Happy New Year's Eve from Before the Big Day

This year, everyone I know seems to be abroad for NYE, so I'll be wishing people a fabulous 2013 almost every hour! Wherever you are, I hope you have a fantastic evening, and I wish you all the luck and love in the world for the next 12 months. It'll be an exciting 2013 for us, because we'll be welcoming our son into the world at the end of March. And I imagine for most of you guys, 2013 will be the year you get married - amazing!

P.S. I found this picture nearly a year ago, and I don't know the credit! If you do, please tell me!

P.P.S. Would you consider a NYE wedding?

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The Bailey Family in Beaver Creek. Through the Lens Series, Entry 39.

We're nearly at the end of the holiday season for another year, and now that Christmas is over, I can post some holiday card photos.

The Bailey's had requested for their photos to be taken at the Hyatt at Beaver Creek in front of their fabulous fireplace in the Great Room.  We took the photos on Thanksgiving afternoon, which meant there were plenty of people in the Great Room area coming in from their day on the slopes.  Luckily, we didn't have any problems getting in front of the fireplace and we were able to re-arrange the furniture.  We had plenty of bystanders watching us and even helping out a little and the photo shoot was done in half an hour.

I raced home afterwards to collect the boys and to head out to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner.  As soon as I pulled up to my house, I realized I had left my hand bag in the lobby, so we had make a pit stop back at the Hyatt on our way to dinner.  Luckily it was still there!

I hope everyone is having a fun holiday season and enjoying time with family and friends.  We're freezing here in Vail with a high today of 14 degrees (-10 Celsius).  Wherever you may be and whatever temperature you find yourself in, happy holidays to you and yours from me and mine!

Personalised Mexican-Style Paper Lace Bunting

Ever since my trip to the craft markets in Mexico, I've been a huge fan of their amazing paper decorations. Take a look at this romantic laser cut banner by Comeuppance. It's created in the style of traditional Mexican papel picado, and it's the perfect addition to your wedding decorations. Take a look at the Comeuppance website for more pretty designs, and wedding inspiration.

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Bank Holiday Wedding Sale Links

If you're planning a summer wedding, this might seem a little crazy, but the Christmas Sales are the perfect time to buy your wedding details and decorations. With huge discounts off fairy lights, paper decorations, table details and fancy dress, you can save yourself a fortune. Here are just a few of my favourite wedding sale links from Cox & Cox.

♥  250 warm pea lights - perfect wedding decorations (save 20%)

♥  Famous face masks - fun wedding favours (save 20%)

♥  25 wooden tags - fab wedding place-markers (save 20%) 

♥  Grey willow wreath - adaptable to any wedding theme (save 50%)

♥  Save the Date cards from Cox & Cox (save 50%)

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Happy Christmas from Before the Big Day!

A huge and heartfelt Happy Christmas to all Before the Big Day brides and grooms! This year I'm celebrating Christmas in the English countryside, surrounded by fairy-lights, flickering candles, and a giant Christmas tree. I hope you have a wonderful festive season, and I'll be raising my glass to all the couples who get engaged on Christmas Day.....remember to tell them all about Before the Big Day!

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Real Rustic Picnic Wedding: Michelle & Paul - Part 2

Brides planning a backgarden wedding are going to love all the DIY wedding details in this pretty rustic big day. With tonnes of vintage and homespun wedding inspiration, you're going to want to add every picture to your Pinterest wedding boards. From Michelle's pretty-as-a-picture wedding gown, to Paul's cute bow-tie and linen suit, this stylish couple created the perfect picnic wedding. I love the popcorn favour bar, and, the vintage desert table display, and the yummy pastel cupcakes. Huge thanks to the team at Simply Bloom Photography for their beautiful pictures - and don't miss Part 1 of this wedding here.

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Real Rustic Picnic Wedding: Michelle & Paul

It's hard to imagine sunshine days with all this rain pouring down, but take inspiration from this gorgeous summer picnic wedding. If you're planning your own garden wedding, you'll love Michelle and Paul's pretty homespun wedding details, from the DIY'd twine-tied buttonholes, the homemade quilted picnic rugs, and the picnic baskets filled with foodie treats. I love the rustic, wooden wedding signs, the mason jars filled with wildflowers, and the cute bicycle photo prop. Tonnes more pictures on their way in Part 2, huge thanks to Simply Bloom Photography for their stunning shots.

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Tie the Knot Wedding Rings

Spotted! This gorgeous ring from fabulous Etsy-seller Sparklethots.  Each ring is individually handcrafted and made to measure - perfect for a promise ring, if you're planning to pick out your engagement ring together. Or they'd made fantastic bridesmaid's presents - a lasting momento of the day they watched you tie the knot!

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Real Rustic Cherry-Inspired Wedding: Cathleen & Eric

Thsi is one of those to-die-for weddings, where you want to copy every detail, but worry that even if you did, your wedding wouldn't look half as good. I love everything about it - the setting, the antique furniture, the rustic but chic napkins, the strawbale seats and the heavenly, heavenly cherries. So many stealworthy ideas, from writing the names of your guests on the paper table cloth, using fruit as decoration and favour, and the whole concept of bringing the indoors outdoors. I'm totally blissed out. Cathleen and Eric's wedding team included designer Rebecca, of Duet Weddings and the hugely talented photographer, Jose Villa.

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Haley's Maternity Photos in Edwards, Colorado. Through the Lens Series, Entry 37.

