On the road - White Horse Weddings Tea Green

The Wedding Assistant On The Road..

White Horse Weddings

Location: Tea Green

Capacity: Holds up to 120 guests for dining 

price range: Packages start from £3995

As I drove to visit The White Horse I couldn't help but notice how picturesque the journey was. Little county roads, fields and trees. I could imagine how lovely it would be travelling from a wedding to the reception venue.

  

There are fields surrounding the venue which would create a lovely backdrop for photos and there are great facilities including a children's play area, parking and a marquee which can be decorated to make your wedding day experience unique to you. 

  

I love how the marquee is decorated in this photo. The colour range and the mixture of fabrics make the marquee feel extra special and unique.

The venue is very well loved and you can see that a lot of care goes into the business. There are  range of packages on offer that can be tailored to suit your needs and requirements.

When I was looking for a venue the flexibility factor was very important to me. I wanted to create a personal wedding and add details that would make the day my own and this venue allows you to do just that :) 

I also like that there are no hidden costs... There is nothing worse than finding a venue that fits your requirements and your budget and then being told that there are extra charges.

You can take a look at the packages on offer by clicking on the links below.

http://whitehorseteagreen.co.uk/images/wedding2014.pdf

http://whitehorseteagreen.co.uk/images/weddings_2015.pdf

I had a wonderful time viewing the venue and meeting Jon who owns White Horse Weddings. I have even been invited back to the venue to meet the team and see how they set up and prepare for a wedding and the attention to detail that goes in to making the day run smoothly.

I cant wait to go and see first hand how a big day is put together. If you have any questions you can contact the venue directly by calling 01582 722855 - or you can email INFO@WHITEHORSETEAGREEN.CO.UK 

If you have any questions please comment below and I can take them with me to be answered.

Have a nice day - The Wedding Assistant  

Wedding Dress Shopping

Wedding Dress Shopping can be the nicest experience where it all goes perfectly or the most frustrating experience where you are left feeling as though finding 'the' dress is just not going to happen!! But don't worry.. YOU WILL. 
I would say that my experience was a mixture of both.... 
The first time I went dress shopping was 15 months before the wedding.... It was more of just an ideas shop than a serious hunt for the perfect dress.
The first shop I went to was Expressions Bridal in Hitchin. The shop was recommended to me by a few friends. 
The shop had a lovely feel to it and the owner of the shop was extremely welcoming. We were given white gloves to wear which I found fantastic as it showed how much the store cared about the dresses. I was given discs to pop over every dress that I wanted to try. I gave a few to family members as I wanted to try a variety of styles as it was more for ideas.
The owner (Carole) was so helpful suggesting fits and styles to fit my shape and had a selection of shoes to try so that you could see how the dresses hung.
I really enjoyed my experience at expressions and would recommend the service that they provide.

After my first wedding dress experience I realised that the task of finding 'the dress may be a slightly longer process than I thought, but I was excited to get started and began doing my research...

I looked at what style of dress suited my shape, What material I wanted, the colour, and the size of the train.
I've worked in fashion retail for a long time so feel that I knew exactly the shape that I wanted but still visited websites for inspiration as I wanted to keep an open mind.
There's lots of information on-line and lots of pictures to give you guidance but overall you need to go with a style that you feel happy and comfortable with.

 (image from Pineterest)

I knew the material I wanted and decided on the colour.. So now the hunt for 'the dress' was on.

I put my ideal dress description into Google images and Pinterest and browsed for hours. I found that the dresses that caught my eye were all by the same designer so I narrowed down my search by looking at the designers websites. I was left with two dresses that I really liked and saved the images and the product details on my phone.

Later that day I met up with my friends for tea and cake and showed them the pictures of the dresses that I liked. Louise (one of my Bridesmaids) had seen the dress in the window of the wedding shop near where she lived so the next day without an appointment my Mother and I went to the shop to see if it was 'the dress' 

IT WAS!! The owner at Hammonds invited me in and allowed me to try on dresses without an appointment. The ladies must have spent a good hour and a half with me and again we tried on a variety of styles.. I then tried on 'the dress'. Before I looked in the mirror I looked down and just knew it was the one. I remember popping my head out of the changing room curtain and saying to my mum "I think this is the one' 

I really loved the dress but felt it was too early to buy.. 
The dress was a sample as the dress had been discontinued, and It fitted... but I left empty handed.

