Sunday 28 September 2014

A Vintage Wedding

I'm very excited to announce that I will be adding a new feature to my blog...because I'm getting married!!  So, you can expect future posts about vintage wedding inspiration as well as updates on my own wedding planning as the big day in September 2015 hurtles towards me.

I had a proposal on a moonlit beach, and have been wearing a temporary engagement ring that we dug out of the veg patch!  I thought that was terribly romantic, but I've since ordered a 'proper' ring.  I'm impatient for it to arrive.

If you're wondering what kind of wedding inspiration you will find here, this is what I'll be posting about:
1) Making the most of a teeny tiny budget
2) Doing things a bit 'differently'
3) Vintage inspiration

So far, I have been immensely irritated by wedding magazines, which are pretty much adverts for a handful of over-priced brands.  We went to a wedding fair, and that was hideous.  The first stall we went to was a photographer charging £2,000.  Bridesmaid dresses are apparently worth £265 each, the 'average' bridal dress is £1800, cakes are £400, and a car to drive you two miles will set you back £370.  If I paid those prices I'd blow the budget without having any food or drink to offer the guests!  Any tips on a more DIY approach will be gratefully received.

I promise not to become a Bridezilla (because I can't afford to be...)

49 comments:

  1. Congratulations!! How very exciting, I love the story of the temporary ring, maybe that deserves a special frame telling it's story when you get your chosen one! :) vintage wedding inspiration will be a joy to read, looking forward to it!

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    1. Oh that's a great idea to get the temporary ring framed! I wouldn't have minded it as the 'real' ring or wedding band but it's 'split' to make it adjustable and pinches my finger!! X

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  2. Oh, congratulations, how exciting! Really looking forward to your posts...it really is ridiculous how much weddings can cost: I think sometimes juts hearing the word "wedding" gives retailers the green light to put up their prices!

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    1. Absolutely - they swear they don't do it but only yesterday I was talking to a man who was quoted £150 for a 3 tier birthday cake, but £375 for a 3 tier wedding one - with exactly the same type of cake and decoration! X

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  3. Hooray! Big congratulations! And I'm kinda glad I'll get to see all of your ideas before I even have to think about it ;) I've been reading your blog so long I feel like one of my friends has got engaged - warm fuzziness :) xx

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    1. Aw thank you so much CiCi - and of course you're a friend, sort of like a pen pal!! X

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  4. Congratulations - I am sure all your readers are looking forward to following the journey and I hope will enjoy it and make it fun for yourself, without too much stress! I had a lot of pleasure following Jana at http://janagodin.blogspot.co.uk/ and she just pasted her photos - an amazingly individual and vintage-oriented wedding. It may be a bit different on that side of the Atlantic but if I was doing it again I would take masses of inspiration from her. Karen x

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    1. Thank you so much for the tip, I will be sure to have a look! X

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  5. Congrats on your engagement! It will be fun to see inspiration with your vintage inspired wedding!

    Monica
    Glamvolution.blogspot.com

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  6. Congratulations!! I look forward to reading more about the wedding prep. :)
    theemeralddove21.blogspot.co.uk

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  7. Congratulations Porcelina on your engagement!!! I'm looking forward to seeing how your wedding planning unfolds! I recently read a post on wedding dress alternatives that might help you out: http://missvictoryviolet.com/2014/09/12/a-very-vintage-wedding-dress-part-three/#more-1791 My favorites are the Trashy Diva dresses but then I am bias towards Trashy Diva because I just adore their dresses! Here is what they currently have in white: http://www.trashydiva.com/content.cfm?n=products&cat=392 I love their beaded dresses! Also, look out for their sales in December. Last year they had great sales just before Christmas! ;)

    There seems to be a lot of alternatives out there for wedding dresses if you don't want to go the route of super high priced wedding brands so don't get too discouraged there!

    A word of advise about DIY though.... be careful!! My husband and I went heavy on DIY at our wedding thinking to save money and add a personal touch but it turned out a lot of the things we did would have been cheaper had we not done DIY for some of the things we did. So just be sure to price everything out and look at and price out alternatives. :)

    Good luck and congratulations again on your engagement!!! :D

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    1. Thank you for such a detailed and thoughtful reply - I will be sure to look at all of those points! I definitely agree about the DIY - sometimes materials can be pricey in the first place if you use big chains iike Hobbycraft x

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  8. Congratulations to you both! What a romantic sounding proposal and I love the idea of wearing a ring you dug up.
    I know nothing about weddings but Rock & Roll Brides is a great blog for ideas and inspiration. xxx
    http://www.rocknrollbride.com/

