So I thought given that its such a special time for me I would post a couple of piccies from our wedding and give you a little insight into my special day. In fact my wedding was the inspiration for LMW – I work in online media and at the time of my wedding I was amazed at the lack of good websites out there that focused on UK brides. I wanted to create a site that would showcase really fantastic suppliers, one off boutique designers, unique wedding ideas and basically anything that is ‘not on the high street’ (and probably a few things that are!) Also to encourage couples to do it ‘their way’ to involve friends and family and to save money along the way. Anyway enough of my waffle here are some photos from my big day.

Part 1 – this bit – is the preparation for the wedding – me and the bridesmaids getting ready.

I was lucky enough to have my great friend, who was also a bridesmaid, Ems Dennis do my make up – she is a fully trained make up artist and did a fantastic job on me and all the other bridesmaids. It was so nice to have someone that I knew and that really cared about me doing my make up as its a special and intimate time.

Talking of friends, my lovely friend from school Mel Bles (who is now a talented fashion photographer) took all the photos – poor thing rocked up with a bit of a hangover on the morning of the wedding. But we didn’t mind -she is such good fun that we had a real laugh getting ready. Mel knew a lot of the guests too so they all loved seeing a familiar face behind the lens. Mel’s style is reportage and we were fine with that – the church were also quite strict and didn’t want her using flash photography because they thought it would distract the service.

In order to keep costs down my lovely friend Nix Harding (do check her out she is a FAB interior/garden designer) offered to do all the flowers. She kept her promise despite being 8 months pregnant – which was so sweet of her as that really helped us saved quite a lot of money. She did enlist the help of her florist friend Britt, from Flourish and Green.. who was responsible for the button holes (which I have to say were fantastic) and helped out with flowers for the evening venue.

We decided that we (mum, me and bridesmaids) would do our bouquets in the morning – give us something to keep us occupied and also keep costs down. That is mum and dad above – keeping busy with arranging my bouquet!

I went to New Convent Garden flower market a couple of days before the wedding and with the help of Britt and Nix choose these lovely cream roses, red berries and ivy – very simple but made a lovely winter bouquet . Di, my maid of honour bought some white antique lace which we tied around the flowers.

I had 4 friends as bridesmaids – they all wore the same style of dress but chose different colours depending on what they wanted, and then they all wore silver shoes. I also had a little flower girl Minnie, who was absolutely gorgeous, dressed in Monsoon dress, cardigan and tights. She was SO cute. Just look at her here with Di, my maid of honour, who also looks stunning.

The older bridesmaids all wore shrugs from Coast, and they needed them. It was a lovely crisp and sunny day but as you can imagine given it was the 19th Dec it was also very chilly!

All ready to go, hair up and make up done and still doing ‘jobs’ on my computer!! I think that I should have had a wedding planner – I was calling the caterers and letting them know about a couple that couldn’t make it!

Anyway thats enough for today – I have part II in the church coming shortly and then part III will be after the church and the evening venue.

This pic was taken by Charlie Pinder, a London based photographer – a lovely mix of colours.

This wedding was on the 14th November at Drumtochty Castle, an award winning wedding venue in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Gemma from Planet Flowers explains how they created these lovely arrangements, which flowers they chose and why.

This was the brides bouquet, the bride LOVED twinkle!! This bouquet is all Stephanotis, a true bridal flower with an amazing scent. We used an under planting of white hydrangea and as the bride wasn’t too keen on greenery we used an under planting of tight gypsophila to finish the bouquet. As the bridle loved sparkles and twinkles we added diamantes in to some of the Stephanotis so it twinkled when the light caught it.

As the bridesmaid was wearing chocolate we wanted her bouquet to be the start of the autumnal theme, rather than a traditional mixed bouquet we made almost a bulls eye design! Using burnt orange Ranunculus for the centre with a surround of orange orchids and then Hypericum.

The finish of a bridal bouquet is so important – we used gorgeous autumnal ivy to finish the bouquet with chocolate satin ribbon to match her dress.

Last but not least this was the Flower girls miniature version of the bridesmaids – super cute!!

I love the bridesmaids’ and flower girl’s bouquets as they are so colourful and pretty, but also the brides bouquet is gorgeous with the white hydrangea and gypsophila. Click here to have a look at other posts on wedding flowers where there are lots of other examples of bridal bouquets and flowers for the bridesmaids. What do you think of these flowers? Do you like the autumn colours or do you prefer the seasonal flowers at a summer wedding?

PS Don’t forget to click here to enter the Free competition to win bespoke solid silver cufflinks.

Check out these lovely bridesmaid dresses below from Just Dresses, who specialise in flower girl dresses and childrens bridesmaid dresses – I think that they are really cute but most importantly are an easy, good value solution, with prices ranging from £30 to £60.

They can all be bought off the peg so if they’re in stock you can have them almost immediately so it can be a good option for people like me that leave everything to the last minute. I would, however, suggest ordering in good time prior to the wedding due to the popularity of some of the styles. I learnt the hard way at my wedding leaving it all too late and having to have my bridesmaid dresses (from Dessy) expressed over from the US and paying a hefty charge for doing so…. there is something to be said for the early bird catches the worm!

Talking of my wedding I chose Monsoon for my little flowergirl as I wanted something stylish, easy, good value (and also hopefully something that she could wear again). Monsoon seems to be a firm favourite for cute bridesmaid dresses and I had little Minnie dressed in this beautiful mink coloured dress with a cosy little cardigan to keep her warm.

My older bridesmaids all wore different colours of the same style long bridesmaid dress from Dessy (which we ordered in standard sizes). It did all add up with the extra costs of the alterations and the last minute express posting so that each dress ended up costing about £300 (still I imagine that you can pay a lot more than that if they are made to measure). The little shrugs were a steal at about £45 from Coast, they kept the girls warm and I thought that they all looked gorgeous. Whilst getting ready in the morning we all helped make each others bouquets from seasonal winter roses and berries, tied in antique white lace – another little way to keep the costs down.

So there are lots of great options out there that need not cost the earth or take forever involving lots of fittings and stress. Check out Just Dresses website for more information on styles and costings and if you are wondering who did the the cute photography for their catalogue shots it was Tino&pip – whose lovely work we have featured before in our real life weddings section.

Bridesmaid Bouquet

The bridesmaids bouquets, pictured above, were made from crystal blush calla lilies, green tricks, purple hydrangea, green condor hypericum, ivory roses, ivory spray roses. It was a vibrant summer wedding with lots of colourful flowers. They themed the rest of the wedding flowers around the brides bouquet – All the men wore a green cymbidium orchids and green condor hypericum buttonhole.

The brides bouquet was majestic red calla, burgundy dahlias, green cymbidium orchids, purple hydrangea, peonies and ivory roses. What gorgeous bouquets – £55 for the bridesmaids and £70 for the bride (exc VAT) these are really worth it.

Bridal bouquet - Planet Flowers

Gemmas wedding flower tips for brides to be: “More and more brides are choosing to go with colours rather than sticking to ivory/ cream which is great for us we LOVE colour! There are so many amazing colours of flowers which really pop in wedding photos! Brides should never shy away from colour – it creates the greatest atmosphere!”