I then stopped looking 3 months but didn't stop thinking about the dress that id tried. My mum and I went to sample sales, shops in different counties and to other bridal shops that stocked the range.

My highlights were 

http://www.bradgatebrides.com/sale-gowns-bridal-sale-gowns-c-48_5.html

A wonderful shop that specialises in discounted dresses, really friendly staff and they hold dresses in a wide range of styles and sizes. I even got a follow up call from them a few months after when they had received something similar to what I wanted.

http://www.mignonette.com/
A Stunning shop where the owner was extremely helpful. The shop is beautiful and they hold a great selection of dresses. I could have easily spent all day there.
It was whilst I was trying on dresses in this store that the owner explained to me that I had already picked my dress in my heart and that I just had to go and buy it.
SO that's exactly what I did!! 

The bad bits.
We went to one 'discount wedding store' that I will not name. The owner  claimed that she could get me the dress that I wanted, in the size that I wanted without any trouble...
I knew that the dress that I had chosen was the last one in the country so I was a bit confused that she said she could get it.
Looking back... the quality of the gowns was not up to scratch. The materials were thin, The lace was not like I had seen in other stores and they didn't take much care over the gowns.
Its easy to get caught up in the moment of wedding dress shopping so if you feel that something is not right or too good to be true then you are probably right. 
The work that goes into a wedding dress, the structure of the bodice and the fit can not be copied. Fakes will never come close to an original. Do not waste your money on cheap copies unless your happy to throw money away.
If you want to save money on a dress then going to a Sample sale or a discount store is the way to go.

If you want to check the authenticity of a bridal shop, most designers list every shop they stock on their website.

Also please make sure when you go dress shopping that you remove fake tan and make up. Treat every dress as if its the one that you are buying.

I am buying my dress hoop and veil elsewhere. I will let you know how I get on.

If you would like any help on checking the authenticity of dresses or what sample sales / stores to visit then please comment below.

Please click on the follow button below to keep up to date with my posts.

Happy dress shopping 

The Wedding Assistant x 

Mini Post

Just a mini mini post to remind every bride 2 be to remember that Pinterest is a great place to create mood boards and gain inspiration.
I have spent the last 20 minutes looking through DIY pew ideas.
I love looking through the imagination that has gone in to DIY wedding projects-
Remember : Grow your own - Sew your own - Collect your own
If it goes wrong the first time try again :) 
Thank you for all for taking the time to read my posts.
The Wedding Assistant 
.

Task 3 continued - Reception venue ideas

I just wanted to take some time to share with you some affordable venues around the Beds and Herts area.
When your looking at venues you should view them as a blank canvas. Most wedding venues are a big empty room and its the decoration that gives them the WOW factor.
You can make an empty space beautiful with just a little imagination. If you put Village Hall wedding into google you will see exactly what I mean.
A lot of the venues below are in lovely grounds and even if you wanted to extend a venue you could always enquire to see if the grounds are suitable for a Marquee, or you could use party tents and gazebos to host the welcome drinks and give people and extra space to use.

This image is from google images. 



Venue: Woburn Village Hall 
Capacity:120 
Cost: £300 
http://www.woburnvillagehall.org.uk/Hire%20the%20Hall.html


Venue: Unity Hall 
Capacity: 80
Cost: £15 per hour 

We Went to view Unity Hall and I instantly fell in love with it.
It had such a welcoming feel and it was all nicely enclosed with grounds outside. It has a Kitchen, cloakroom and lots of parking.
As soon as I walked into the main hall I instantly decorated it in my mind.  

http://bartonunityhall.wix.com/home



Venue: Stanbridge and  Tilsworth community hall
Capacity: 150 
Cost: on application 

http://www.iloveleightonbuzzard.com/community/venues-for-functions/function-venues/756-stanbridge-and-tilsworth-community-hall.html



Venue: Millbrook Village Hall 
Capacity: 80 
Cost: price on application

http://www.millbrookvillagehall.co.uk/Millbrook_Village_Hall/Welcome.html



Venue Pirton Village Hall
Capacity 120 
Cost on application 

http://www.pirton.org.uk/VH%20Brochure%20aug07%20zigzag.pdf

We wanted to have an empty space from the start. Somewhere that we could make ours and the freedom aspect was really important.
We have hired our hall for 3 days so that we had a full day to set up, a day for the wedding, then the next morning to clear up.

