Around the World on Your Special day!

For this months themed wedding we thought we would give you a travel themed set up, after all, what else is better than a getaway with your h2b.

So let’s start at the beginning with the invites, and what better than a boarding pass invite, to start your around the world wedding. These lovely invites are also our colour scheme of bronze and sky blue (it must be meant to be), and are a steal at £30.24 for 54 invites. 

Next up the table plan, we love this DIY table plan. This is cheap and easy for you to produce, allowing you more money to spend on the essentials (like the dress!) and will leave your guests asking “where in the world am I sitting?”

But what will the tables be called? With this fun theme the world is your oyster for table names, ‘cause numbers are just boring! Postcards would look lovely, but for a bit of a more personal twist, why not put pictures of you in a city on each table? Display your table names in these cute bronze hearts, £1.60 each, to give the table a bit of height.

Now let’s look at the guest book. Why have a book? Ask yourself, how often do you think you will blow the dust off and read the messages your tipsy guests wrote you? So why not have something you can display, like this globe (£28 with postage), it fits with the theme of the day and can be displayed in your marital home reminding you of your special day every time you look at it.

And next to your guest globe this rustic suitcase will work a treat. Displayed open for your guests to pop the cards to you, “the newlyweds”, in. This is £21.89, but again, could look great in your home, who doesn’t need extra storage!

For the favour we love these bronze airplane bottle openers, priced at £1.98 each. We don’t know about you, but we can never find a bottle opener at home when we need one, so this favour is bound to not be left behind!

Your guests will know what table they are on from your table plan, but how will they find their seat? Name cards of course! And don’t these brown parcel tags look cute (£4.35 for 50), picture them, tied around the favour with this lovely blue and white twine (£1.25 for 5 meters), bringing a little more blue into the colour scheme alongside the blue chair sash and table runner.

And for a little more colour map table confetti would look fab, tying the theme together a little bit more, and balancing out the colour scheme. Only £4.50 for 500, it will go far!

Now let’s finish with the table centre piece, and we loved the guest book globe so much, we think they would look brilliant on every table. But how about a slightly smaller version, at £15.66 each these are more budget friendly, and also as they are smaller wont dominate that table as much.  Don’t they look fab with the vintage travel books providing the finishing touch!

We would love to hear any of your wedding plans, maybe you could inspire a future months blog. Get in touch with us on Twitter @WeddingBBF, on Facebook Crowhurst Park Weddings, on here in a comment below or email us on events@crowhurstpark.co.uk. Or why not follow us? It would be a shame to miss out on future wedding blogs from Crowhurst Park!

Love,

Your BBFs x 

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Summer is here! Yay!! Kids are off school, the weather is (supposedly) hot and sunny and days out to the beach are in. So we think that an interesting theme for an August wedding would be “a day at the seaside”. For our table runners and chair bows we would be looking at a bright aqua blue sash, get people thinking seaside thoughts!

Invitations first. We love these sandy beach invites, and at only £37.50 for 50 including personalising of the front, that's a bargain! 

Next up, centrepieces. Picture a fish bowl vase filled with shells and stones finished with a tall candle in the centre. Simple but effective and completely accommodating a beach theme! We have found a picture below to help you picture it for yourselves!

Table name holders, essential for guests to locate the table they are to be seated at! We love these shell based stands, they come as a set of 3 for £6.95, bargain! And to go in these fab holders, how about theme friendly table names such as beach essentials such as bucket and spade, or seaside locations.

For name cards a personalised beach stone with the guests name printed on would make a lasting souvenir of your big day. Bags of stones can be bought from may hardware stores or garden centres but we found www.wickes.co.uk had a good deal with a 25kg bag costing just £8.49 in brown or grey.

Favours are an all important part of your day and we have a couple of ideas to suit varying budgets.

Our first idea is a personalised stick of rock for everyone with names of the bride and groom through the middle and the date your big day. These come in quite pricey at £210 for 50.

If you’re on a tighter budget how about a rock sweet instead, 40 for just £10.99 and still personalised! 

With a variety of colours and styles available for either, these favours are sure to give guests something to talk about!

Your big day wouldn't be complete without a book for guests to sign and leave their words of advice and congratulations. 

This beach themed guest book is just £13.99. Guest books create a lasting memory of your big day and are definitely worth including in your plans.

Just before we finish here are some extra ideas for your big day. How about organising an ice cream van to greet everyone at your chosen venue? A welcome ice cream to accompany your drinks may well be appreciated on a hot sunny August day and will keep guests going until your meal is served. Or maybe change your wedding menu and fish and chips with mushy peas as a more informal sit down meal!

