Out of Office

The work out of office is on and now so is the blog one! It’s been a whole year since I married my best friend, I can't believe how fast its gone! We've decided to mark the occasion with a trip to Venice. I can't wait to see all the sights, sip Bellini's and take a gondola ride. Normal posts will resume when we are back at the end of the month but till then here’s a little peek at our wedding video (I still tear up at certain bits - all the feels!)

The Wedding Diaries: The entertainment, decor and those extra special touches

Todays latest wedding diaries instalment is a long one, you may want to grab a cuppa before you get started... and a biscuit too. It is the weekend after all!

It seemed only appropriate to end the wedding diaries series on such a fun note! Brett & I spent a long time planning the wedding and wanted to make sure that there were lots of personal touches throughout the wedding and also that our guests had a great time.

We also wanted to make sure guests were relaxed on the day so we organised a vintage bus to pick all guests up from the hotel to take them to the church and then onto the venue. It meant guests didn't have to worry about driving on the day or parking. The journey was also a great opportunity for guests to get to know each, it was a great ice breaker!

I'm quite traditional so wanted to have a receiving line, however the organiser at the venue suggested given the size of our party that it might not work as people would have to queue for a while. With this in mind I decided I needed something to keep guests entertained while waiting. I decided to get a picture of every guest who was married framed and placed where the receiving line was. I loved this idea and still do it got so many comments on the day and so many people were excited to see old photos go f aunties and uncles, grandmas and granddads on their special day. But my god it took a while to do! 

My amazing maid of honour also surprised me with the beautiful sign in the first picture which we also had at the end of the receiving line.

We wanted to ensure our evening guests didn't miss out on the fun so while we ate, downstairs was transformed for the evening with a starlight dance floor, giant light up LOVE letters and a photo booth. Throughout the night there was a constant queue for the Photo Booth with people spilling out and laughter filling the air I can't recommend getting one enough!

The final item that made our wedding so much more "us" was our spin on a guest book. We felt a guest book would just get put away an forgotten about after the wedding and instead wanted something that would serve as a constant reminder of our amazing day. We had a giant wooden H (the initial of our last name) made which guests could write on instead and now hangs in our kitchen. Nearly a year on I still find messages I missed before and it always makes me smile!

I hope you've enjoyed my wedding series as much as I have reminiscing about it, let me know about your wedding plans! 

The Wedding Diaries: The Gifts, Favours and Last minute dramas!

Photographs from Perfect Circle Photography, apart from product photos from each website - sorry we didn't have photos taken of all the gifts!

I think the gifts are one of the hardest parts of the wedding to get, our parents were so generous with helping us with the wedding, our friends were so generous with their time that I wanted to find the perfect presents to show our thanks for all their effort in helping us plan for the wedding and throwing us both great Hen and Stag do's! Luckily we planned our wedding over two and a half years, so you know... we had time!

Bridesmaids

For my beautiful bridesmaids & my momma I bought these gorgeous floral kimonos, purple for the girlies and then treated myself to a white one. Two years of Pinning meant I had to get these so we could look photo ready at any opportunity on the morning and whenever they wore them the girls would be reminded of getting ready on that day. We all stayed in the same hotel the night before the wedding so I placed the kimono hung in their room along with a hand written note to surprise them when they checked in.

On the morning of the wedding I bought each of the a rose gold "knotted" ring to say thanks for helping us tie the knot, get it.... never mind. I also got each of them a brooch to wear on their dresses to tie the look altogether.

The Groomsmen

The boys - Bretts besties from school and uni and god can these boys drink! So we figured a personalised hip flask filled with their favourite tipple would be a present they would actually want. Needless to say they didn't stay filled for long.

