Colourful Flower Garlands For Your Flower Girls

Flower girls are a must. They add a delicious dollop of cuteness to your wedding day, and if you send them up the aisle first, everyone will be smiling by the time you take your turn. If you're feeling nervous, they're a great way to take a bit of the focus off the bride, and if you team them with page-boys then you'll be lucky if anyone takes a picture of you and your groom! When it comes to dressing your flower girls, it's all about whimsical romance, and these fabric flower garlands from Pretty Swell totally work that look. They come in every colour you can imagine, and they're full adjustable for big and little people.

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That Friday Feeling Wedding Web Links ♥18

So it's summer, and wedding season is in full swing. We've been to six so far this year already! I wonder how many brides who've been reading this wedding blog are getting married in the next month? If it's you, here's to the best day of your life. If I had one trademarked piece of advice, it would be Eat Breakfast. Believe me, I had two weddings, so I got to practice. The first felt slightly fraught, and involved me shouting at my mother and husband about helium balloons about an hour before we walked down the aisle. Ironically, said balloons spelt LOVE. The other wedding was totally relaxed and blissful. And the difference was breakfast. So eat it.  For all of you not getting married today, Saturday 30th July, here are some gorgeous wedding web links to keep your wedding inspiration running all weekend. P.S. It's going to be sunny - woohoo!

♥ Make your own wedding wine labels - this also works for dinner parties.

♥  My new super-cute Facebook page, complete with clever landing page to welcome you. Please Like Me!

♥ How much would you love a Cupcake Campervan to turn up at your wedding?

♥ Seriously sexy bikinis for your honeymoon - trust me, this one will blow your husband's mind!

♥ Lovely DIY wedding picnic ideas - everyone loves a picnic right?

♥ Buy these nude pumps from Steve Madden - I did, and they go with everything.

♥ Stylish glitter-nails - fun for your bridesmaids fingers.

♥ A Tuscan wedding where you wish you'd been a guest, and worn a red dress.

♥ Inspiration for when you want even the envelope of your wedding invitation to look gorgeous.

♥ Make your own DIY raspberry favours.

♥ I wanted a camel at my wedding, but they don't have them in France.

♥ And the bridesmaids wore brown??? Trust me - with these dresses, they'd love you.

Plus my favourite features from Before the Big Day this week
♥ Why I love Heal's
♥ Wedding ring advice your future husband needs to read
♥ A ribbon-themed wedding idea

Have a great weekend xx

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Real Sunshine Yellow Wedding - Marchelle & Iain

Some brides really know how to rock their wedding look. I'm sure I looked lovely on my wedding day, thanks to a heavenly Delphine Manivet wedding dress and my French hairdresser Joel, but I didn't come anywhere near the fierce, fabulous awesomeness of Marchelle on her big day. Just check our her hot red lips, her skyscraper Christian Louboutin heels, and her beautiful blonde bangs. Other fabulous details include the cluster of sunshine-clad bridesmaids and their luxurious rose bouquets, tied with turquoise ribbon. I'm loving the contrast of the two colours - such an easy wedding idea to replicate. Stunning pictures published with thanks to Our Labour of Love.

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Honeymoon-Perfect Bikinis

Anyone else hate shopping for bikinis in the shops? There's something uniquely horrible about the lighting, and they never have the size you want. That's why I bought my honeymoon bikinis online, so that I could try them on in my own bedroom, without banging my elbows into the mirror. Have I mentioned I'm incredibly clumsy? Well I'm the first to fall over when I'm putting one leg through a pair of bikini bottoms. Try Simply Beach - you can sort in size, colour, brand and price. I've just bought a lovely striped number for my next holiday.