It's a been a few weeks since my last blog post, but I have plenty to post about.  I've been really busy with lots of photo shoots for christmas cards, so there will be more to come on those shortly.  I have a 50 photo display up in the Avon library (which took some time to get together with a lot of help Russ) and I'll post some photos of that soon too.  In the mean time, I'm going to go back a few weeks and post some photos from a maternity photo shoot that I did in Edwards for Haley and Mike.

To get the maximum effect from a maternity shoot, you don't want to do the photos any earlier than 36 weeks.  I've done a couple of sessions before that, but 36 weeks seems to be the general rule of thumb.  Haley was right at 36 weeks when we took the photos.  These were taken right around Thanksgiving and we didn't really  have much snow at the time, but we found a nice patch of snow outside Riverwalk and we took the rest of the photos around the Riverwalk area.

I loved the red top that Haley chose to wear.  It looked great against the late fall, early winter colors.  As I've mentioned before, I always love it when husbands take part in the session and Mike did a fantastic job helping Haley through the snow.

Here are a few of my faves from the session.  

I love the lighting on this shot.

To see more maternity photos, go to The Maternity Collection

Vintage-Style Wedding Stationery Seals

When it comes to wedding details nothing is too small. Take the back of your wedding stationery envelopes for example. Aren't they just crying out for a vintage-style wax seal? Fab Etsy shop, Back to Zero has tonnes of different motifs to choose from, including Fleur de Lys, monograms, anchors, crowns, and even a squirrel for the nature-loving. Then all you have to do is pick a wax that matches your wedding colour palette, and a second seal for your Thank You letters. It's the easiest wedding DIY idea in the world!

**Update! Back to Zero are offering readers of Before the Big Day 15% off with the code BIGDAY!**

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Real Stylish London Wedding: Caroline & Matt - Part 2

London brides are going to love this inspirational wedding, with its fun pub venue, shabby-chic wedding decorations, and pink and gold colour palette. Caroline and Matt stamped their personality on their big day with unique DIY'd wedding details - Matt designed their wedding stationery, Caroline's mum made the wedding cake and Caroline created the tankard table plan. Stunning table flowers as well - I love David Austin roses! Huge thanks to Erica from Photo Madly for capturing the wedding so perfectly, and to Caroline, for filling the Before the Big Day Brides' Questionnaire. Don't miss her fab hints and tips, and take a look at Part 1 of this wedding here.


Matt and I met at work but we didn't get together until one Christmas party when Matt was dressed as a Lego man and I was dressed as Madonna in the Material girl video. 

We were together for 3 and a half years when Matt surprised me with a weekend away to Norfolk which is where we went for our first weekend away together. He'd booked us into a romantic yurt and took me out for an amazing eight course meal, when we got back we sat next to the camp fire with our glasses of champagne and Matt got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

We got married on 21st September in London, our ceremony was in The Old Marylebone Town Hall and held our reception in The Londesborough pub in Stoke Newington.

We looked at lots of different types of buildings for our reception but decided a pub would work well for us as we really wanted the day to be really laid back and relaxed. I was also determined that our venue should have just one room to create a really intimate atmosphere. 

The Londesborough is one of my favourite London pubs and they really ticked all the boxes for us, we had the whole pub to ourselves and they have outside space and the food was amazing! We felt bunting would work best in the pub and other than flowers we didn't need to do much else as its such a lovely space already. We really couldn't have been happier with our venues.

I didn't want a particular wedding colour theme, but instead worked to a colour palette of soft pinks, greens, white, pale gold and navy.

My florist was Elinor Walsh from Marlow, Buckinghamshire. She did such a good job, the flowers were exactly what I wanted. I really wanted pink and white peonies but in September that's not really an option so we chose pink David Austin roses mixed in with white hydrangea. I chose to have them tied with twine.

I was very keen that the table decorations should be in low vases as I wanted people to be able to chat over them easily without wanting to move them out of the way. The flowers were one of my favourite things about the day as it was so exiting seeing them in the pub, I was so happy with how they turned out.

Matt is a graphic designer so he designed our wedding invitations. I came up with the idea of using beer mats, and he created the look. We used the same design for our wedding menus, which also doubled as the table place names.

My DIY projects included our table plan. I wrote the names of our guest on glass tankards, using chalk pen, then stacked them on a set of shelves. We also made the table names by buying clipboards and sticking struts on them. We then printed out each table name to look like a pub sign, and clipped them on.

We wanted wedding favours that were fun, and we spotted the chocolate lips and moustaches in a wedding magazine. We bought them from Creightons Chocolatiers in Leighton Buzzard, and were so pleased with them. They looked great and tasted amazing, and everyone commented in how fun they were!

I saw a cake online that I fell in love with, and my mum said she would try and replicate it. I bought the cake stand online and my mum did the rest. I don't like fruit cake so we had a lemon drizzle cake. It was delicious and looked amazing, I'm so pleased my mum made it, as it meant so much more.

I loved planning my big day! There are so many different ways you can do a wedding and they're all amazing, I could do it all over again - although only if it was with Matt obviously!!

Our photographer was Erika Szostak from Photo Madly. We picked her because we loved her work, and we felt really comfortable with her straight away. Your photographer is such a big part of your day it's so important you choose someone who you like having around! We're thrilled with how our photos turned out.

My advice for future brides is to remember that on the day you can't change anything so just enjoy it! Things will go wrong but it's not important, the main thing is that you enjoy the day you've spent so long planning. Also don't stress about your decisions once they're made, I can't tell you how much I stressed about things that looking back on it just weren't important!

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