where we can!

Now how about personalising slippers to go with your robes?  Learn how in our Cricut tutorial here.  If you’d like more Cricut content, check out our dedicated YouTube playlist of tutorials here.

For even more wedding content, join Bride Society on our socials:

— Rebecca and Laura, Bride Society

Personalised Wedding Biscuits

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Make personalised sugar cookies with us

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I attended a wedding recently where the couple had personalised biscuits as their wedding favours, greeting us as we found our seats at the wedding reception. And, as we’re always banging on about, edible favours really are an excellent choice. Not only did the biscuits look good with the wedding date and newly married couple’s new surname on there, they were a very welcome, tasty treat on the way home at the end of the night! And I don’t think I saw one left over on the reception tables.

So, we thought we’d share how to make your own for your own event, whether it’s your wedding favours, hen party favours, for a baby shower or birthday party, these really can be adapted for any occasion!

Once you’ve made your biscuits, pop them in some cellophane bags and tie with a ribbon, et voila! Beautifully packaged treats your guests will love.

For the sugar cookies:

  • 250g butter
  • 180g caster sugar
  • 1.5tsp vanilla (or flavouring of your choice)
  • 400g self raising flour
  • 0.25tsp salt

Once you have rolled the dough out to approx. 0.5cm thickness, use a cutter to cut out your biscuits. The one we used was around 6.5cm in diameter. This will produce approx. 25 biscuits.

  • Roll out icing/fondant icing – use the same cutter that you used to cut the biscuit dough to cut out your icing shapes.

Other things we used:

Letter stamps

Rejuvenator spirit

Edible Glue

Lustre dust

Gold leaf

Having a go?  We’d love to see how you’ve decorated yours, simply tag us in your photos over on Instagram @bridesociety_uk.

Looking for more DIY ideas for your wedding?  Check out our YouTube playlist.

-Bride Society

How to Make Diamond Ring Doughnut Toppers with Cricut

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Beginners Cricut Tutorial: Step-by-Step Instructions to make Cake Toppers!

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Looking to add some extra special touches to your Engagement Party / Bridal Shower / Hen Party / Bachelorette?  Well whip out your Cricut and tune in to our YouTube channel because we have a whole Cricut Playlist dedicated to your pre-wedding, wedding and post-wedding (aka honeymoon) events. 

We’re kicking things off with some adorable little cake/donut toppers that will add that bit of sparkle to your pre-wedding events.  A (cardboard) diamond added to the edge of a doughnut to make it look like an engagement ring – cute, right?!  But we also love them just as a cake topper to dress up cupcakes etc too.

If you’re a beginner in the Cricut world, never fear, every single one of our Cricut tutorials give step-by-step instructions, no prior knowledge is assumed, so if you like the look of anything you spot on our Cricut Playlist, you can be confident you’ll be able to get stuck in without, well, getting stuck! …And you can always drop a question into the comments box if you need, I’m there for you!

What we used:

(*Affiliate Links: links marked by an asterisk below are affiliate links, meaning we get a small percentage of the sale for making the referral, at no extra cost to you.)

Got any questions or video requests?  Drop them in the comments, I’ll help if I can!

Looking for even more wedding content?  You can find us over on all of these platforms, come join the Society:

— Rebecca & Laura at Bride Society x

DIY Painted Candles

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Decorate and paint some floral candles with us

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We’re jumping on the painted candle trend and showing you how easy it is to create your own unique candles to elevate your reception tables, dinner tables or even (fancy) picnic tables.

Lighting at weddings is something that is often overlooked, or often can be found at the bottom of the priority list, but candles can create a beautiful atmosphere at your wedding reception. Especially if the sun sets early in the evening, leaving your guests dining in the warm glow of candlelight. But why just stick to ‘normal plain‘ candles, when they can also become an integral part of the decor? This can be done so simply by painting your candles to coordinate with your colour scheme or general theme of the wedding.

We went floral with our theme and painted large daisies however any design you can think of will work brilliantly for this DIY.

Tip: Before you spend a lot of time unleashing your creative flair, check your wedding venue will allow real candles.

What you’ll need:

  • Candles – the candles we’ve used are the Green Dinner candles from Matalan
  • Surgical spirit or diluted white spirit (approx 60-70% diluted)- this prepares the surface of the candles and allows the paint to adhere better
  • Water based acrylic paint in the colours of your choice
  • Paintbrush/tools to create details

In order to get good coverage of colour, it might be necessary to add multiple layers of paint. Leave each layer of paint to dry fully before adding another layer.

It may be tempting to buy the cheapest, white candles you can for this wedding craft, however, if you’re thinking of painting the entire background of the candles a different colour, we would advise trying to find a candle in that colour to begin with (e.g. the green candles used in the video).

Having a go?  We’d love to see what you did with yours, simply tag us in your photos over on Instagram @bridesociety_uk.

Looking for more DIY ideas for your wedding?  Check out our YouTube playlist.

-Bride Society

How to Find YOUR Perfect Wedding Dress

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Helpful Tips & Hints to find the Wedding Dress / Outfit for you!