Flower Girls & Page Boy

For the little un's I figured any sentimental presents were aimed more at their parents and they'd prefer more sweet based gifts! So I did the best of both worlds. Each of them got a personalised log slice with their name, the date and a thank you message from us to keep. I then made goody bags up for each of them containing Thornton's chocolate shapes iced with their name on, disney princess toys for the girls and marvels avengers for our page boy along with a wedding themed colouring and puzzle book and pens. These were placed on their chair at the reception and did an amazing job of keeping them all entertained when the grown ups were being "boring".

The Mums

For my mum along with her Kimono I bought her a Jo Malone candle in the same scent I wore on the day and had a special messaged engraved on the lid. Safe to say it went down a treat and numerous tears (happy ones) were spilt when she read it.

Similar tears appeared when we gave his mum a necklace engraved with our initials, the wedding date and the message "Thanks for raising the man of our dreams".

The Dads

My dad is one of the most difficult men to buy for! He has everything and never wants anything; he is however a traditionalist who still carries round a handkerchief in his pocket! So I commissioned a customised handkerchief with the message "Dad, Thank you for walking by my side today and always. You are the first man I ever loved, and I will always be your little girl Love, Ellen". 
His dad is never out of a suit, so we figured he would get a lot of use out of cufflinks engraved with his initials on so he's truly suited and booted.

Each Other 

Organising Brett's present was probably as stressful as organising the whole wedding! The boy is car mad and has always dreamt of driving an Aston Martin my budget didn't stretch quite as far putting one in the garage permanently. I did however rent one for the day which he drove with a huge smile on this face making the stress totally worth it.

Brett surpassed himself with my gifts not only did I get to open a little turquoise box on my wedding day (every girls dream) to see the most beautiful necklace, he also got me a kindle for our honeymoon filled with books as he knows how I get through a book a day on average on holiday!

The Favours

Here in lies the drama, we originally ordered cake pops as the favours, mini brides for all female guests and mini grooms for all male guests. We saw the idea right at the beginning of our planning period and had them ordered for ages to arrive 2 days before the wedding. The problem being when they did, the courier decided to ignore the fragile sticker and they arrived looking like they had been stood on by a herd of elephants. The woman we ordered them from was on holiday meaning that they couldn't be re-made. Que mad panic looking for an alternative - we ended up ordering 100 plain vanilla cupcakes from Sainbury's of all places and decorating them ourselves with rice paper moustaches or bow ties for the men and edible glitter and pearls for the women. Theres always some drama!

The last of the wedding series will be focusing on the entertainment, decor and those extra special touches, stay tuned!

The Wedding Diaries: The Stationary & The Cake

Photographs from Perfect Circle Photography,

The latest wedding diaries touches on my two favourite things - cake and getting creative!

I love making things and generally being creative so designing our stationary  was something I was really looking forward to and that was before we even got in touch with Rachel from Your Love Story! This woman - my god, by the time we'd finished our first consultation I didn't just want her to design our stationary I wanted her to be my friend! She got everything I wanted our stationary set to be and more.

We kept a lot of our wedding planning secret until the invites were sent out so I really wanted our invites to make an impression as they were setting the scene of what was to come. I loved that each bit of info had its own piece within a stack neatly tied with purple ribbon, and the unique border Rachel created ran throughout the rest of the collection from the order of services, menus to the place settings. 

Rachel took our ideas and visions and made them a reality, and spared me sleepless nights staying up late cut out invites and tiring ribbon! 

The cake - another amazing creation that took our breath away. Malcom our vicar (who has been a friend of the family since I was 4) has the most amazingly talented wife, who's a baker -right? Wrong she whips these bad boys out on a weekend as a hobby!! When she offered us her services as her wedding gift to us and I couldn't imagine the 3 Pinterest images I gave her would result in this Pin worthy creation! 

Each layer was a different flavour, Chocolate, Lemon & Vanilla covered intricate designs, the bottom layer and top Peony was a nod to my bouquet and the pattern inspired by our stationary. All 4 tiers sat pride of place at the top of the staircase at our wedding venue. All our guests commented on how amazing it was and how they couldn't believe that the creator didn't do this for a living!