We would love to hear any of your wedding plans, maybe you could inspire a future months blog. Get in touch with us on Twitter @WeddingBBF, on Facebook Crowhurst Park Weddings, on here in a comment below or email us on events@crowhurstpark.co.uk. Or why not follow us? It would be a shame to miss out on future wedding blogs from Crowhurst Park!

Love,

Your BBFs x

A Personal Affair!

With planning a wedding comes hundreds of decisions, and by the end you may just want to go with the standard just to make planning a little bit easier and to stop the cost getting out of hand! So here are a few parts of the wedding day to consider, making your special day both more personal and more memorable without breaking the bank.

Let’s start with the ceremony. Civil wedding ceremonies are much shorter than Church ceremonies, so a great way to add a bit of personality is with a reading. And this bit of personality is completely free! This can be a reading with some meaning to you as a couple, and is a great way to get a friend or family member involved in your big day, after all, you can only have so many bridesmaids and ushers!

While we are on the subject of the ceremony, let’s talk about the ceremony music. Most venues ask you provide a CD player and nominate a friend to play the music during your service *cough* Crowhurst Park doesn’t *cough*. A great alternative to this is a live musician, such as a guitarist. They will make popular music choices original too!

Sticking with the ceremony, if you and your partner have young children, and they will be walking down the aisle as part of the wedding party a fab idea is this cute little sign for your little one to carry (or wear!) Fun and cute, this is a great way to set a more relaxed tone in your ceremony. Can you hear the “awwws” already? 

Moving onto the wedding breakfast. You invited all your guests to your wedding as you want to share this occasion with them, and want them to be a part of your celebration. So why create hierarchy with table numbers? Instead, why not name your tables? At Crowhurst Park we have had some fantastic alternatives to table numbers, such as a groom with a love of all things Land Rover, with table names like Discovery and Defender. Or Marvel character names (again a theme chosen by the groom!) Just picture a beautiful room with comic book characters dotted around! “Such fun!”

Another great topic for table names we have seen at the Park was numbers… *“what!” I hear you cry, “You said no to numbers!”*… but these were numbers related to occasions. Such as the number of football matches the couple had been to together, or the number of days they had been engaged. These numbers worked really well, watching guests with a quizzical face of “there aren’t 374 tables here” to the chatter when they saw where that number came from.

And what is a wedding breakfast without food? If your venue offers you the chance of your guests having their own choice from the menu, then grab it! You may think it is more work in the run up to the wedding, I mean; you have enough to deal with, right?  Having to send menus with invites, and then write the menu choices on the inside of name cards sounds like a hassle. But it is a lot easier than worrying about your fussy Aunt, and letting that influence what you want to eat on your day. Plus, it creates such a nice feel during the meal. You want to look at your guests from the top table and see them enjoying the food in front of them, not pushing it around the plate.

Sticking with food, a personalised cake topper is a great way of adding a bit of sparkle to a wedding cake, it is there to be looked at as well as eaten after all. These cake toppers are great, and even better they are made from acrylic or clay so can be kept as a keepsake from the day. This is great for the budget savvy bride, why not buy a cheaper cake, such as from M&S or Waitrose, and make it special with one of these?

As mentioned above music can make the day more personal and fun, not just in the ceremony, but also during the evening reception. By getting your guests to pick a song or two for your evening reception, they have no excuse not to be up on the dance floor from the start of the night, it is their taste in music after all! You could ask them to choose their favourite song, or a track that reminds them of you. You want your guests to begging the DJ for “just one more song!” as they don’t want the night to end.

Time for one last suggestion… Photo booths are all the rage at the moment, and a great way to loosen your guests up. However, professional booths can be pretty expensive. A great alternative is to buy a polaroid camera, you can get these for a great price on Amazon, and even better they hold their price if you want to sell them on after. A polaroid photo corner can also work as a fab alternative to a guest book, with guests sticking the photos they take into an album, and writing a message alongside, much more fun than a standard guest book. 

We would love to hear your wedding plans, maybe we missed a few little touches. Get in touch with us on Twitter @WeddingBBF, on Facebook Crowhurst Park Weddings, on here in a comment below or email us on events@crowhurstpark.co.uk. Or why not follow us? It would be a shame to miss out on future wedding blogs from Crowhurst Park!

Love,

Your BBFs x 

July's Headlining Wedding!