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    1. I recently found that site and agree it's fab! Lovely ideas on there that are a bit outside the box. Thanks x

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  9. I also just noticed there are several white ensembles currently at Trashy Diva in their sale section: http://www.trashydiva.com/content.cfm?n=products&cat=491&showall=1 If you use code LASTCHANCE you save an extra 50% off sale items. The sale ends on the 30th though :(

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  10. Congratulations on your engament! :)

    I watch a lot of wedding shows on tv and the amount the brides spend on their wedding and dresses is insane. In US they spend up to 10 000 $ on a dress they wear once and it's completely crazy :O
    I don't how much of a budget helper it is, but Vivien of Holloway has pretty 50's style halterneck dresses for bridesmaids in many different prints mostly 89£ each. I think they're still expensive if you pay for them (in Finland bridesmaids purchase their own dresses even though the bride probably chooses them), but better than that 265£. I don't know what vintage era you're aiming for, but I find VOH dresses very beautiful if it's 50's style.

    Have fun planning your wedding, I'm looking forward to posts about it :)

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    1. Some great ideas - thank you so much for sharing them! Every little helps, and I agree that for just one day it's not worth debt! X

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  11. Congratulations! I'm just coming up to my first wedding anniversary and loved making my own invitations etc as it adds personality. I'd love to do it all over again so I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun. :-)

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  12. Oh my god those costs sound horrendous! Just for one day as well! It terrifies me, as if weddings aren't scary enough without debt looming over haha.

    I'm sure with a little creativity you'll have a perfect day at a snip of the average cost :) <3 Claire @ Jazzpad

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  13. Aaahhh, you'll love planning it, I loved the preparation for ours! I didn't attend a single wedding fare and we did most things ourselves. I made invites, table settings, favours ourselves. I bought M&S Christmas cakes in different sizes and decorated them myself and used them as tiers for a bespoke wedding cake. We got 2for 1 on cars as it was just before Christmas and the don't get many weddings then! And we did bacon butties and chips in the evening as nobody really wants a buffet anyway! It was a fabulous day and we had so many lovely, lovely comments about how informal everything was and more importantly, how relaxed and happy we were. Good luck! Lynne xx

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    1. Really useful advice - thank you so much!! Relaxed and happy sounds perfect x

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  14. I too wish you big congratulations :-)
    My first engagement ring was a plastic one from a toy shop! When I got my real one I was out with Himself and his best friend who both took a great interest in my choice, the poor girl serving didn't know who the fiance was until Himself actually paid.

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  15. Congratulations! We cut down on a lot of expenses for ours simply by questioning whether we really cared about a traditional wedding element. For example, I didn't care about bouquets or flowers, so we didn't have any (although we were married in a garden so there was no shortage of flowers *around* us). I did get my dress custom made, but even then it wasn't as much as that apparently "average" figure!!

    Oh and about the ring - my grandmother actually lost her wedding ring in her garden, then years later dug it up. She just stuck a fork into the ground and up it came with the ring on one of the tines!

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    1. What a wonderful story about your Grandmother and the ring! And very wise words about questioning what a wedding really is about - much appreciated x

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  16. Congratulations on your engagement!! That's fantastic news! I wish you all the best in your planning (and trying to keep to a budget). I can't wait to see what sorts of inspiration you come up with. :)

    Cheers!
    Jenny

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  17. Congratulations, dear lady! Most wonderful news indeed.

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  18. wooow congratulations that are great news, i definitely missed a lot in the last months of my blogging absence!!! what a beautiful vintage photo as well, i can´t wait to see more vintage wedding inspirations here on your blog;)
    kiss,mary
    http://www.maryloucinnamon.com

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  19. Congratulations on your engagement! I'm sure you'll have lots of fun planning the wedding, it's a great experience. It is definitely possible to do it on a budget and still make it a wonderful day. Mine cost us a total of just £2000 for the entire day, including my dress! I found the best thing to do was not stick to the rules. For instance, you don't have to have a wedding photographer, just a few friends or family who are good with a camera and actually the photos were much more personal and less staged. Anyway, the best thing is to just have fun with it and make it your own.

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  20. WOW Congratulations to you both! The story of your proposal and temporary ring is adorable! xxx

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  21. Congratulations! Being married is aces.