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Real Bali Destination Wedding - Sherry & Ben

Okay, I need to come clean straight away. Despite my heading, this isn't actually a real wedding. It's a rehearsal dinner held by the bride and groom to welcome their guests to Bali, but it's so gorgeous, I couldn't resist publishing. Sherry and Ben hosted their dinner on a private beach a mile from their wedding resort, and if you've ever thought of having a destination wedding, this one is enough to make you book your ticket pronto. Event designer, Lisa Vorce, created this effect with local products sourced from local markets, which is why I love shopping in Bali - it's so colourful and so cheap! When Sherry and Ben arrived they were greeted by traditional Balinese flower girls, and they even hired a traditional rain stopper {the serious-looking chap in the last picture} to scare away the showers. More favourite stealworthy ideas? The tropical fruit, woven palms, comfortable cushions for lounging, colourful petals and bamboo flags. But the best feature is the turquoise sea and white sand - beach weddings are the best. Heavenly pictures published with thanks to Aaron Delesie Photography.

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Your Wedding Flowers for Less

Wedding flowers can blow your budget. They certainly blew mine, and that's despite me knowing all the secret tips. Unfortunately most of my wedding tips didn't translate into French for my wedding, but if you're getting married in the UK, then this advice on wedding flowers is going to save you a fortune. If you're looking for super-high end designer flowers, then this is not the feature for you - but right now, most of us are trying to save a few pennies on our wedding budget, and I'm all about cheap and chic. To get you in the mood, here are a few pictures of my own wedding flowers, taken by the lovely Chloé from Caught the Light. We couldn't DIY all our wedding flowers, because we needed to hire the vases from the florist, and it worked out as more economical to keep him on-side. But we saved a fortune by buying clouds and clouds of baby's breath from a local market. Our wedding planner Kerry Bracken collected it on the night before the wedding and it stayed lovely and fresh. Our Provencal florist, Stéphane, was wonderful - I'd recommend him to any bride planning to get married in France.

Before the Big Day Tips - Your Wedding Flowers for Less

1. Keep it seasonal. For a list of what flowers are in season for your wedding, click here.

2. Consider using plants rather than cut flowers for your table displays. Some garden centres will rent you plants, but even if you need to buy them, you can give them away as lovely presents after your wedding. You could even grow your own plants, whereas growing enough flowers is a mammoth task.

3. Keep it simple. Single blooms in lots of vases take a lot less time to arrange, and that means the florist will charge you less for their time. This isn't going to give you a luxury look, but elegant simplicity is very in right now!

4. Choose a cheap variety of flower, and buy tonnes of it for a dramatic effect. For example, I used baby's breath - a flower I hate when mixed with roses, but adore on its own. Carnations have the same effect. They're dreadful dotted in bouquets, but when you mass loads of them together, the effect completely changes, from awful to awesome.

5. Buy direct from a flower market and ask a friendly florist to moonlight on your behalf. This probably only works if you have a friend or a friend-of-a-friend who's a florist, but it's worth asking around. They could do your wedding flowers instead of giving you a wedding present.

6. DIY. Now I say this with huge caution. If you're doing simple single blooms as suggested in Hint 3, then you're not going to find this too traumatic. If, however, you're thinking luxurious mixed and hand-tied bunches, then you're not going to be able to produce the effect you want. Plus it takes hours, and it has to be done really near the wedding. You do not want to be arranging flowers the morning of you wedding. Really, trust me, you don't.

7. Don't DIY your buttonholes. They're harder to produce than you think, and they're going to be in every photography. Ditto for your wedding bouquet. Even if your budget is tiny, splash out.

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DIY Signature Wedding Cocktail

One of the easiest way to add your own personal twist to your wedding day is to come up with a signature cocktail, complete with a snappy name. We chose the Georgia Peach Bellini, because my name is Georgia, and I love bellinis. Simple, sweet and yummy. Plus it saved us money, because you don't need to use posh champagne when you're mixing it with peach purée - Prosecco or crémant will do just the job for less than half the price. Why not create an old-fashioned lemonade bar, with a choice of pink lemonade or traditional, plus a bootleg lemonade for the grown-ups? I'm loving this DIY wedding stationery, with print-your-own details from Etsy seller La Belle Parties {top} and Blush Printables {bottom}. Which signature wedding cocktail will you choose?

