So I asked her how she got into blogging about weddings?

It’s not because I’m desperate to get married But I’m starting to go to more and more weddings as my friends marry and, although lovely, there’s no personality behind them, nothing that hints towards what the couple are like. And I don’t believe that’s because my friends are boring! I just think they don’t know what’s out there so I wanted to share all the amazing stuff I’ve seen elsewhere to hopefully inspire them and others if possible. And then if there’s several of us UK bloggers doing it hopefully between us we’ll have found lots of less traditional suppliers over here and by the time I get married (which will be years off yet) I’ll have an easier time planning my wedding
I also love amazing photography and just generally looking at pretty things. My blog is kind of like a huge research project so when I do get engaged I’ll be able to see all the wedding-type stuff I love in one place! And meeting like-minded creative people is a huge bonus!

And how do you imagine your ideal wedding?
Ooo and my vision for my wedding day… ideally it would be by a lake with row boats that all the guests could take out. And the meal would be in little individual picnic hampers and everybody would sit on picnic blankets and cushions – I like relaxed – but I’d probably still have to have some kind of decoration about like flowers. And at night there would be fairy lights and candles everywhere, fires would be good too but unlikely they would be allowed! And there’d be live music and a barbecue then everybody would camp out under the stars

Any other blogging plans on the horizon?
I am also close to launching a baby blog and I’ve just read you’re doing the same! Mine’s called Belle Bebes (with accents above the e’s but I don’t know how to type them on this!) I won’t be covering the more serious baby related stuff like labour and breastfeeding as I have no idea about it! It’s more just how to have original nurseries and plan great baby parties and will feature toys and prams etc. And this came about as my best friend is expecting in December and was telling me about her idea for a Mamas & Papas nursery. Nothing wrong with Mamas & Papas but when she told me I quickly sent her over a few links from around the web and within minutes she decided she wanted something more original and something she’s spent time designing and decorating, rather than one trip to a shop!

Thanks Debs – happy to have found your wedding blog and looking forward to the launch of your baby one
As an aside….well yes I was planning on launching Little Miss Baby and I probably wil sometime soon, but I have come across a bit of an obstacle – images/photos. We all love looking at pretty pictures and that is the great thing about wedding blogs – its a array of professional wedding photos – flowers, dresses, venues, accessories etc are all showcased beautifully. However when I was doing the baby blog I didn’t find anywhere near the same quality of photos – the product photos were often taken by the supplier themselves and didn’t look particularly professional. More importantly I’d say a big issue is taking photos of children and babies that you can use in your posts – many of my friends don’t want their childrens’ photos online (which is fair enough), so then my only choice would be to post pictures of Coco doing X or wearing Y, which lets face it is pretty dull for everyone.

Thanks Debs for giving us a little insight in to Belle Amour and good luck with the plans for the baby blog – keep us posted.

There

* CARROTS AND KIDS

This one is so lovely – written by Deb, a mum of 5 (I can’t believe she finds the time to do this with such a big family). ‘Carrots and Kids‘ – the tales of a mum who loves gardening, her dog, hanging out with her husband and her many children. I was especially happy about finding this as I am about to launch LittleMissBaby.com and I want to include as much as I can about gardening, the outdoors, growing your own veggies, and ways for children to entertain themselves that doesn’t cost and arm and a leg. Deb writes very well and I have a real affinity with what she is saying. I think she must be a super mum!

* JARDINO
I discovered this blog recently whilst I was on a little course. I love the way that her blog is laid out and she takes the most beautiful photographs, mainly of still life flowers, but also anything that involves her love of the outdoors. Her tagline is ‘The Therapeutic Gardener’ which its quite true – just looking at her photos is enough to put a smile on anyone’s face. I have a new camera and I am going to start trying to take more photos of flowers. When you get some of the up close photos (like she does) then you realise that nature really is incredible. Janine is also a lovely girl, which makes reading her blog even more enjoyable. I thoroughly recommend reading Jardino , especially when you need a bit of de-stressing.

* BURRS AND BERRIES
I came across this blog because the author, Samia, is a graphic designer and illustrator (she is doing my blog header for LittleMissbaby.com) and I love her blog. The layout, the style, the posts and what she writes about. Creative people always write about gorgeous bits and bobs. Well its not secret that I love design (especially Scandi) and I would love to be able to write about it, but I leave that to the experts and for now am just happy to read blogs like Samia’s. Be sure to take a look at Burrs and Berries

* A CREATIVE MINT
For those of you that might not know her, Leslie, from A Creative Mint, works miracles with her camera and her awesome styling of photos (just have a look at her header). I love reading her blog and looking at her photos. I am not she how she does it but every post always looks incredible. It takes me hours and hours to try and style photos, then take them properly and finally show them in a pretty way on my blog – but Leslie makes it all look so effortless! Honestly if you haven’t visited this blog then do. I can’t believe I only just discovered it in the last couple of months.

