A Pretty Pastel Blue Winter Wedding with a Tea-Party Theme

After years of not receiving many winter weddings, my inbox is suddenly full of lovely photographs! The latest bride to choose January for her big day is Natalie, and I've fallen for her stunning ice blue and gold colour palette. Natalie's Cotton and Crumbs cake was the first thing she ordered, and the inspiration for the rest of her wedding. I love its tea-cup topper, and ornate lace icing, but there's plenty of other wedding details for you - from the gorgeous Coast bridesmaid maxi-dresses, Natalie's stunning Charlie Brear gown and Glenn's specially tailored suit. Enjoy! Many thanks to the lovely Kayleigh Pope for sending over these lovely wedding pictures.

We got married in Coombe Abbey Hotel on 31st January 2015. We didn't actually view many venues because we wanted something local to make things easier for my family.

I'm not a typical bride and I wanted my wedding dress to be very simple, I choose a stunning Charlie Brear silk slip, with a beautiful handmade lace dress overlay.

I had my hair and make-up done on the day by Chloe McCall and Kelly Cooper Hairdressing.

I found it in The Wedding Club in Birmingham, they have the most amazing collection of less traditional yet stylish and elegant dresses.

My shoes were Gucci and on the border of trashy yet classy. This is what drew me to them - the bright yellow gold metallic was really appealing, and I just had to have them!

 I chose a very long veil with a lace trim by Joyce Jackson. This came from The Wedding Club as well.

Glenn's suit was from Marks and Spencer, and he had the waistcoat specially tailored into a horseshoe style to make it unique to him for our wedding day.

His tie and pocket handkerchief matched the blue of my bridesmaids' dresses, and he also had the most amazing two-toned shoes from Ted Baker.

Dressing my bridesmaids was hard - I had all the girls' outfits before I even choose mine - I was so determined to get it right. I had eleven bridesmaids including flower girls, and I wanted them all to feel beautiful in the dresses we choose.

I didn't choose typical bridesmaids dresses - they were a beautiful pastel blue maxi dress from Coast teamed with a fur scarf from Miss Selfridges. The flower girls had very simple white dresses from Monsoon.

Our wedding florist was Arcadia on the Binley Road in Coventry. The florist there, Hayley, was really good. I showed a number of pictures on Pinterest and she created her own version for our wedding day.

I had white roses and gypsophila in my bouquet, and the bridesmaids had small hand-tied bunches of gypsophila.

The men had gypsophila button holes, and Glenn had a single white rose lapel.

Kayleigh Pope was our wedding photographer and I can't recommended her highly enough. 

One of Kayleigh's first shoots was a charity football match in honour of my late brother and it felt right when we met her to discuss the wedding.

Our theme colours were white, gold, pastel pink and blue, with lace detailing.

My dear friend and bridesmaid Junie Poonie designed and created our wedding stationery. What made it extra special is that she designed the lace print with roses created especially for us. June is extraordinarily talented.

We wanted to keep it simple, we had a traditional afternoon tea with our own crockery. It was all mis-matched but that added a little fun to the occasion. 

We had candelabras on the tables so we opted for a reef of gypsophila at the base. It looked really simple and pretty.

We had bone-china trios as our wedding favours. It made everything more personal on the day, plus every time our guests have a cup of tea, they can be reminded of our wedding.

Our wedding cake was the first thing that we ordered, and everything else feel into place once the cake had been designed, with its gold and pastel blue icing, and tea-cup topper.

It was my whole wedding inspiration. Tracy from Cotton and Crumbs is so talented and made the most beautiful four tier cake. It tasted as good as it looked.

Weddings are hard work and require a lot of attention, but it was all worth it on the day! My advice to brides is to no rush into the planning. Take your time and enjoy each and every second. Often we forget about ourselves, by putting everyone else first, but try and remember whose day it is, it all goes by far to fast.

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Real Marquee & Bunting Wedding: Claire & Tim - Part 2

Brides planning a marquee wedding will want to save all the pictures from this fabulous Manchester wedding. It's Part 2 time for Claire and Tim's wedding {Part 1 here}, and you're going to love the reception pictures. With a bunting theme and purple as a theme colour, every wedding detail is perfectly thought out, with tonnes of DIY wedding details. The wedding cake, the cake topper, the wedding stationery - everything was bunting themed, and handmade by friends and family. I love how Tim's dad organised the orchid table displays and the buttonholes - as a member of the British Orchid Society he was best placed to choose the perfect blooms. Remember to draw on the talent of all your friends for your wedding - we had a fantastic DIY session the week before our wedding day, and put together tonnes of the decorations and wedding stationery. Claire did the same thing - don't miss her answers to the Before the Big Day Bride's Questionaire for more helpful wedding tips. Huge thanks to Kayleigh Pope Photography for her beautiful pictures.

