Make your day feel that extra bit special with luxurious transportation. Travel in a magnificent Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Cadillac or whatever takes your fancy.
Traditionally, it’s not just the bride and groom who require specialist transport. The bride’s parents, along with the bridesmaids and groomsmen, would usually be treated to the luxury travel treatment also.
There’s much more to wedding transport hire than just picking a fancy car, though. You’ll need to think about how many vehicles are needed, the routes that will be travelled, the time required to get to the ceremony without panic erupting and the budget allocated for transport hire. The importance of booking early and overestimating journey times cannot be downplayed.
Establishing a good rapport with the car hire company is highly recommended. If you can get onside with your chauffeur, he/she might include a few optional extras to make the journey all the more luxurious. More importantly, they might seek out some handy shortcuts to give you an even better chance of getting to the ceremony in good time.
This infographic from L.A. Stretch Limos offers a well-informed overall guide to the wedding transport booking process. It recommends some ideal cars to hire and dispenses some important advice which is well worth heeding. If you’re part of a wedding party and you’ve been assigned the duty of hiring transport, this infographic is essential reading.
I’m so excited to announce on the 16th September 2021 at the top of Maderia Botanical Gardens, I was finally asked to marry my long-term love of 8 years, Phil.
On our first holiday since the pandemic started, we were so excited for our trip and this by far made it the holiday to remember.
As you can only imagine, like every bride, I can not wait to have our special wedding day. Can you guess the theme? My love of rustic weddings will become even more special as we get to throw our own with family and friends. With many years talking to brilliant wedding vendors and studying all the tidy details from event shoots and real weddings I have so many avenues of inspiration to draw on. The toughest choice will not be finding venues and vendors but making a choice! Living in South East, that’s at least helped me to narrow the choice down. I’m also borderline obsessed with glasshouses and naturally lit rooms with charming rustic appeal of course.
I’ll be sharing our journey with you on the blog, hoping to share my own tips and inspiration for planning your wedding. For now, here’s a little teaser of just some of the venues we’ve got our eye on.
The perfect wedding dress to complement a rustic wedding must include soft fabrications, classic flourishes, and lots of lace with a soft silhouette. We love seeing this style combined with a wildflower bouquet, antique accessories, or by using the same lace motif to create a matching veil or headpiece.
A soft silhouette is perfect for the outdoors, letting you move freely around and lends itself to the perfect look for a relaxed, effortless style for your treasured wedding photos. Ensuring there is still a bit of embellishment helps to create a light shimmer for a magical touch.
Look for a dress you can team with additional rustic or shabby chic statement pieces. Add leather boots, your favorite warming country walk jacket, or an outback hat to set the countryside mood.
These beautiful dresses by Sophia Tolli and Kenneth Winston are two gorgeous examples for your rustic wedding.
Photographer : @tobyshawphoto
Dress : @clairedelunebridal
Hair & Makeup : @chloecampbell_mua
Accessories : @ijavenue
Flowers : @blooming_flair
Venue : @theoakbarnff
Venue dressing : @lovelilylending
Image source: Stennack Farm Weddings
With so much inspiration for wedding themes and decor choices, a combination of rustic and boho weddings are becoming increasingly common. Couples that tend to opt for the rustic or boho themes are likely to be inspired by natural and organic elements. Within this blog, we will explore the differences between the two styles helping to keep you on track with your theme or pick and choose features of each.
Outdoor ceremonies and barn reception venues provide the perfect backdrop for a rustic wedding. Nature-inspired textures along with a natural colour palette create a romantic, cosy atmosphere, think Champagne, Lavender, Peach, with lots of greenery from grasses and foliage.
Photographer: Emily Black Photography.
If you’re dreaming of a rustic wedding you’re probably going to need some, if not all the rustic wedding decor and accessories listed here:
Image source: The Secret Garden Kent
Boho or Bohemian weddings theme suits the free-spirited couple who want to incorporate an effortless, elegant style teamed with a creative colour palette, patterns and soft materials for a romantic feel.
Embrace a vibrant colour scheme with saffron, ruby, bright pink, magenta and golden yellow, perfect for a green setting. If you’re planning a boho beach wedding, add colour through gorgeous pops of amethyst, turquoise and jade.
Style your boho wedding that dreams are made of with these hallmark decorative ideas to create a look that both embraces nature and luxury.
Read More
Weddings in 2020 have been demonstrating just how wonderful elopements or micro-weddings can be. Many couples who dreamed and planned for large weddings have not been disappointed when adapting to a smaller scale guest list and creating an intimate day. Discover 5 of our favourite small wedding venues across the UK to help you plan on your very own intimate rustic wedding.