* DECOR8
You guys must know this one, Decor8, but if you don’t here is another goodie. One of my best friends, who happens to be an interior/garden designer extraordinaire, didn’t even know design blogs existed (where has she been??) so I have been busily introducing her to the likes of Decor8 and she is now completely obsessed. Holly is fun, honest and writes a fab blog. Also I love her sense of style and looking at all the lovely photos that she takes. I think this must be one of the most well known (and oldest blogs) on the block. Just look at these gorgeous pics of Holly’s home that she put together for me – thanks Holly!

Did you manage to have a look at any of these? What did you think – will you be adding any to your reading list?

Flowers by Florish & Green

So with 83 days until the wedding, this is what we still have to do:

• Give notice of our marriage {as soon as possible and before the middle of March}.
• Finalise our hymns, readings & music for the ceremony and speak to the minister.
• Choose people to do the readings.
• Book the hairdresser.
• Pay for our wedding rings and decide what we want engraved inside them.
• Choose a song for our first dance.
• Have hair and make-up trials.
• Have our hen & stag nights {the bridesmaids & best man are arranging them}.
• Hire a kilt for one of our ushers {the other usher & best man are buying their own}.
• Buy all of my accessories; my shoes, veil, tiara & jewellery.
• Finalise my old, new, borrowed & blue.
• Make all the day & evening invitations {this is still a work in progress}.
• Choose our menu & wine and decide whether to upgrade to Champagne & canapés {we have a meeting with our venue coordinator on the 30th January}.
• Make all the order of service’, menus & placecards {samples have been ordered}.
• Decide on the seating arrangements & make the table plan.
• Decide on the table names & make the table name cards.
• Choose the gifts for our Gift List.
• Get gifts for the bridesmaids, best man & ushers.
• Make thank you cards for the bridesmaids, best man & ushers.
• Buy chocolate eggs for the favours and tissue paper to put inside the boxes {we got the boxes while we were in the US}.
• Paint our G & G letters.
• Decide if we want to ask one of our guests to video the ceremony & speeches.
• Book a hotel for the Sunday night before we leave for our honeymoon.
• Buy anything we need for the honeymoon & pack.
• Check if we need any vaccinations etc for the honeymoon {as soon as possible}.
• Try to grow my nails then get a manicure the day before the wedding.
• Decide if I would like a fake tan or not and have a trial.

I’m sure there are other things that I have forgotten about or not even thought of yet and of course we still have to pay for everything and pay all of our suppliers when the bills arrive!

You can keep up with all my wedding planning in the run up to the wedding on my blog Our Day by Design.

Award Winning Photo from Archibald Photography

Every week I like to list a couple of the blogs (wedding ones obviously!) that have been keeping me entertained, inspiring me to write about wedding stuff or where there are a plethora of pics that I can cast my beady eyes on… so this week here goes…..

Given that some of my post popular posts on LMW are on wedding flowers I thought that I would share the Planet Flowers blog with you. I have featured lots of their wedding arrangements in the past and I have to say that their blog has lots of inspiration. I love this recent post with all their autumnal flower arrangements at Lennoxlove House – great to see florists using seasonal flowers in their work – the orange and amber colours give such a warm and lovely feeling to the wedding.

And another Scottish wedding supplier… (I know I featured one last week but I can’t help it that there are lots of good wedding photographers coming out of Scotland!) This week its the Archibald Photography blog that took my fancy – I love peeking at all their wedding photos, stealing some tips and ideas and most importantly checking out all the grooms dressed up in their kilts!. Check out their blog to see some of their recent weddings and work, including the lovely picture (that one there) from their recent wedding fashion shoot for Lindsay Fleming (which has just won Mark a Gold SWPP award). I have to say the dress is beautiful but its really the way that picture is shot and the background that does it for me.

Talking of photographers there is one UK bridal blogger that loves showcasing the work of talented wedding photographers and I can definitely recommend her blog. I always planned to include it in my weekly round up but because there was so much to talk about we ended up doing a bit of an interview with Kat. If you didn’t get to read it yesterday catch up here on my behind the scenes chat with Kat from Rocknrollbride.com and get reading what she has to say about weddings the Rocknroll way!

I have also found a couple of cool blogs that I have been following one of them is ‘Seven Weddings (but only one wedding to organise)’. This is the postings, ideas and thoughts of Gee as she travels to 7 of her friends weddings in the run up to her own. You have to read their engagement story which had me completely taken as its so sweet – who said romance was dead?! Some really cool bits on there, like her post on Swish socks for the groom and ushers. I love a bit of fancy footwork so that sort of thing completely appeals to me (on that note I should post about my husband’s gold shoes that he wore to our wedding!)

