Photos | 1st Wedding Anniversary

Photos by Love Photos - Geelong

A few weeks ago, my husband & I had a little photo shoot with Meaghan from Love Photos - Geelong.She was amazing, and made us feel so relaxed and comfortable in front of the lens.

 I wanted to share a few photos with you. Apologies for the photo overload, but trust me in saying, that this is just a small selection of photos that were taken of us. It was taken around our 1st wedding anniversary, and we had such a fun afternoon. It was so nice to get some nice photos of us, to capture where we are at in our lives and to show how much this experience of moving to the other side of the world has done to us. I genuinely feel we are different people to what we were a year ago. 

When these photos were taken a few weeks back, Victoria in Australia was in full Autumn mode. Its one of my favourite seasons, due to the colours. Meaghan captured the surroundings so beautiful. I love the colours and the light. 

You can view Love Photos blog post to see more photos from the shoot here

p.s can I just say... how hot is my husband!! I love this man so much.

Ahoy There Invitations

© Cathryn Nicholson

Happy Friday!! Well wasn't that week a long one? I am so happy to see the weekend!

These are some new invitations that I have been working on. I will be selling these in my Etsy shop as a digital file, which I can customise to fit your own personal details on and print yourself at home! Some of you might not know, but I am a full time fashion designer, and I love to design. I can't help but design! These are some new invitations that I have been working on... cute huh?

Our Wedding Day

Source: Marianne Taylor

Our wedding photos by Marianne Taylor are finally here. We are over the moon with them, and we loved looking through them all to relive the day. Our wedding day was just perfect, and went better than planned. The weather was absolutely stunning, which was the biggest surprise as it was raining on the week up to it! Marianne captured our day perfectly, and we were so happy to have her as part of our day.

The main things we wanted for the day were: to ideally get married in Cornwall, to get married at a beautiful venue preferably outside, and for it to be Yellow & Grey. When we first visited our venue, we fell in love straight away. It was everything that we wanted. We instantly felt relaxed, and we knew this was where we wanted to get married. We went for a rustic theme due to getting married in a barn, however we added splashes of yellow and grey to make the decor 'pop'.

Our day was very DIY. I loved every second of creating decor & styling objects for our big day to make it more 'us'. We made about 80% of our big day from making all the stationery, the signs, the table runners and hay bale covers, to the place name holders (I illustrated each individual guest!), table plan, jute string wrapped vases, CD's & home made strawberry jam favours, the bridesmaids brooches on the cardigans, the pom poms, wool wrapped letters, straw flags, doily menus, painted cake topper & bunting, mustache on sticks, mad-libs guest book sheets, cheese cake flags, string balls, posters and jar labels. I did warn you it was very DIY. 

However, one of my favourite bits was our wedding cake which was made and decorated by my Mum. She should become professional! It tasted amazing!

I am glad I saw everything to the end as it truly finished our day off. When we set our venue up the day before, it just made everything worth it. Seeing it all together. I would not change anything about our wedding day....at all! It truly was perfect. 

Most importantly though, I got to marry my best friend, who is also the most caring, handsome man on this planet. We got to share the day with the people we love the most and we were both so overwhelmed by the response we got from our family and friends. 

This day made me realise how much I LOVE weddings, and you never know where that might lead...

You can see more photos of our big day at Marianne Taylors blog

Our Wedding Video Teaser

I can not believe it was 2 weeks today that me and Alex got married. Time has flown by trying to sort out our big move to Australia, that I can't keep track of the days. Up above is our wedding video teaser from Luke at Rocking Stone Weddings.

Luke was our last mintue rash decision. We found him through a talented musician Tom James, that we were originally going to hire to play at our big day, and he mentioned a videographer to me. After that I really wanted Luke to capture our day and I was on his website trying to convince Alex that we needed Luke to capture our day. It wasn't until we were finding out we were flying to Australia, that it changed Alex's mind as we both knew our minds wouldn't be 100% focused on the day and that he didn't want us to not see everything. Not only do we think he is a videographer genius, but he just fitted into our day like we had known him since forever and merged in with our friends and family.