Festival season is now in full swing, with a music festival of some sort every weekend for the rest of the summer. So let’s embrace it with a fun festival themed wedding…

Let’s start with the colour scheme. A fun, bright yellow for the sash, with hints of green, like the not so green grass of the festival arenas. With fun bright colours like this, the sun is sure to shine on your wed fest!

Next up is the table plan and table names. We love the idea of a festival poster, showing your guests which table they are sitting at. What better for table names, than the big festivals of the UK? With the top table of course being Glastonbury.

While we are on the subject of stationary how does a VIP style lanyard sound for your guests to find their seat? These yellow lanyards are £18.99 for 50 (with free postage on eBay) and in yellow, they add a bit of your colour scheme to the table. Pair them with these fab cards they work a treat. Even better, it doesn’t matter if your handwriting is like chicken scratch with this style, scribble away! 

Next to the lanyard we will put the favour, and as this is a fun themed wedding, let’s keep it light hearted, with a glow stick each for your guests, only £24 for 50 from eBay. These will also make a great prop for your wedding photos; think like a sparkler, but a lot safer.

Now let’s focus all our attention on the main table decoration, the centre pieces. And what better than… a welly! After all, foot ware is key at any festival. This pair of wellies is only £19.95 from eBay, and you only need 1 of the pair per table, cutting the cost! The welly can also work as a canvas for you to scribble the table names onto with a sharpie, what a handy shoe! The welly can be filled with wild daisy flowers and placed on a wooden block to add a bit of height and bring a bit of the outdoors in. Next to the welly on the raised platform a simple jam jar candle lantern adds a bit more green, to break up the yellow of the welly. This jam jar lantern is £4.50 from Not on the High Street. To finish the table off these glimma tea light holders are fab, and only £2 for 12 and filled with these scented green candles the room will smell great, these are £1.35 for 30, both are from Ikea.

For the top table we want to see the bride and grooms marital surname spelled out, it is their festival to headline after all! These paper Mache letters are great, and at 20cm tall they won’t block the view from the top table. Just give them a lick of paint so they tie in with the colour scheme. Currently on offer in Tesco, 2 for £3. To finish it off add a few of the glimma tea light holders and candles and a fun bit of bunting across the front of the top table.

To tie the whole theme of this months wedding together, a live band! You can’t beat a great wedding band to get all your guests up and dancing into the evening… glow sticks in hand!

We would love to hear any of your wedding plans, maybe you could inspire a future months blog. Get in touch with us on Twitter @WeddingBBF, on Facebook Crowhurst Park Weddings, on here in a comment below or email us on events@crowhurstpark.co.uk. Or why not follow us? It would be a shame to miss out on future wedding blogs from Crowhurst Park!

Love,

Your BBFs x 

June Summer Solstice

Summer solstice is a pagan celebration of fertility and religion. It is the time of year when for us here in the UK the sun is closest to earth and many celebrate with big displays of fire and light. Beacons are lit and bonfires are built. What better way to get in on this party than to have yourselves a solstice themed wedding?!

I’m thinking a subtle pale green running theme complimented with brightly coloured flowers and simple summer food. 

Keeping your themed day simple but effective, I would be looking for a centre piece that embraces the light and fire of the festival, for example white lanterns filled with candles.

And why not add extra tea-lights dotted around? They really do bring a little something extra to the room and will look fabulous later in the evening when the sun finally begins to set!

100 Tealights £3 from Tesco

White lantern £4 each from Hobbycraft

So name cards, keeping it fresh and outdoorsy themed, what about small wood carvings with peoples names printed on? Drill a small hole in the top and attach a ring and you've got yourself a favour of a personalised key ring too! Guests love to feel that some thought has gone into their small token! Not only that, but they will cost you next to nothing to make except your time and skills :-)

Gerberas, daisies and freesias are all in bloom in June and make for a perfect summer bouquet. Maybe look at adding flower hair garlands to your bridesmaids and flower girls to get that midsummer feeling!

Ask your venue whether a BBQ or hog roast is an option rather than a sit down 3 course meal. If the weather is warm and sunny then there’s nothing worse than being kept in your seat in a stuffy room wading through the formalities. Opt for a more relaxed and informal day where guests can mill about and socialise, helping themselves to a lavish buffet abundant with salads and a delicious BBQ that really makes use of the weather. Rain on the day? No worries, most venues should be able to cook up a BBQ in a normal kitchen!

To finish your day how about mini fire pits (venue allowing) or chimeneers for guests to mingle around outside? Buy some marshmallows and let them get toasting, adding a twist to what can sometimes be a lovely but unoriginal evening buffet!

Create a day that your friends and family will look back on and go "Oh wow! wasn't it great when they did this" and "I still use my favour to this day, such a great idea!"