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This week’s video came at the specific request of our YouTube viewers; just how/where do you start with the overwhelming task of finding a wedding dress?  We hear you, we’ve been there!  So, here’s what we picked up along the way…

And let us start by saying, the right dress for you, might not be a dress at all.  Controversial?  Not so much these days.  You do you.  It’s YOUR wedding! 

We made this video to help you through those early stages of ‘dress’ shopping. (FYI, we have a whole other video focussed around tips for when you actually step foot into the bridal boutiques to start trying the outfits on, you can watch that here!).  We’re laying it out for you step-by-step, asking you questions to help get you thinking about what style, look & shape you should hone in on, how to work out which designers might have the right vibe for you, as well as where & when to get started.  And then of course deffo follow it up with that other video we mentioned of tips for when you’re ready to hit the pavement.

These tips may not guarantee you find ‘the one’, but they should help get you to a place of feeling confident and the most like yourself on your wedding day. (Whilst we hope you do get to experience that feeling of finding ‘the one’, we also wanted to normalise not feeling that too and quickly say there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t!)

We hope you find our tips helpful, if you’ve found anything else useful in your process please drop them in the comments to share with other couples on their journey.

You can find even more content from us over on all of these platforms.  Come join the Society:

— Rebecca & Laura at Bride Society

Bridesmaid Trends 2023 – 2024

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Wedding Trend Predictions for your Bridal Party for 2023/24

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In previous videos we’ve talked about general wedding trends, wedding cake trends, and even wedding hair trends, but we thought it was about time to turn our attention to the wedding party and share our bridesmaid trend predictions for 2023-24!

Choosing your bridal party is a big decision and an honour, so it feels important to make sure the people who you’ve chosen to stand with and support you on your wedding day are happy and comfortable in the choice of outfit.

We’re talking what’s trending in the overall look of your bridal party, mismatched options to tailor to each specific person’s personality and style, colours you might want to think about and even the possibility of introducing prints. And more!

We’d love to hear if you’re including anything we’ve mentioned in our video in your wedding. Are you going for the mismatched look? Perhaps incorporating florals into the wedding party outfits? Or going full on glam with metallics? Let us know in the comments below!

-Bride Society

AI Wrote My Wedding Vows

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We challenged Artificial Intelligence: ChatGPT, to write wedding vows!

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The rise of AI!  We all know there’s been a lot of chatter about artificial intelligence lately…which of course made us curious…and a little bit scared (we’ve seen the movies)!  So naturally we logged in to ChatGPT to see what the hype was all about and test it out.

Writing wedding vows perhaps naturally comes to some easier than others.  Not that I’m suggesting some feel any more or any less for their partners, but that articulating your thoughts and feelings eloquently is a skill.  They are sentiments that should of course be genuine and from the heart, but sometimes it’s hard to put pen to paper (or more-so, fingers to touchscreens these days)…so perhaps a helping hand from a heartless-bot could get the ball rolling and the juices flowing, as unlikely as that sounds?

But is AI, or specifically in this case, ChatGPT, up to the challenge?  Can AI write vows that reflect human emotion, and sound genuine?  We first asked it to, “write 5 lines of sentimental vows” – watch the video to hear what it came up with.  Though naturally, vows that are romantic / sentimental are perhaps going to be the easiest to assemble from the internet as I would hazard a guess, they are the most commonly available.  So we then stepped up the challenge to see if it could convincingly handle a specific tone of vows, so we asked it to, “write 5 lines of funny wedding vows”, and well, it did!  Watch here to hear them!

Finally we threw the AI one more curveball…could it write vows specifically appropriate for a second marriage?  We wondered, could it adapt its language in such a way that would work for someone wanting to subtly reference their previous life experience & how it has informed their current path?  Take a look and let us know what you think?

What’s your verdict?  Would you have known an AI wrote these vows?  Whilst we’re not suggesting for a second that you simply lift what the AI spits out as your vows, arguably it could be a very useful tool for ideas, inspiration and structure.  S C A R Y !  Will you be saying, “I do” to AI?

Thanks for watching/reading.  We hope you enjoyed our AI challenge.  Any questions or video requests, please comment here or on any of our platforms, we’ll do our best to help.

You can find us in all of these places:

–Rebecca and Laura at Bride Society.

5 Bits of Unhelpful Wedding Advice to Ignore

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…and why.

As soon as the ring’s on your finger and you’re celebrating being engaged, it’s more than likely the wedding planning advice will start coming thick and fast. Everybody and anybody suddenly has an opinion on wedding planning and, more specifically, your wedding plans.

Unfortunately, it’s not always helpful or useful advice! So for this week’s video, we’re sharing 5 commonly given unhelpful wedding planning tips and why we think (for the most part) you should ignore them!

Whether it’s unsolicited advice about traditions, DIYs, who to invite or more, you’ll be ready to politely decline or redirect the conversations. Meaning you and your partner can plan the wedding that is memorable, meaningful and an enjoyable experience for you both!

We’d love to hear what you think about the advice shared in the video, have you been given unhelpful advice while planning your wedding? Let us know in the comments below.

