Cute Cake Topper!

I've just seen this gorgeous cookie cake topper on Emmaline Bride! How adorable is this?!

Love the cat!! It's by Katie's Something Sweet Cookie Design and the link is to her Etsy shop where she has loads of other amazing creations including cookie favours!

We Have Cake!

Hello lovelies, I'm neglecting my blogging I know but not much is happening in my weddingverse at the moment as we are trying to move house and the wedding has taken a bit of a hit in the priorities list! I have however booked our engagement shoot for November 22nd and am really excited about it. I say engagement shoot but it's really just a test shoot with our photographer which is included in our package but I'm hoping to use one of the photos for our save the dates. Fingers crossed the weather is ok as I'm hoping to have it outside!

We have also chosen our cake! I have to say this was the part of the wedding planning that I was looking forward to the most, I couldn't wait to go cake tasting and boy I wasn't disappointed! Caryn at Elite Cake Designs presented us with the most wonderful array of cakes to try, she specialises in alcohol infused flavours and wow were they amazing! I had had a look at some of her designs beforehand and decided that I wanted to draw out what I had in mind for our cake to see if she could create something along the same lines. She loved my design which I was so happy about and is going to make it for our big day!

This was one of her designs that I really liked:

Elite Cake Designs

And this is my design based on the above:

I knew I wanted a five tier cake and so mine is just an extension of the one above except the ribbon will be purple and I asked her if she would copy the design that is on my invitations on to three layers of the cake. We are going to have the same diamanté trim that is round the bottom of each tier and our initials on the top in diamanté, something like this:

Surbiton Sugarcraft

These are the thank you notes that match my invitations to get an idea of the design:

These are the flavours we are having:

Top tier: cherry and almond sponge with amaretto buttercream

Second tier: coffee and walnut sponge with baileys buttercream

Third tier: Strawberry and champagne sponge with strawberry buttercream

Fourth tier: Lemon sponge with lemon curd and limoncello buttercream

Bottom tier: Death by chocolate sponge with cherry compote and kirsch buttercream

I sooooooo can't wait to see it! It's a good thing we are having an all adult wedding! What's been/was your favourite part of planning?

Happy Belated Halloween!

This year's pumpkin!

Hello lovelies, I'm sorry I've been so quiet on the blog front of late but life has gone a bit crazy since I started back at university and finding time for anything at the moment  is proving difficult!

I've really enjoyed looking at everyone's Halloween posts from the last few days, some great costumes guys! My fiancé and I celebrated Halloween at my friend's sister's engagement party, although it was Halloween themed you could dress up as anything and there were some fantastic costumes! The bride and groom-to-be went as the corpse bride and groom and I got to indulge in my lifelong dream of becoming 80's comic hero She-Ra! There was absolutely no way I was getting my other half to go as He-Man though to match with me (he really doesn't like fancy dress!) but he did make an effort and went as The Stig from Top Gear (mysterious racing driver). We had a great night and I well and truly channelled my inner Princess of Power!

Hope you all had a good one!

One Year To Go Giveaway!

Happy Friday everyone! Today officially marks our one-year-to-the-day milestone and I'm so excited! I feel like I can properly start counting down now and keep thinking about what I'll be doing this time next year. To celebrate the day (and our 4 year anniversary) my fiancé and I are off to our venue tonight for dinner, we are getting married in the restaurant of the hotel so it will be even more special. I'm looking forward to seeing what the grounds look like at this time of year and hope that all the leaves will be turning for a proper autumnal feel. It's a beautiful day here in Birmingham, sunshine and blue skies and I'm keeping everything crossed that it will be the same this time next year!

via Wikipedia
Sadly most of us 2012 brides have an extra day to wait with the leap year!

So to celebrate our one year mark I am delighted to announce our first giveaway! I have two tickets to The Luxury Wedding Show at the Saatchi Gallery in Knightsbridge, London on Sunday 23rd October worth £100 for one lucky reader! This is sure to be a fantastic event and the tickets include reserved seating at a catwalk show, a glass of champagne and a goody bag worth £30! There are going to be over 100 experts on hand to give you advice on your big day including floral experts from McQueens who will be giving mini-masterclasses in making bouquets, centrepieces and buttonholes and hair stylist to the stars Errol Douglas who will be giving consultations. So it's worth going to for the tips, advice and goodies alone! Full details of the show can be found at the official website here.

via The Luxury Wedding Show

So if you would like to go all you have to do is leave a comment under this blog post and if you are not a member of blogger or the associated websites and you are selecting the name/anonymous option to leave your comment then please also provide some form of contact details like your e-mail or twitter handle so I can contact you if you win. If you are a member I'd appreciate it if you would also follow my blog :) Competition closes at 7pm on Tuesday 18th October and a winner will be picked at random using a random number generator. Good luck!

The National Wedding Show and Some Good Advice!

Hello lovely people, can't believe we are halfway through the week already, scary stuff! I thought I would do a quick re-cap of The National Wedding Show that I went to last Friday in Birmingham mainly because I picked up a few tips and ideas I would like to share.

via Ocean Media Group

The National Wedding Show is the UK's largest wedding fair and it takes place twice a year in London and Birmingham. There were hundreds of exhibitors as well as regular catwalk shows and talks from people in the wedding industry. I would really recommend it to any bride especially if you are in the early stages of planning as they have such a large range of suppliers there and many giving discounts. I would especially recommend it if you want a bargain on a wedding dress, there were literally hundreds of gorgeous dresses with hundreds off the price! 

