The Wedding Blog

Wedding Fair at Oddfellows Chester

Oddfellows Chester partnered with Belles D’Epoca to host a Bridal fayre featuring vintage and pre-loved gowns. Joining them were Wedding Singer Paul Guard, Wedding Belles Bridal Boutique from Frodsham, The Secret Spa, Sally Norris Photography, Fabulous Sweets, jewellers Stella & Dot, and more.

Wedding on a farm

You’ve just got engaged but have no idea how or where you want to get married? You’ve been to some weddings and even though they were beautiful they were just never quite you? If that sounds familiar don’t worry – that was the exact position Philippa and I were in when we got engaged. We very quickly discovered a beautiful farm to get married on and what followed was an absolutely perfect day.

The farm wedding

I would highly recommend talking to a venue that does bespoke weddings on their farm. We had ours at Low Farm in Yorkshire and could not speak highly enough of Claire and her family who organised it. I’m sure you could organise one yourself given enough organisational skills – but do you really want to worry about the toilet blocks arriving on your big day? Or what happens when your generator packs in? You want the day to be as enjoyable and stress free as possible. Have a good look around our site and the Internet and go and see your farm. Talk to the owners about what it will look like at the time of year you are thinking too.

What you need to know

If you haven’t been studying your law text books you might not know that there are some archaic English laws that means you have to get married in a building with permanent walls and proper road access. This means you are forbidden at least in England (it’s not the same in Scotland) from legally exchanging your vows outside. The approach we took was to get legally married the day before in a very short ceremony in a registry office and have a humanist minister perform a ceremony on the farm. We had no music, no readings and no swapping of rings at the registry office and we deliberately chose this route so there could be no doubt that our real wedding was the next day.

Happily, we didn’t have anyone question this or think that it was odd. We absolutely loved doing it this way – it meant the wedding was extended out over two days and made us much more relaxed on the day as we were not trying to fit so much in. It also had the advantage of letting us pick our own minister on the day. We found a great humanist minister and he tailored a lovely ceremony for us. It doesnt have to be all hippy you can go quite traditional if you like, it’s just not legally binding. I cannot recommend a humanist minister highly enough, although you can just choose anyone you would like to do it – they would need to know how to talk to a group of people for 20 minutes but if Joey from Friends can do it then anyone can!

The weather

We were very fortunate with blues skies all day and for weeks before so the ground was dry – but you do need to consider how you might deal with adverse weather conditions. Make sure the organisers have plans – be it grass walkways, a tractor with a roof, etc. If you are having a ceremony outside think about what would happen if electrical equipment got wet, and consider having a backup if it rains (we had a marquee on standby). Equally if the weather is glorious you might want to consider your guests with hayfever and have some backup tablets in place. You can take the same route with suncream – we provided both of these and our guests loved the little touch. We only really thought of it a few weeks earlier having been to a wedding where I forgot both!

The venue

Your chosen farm venue might have a converted farm or outbuilding, if so, great! If not, don’t worry there are plenty of options. You can choose a marquee or something more unique – we went for a swedish tepee style called a Kata. It looked absolutely stunning – with added bonus that if you ever go to Glastonbury you can re-live your wedding in a few of the live music venues there!

What will people think?!

A few weeks before our wedding I did start to get a little apprehensive about what the guests would think – I shouldn’t have! I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on peoples faces as they saw the kata we had as our venue, it was a wonderful mixture of happiness, surprise and genuine excitement. For me it was one of the best moments of the day.

Practical

You are probably going to have a lot of questions already but these are the ones we asked:

• Is there a place all your guests can park? Will it get muddy? Can you use the tractor to get guests out? Can your guests leave cars overnight? When you go and check out the farm make sure you have a postcode that works so you can put in on your invites – the same is true for directions.
• Ask about an electricity supply. Again if you are having a ceremony outside check if you will need a microphone. It’s actually pretty hard to have a whole group of people hear you on a windy day!
• Consider if your guests will need to pay for their drinks at the bar with cash – if they will, make sure you put this on the invite.
• If your guests have to walk any distance, say between the car park and your venue, think about how your elderly relatives will cope. Its a nice touch if the farm has some sort of 4×4 buggy although you might want to warn your grandma beforehand!