We received the video yesterday and even though it is only 1min20 long, he has already captured the morning perfectly. We literally can not wait to see the rest. I also got my first 'you were right all along' from the husband so that was a bonus haha.

I also have some news on Australia. The visas came through on Monday and we are flying tomorrow. I am a mixture of emotions. Mainly nervous and scared and I am dreading saying goodbye to my parents tomorrow. However I know once we are there we will be fine and we can start our adventure. I start my new design job, or stylists as they are known in Australia on the following Monday, so the next time I will post on this blog will be when we are living down under.

St Ives Cornwall Honeymoon 2012

So, as you can see from the video above... me and the now husband finally tied the knot on the 19th May. The day went amazingly, and all the time and efforts that we put into the day made the day that it was. We both had such a fun day, and there will be photos & videos to follow, I promise.

However for now, I have a little video for you. After the wedding me and Alex disappeared down to St Ives in Cornwall for a few days to relax, and spend some time together. We had such an amazing time down in St Ives, and we really do wish that we were still there! I put together this little video for me and Alex to remember our short stay there for years to come.

As an update for our move to Australia, our visa's should be arriving tomorrow, which means we could potentially be in Australia next week! eek!

Hope & Grace

Source: Hope & Grace

I know, I know! I have been MIA! However, I have good reasons, which will all become clear in the next few weeks...!

I did want to let you all know about a beautiful UK wedding accessories company called' Hope & Grace' which I stumbled across. Their head pieces are so unusual and so stunning, that they really are worth a look if you are wanting something a bit more unique for your day.

W Day Countdown: Less than 7 weeks to go until the big day!

Wedding countdown....

Source: Studio Castillero

Wow, what a week this has been! I went home a bit earlier than expected as my mum was ill, however having those extra days at home has been lovely!  I have been super busy with wedding hair & make up trials, as well as dress fittings. It is amazing how much better your dress looks when it actually fits. I am more in love with it, compared to when I first tried it on in the shop which was 3/4 sizes to big for me! It has been so fun to finally see how my thoughts in my mind and on paper, are starting to translate across into reality.  I can not WAIT for it all to be put together on the day! 

Our wedding is very DIY, to try and cut costs, and even though its very time consuming, and I can see why wedding planners are very popular! (ha!) We have both been enjoying every second of putting our wedding together... and we both can't wait for it all to be put together before the day and see our hard work pay off. 

I also saw my sister in law try on her bridesmaid dress for the first time, and she looks absolutely amazing!! I am so happy with what I have gone for, for the girls! They will all look so beautiful on the day! 

I am just all very excited about the big day now!

Wedding Wednesday: Dorset Vintage Wedding Fair

Photos courtesy of Sarah from Sarah-Leigh's Style Files

You are in for a treat, if you live in the surrounding areas of Dorset. I was contacted by an old work colleague who was also my manager, Sarah who runs Sarah-Leigh's Style Files about the up and coming Dorset Vintage Wedding Fair that she is helping organise. Like me, she is a bride to be, and thought this event might be of interest to me. Which it is, and thought I would share this news with you.

This event sounds right up my street. This is the second edition of the fair, and is set to be bigger and better. This fair will be full of bespoke suppliers and has something for everyone by the sounds of it. I am a huge fan of weddings being unique to the couple, and showing off the couple's personality. Whether you are newly engaged and you are looking for inspirations, or like me you are finalising the last details and want to buy a few bits and pieces to finish off your day, then I think this event could be for you.

Whether you are after bunting, a cake maker, a milliner, a dress or a venue! Then this is the one stop shop for you! 

A little birdie (called Sarah) told me to keep an eye on the Dorset Vintage Wedding Fair's facebook page and twitter account, as they will be giving away tickets to the event! So keep your eyes peeled!

The event is going be held on March 25th between 10am and 4pm at the beautiful and unique venue 'The Roman Forte'.

I hope to see you there, however you might find me in the tea shop... I am a sucker for tea & cake!