    I did mine on the cheap. The biggest saving for us was that by getting married at 5pm, we could ask everyone to come in evening dress (more glam for the photos) and went straight into a buffet after the ceremony, with no need for a sit-down meal. It also saved money for a lot of our guests who were travelling long-distance as they only needed to get a room for the night of the wedding, not one for the night before too.

    I didn't bother with favours, they're not a British custom anyhow and seemed like a lot of money and faff for no good reason. YMMV.

    Because our wedding was in the same place as the reception, I didn't need a fancy car, so spent a fiver on a taxi! No-one saw me arrive as they were all waiting inside, and I wasn't going anywhere after that, so why spend £200 on a car ride?

    When you see The Dress, you know it's The Dress. Mine only cost £85! It's the one thing you really shouldn't compromise on, though, whatever it is.

    And you need to consider how much time you have. I spent more on a nice venue that I didn't have to decorate because I don't have family close by and wouldn't have had time to make somewhere less attractive look more fancy. Everything else was done cheaply enough that we could afford it. (Plus I had a couple of guests with disabilities, one lying on a specialised trolley, so getting somewhere with decent disabled access was essential.) Sometimes it's worth spending a little more if it frees you up with time to put into something else.

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    1. I love your ideas, thank you so much for sharing them! I have already had lots of promises of help from friends and family, so I think I will be taking them up. I might ask the guests to come in evening dress anyway, even though we're booked to get married at midday... Better overdressed than underdressed, that's what I say! x

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  22. Congratulations on your engagement!! How exciting. :) I'm getting married in 2 weeks and will be having a 30s/40s themed wedding. Like you I got really annoyed with what I was seeing in wedding magazines, etc. Apparently my idea of a vintage themed wedding is way different then what is trending. ;) We've done a lot of things ourselves in order to save money as well as be a little different. I made all my flowers from felt and ordered corsages from Lucy over at 1940s Style for You. She makes beautiful felt corsages using 40s patterns and was wonderful to work with. (Check out her blog and Etsy shop and tell her I sent you!) I also ended up making my dress because everything I saw online and in stores was just waaay over priced (for me) and not at all what I wanted. Even the so called "vintage style" dresses. If you're thinking about a 40s satin wedding dress keep me in mind as I have a couple. I also have lots of vintage wedding related stuffed saved on my Pinterest page. Lots of DIY ideas.
    Wishing you lots of luck and happiness. Looking forward to your wedding themed posts. :) The image above is just stunning!
    -Emily

    Emily's Vintage Visions
    vintagevisions27.blogspot.com

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    1. Oh congratulations to you too - I hope that it all goes smoothly for you! Thank you for the wonderful suggestions x

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  23. Congratulations! Wishing you the best and looking forward to reading your wedding posts!

    Jill
    dousedinpink.blogspot.com

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  24. Any congratulations! Hope you can find ways to have your ideal wedding but do it within your budget - the cost of weddings seems insane to me, but then I've never been, or wanted to be, a bride! xxxx

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    1. Thank you Curtise - it's doable I'm sure but I know it will take some effort! I'm not shy of hard work though x

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  25. Aw Lina Bina-mahoosive congrats!! such wonderful news! if you'd like me to keep am eye out for anything in my chazza do let me know! big love X

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  26. I know I'm late in saying this, but congratulations! That's so exciting. DIYing a wedding can be such hard work (I'm only speaking from second hand experience), but it seems like it would be so worth it in terms of cost. It's crazy how expensive everything can be, and I feel like the only reason it's that way is that there's this whole complex built up on making "the bride's perfect and special day!!!!!!!1!!!1" As if your day can't be perfect and special without dropping a load of money. I'm looking forward to seeing your posts on the subject, as that's sort of coming up on the horizon for me as well.

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    1. Hear hear, I totally agree with your comments. At the wedding fair I got annoyed in retrospect when my OH pointed out that the suppliers had talked to me, not him. Again, that 'bride's special day' line. Takes two to make a marriage surely that starts at the wedding?! X

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  27. Congratulations!! I can't wait to see all of your inspiration posts as well as photos from the big day!!

    Best of luck on everything too! I know it may seem difficult to keep costs down, but my husband and I got married for under half of what the average wedding cost without it looking like we cut corners!

    xoxo
    -Janey

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    1. Thank you Janey, that's so encouraging! I have lots of ideas and ruthless negotuiating skills, so I'm hopeful! X

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  28. Congratulations! My daughter just got married this past weekend. I've written a couple of posts where we saved money. All 3 daughters have been diy weddings mostly because well...I'm cheap. Plus it made their weddings unique to them. If you have any questions I'd be happy to chat.

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