It's also worth going for the goody bags and free stuff!! I got a whole bag of treats including cereal, cereal bars, toothpaste, conditioner, tissues and samples of body lotion and perfume. There were also people giving away Galaxy chocolate bars (much needed to keep the energy levels up!) and I got a free copy of Wedding Ideas Magazine which I love. Here are the goodies minus the chocolate and some cereal bars which I've eaten (sorry!)

Also for £3 I bought a goody bag containing copies of You & Your Wedding Magazine and Cosmo Bride (which on their own were worth £10), some fake lashes, lash enhancing serum, lipgloss and a nail file; what a bargain!!

Even though I have most of my main suppliers sorted it was still worthwhile going; I saw a lot of beautiful accessories and picked up details for a few suppliers my favourite being Ivory & Co who had some stunning pieces. I also talked to some stores about guest lists and picked up some info from Debenhams which included a book of discount vouchers. Virgin holidays were there so I talked to one of their representatives about honeymoons and they had all their brochures available.

The one supplier I was most excited to meet was Flowers Forever who preserve your wedding bouquet in a number of different ways be it the whole bouquet or just a few flowers, the top of the bouquet or half of it, they had some great examples on display and I'd recommend checking them out if you are thinking of doing this. I loved this frame that they had and managed to secure a 10% discount at the show:

via Flowers Forever

One of the best parts for me was the advice given by bridal coach Michele Paradise, she did four different talks and I wish I could have caught all of them but I only managed to listen to the ones she did on shoes and staying calm on your wedding day. Michelle is a model turned life/style coach and so had some good advice on choosing your wedding shoes, how to walk in heels, how to pose etc. She is on twitter (@BridalCoackUK) and gives tips each day, definitely worth a follow. Here are some tips to share:

• Always get your feet measured before buying your wedding shoes. Your feet have changed since the age of 6!
• Always buy new shoes in the afternoon or early evening when your feet are at their largest. Feet swell during the day.
• Cover new shoes with cut off tights, wear them everyday for 15/30 mins to break them in at least a month before the wedding.
• Before the photo shake out your hands, gently place them on your hip or bouquet so that they look beautiful, not like a claw!
• In photos, stand at an angle with one foot slightly in front of the other. If feet are together you will look flat and wide.
• Perfection doesn’t exist so stop striving for the perfect wedding. Celebrate, have fun, eat, laugh and enjoy the ride!.
• Wearing a veil makes you feel different and requires a bit of practice. So put one on and practice now. It will pay off!
• Clean, shaped eyebrows open the eyes and create a wider eye they look better in the photos and you look rested and relaxed.
• Choose a creamy white dress so that it doesn’t create glare when photographed and it’s kinder to the skin tone.
• Don’t follow make up trends for your bridal make up. Stick to a classic look and your photos will be timeless.
• In photos don’t keep both arms entirely straight, bend one or both to create space between the arm and body.
• In photos rest most of your weight on one foot or the other. This looks less posey and gives a slight slimming effect.
• Focus on what you want to happen on your wedding day, not what you don’t want to happen. You get what you wish for.
• When walking up the aisle please, please, please look up at your guests and your fiancé. Smile and they will smile back at you.

I thought that the tip on getting a pair of black tights and cutting off the feet and covering your shoes with them and then wear them around the house for 30 mins every day was a really good one. That way they don't get dirty and your groom won't be able to see what they look like! And you break them in so they will be comfy on the day. Michele also said to look at the tops of everyone's head whilst you are walking down the aisle which gives the illusion that you are looking at them, good if you are nervous and don't want to look at people!

Her tips on keeping calm on your wedding day were all about engaging your senses:

• Make a playlist of upbeat, happy songs that you love to play whilst you are getting ready.
• Have your favourite scented candles burning too.
• Eat/drink something that you really enjoy in the morning.
• When choosing bridesmaids make sure you pick wisely, you don't want people around you who will be getting stressed on the day.
• Have as few people as possible with you when you are getting ready and make sure those people won't stress you out.
• Just before you walk down the aisle take three long, deep breaths breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth and on the last one hold your bouquet up to your nose so you take in the fragrance.

That's about all I can remember but check her out on Twitter or on her website and you can get some more tips. She also does DVDs which might be useful.

Well that's about it from me, must go and do some work! Until next time xx

Back and Blogging!

Hello! I hope you are all well and have had a fantastic few weeks, it seems like I have been away ages and I'm dying to catch up on everyone's blogs and see what you've all been up to! I actually got back a few days ago but have been really busy so I'm glad to finally have some time to sit down with a nice cup of tea and have a good read as well as update my own blog!

My fiancé and I had a wonderful time in Mexico, it was so nice to chill out and do nothing for two whole weeks! We've never had a chill out holiday in the 4 years we've been together as we both like to go to places where we can see the sights so this was a bit different for us but boy did we enjoy it! We stayed in the Grand Riviera Princess just north of Playa del Carmen on the Caribbean coast. The resort was fantastic; great food, lovely beach, lots of swimming pools, excellent entertainment and friendly staff. It was really hot so we did spend most of our time chilling by the pool but we did get out to see some of the Mayan sites which were well worth it. In fact I'd thoroughly recommend it as a honeymoon destination because the beaches are just beautiful but there is also lots to do and see if you want the best of both worlds. Here are some of my favourite snaps :)

Pyramid at Chichen Itza

Beach at Tulum

Pool at the resort

Us at Tulum

And at the bar on my Birthday!

Since we've been back I've attended the National Wedding Show and we've ordered our cake so much to catch up on in upcoming posts! For now though it's good to be back :)

On Vacation!

Just a quick post to say I'm going on holiday for two weeks tomorrow so won't be posting for a while. I'm off for a chilled out beach holiday in Mexico with my lovely fiancé and can't wait to do nothing for two whole weeks! Look forward to reading all your posts when I get back!

Karen xx