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Real Eco Wedding: Stephanie & Brian

When wedding flowers get this jaw-dropping, it's hard to imagine how us normal folk could creative such an incredible vision. The good news is that Stephanie is a professional florist, and she certainly played to her strengths. With hundreds of succulents, stacks of moss and gorgeous giant poppy heads, the flowers look like something out of a fairytale. Even Stephanie's giant bouquet was a work of art. Other wedding details to steal include the wooden invitations, little button favours, green lanterns and vintage wooden typewriter for personal notes. Plus, I'm seriously loving Stephanie's green shoes, and is that Vera Wang dress I spy? Heaven! Stunning pictures published with thanks to the lovely Kristin from Kristin Spencer Photography.

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Our Wedding List - Big Up for Heal's

The Boy and I have been living together for four years, so when we decided to tie the knot, we knew we didn't need all the basics. We have towels and a toaster, plus all the basic cutlery and crockery. However, everyone still recommended we should provide a wedding list, as otherwise you can end up getting duplicates of the same thing. Not so much of a problem when it's an identical duvet cover, but if it's an engraved chopping board, you can't exchange it for something else! So we decided to place our list with designer interior store Heal's, rather than the traditional John Lewis. We tried Selfridges first, but we found their online search engine impossible to navigate, so we switched. The Heal's Gift List online function isn't idea either, but if you go into the store, you can just go round with a notepad writing down what you want, and they add it to a list for you. You can then change it or add to it online whenever you want. Our presents all arrived on Tuesday, and it was like Christmas x 100. We've never felt so spoilt and so lucky as when 8 enormous boxes arrived, plus the bed that our guests had helped us to buy. The service was amazing - and I'd like to give a big up to Heal's and the wedding present team for all their help. Here are just a few of our fabulous presents!

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Real Rainy Wedding - Wim & Endri

With all this wet weather, thousands of British brides are having to come to terms with rainy weddings. Last Saturday was a complete washout, and with rain forecast for this weekend, I wanted to cheer up couples getting married this Saturday with pictures of a rainy wedding that still went with a bang. Trust me - I've been to dozens of wet weddings, and it's never made the slightest bit of difference. Wim and Endri celebrated their big day in South Africa at Endri's family home, with the ceremony in a eucalyptus forest and the reception at the farmhouse. I'm loving all of their wedding details, including {not pictured} their email wedding invitation - a super-cute printable invitation that included a video with instructions as to how it into an origami bird. Other stealworthy wedding ideas include the rustic handmade signs, the mismatched bunting, the covered strawbales and the handmade foody favours. Pâté and pesto - yum! Gorgeous pictures published with thanks to We Love Pictures (Too).

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Engagement Rings Advice

It's surprising how many of my male friends say they don't want to get married because they're worried about the cost of an engagement ring. If only they knew that their girlfriend would be happy with a Hula Hoop, if only they'd propose! But there's no doubt that the boys do get the more expensive end of the deal, and many of them are nervous about going into jewellery shops, and getting laughed out the room because of their puny budget. Or course they don't need to worry, because engagement rings come in all shapes and sizes, and in all budgets. From solitaire diamond rings to multi-jewelled knuckle dusters, there's something out there for everyone. Here are a few of my hints and tips on how to buy wedding jewellery....leave this page open on your laptop, so they can 'accidentally' read it! Plus if you've got any advice, please do add it to the Comments section below.

{Photo Credit} Stephanie Williams Photography

1. Traditionally a wedding ring should cost two month's salary before tax. I've heard some US jewellers suggest it should be three months!! But there in the UK it's definitely supposed to be two.

2. Lots of little diamonds give a really dramatic effect, but don't cost nearly as much as solitaire diamonds.

3. Coloured stones are often a cheaper option, but remember that diamonds match everything, and your bride is going to want to wear her engagement ring every day of her life.

4. If the clarity isn't perfect, don't worry. If the flaw can't be seen by the naked eye, then who cares!

5. Why not buy a smaller solitaire diamond ring for your proposal, and promise to replace it with a bigger rock when you've saved up the money? Your bride will be thrilled to be engaged - she won't care about the size of the rock.

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