2020 has been the year all attention has turned to small and intimate weddings. So many couples have embraced the restrictions put in place this year and altered their special day and the results have been outstanding, so there’s no surprise the demand for small weddings is increasing – restrictions or not!
Featured image by MT Studio Photography
Thousands of couples are embracing a smaller wedding and jumping for joy once realising there’s no more blowing the budget on feeding up to 70+ people on sausages and mash and limiting everyone to one glass of the cheapest prosecco. One clear benefit of hosting a smaller wedding is that it costs less, giving you an opportunity to spend on the things that will make a real difference. If you’re thinking about organising your wedding with a smaller number of guests or rethinking the scale of your current guest list, here are 9 ideas to make your intimate wedding stylish and memorable.
Let your creativity shine through or be inspired by a wedding stylist and planner. The unusual and one of a kind are always memorable additions to a small wedding and you don’t need many. Just a few statements are enough to make a big impact. Here are a few things that have inspired us recently.
If sausages and mash are your thing, then we love you for it, but there are so many caterers with innovative dishes and picture-perfect presentation that giving a bit of extra thought to who you choose to prepare your wedding breakfast will add to the overall deliciousness of the day.
In our opinion, you can never go wrong with sharing platters or a grazing table, it’s got a real WOW factor and instantly forms part of your overall decor; the mix of colours, textures, smells, shapes, and heights, makes for a very attractive display. You’ll find many grazing tables on the side, but why not make it your table centerpiece!
It’s not all sausage rolls, grapes, and cheese. You can incorporate almost anything, just take a look at these.
Top tip: Don’t forget to top with edible flowers and herbs, this cheap and simple trick makes all the difference.
Ever thought about doing a DIY wedding project and stopped when you considered the amount of time it would take to create for 100+ guests? There’s no excuse now. Get started with some simple DIY invitations, place settings, wedding favours, centerpieces, or chair dressings. DIY projects are a great way to save money, build excitement, and get your bridal party and guests involved too.
Planning a wedding, large or small requires a lot of research, organisation, and creativity that altogether takes months. This year, thousands of heartbroken couples have been stalling, cancelling, and rearranging their ceremonies and we all remain uncertain of the months ahead. Times like this call for experts, someone who has established connections with hundreds of venues and suppliers, and has the ability to adapt quickly.
Hiring a planner will help you to enjoy the run-up to your wedding day knowing you have a professional to support you throughout. Your wedding planner will expose you to new ideas, recommend the best vendors, and many will be able to negotiate deals on your behalf.
We’re excited to see luxury wedding planner Constance Taylor’s new initiative “Sweet 15” combines all these advantages and more. She has grouped together a team of her best suppliers and venues (many that we already know and love) that will help couples to tie the knot and throw a gorgeous wedding for a total of £15,000 with 15 attendees. Learn more about Sweet 15 here.
Many wedding venues have big open rooms, easily seating 120 people at a time. So how can you make such a vast space feel cosy and intimate?
Sectioning a room not only improves the feeling of the space, but it also gives you the opportunity to incorporate some fun features like a games section, beanbags or sofas around the fire, a photo area for the silliest photos, gallery walls of your adventures together, and the must-have baby photos.
There are so many small venues that don’t compromise that all-important WOW factor and often come at the fraction of the price. You’ll also find many restaurants with private rooms that have bags of character or where you can hire the whole place. Then there are the bigger wedding venues who are transforming their smaller barns or buildings into intimate spaces as the demand for smaller venues increases. To help you with your search we’ve put together a selection of our favourite small rustic venues across the UK.
English weddings are typically day-long with a large guest list, making a weekend-long wedding quite the challenge. For a start, where’s everyone meant to stay when there are almost a hundred guests and who really has the budget for accommodation like that? A small wedding is the perfect time to make your special day into two, three, or four!
Here are a few of our favourite weekend-long wedding venues and links to their packages.
This is so important to remember no matter what the size of your wedding party. It’s your wedding day, make it your own. Forget about traditional weddings with big cakes, sit down meals, a white dress, and bow ties. What do you and your partner enjoy, what do you do in your spare time? Incorporating this into your day will not only make it extra special but so memorable to you, family and friends.
The bridal party and guest might have been involved with some of the wedding planning, DIY projects and hen do/stag celebrations, but you can also get them involved during the wedding for a memorable experience. If you’re lucky enough to have a friend with musical talent, a grandparent who’ll read a poem or share a blessing, or a younger cousin who can present the rings, these moments add a little magic and intimacy to a wedding.