I took a long time to decide what marquee theme I wanted – toying between shabby chic, morrocan tent or classy event, but I kept coming back to clean white, with purple {my favourite colour} accents. I also love bunting as it seems so celebratory, so eventually we decided to go with purple ditsy-print and gingham bunting, with white broderie anglaise. This then set the tone for my wedding theme and all the other wedding details - including the wedding invitations and stationery!

I loved every second! My advice for other brides? Don’t stress out and worry about things because everything will be fine - people can't do enough for you on your wedding day! Suddenly the little details don't matter so much anymore - having everyone you love in one room is just amazing!

For our wedding flowers, I knew we wanted orchids on the tables as Tim's dad is in The Orchid Society of Great Britain. He sorted these table flowers out for us, along with the buttonholes for the ushers.

The whole of our wedding seemed like a giant DIY project – from cutting out thousands of triangles for bunting, to digging drainage holes in the field before the marquee was put up! We also handmade our bunting wedding invitations - printing the details onto material. My sister-in-law spent lots of time researching how we could print onto material without ink running, or having to buy industrial fabric.

The best man's mum made our wedding fruit cake as many years ago her mum {our best man's grandma} had promised to make Tim's wedding cake. Sadly she died a year before the wedding so Carolyn made the cake for us instead –upholding her mum's promise. Our very close friend Gill decorated the wedding cake, again with a bunting theme! To make it even more personal, the cake couple were sat on a tortoise – our first pet together!

♥ Want more marquee wedding ideas? ♥ Or how about summer wedding ideas? ♥

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Real Marquee & Bunting Wedding: Claire & Tim

Any bride planning her wedding on a realistic budget is going to love this beautiful, detail-filled big day. It's packed with wedding inspiration and ideas, including fantastic high-street finds for bridesmaids, and in-the-know websites for reasonable handmade suits for your groom and ushers. Claire and Tim chose a traditional church and marquee wedding, with a British bunting and purple wedding theme. You'll have to wait for Part 2 tomorrow for the incredible reception details, but first take a look at the stunning portrait pictures - all by Kayleigh Pope Photography. Claire's Mori Lee wedding gown is beautiful and she teamed it with dainty {and reasonable} shoes from M&S. Meanwhile the flower girls' pretty dresses came from Next, and all the wedding party suits were handmade in Thailand for much less than they would have cost in the UK. They were even embroidered on the inside with their names! I love the ushers' floral shirts - I'm a big fan of men making fashion choices at weddings, it gives the groom an opportunity to let his personality shine through. Don't miss Claire's answers to the Before the Big Day Bride's Questionaire - there's tonnes of helpful wedding tips there to steal. Huge thanks to Kayleigh Pope Photography for her beautiful pictures.

For our wedding flowers I used a local florist called Magpies in Longton near Preston for my bouquet, and the Mums' 'Thank you' bouquets. Natalie was superb – I emailed her the week before the wedding to add top table flowers to the order, and she produced the most amazing goldfish bowls which matched perfectly with the flowers on the other tables.

I found my wedding dress in a small bridal boutique in Woburn in Buckinghamshire. I wore a Mori Lee wedding gown, and a veil dotted with Swarovski crystals. Many of my accessories were my 'Something Borrowed'. I had two pairs of shoes – my main ones from M&S and some sandals for dancing later. I didn't want to spend lots on shoes when I knew I would never last all day in heels!

I had three bridesmaids all under the age of six. Their dresses and shoes were from Next – I wanted ivory to match my wedding gown. They had purple headbands from Monsoon Occasion.

My husband had his suit tailor made in Thailand, via a website called iTailor. We purchased the man of honour {instead of best man}, and the ushers' suits from there as well, because we wanted them to be able to keep their wedding suits rather than hire.

We celebrated our big day at St Gregorys Chapel in Chorley, and our wedding reception in my parents-in-law's field! We wanted a personal day and it always seemed like the best option. We knew we wanted a big marquee wedding!

The suits were monogrammed on the inside pocket with the date of our wedding and their job {usher / best man / man of honour}.

I chose my gorgeous childhood friend, Kayleigh Pope Photography for our wedding photographer. It was one of the first things I booked - in fact on the day we got engaged I rang and booked her! Kayleigh has such an eye for detail and makes even the most mundane things looks amazing. I would recommend her to anyone without hesitation!

♥ Want more marquee wedding ideas? ♥ Or how about church wedding ideas? ♥

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