Today is my second anniversary so it only seems right to start the series that aims to feature real weddings that use felt flowers with my own!
Two years ago I had the best day of my life! I can honestly say that all the planning (nearly two years of it) and the saving were entirely worth it for so many reasons!
How we met
Before we became a couple Pete and I met through friends at The London Coffee Festival. I was working at the festival and Pete fancied her on sight (or so he says now). Just over a year later Pete suggested taking me on a day of risk, which was actually a stealth date. It involved five events I had no clue about, hence the risk. We went racing at Mercedes Benz World, up to the top of St Pauls Cathedral, to an exhibition on Japanese Shunga (basically medieval karma sutra for the Japanese) at the British Museum, for a meal at Dans Le Noir (eating in the dark) and then ended the night at the Guanabara night club where we kissed...
As first dates go that was pretty amazing, but of course it meant Pete had quite a task to beat for the proposal, and as it goes we ended up getting engaged purely by constantly talking about getting married! Pete did get down on one knee in front of a geyser in Iceland on sunrise, but we were actually already engaged by then!
Planning the Wedding
We decided we wanted a pagan / festival wedding, outdoors, with as much ritual and non-traditional elements as possible, full of colour and fun. Once we found the venue, Wise Wedding Venues, we then just had to work out how to dress up such a big place, as there was the marriage ceremony area, the big marquee and the area outside the marquee to fill!
We mainly did everything ourselves, apart from our outfits. We made all the signs from bits of pallet and wood and chalk pens, Pete made a giant LOVE sign for the exterior of the marquee. All the bunting inside the marquee was made from old books that meant something to both of us, including old childhood books, music scores (to represent my grandparents) etc. The lighting was giant paper lanterns to represent the planets and our love of astronomy, we had nods to our love of sci-fi and fantasy throughout the venue with different signs and pictures. We each decoupaged a unicorn head to hang at the entrance of the marquee and we created areas around the outside for different things including a jousting tent and an animal enclosure (containing a rocking sheep and lots of wicker animals for the kids). Everything that needed to be created for the wedding was pretty much made by us both, including of course the flowers!
I knew I wanted flowers that I could keep and didn't want to waste fresh flowers on the day, or the expense! Having always had a love of felt it made sense to see if I could make the flowers from felt and after a lot of Pinterest pinning, YouTube searching and many many failed attempts, I finally found flowers I could make and started the long journey of making 400+ flowers for the tables, my bouquet, buttonholes, bridesmaid bouquets, my crown and gifts, even the flowers in the welcome sign as people entered the site were felt succulents!
The Best Part of the Day
The best part of the day was all of it! If I could have a ground hog day it would be that day. Pete walking up the aisle to the Rocky Theme tune started the day with a bang and it carried on from there! Several guests afterwards commented that they had never been to a wedding before where the focus was as much about the guests as the bride and groom. We made sure our guests were involved from the moment the day begun to the end. There wasn’t a single moment when something wasn’t happening, whether it was coffee roasting, Morris Men dancing or competitions for the best hat, dancer or jouster – we even made prizes for each competition. Asking friends again what they thought was different or unique about the wedding, everyone said the same thing: everything! It really was a magical, amazing day.
A Piece of Advice
My one piece of advice to fellow brides is this - do whatever you want, you only get one day (hopefully) to do something like this, the day is about you, so do what you want to do and enjoy every minute of it!
And possibly get felt flowers ;)
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