Now’s the time to turn your attention to online marketing for your wedding business. Over the last few months, we’ve seen the wedding industry (amongst many others) take quite the hit due to COVID-19. You’ve spent weeks, even months creating some brilliant new concepts to help make a little income to keep your family and business afloat but now’s the time to turn your attention back to your passion; the business.
We’re sharing 4 easy and effective ways to improve your website and online reputation to help ensure your website is in the best condition to represent you and attract new enquiries. The best news, whilst money is a bit tight, all these recommendations can be actioned completely free.
As couples start to look for venues and suppliers for up and coming wedding celebrations, you need to ensure they can find your business on search engines like Google. Through using SEO practices, you can improve your websites ranking position and generate more organic traffic. The most important thing you need to implement immediately is keyword optimisation. Search engines and users need to understand what you have to offer instantly. Here are two key places you need to describe your business for effective SEO:
Title tags are displayed on SERPs as the clickable headline and meta descriptions are the short descriptive paragraphs underneath.
Each page on your website can have its own title tag and meta description, the most important one being your home page which sets the theme for your entire site. If your title tag currently includes the word ‘Home’ or is simply the name of your business, this should be updates, quick! Check your title tag using this tool.
Title tags are displayed on SERPs as the clickable headline and meta descriptions are the short descriptive paragraphs underneath.
Take a deep breath and think about how users should be discovering your website when they search online. This will guide your keyword research to give you a better idea of what users are searching most frequently. Are you a ‘wedding venue in West Sussex’, ‘castle wedding venue’, ‘wedding florist in Oxford’, ‘wedding photographer in London’ or do you sell ‘rustic wedding decorations’ or ‘bespoke wedding invitations’? These are all examples of keywords that users may search for to find business like you.
Plan out the title tag and meta description for every page on the website, it’s important to be accurate and concise about what the page, service or product is or offers. Once you’ve planned the best keywords to optimise those pages for you can apply them to the site. Whether you use WordPress, Wix, Squarespace most CMS (content management systems) will easily allow you to apply your optimisation.
It goes without saying your website should show off exactly what you do but you’d be surprised just how many websites do not include the keywords users are searching for in the content of their site. Take this opportunity to review your content:
If your stuck on what content you should be including on your website, take a look at some competitors from search engines using the terms you’ve found from keyword research. The competitors that rank highest for these keywords will likely have good quality content to inspire you.
WARNING: Never copy content, this is a BIG no, no for SEO.
You’ll come across some great content and think it would sound great on your website but it’s no use copy and pasting if your aim is to improve your SEO. In fact, your website may be penalised if search engines think you’ve copied content. Write your own, unique content or ask for some help, there are some really great content creators out there.
What’s worse than waiting for a website to load? Staring at a blank screen or watching an image appear bit by bit. This is no good. A recent study found
53% of mobile site visits were abandoned if a page took longer than 3 seconds to load.
That’s a huge about of potential customers that just moved on because your website was too slow. The wedding industry is beautiful and you probably have a huge number of images of your website showing off your business; but these images may be the leading cause in slow website speeds. Large file sizes are a common issue but can so easily be resolved. Tool like PageSpeed Insights by Google will tell you exactly how long it takes for your page to properly load and the issues with it, including those culprit images. If you’re a dab hand at photoshop you’ll be able to resize your images and reduce the file size, often without compromising the quality. If you’ve never touched it in your life, don’t fear, there are free online tools which will help to reduce the file size of an image.
Remember to check every page on your website starting with the most popular pages (home, service, about us, gallery etc) and recheck once you’ve changed the images for the new file size. If your page still loads in over 3 seconds, consider asking a professional for help. They’ll be able to run a test and advise you of the main issues which may be your hosting, the amount of resources that need to load, or your website may be outdated with excess code which will be slowing down its performance.
Backlinks are invaluable to building your website’s authority with search engines. Links pointing from another website to yours is like a signal that others vouch for your content. Over the years this backlink building had become a highly spammed SEO technique and as Google develops its algorithms any link building activity must be done with extreme caution. Learn more about backlinks here.
One of the most effective ways to increase the number of backlinks to your site is to conduct some research into unliked mentions. Using this strategy, you’ll be able to find websites which may have referenced your services or product but have not included a link to your website. The great news is the website owner has already made a reference to your business, so take the opportunity to ask the website owner to link to your website help gain that valuable website authority boost.
Google My Business, is absolutely fundamental to your business, especially if you’re in a set location or you offer services in a specific area. GMB is a profile of your business on the biggest search engine. If well optimised, you can be found at the top of search engine results with instant visibility to images, reviews from customers, contact information, descriptions of your offerings and more.