Love from

Your BBF

Magical May

This month, we thought it would be great to look at a fairy tale themed wedding. May is that month when the weather is starting to warm up and the sun is a more frequent visitor so you can start looking at lighter and brighter colours!

For this theme we opted for a dark silver coloured sash to be complimented with pale pink accessories…….whoever heard of a princess that didn’t like pink?!

So the invites, because if we’re honest, if you don’t have those it’s a bit of a non-starter! We found that there were lots of great invites that fitted with the colour scheme we’d chosen and many others besides! These simple invitations were £13.50 for 50 on amazon.co.uk. 

We love these for their simplicity but you could always adapt them with some DIY and plenty of glitter if that’s more your style!

It’s time for the wedding breakfast; your guests are all looking for their seats. Name cards on the table are incredibly important so that everyone is sat where they should be. Your table plan will have been a laborious and long drawn out process to make sure that Old Aunt May doesn’t upset Grandad like she did at the last family gathering!

We found these names cards on amazon at a bargain price of £12.88 for 50. They fit the theme perfectly and not only do they look fab but as they sit on the wine glass it’s much easier for guests to pick theirs out.

Your guests arrive at their table; the first thing they’re going to look at is the centre piece. We love the use of flowers in centre pieces, they add an extras fresh feel to the room and aren’t overly showy and yet still grab your attention. Who can forget the iconic rose featured in Beauty and the Beast? Well we think this a great statement for your table. Pink roses can be found at most florists and won’t cost you the earth. From experience we find that you don’t want your centrepiece to have too much height, guests will want to be able to see the person they’re speaking to on the other side of the table! We found these great vases on amazon, £30.50 for 5 at 30cm tall. They have a simple elegance that will add class to your overall display and not overshadow the entire table!

Next up the favours. After deliberating for a while as to whether pixie dust was a good idea (do your guests really want to find glitter in their hair 3 weeks later?) we thought why not give your guests their very own magic beans? If children are attending they’ll love it and if the grown-ups don’t get them, they’ve got themselves some broad bean plants for home growing!!

Baby pink organza bags can be purchased online at a very reasonable price of £10 for 50 bags at the favour fairy.com. The beans themselves we opted for a broad bean seed at £2.00 for 30 on amazon. Put together we think these will look really cute and are definitely a quirky and original favour! 

We’d love to hear your thoughts for a fairy tale themed wedding. Perhaps you’re already married and have some great tips on how to make a fairy-tale day even more magical or ideas on how to add extra princess sparkle. Drop us a line on our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crowhurst-Park-Weddings/186642608072745?ref=ts&fref=ts

Happy ever after!

Your BBFs

Stress Less

It is common for the bride and groom to be nervous when the big day finally arrives. Months and months of planning all falls onto the day you finally tie the knot. Here are a few tips on how to calm pre wedding nerves running up to the big day.

stress stress stress stress STRESS!!

One of the best ways to keep you calm would be to spend time with your family and friends, especially those that are playing a big role in your wedding such as the maid of honor and the best man. By spending more time with your wedding guests it can create an exciting feel and really calm down your nerves running up the big day. Close family especially are always a great help when going through wedding jitters as they are there as support and will ensure you have fun during and after the ceremony.

Pamper and gossip with the girls makes everything better. 

Every wedding still has a list of things to do right up to their wedding day, do not feel as though you have to take responsibility for absolutely everything, the last week running up to the wedding should be a relaxing time for you and your partner. Why not spend a day together to just relax and give the responsibility of the ‘to do’ list to a close relative or friend to help you out.

A top tip I suggest all couples should do is to have a good night’s sleep the night before. By winding yourself down and having an early night will make sure that you wake up fresh and calm for the day ahead. And a good tip for brides by having an early night you will wake up looking your best and give you a good bounce of energy to get you through the day. Being in a good mood will reflect onto others and make your day the best it can be.

Sweet Dreams.. 

As the start time for the ceremony approaches, couples should spend some time to themselves, sit down, have a glass of water and relax.  For brides to be once hair and makeup is finished a good way to relax would be to spend time with your bridesmaids having a gossip or head out in a nice little unseen spot and have some photographs taken. For the groom sit down with the best man and a few of your mates and have a drink and chat to calm the nerves a bit.

When calming your wedding jitters, always know that your family, friends are always there for support and know that your wedding organizer is there to take a big weight of responsibility off your shoulders. Just think how great the day will be and think about all the great things you will be planning in your future together.

All the best,

Your BBF x