-Bride Society

Personalised Ribbon with Cricut

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How to customise ribbon for your wedding bouquet, wedding thank you gifts, or of course ANY present for the ultimate finishing touch to the special occasion.

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For me, what I really love about any wedding is seeing all those personal little touches the couple have added.  Those things that aren’t necessarily ‘essential’ to the day, but ways they’ve found to incorporate bits of who they are, their story, what’s meaningful to them.  Those touches can show their personalities, their thoughtfulness, their appreciation to guests for taking the time out, or simply adding the wow factor.

And that’s where this week’s DIY craft idea really excels; personalised ribbon.  It’s a small thing, sure, but imagine how touched your MOH will be receiving a thank-you gift tied in a ribbon with, “Dear Alex, Thank you my beautiful friend. Love you always, Mrs Smith” or the FOB seeing the message, “Dad, Forever your little girl. Love Willow” as he unties your thoughtful present.  Of course this idea works brilliantly for any gifting occasion, not just the wedding day!

Or maybe there’s a line from a poem or a song that has special meaning to you & your fiancé(e)?  Add it to the ribbon tied around your bouquet so you can carry those words with you – a beautiful way to tie them into the day.  Plus, the choice of ribbon colour can easily be matched to your colour palette for the occasion!

Our Cricut tutorial brings you step-by-step instructions on how to personalise your ribbon, through creating the design using Cricut Design Space (Cricut Access not required), how to cut your design using the Cricut Maker and applying your iron-on vinyl (HTV) to your project using Cricut EasyPress, making this DIY wedding craft suitable for absolute beginners.  

Don’t need help with all of it? Jump ahead to the section you’re looking for with our handy time stamps in the video description box over on YouTube.

Materials we used (with product links if you need them!):

(* = Affiliate links: we get a small amount of commission from the retailer for the referral at no additional cost to you.)

If you’re in Canada, you can find the HTV here: https://amzn.to/3Vbm2Bf* , USA: https://amzn.to/3oFRviz*

NB. This video is not made in association with Cricut. Some materials listed above are affiliate links, these are clearly marked by an asterisk* where applicable. This means we get a small amount of commission from the retailer for the referral at no additional cost to you.

Got any questions?  If you get stuck, drop us a comment either here or in the YouTube comments – we check regularly and try to help where we can!

Thanks for stopping by!  If you’d like more Cricut content, check out our dedicated YouTube playlist of tutorials here.

For even more wedding content, join the society on our socials:

— Rebecca and Laura, Bride Society

Decorate a Retro Love Heart Cake with Us

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Kitsch Wedding Cake, Engagement Cake or Hen Party Cake Inspiration

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These vintage cake designs are everywhere right now and we thought it was high time we gave it a go. And what better day to try than National Tea Day?! So grab a cuppa and a piece of cake and enjoy! Decorate a pink on pink, love heart design with us in this week’s video. The key to the retro love heart cake decoration is ‘more is more‘! In fact, we may have even been a bit reserved in our efforts. You can go even further with adding sprinkles, cherries or how about mini disco balls?!

If you’re giving this trend a go yourself, use a variety of colours and different piping tips to create different effects on your cake. And don’t forget to personalise the top with a message to celebrate the occasion!

We used a petal tip to create the frills, a large shell tip to add the shell borders and a small open star tip to add some extra details.

Having a go?  We’d love to see what you did with yours, simply tag us in your photos over on Instagram @bridesociety_uk.

Looking for more DIY ideas for your wedding?  Check out our YouTube playlist.

-Bride Society

5 Easy DIY Wedding Craft Ideas!

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Our Beginner DIY Wedding Project Ideas

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Engaged?  Congrats!  If you’re thinking of crafting your way through your wedding planning, whether it’s to save £££ and/or because you really want to add that personal touch to your day, then you’ve come to the right people!  Bride Society is brimming with advice, inspiration, and tutorials to help you plan your big day.  No matter what your wedding question, we’re confident you’ll find the answer to it in one of our videos.  Trouble is, if you’re a beginner crafter and just starting to venture out into DIY projects for your wedding, where is a safe place to start?  We get it, you don’t want your first venture into the unknown to scare you off or require a big investment into equipment/tools when you’re not confident about how things are going to go.

So at nearly 6 years in to creating content for our YouTube channel, we have A LOT of ‘Wedding DIY Tutorials’ (147 and counting!) – here’s the link to the playlist on our channel: click me.  Then we got to thinking, if you’re just starting out, the sheer volume of ideas can be pretty overwhelming, so in today’s video we’ve handily rounded up five of our simplest wedding projects that we think you could get stuck into without, well, getting stuck!  These won’t break the bank in terms of tools, zero craft experience required, and bonus, the results will be noticed by your guests – for all the right reasons!

All links to featured videos can be found in the video description box on YouTube.

Got any questions or video requests?  Drop a comment below and we’ll do our best to help.

Looking for more content like this?  Check out our video on where to get started with your wedding planning here.

Join the Society!  You can become a part of the Bride Society by subscribing to this blog and joining us on our other socials here:

We’re excited to be a part of your wedding planning journey,

Rebecca and Laura at Bride Society x