Wedding Wednesday: Our Wedding Invitations

Seeing as it is 'Wedding Wednesday', I thought I would share mine and Alex's wedding invitations that I designed from scratch. It can be very handy being a designer sometimes! I absolutely love stationery, so I enjoyed every stage of designing our wedding invitations. As you can see our wedding colours are yellow & grey.

What you see above is the English day invitation.... yes you heard right! We had FOUR different versions of these invitations.  A day and evening for our English guests, and a day and evening for our French guests. Nothing like extra work for yourself! Luckily we are having quite a small wedding.... if we were having around 100 guests, I might of locked myself away for a few days afterwards! However to keep things slightly less confusing, the evening invitations were the opposite colour ways, so when we packaged them all up, we knew we were sending the right invitations out to the right people!

Seeing as grey can be quite a 'flat' colour, I made sure each slip had a different pattern on them, so that when they sat next to each other in the envelope, it wasn't a swarm of grey! We wanted something that was unique and individual to portray 'us' and the feel of our wedding. Me and Alex loved the way our invitations turned out.

7 Year Anniversary

Last weekend was mine and Alex's seven year anniversary of being together, which also meant two years of being engaged (he proposed on our anniversary of our fifth year together) It seems like only yesterday that we first got together, and I can't wait to see what the next 60+ years holds for us!

To celebrate the big day, we decided to go on a road trip to get away from the flat. Since working from home, I am always desperate to get out of the flat! We decided to head towards 'Lulworth Cove' on the Dorset coast and grab a bite to eat. We have been saving like crazy for the wedding, with every spare penny going into the piggy bank, so this really was a treat for us!

It was so soooo cold and sooooo windy... as you can tell from my hair in the above photograph, however it was super sunny so it was a beautiful winters day! We both fell in love with the beautiful Lulworth Cove, and we made a pact to return this summer, as it is such a gorgeous spot!!

Alex is the most amazing person I have ever met, even after 7 years of knowing him, I still learn something new about him. He has been my rock these past few months, supporting me whilst I made the transition to go from full time employment, into the scary world of self employment! He is the king of all kings at 'Pep talks' and giving me the motivation to keep going when I have had a rough day, and he is also the king of all kings of 'I told you so!' when it all works out fine in the end ;) I can not put into words how much I love this man!!

Today, also marks 4 months till we both get married! Where has the past 2 years and 1 month gone?! I'm sure Alex only proposed yesterday! I guess we best start cracking on with our huge wedding 'to-do' list!

Wedding Wednesday: Down Hair Styles

Sources: See my Pinterest

I am still on the hunt to find the hair style I want to have for mine and Alex's wedding. I do feel like I am narrowing down the styles I like though so that's a start. I naturally have wavy hair, so I feel one of the above styles would suit my hair type the most!

The countdown is really on now, it is 4 months and 1 day until the big day! It feels like me and Alex have been waiting forever for this day, that all of a sudden it is creeping up on us! It has now been over two years since we got engaged, which means two years of planning this day! Its crazy to think of the effort and time that goes into planning a wedding! I would never of thought it before!

I am back home in Devon this weekend to pick up my bridesmaids to see if they fit. I can't wait to see them all together! It will make everything start to come together!

Conroy Wilcox Fern Collection

Whilst researching wedding rings I stumbled across this jeweller's website and fell in love with the 'Fern Collection' by Conroy Wilcox. I love how delicate they are, and would love a piece from this collection to adorn my hair! It would look absolutely stunning on a bride.

Twilight Wedding Dress

I am a bit of a fan of twilight, but also because I have weddings on my mind (less than 6 months till mine and the fiance's wedding) I had to do a post on 'Bella's wedding dress! I came across this article on Vogue's website which is worth a read if you want to know more about the dress itself.

I can see a big trend of this wedding dress next year,  because it is such a classic shape! The lace back with the covered buttons going all the way down to the hem is just so SO beautiful, and absolutely makes the dress. This beautiful wedding dress was made by Carolina Herrera.

I have yet to see this film, however the arch of flowers looks beautiful, and I love how the guests are all wearing the same tone of colours! I wonder if they requested that colour scheme on the invitations haha!

Whether your are a twilight lover or not.... you have to admit that Kirsten Stewart makes a beautiful bride!