And like my post last week on wedding blogs I was going to review 5 of my favourites but already I think I have rambled on enough for one day. I hope that I have opened your eyes to some of the fabulous UK wedding blogs that are out there on the net – let me know your thoughts and recommendations for where else I should be reading and lets share the wedding blog love!

Kat from Rocknroll bride.

How did you get into this blogging malarky?
I started rock n roll bride in October 2007 when we were planning our own wedding. I actually started it as a diary of our wedding, things I liked etc like most ‘bride blogs’. However after the wedding I didnt fancy giving it up so i changed tact a bit and the blog became a place for me to share all the wonderful, unique and awesome weddings and photography I found. People seemed to like it…the rest, as they say, is history

Do you do it full time? or do you have other work?
Unfortunately not yet! I have a full time job as a producer for a shopping tv channel here in the UK called Price-drop tv. I work weird hours as the channel is like from 745 am – 130am so I do very un-office hour shifts, which in a weird way gives me plenty of time for blogging. I do probably work about 18 hours a day with both jobs combined through! I am hoping to leave my ‘proper’ job soon tho to concentrate on the blog and other writing projects – fingers crossed!

What inspired you to set up Rocknrollbride.com?
When we were planning our wedding, although I adored (and still do!) a vast amount of the wedding blogs out there, there was nothing that really blew me away or always featured the stuff I liked. I adore rock chicks with a kick ass attitude and bloody fantastic and innovative photography. I found that usually when I saw a wedding that was amazing then the photography was a bit dodgy or vice versa. I wanted to encompass both aspects and by searching by my self and finding a lot of up and coming photographers in particular, I was able to bridge this gap and share both sides of the awesomeness! It seems that now, more that 2 years ago, a lot for blogs and photographers and featuring more innovative stuff which rocks!

Kat and her own wedding English Rose Photography

How does it differ from the other blogs out there?
Although i love a good wedding what I go nuts about is amazing photography. I find most blogs focus on the details of other people’s weddings whereas I would rather show a wedding as a whole. I’m actually really not bothered about the details. what I love is seeing the couple in love, the fabulous outfits, the portraits and the over all tone of the wedding. Of course it goes without saying I would rather feature a rock n roll couple to a cookie cutter ‘pretty pretty’ wedding any day of the week too. I don’t like featuring weddings that are already on other blogs anymore as I dont see the point of copying someone else, and awesome photography is a must. I want to inspire brides, grooms and photographers alike. Its not about copying other people’s ideas, it’s about taking little bits from what I feature and making them your own.

What would your top tip be for anyone looking to get into the wedding industry in the UK?
Keep at it – I’m still trying to do the same! Even though rock n roll bride is quite popular in America not many people in the UK have heard of it or me (shocking ). I think the blogging concept as a whole is yet to really take off over here. make connections, make friends with people over here, email people you admire and don’t give up.

Kat at her own wedding - English Rose Photography

What was the best bit about your own wedding?
Seeing my husband for the first time with a big cheesy grin down the bottom of that aisle. When I got down to him he took my hand, squeezed it and whispered ‘you look awesome’

Lets face it we all love something a little bit different and Rocknroll bride is exactly that. Not only do I like the style of the blog but I love the way that this bridal blogger is based over here in the UK (there aren’t that many!) – I can only predict big things for this lady once the UK completely kicks off with it love of bridal blogs (which can’t be far off, given that the Americans go potty over them).

The photos from Kat’s wedding are taken by English Rose Photography its worth taking a look at their site there are some lovely shots on there. Tomorrow I will be posting about my fave blogs that are out there – if you missed last week check out my selection of wedding blogs right here and let me know your thoughts.

Vintage Caravan Interior via Myvintageparty

Here is my weekly wedding blog round up. What I have enjoyed reading this week – take a peek, leave me comments and your thoughts or just point me in the direction of any good ones I am missing please!

This week I am starting with Myvintageparty blog which funnily enough is a blog for all things vintage old and lovely. Myvintageparty hires out vintage china and crockery for special events and weddings and the more recent addition to the company is the fabulous vintage caravan (which I just love). Hire it for a vintage hen party or for afternoon tea and cakes on your wedding day (it looks like you can sleep in it too so there is little need to elope off to a hotel for your first night of married bliss!). What a great, fun and slightly novel idea – there is lots of other good chat, vintage tips, photos and inspiration on her blog.

For my photography choice it has to be Elemental Weddings and Portraits blog This couple are photographers based up in Scotland and their blog is full of pics of all the weddings that they have been shooting. There is clearly a LOT of wind up there in Scotland but they still manage to get pics of the bride and groom looking calm and relaxed – no wonder they are shortlisted for VOWS Awards 2009 (awards for the Scottish Wedding Industry). Check out their blog for recent pics from some lovely Scottish weddings and get voting for them for these Awards.