I hope this gives you a bit of inspiration.

The Wedding Assistant 

So, Baking I can do but icing and decoration.... 
Lets just say I'm not the best!!

But I just wanted to share my idea with you for edible save the dates. I feel that if you're a bit more artistic than me or you take a little more time and care than me, then these save the dates could be really sweet and special!

I used a basic gingerbread recipe. Gingerbread is really quick and easy to make and creates a nice flat surface for you to work with. I decorated the gingerbread with roll out icing and icing pens. If you go to a specialist cake shop then there would be a lot more choice. You could match the colours of the icing to your wedding theme and you could buy special letters and numbers to make them look really professional.

I made a selection of shapes and pierced some with holes so that ribbon or information tags could be threaded through.

They would look lovely wrapped individually in cellophane bags with lace or ribbon ties. 

The Recipe 

75g light brown soft sugar
 2 tablespoons golden syrup
 1 tablespoon black treacle
 1 tablespoon water
 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 1 rounded teaspoon ground ginger
 95g block butter
 ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

 225g plain flour sifted, plus a little more (if needed)

The Method
Put the sugar, syrup, treacle, water, spices together in a large saucepan. 

Then bring them to boiling point, stirring all the time. Now remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter (cut into lumps) and the bicarbonate of soda. 

Next stir in the flour gradually until you have a smooth manageable dough – add a little more flour if you think it needs it. 

Now leave the dough covered in a cool place to become firm (approximately 30 minutes). 

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4.

Now roll the dough out to 3mm thick on a lightly floured surface and cut out the 
gingerbread into the required shape using cutters.

Arrange them on the baking sheets and bake near the centre of the oven, one sheet at a time, for 10–15 minutes until the biscuits feel firm when lightly pressed with a fingertip. 


Leave them to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack

Activity - Save the dates <3 Glue and sewing thread at the ready!!

There are so many exciting ways to ask people to save the date. 
you can gather lots of inspiration from Pinterest and Google Images. Try searching for unique save the dates, DIY save the dates, hand made save the dates, spring wedding, Summer Wedding, Easter Wedding and so on.

When we had finalised the guest list and set the date, we ummed and ahhh'd on if we should spend money on save the dates or just not have them.

But with all the Excitement of the date being set and all of our friends and family wanting to know the date and have a tangible item to show that they were invited, we thought that save the dates where the way to go :)

I wanted Save the Dates that would fit in with our rustic / vintage theme but also be affordable. 
After a brainstorming session and a good browse through Ebay I decided on creating these.

Luggage tags £3.99 for 100 tags ebay 

Rubber Ink Stamp £16.50 ebay

We wrote all the information on the back to inform our guests of times and locations and saved money by sending them to our day guests. To post them we gave them out gradually as and when we visited people and we popped the rest into our family Christmas cards.

I love the little luggage tags and they are ideal for people to hang on notice boards and are a cheap and effective way of spreading the word.

You Don't even need to buy a rubber stamp. Just use your finger tips to create a heart that is unique to the two of you.

I discovered a few other ideas that I fell in love with whilst searching for ideas;

If your having a music themed wedding then how about getting some small badges personalised 

There are so many different creations you can try when you come away from the norm.

I also saw (which swooshed my creativity into a whirlwind) 

100 small fridge magnets for £3.49... you could sew, stick or make things to create unique save the date fridge magnets.

Over the next few days I am going to create a range of save the dates with templates and directions on how to create them.

Tomorrow I will be baking some save the dates and will post my results on Sunday

And over the next week or so I will be sewing some!!

keep a look out on Monday.

Let me know how you get on with your save the date creations and share your pictures!!

Have fun with your creativity.
The Wedding Assistant.