Hopefully, you’ve already claimed your listing, have a few images and started to collect reviews, but there’s so much more you can do. At the minimum, you should be ensuring your GMB listing:
Take a look here for more ways to optimise your Google My Business listing.
We’ve teamed up with some great online marketing agencies who’ve already help us improve our website performance but are also offering free initial consultations and GMB health checks. Please contact sara@naturallyrusticweddings.co.uk for more information.
Read More
Our most-adored wedding favour ideas from Pinterest are perfect for a rustic theme and seriously great for lovers of DIY crafts. Grab your fiancé or a couple of members from your bridal party to help you put these gifts together and make sure you take advantage of these super cute quotes. We love that all of these are practical and totally rustic gift ideas.
Whatever your favourite miniature plant or succulent, bulk buy and pot them with a rustic twist. Tie the pots in with your theme by mixing up the pot material, shape, colour or accessory. Top tip, they also make a great name setting.
Why not turn this idea into a fun day out with your partner? Arrange a date with your local honey supplier to learn something new, check out the hives and most importantly bag yourself some delicious, sweet honey for guest to enjoy.
We love these simple and low-cost wildflower seed packets. Wildflowers go hand in hand with a rustic theme, especially if you’re planning to include them in your floral designs.
So delicious and great fun for all ages. Leave out a bucket of roasting sticks for guests to make their own s’mores around the fire as they reminisce on the day’s highlights. There’s no doubt, the next time you’re around a firepit you’ll be flooded with memories of your special day.
The classical candle is a popular choice, but there’s something extra special about making them yourself – another great date night idea too! Combine your ‘wedding scent’ whether it be lavender, roses or woodland for a delightful gift.
Find more details to all images on our Pinterest Wedding Decor board.
Ditch the traditional table set up and add some wow factor with these unique rustic themed grazing, dessert and drink ‘tables’.
If your venue is next to a water’s edge, incorporate this theme into your grazing table designs. Any outdoor space is ideal for this set up and perfect for adding character in a unique way. Top tip: embrace the rustic look and feel by using hay bales to raise the canoe to a comfortable height for your grazers.
Image source: Aimée Wimbush-Bourque
With at least three different ladder ‘table’ set ups to choose from, this is such a great way to add rustic appeal. It’s also incredibly functional and space saving too. For the super organised brides and grooms, use the multiple levels for starters, mains and desserts.
Image source: Studio Impressions
Image source: Rock My Wedding via www.mandjphotos.com
You’ll often see carts used for sweets and drinks tables, but they aren’t always rustic enough for us. So, we’ve been searching and found this rustic cart from To Have & To Hire Weddings for just £90! A bargain for such a special piece.
Image source: To Have & To Hire Weddings
The top rustic wedding trend of 2018? Log slices. You’ll find the majority of catering and decor hire companies stock these beauties but you can also source your own from your local sawmill, or online. For extra wow factor, get yourself a rustic log cupcake stand – or if you’re a DIY enthusiast, give it a go yourself.
Image source: BullLogs
Image source: Pinterest
Love this look, simple yet charming. Pair rustic planks from your local timber recycling yard (or a couple of waney edge boards) with rustic draws, crates or tree trumps to add the layers and create a ‘shelf’ set up.
Image source: Yolk and Flour
I’d love to see more ‘hanging’ features in 2019 weddings, who agrees? So unique but surprisingly easy to put up, especially if you’ve got a venue with beams or a large tree. Just grab some rope, a ‘table’ top (or maybe an old timber door) and depending on the style, a holesaw drill bit. It’s certainly a personal favourite, where rustic meets festival chic.
Image source: Michael and Carina Photography
Image source: Pinterest
We adore this farmers market set up with the fruit and wooden crates. Something different, cost effective, and tasty too. Remember, good quality local produce is always recommended but has every item really got to be so extravagant? A true rustic theme embraces nature’s goods, so fruit would be a massive tick! And who can resist a fresh loaf, especially when it looks this pretty.
Image source: Wedding Bells
Image source: The Tomkat Studio
Pallets are a core rustic trend for furnishings. We love how the glass top gives a clean modern edge but allows you to admire the pallet too. Easy to construct and they give vast space to fill with a stunning grazing selection.
Who doesn’t love the look of a barrel, even better when topped with some delicious grazing food, but we wouldn’t mind if they were filled with wine too… Why not try individual barrel platters, dotted around? What a great incentive to get your guests socialising.
Image source: Over The Top Events
Image source: I Am Board
We’d love to see your take on these rustic grazing, dessert and drinks tables. Tag us on instagram @naturallyrusticweddings or email us to feature in your very own ‘real wedding’ blog sara@naturallyrusticweddings.co.uk.