I got sent this blog by the bride herself Mithi, check out her wedding blog posts at Planetmithi blog – her wedding might be over now but looks like it was a whole load of fun. And more importantly for us it has masses of good ideas and tips (to steal) such as using old milk bottles for table numbers, really cool DIY table decorations, flower arrangements and hand designed name places.

Table numbers for Wedding - via Planet Mithi

If you’re looking for a few green tips I like her idea of a great way to recycle the flowers – she gave cellophane flower bags filled with flowers from the table arrangements to people as leaving presents. Wow I would have loved to have been at her wedding all very creative (which I suppose you would expect from someone that is an illustrator). Her blog is well worth a good read and a haven of inspiration for anyone getting married or involved in wedding planning.

Tabletop and decorations - via Planet Mithi

And last but by no means least – it is the blog of wedding planner Zoe Lingard. Her style and inspiration boards are beautiful and her blog is a good source of inspiration and tips for couples getting married – like for example the brilliant post that she has just written on wedding favours. Before meeting a wedding planner, or considering taking one on its well worth a look at their blog as it is an insight into their sense of style, what they like and how they work.

I am meant to recommend 5 but I have already written a long post and these 4 are so good that they make up for me missing out one!

Bridal Tweeters – there are many of them out there who are full of ideas and inspirations, tips and wedding pics… for those of you that use Twitter make sure that you are following me and check out my suggestions for who deserves a big Friday big up this week (they’re worth following!) You can follow me on Twitter @ Miss Wedding if you don’t already and check out my suggestions for follow friday – hopefully I can point you in the direction of a few good bridal tweeters to follow, from photographers to wedding planners, from directories to florists. Its all about sharing the love and finding those good reputable wedding suppliers based over here in the UK.

It made me happy to see that the post on my top 5 favourite bridal blogs was really popular on Wednesday – thanks for the comments and tweets. I’ll be doing this each week now – posting about my favourite wedding blogs and which articles have tickled my fancy – Remember to keep me posted if you uncover someone or some blog that is worth a mention so I can include it next week.

For those of you that are going to the National Wedding Show in London – hope its a good one. Am going to potter down there myself on Sunday and can’t wait to find some suppliers that are worth shouting about.

via Savoir Weddings blog

Bridal blogs – there seems to be millions of them out there on the net but I find it wierd that I never came across any of these lovely sites when I was getting married. There was the likes of confetti, hitched and other similar UK brands, but I didn’t find anything truly inspirational, unique, fun or different until more recently it seems as soon as you start to delve into the bridal blogging underworld there are lots of hidden gems (maybe some of them not so hidden) waiting to be read.

And so I thought that I would start a weekly round up to share the bridal blog love! – starting here with a the top 5 from my list.

1) Tigerlily weddings writes a great blog…. she might have been a bit quiet posting recently but that is no surprise since the summer has seen her busy planning amazing weddings weekend in weekend out. Her blog is full of fabulous things – its a great read with photos from real life weddings (great for inspiration), tips and innovative and fresh ideas. Rumour has it that she is one of the best wedding planners in London so its no surprise that her blog is going to be full of little wonders too.

2) One of my other faves is the wedding blog written by Josie over at Savoir Weddings – Josie and Dan run a wedding planning service for couples looking for something a little bit different and unique. Everything from Festival style weddings to weddings on a shoestring – they can do it all. I love their Savoir Weddings blog though which covers lots of lovely things that she has found whilst planning weddings and doing the same as the rest of us…. searching for those one off wonders – cute wedding table decorations on a budget, inspiration for wedding flowers and a fanstastic post on wedding dresses from Blushless.

3) Whilst on that note Liv @ Blushless writes a pretty good blog herself – well worth a quick peek. Its the work of a young, fun and pretty talented fashion designer, Liv and her obsession with all things fashionable and inspiration for wild weddings. Her dress designs are lovely too if you’re daring enough to go for something a little out of the ordinary (you should!)

4) I found out recently that a friend, getting married next year in Italy to her long standing lover has started writing a blog about the run up to the wedding, the planning and her thoughts and feelings… was pretty impressed actually and recommend its worth a read since not only is she great at writing but has a lovely sense of style.. its called An English(ish) Wedding In Italy

5) And mustn’t forget Annaandthering – that is another lovely wedding blog written by Anna and Bean (I think her husband to be!) this is a great blog packed with lots of wonderful bits and bobs, ideas, inspiration and links to other great blogs.

Happy reading and discovering…Ping me an email or leave a comment and share the love if you know of any hidden secrets that I should have a looksie at – I am sure that there are many more to add to my list X