What next

If you have thought about an alternative wedding I would definitely recommend talking to some farm venues, it was one of the best things we have ever done my only regret is that we can’t do it every year!

Compare wedding suppliers on our website

There is a really great feature on our site which will allow you to side by side compare wedding suppliers. Here is how to do it…

• Go to the first wedding supplier that you want to compare and click the compare check box
• You Will notice a small bar appear at the bottom of the browser window – this is a collection of the wedding suppliers that you want to compare – Lets go find our next wedding supplier to compare
• Click compare on the next supplier
• When you’re done finding wedding suppliers to compare – click the compare all button
• You will then be presented with a comparison screen where you can see the wedding suppliers side by side! Neat huh?!

Featured Wedding Blog : Before The Big Day

This weeks featured wedding blog is Before The Big Day run by Georgia Tolley. There is at least one post a day and its brimming with great ideas and insperation. Its clear that Georgia has a real passion for weddings, Well Done!

Here is a little big about Georgia & Before The Big Day…
“Hello! I’m Georgia, and I’m a journalist who’s a mild wedding obsessive. There’s something about the way they combine design and romance, that has got me hooked! I’ve been running Before the Big Day for over two years now, and there’s nothing I like more than hunting for wedding inspiration and wedding ideas and sharing them with you.

Updated daily & brimming with wedding ideas and inspiration, this is the wedding blog to help couples make their big day stand out from the crowd. With 100′s of real weddings, original wedding theme ideas, unique DIY wedding projects & all the hottest trends, it’s the best UK wedding blog for the inspired bride.”

Wedding table name ideas

Thought it would be a good idea to put together a post about wedding table names. If you choose to name your tables it should be something that relates to both of you. If you’re stuck for inspiration I wanted to share some of the table names I have seen.

Places you have been to

Names of places could be as broad or specific as you like. For example we got engaged in California and could have had the places we visited - San Francisco, Yosemite, Mariposa Grove, Las Vegas, L.A.

Names of Herbs

At our friends wedding(the other half to this site – Neil and Pilla!) they are seriously into their allotment so they had names of herbs. Basil, Rosemary, Thyme, Parsley, Sage, Lovage, Mint. They also managed to get the relevant herbs in pots for each of the tables!

UK Mountains

If you’re really into fell walking why not have the mountains you have scaled together! – Scar Fell, Ben Nevis, Snowdon, Helvellyn

Belgium Beers

We were looking round Hatfield house as a potential venue and saw some people had names of Belgium Beers! – Leffe, Duvel, La Chouffe

You can of course always go for numbers, but if you want to go for names try and make it personal. I’ve been to a wedding where the table names where planets from the Dune books, and I heard one couple considering the greats from Morecombe Football Club!

Featured Wedding Blog : Aphrodite’s Wedding Blog

This weeks featured wedding blog is Aphrodite’s Wedding Blog run by Emma Kingston. The site contains some great information about all things wedding related.

Here is a little bit about Emma…
“My name is Emma and I am a self-confessed wedding addict. I am not married myself but I have loved weddings from a very early age, having waitressed for my Mum’s outside catering company for as long as I can remember.

The buzz of being involved in a couple’s celebration of their love has never really left me and, although I don’t currently work in the wedding industry, I hope to one day (I not-so-secretly hanker for a wedding dress shop of my very own).

I launched Aphrodite’s Wedding Blog in January 2011 as my own little corner of the web to help feed my obsession with all things wedding pretty and it has been growing beyond my expectations ever since.”

Well Done! Emma great work so far!

Online wedding ideas board and planning? – try Pinterest!

So your getting married and you have started to research styles and how to make your day personal to you. How do you keep all these ideas in one place?