Stay tuned for the penultimate in the wedding diaries series next week when I talk all things presents, favours and last minute dramas!

The Wedding Diaries: The Flowers

All photographs from Perfect Circle Photography,

Mid summer nights dream definately inspired me when planning the wedding, I wanted there to be flowers every where and them be wild and lush with an abundance of peonies! We spent a chunk of the budget on the flowers as I knew they would be important in creating the feel I wanted and our florist Joanna from Twisted Willow Floristry was just amazing the photos really don't do justice to her amazing creations! 

The bouquets & button holes were all different shades of purple not as wild as the other arrangements and tied with purple ribbon. My grandma passed away a number of years ago and it broke my heart she couldn't be there on the day, so I had a picture of my grandma made into a charm hanging from my bouquet. She was my something old! I know it would of made her laugh to know that - after she called me a cheeky cow of course!

Myself and all the bridesmaids had flowers in our hair continuing on the mid summer night look, for our two flower girls I decided given they were only 4 and 5, any fresh flowers given to them would be wrecked by the time they even got to the church, to invest in some floral crowns from Monsoon and pomanders from BHS that didn't matter how much they were thrown around!

In the church along with the ivy garlands and lanterns with flower heads lining the aisle we had huge urns on pedestal either side of the end of the aisle overflowing with greenery & flowers with hanging candles covered in fairy lights. The glow of the candles in the lanterns and the fairy lights set such a lovely mood in the church and the dried purple petals looked amazing against the white confetti cones after the service and made for fun pictures!

To make the most of the decorations we then moved the pedestals to either side of the top table and the lanterns to the stairs of the reception venue. Which looked amazing next to all the other table decorations which were log slices of all different sizes, candles and individual vases and poses of flowers. On the top table each person had a log slice as a charger and purple flower head.

It was so amazing to see my vision come to life on the day, I just wish the flowers lasted forever so we could keep them!

The Wedding Diaries: Bridesmaids, Groomsmen & The Awww Factor

All photographs from Perfect Circle Photography,

I've never been a fan of matchy matchy weddings - you know the ones where the chair covers match the bridesmaid dresses, which match the flowers which match the... well you get the idea. With the theme loosely based on mid summer nights dream I thought it would be nice to have them in different shades of my favourite colour purple but in the same dress so they still worked well together I also gifted the girls a brooch each that they could pin on their dresses bringing the looks together. 

I loved the Two birds dresses from the minute I saw them but they only had two shades of purple so I began the hunt for multi-way dresses in multi shades and after many (read nearly gave up hope) Google sessions came across Etsy shop The Dainty Yard which answered all my prays! If your planning on buying your bridesmaid dresses online always buy swatches first, the colour on screen always differs from the fabric and I thought I'd found the one several times only to then receive the swatches and the fabric was cheap and would either show through underwear or cling to every lump and bump.

The "princess dresses" according to my 5 year old niece were an amazing BHS find and a went down a storm with my niece and cousin who twirled the night away on the dance floor and brought the serious awww factor to the day. I don't rate the rest of the BHS wedding range but the flower girl options are beautiful, age appropriate and such good value for money that I struggled to find anywhere else.

My handsome husband (no idea when the novelty of calling him that will wear off!) and his dapper groomsmen rented their suits from Moss Bros, Brett & his best man Dave chose to wear a Ted Baker version in the same shade of Grey but it was more fitted and meant they stood out amongst the others.

Finally my wedding party wouldn't be complete without my gays! These boys are so dear to me and I couldn't not have them with me on my special day, though grey suits (read subtle) isn't really their style so instead I left the outfits up to them and made sure they had button holes in keeping with the other guys. I'm sure you'll agree they look fabulous - I mean Neil (the one in purple) even spray painted his shoes gold - thats dedication!

Up next... The flowers, favours, presents, stationary and cake!

Any requests just let me know!