Love My Dress Reader Catchup…

Hi Everyone 🙂

I thought I'd catch up with my readers this Sunday and run a bit of an update on several ideas, issues and bits and bobs that have been bobbing along on my 'To Do' list for a while now.

Starting off with a bit of a 'personal' update on Love
My Dress…

Getting To Know You…

Love My Dress has been up and running for a whole 7 months now and readership has doubled over the past few months, which, I'm not shy to say, I'm extremely proud of.  I've made some excellent contacts in the industry and some great new friends too 🙂 But one thing I've been meaning to do for a while is get to know my readers a little better.  This will help me target content more appropriately, and deliver what I know my readers want to see.  It will also help me keep the fabulous new Sponsors that are now supporting the development and growth of this website, better informed and make sure that the sponsors that are accepted on to this site each offer something of value to my readers.

To this end, next month, I intend on running a Reader Survey, which I am really hoping you will support me with by completing.  To help encourage you just a little (though I'm sure it will take no more than 5 minutes!), I thought we'd run a little prize draw – you know, I print out the numbers of entries/questionnaires received and tally them up with the name of each entrant and ask my 4 year old Daughter Eska to officiate by picking a number!  Eska always delights in taking on such an important role, and, the prizes are usually pretty good indeed.  This time, I have teamed up with the lovely Rebekah Daley, who has very kindly offered to donate a beautiful canvas sketch to one lucky winner.  The canvas will be entirely bespoke and based on a photograph or image that the winner themselves supplies. 

Rebekah Daley designs – Images Copyright (c) 2010, Damien Lovegrove

Getting To Know Me…

They say that a successful blog has a good element of the bloggers
personality infused within it's writings.  I sometimes wonder if I talk
enough about 'me' for my readers to truly connect with me and gain a real sense of trust in the content I write about, so I
thought I'd provide a little insight into what's been happening in my
life of late and a little more about me (you have full permission to skip this next bit entirely by the way!) 🙂

Most regular's will know that I started this blog really as just a
personal website where I could wax lyrical about all things pretty and
weddingy, following my own wedding in March 2009.  I'm a bit soft like that see, I love sparkly pretty things and I'm also a bit of a techie-geek (I used to design websites a long time ago!) so the idea of managing my own blog also really appeals.  It is also hugely important to me, now that I'm a position to be able to do so, to provide support to the lesser known designer.  There are reasons for this that are perhaps best explained here…

The photographs below are of me having an absolute ball on my Hen Weekend 🙂 – Photography by Karen Mcgowran (by the way, high heels and sand? Not the best combination!) ~ click to enlarge. I had the most fabulous time with the most ridiculous amounts of fun up on the Northumberland Coast, with 9 other fantastic ladies.  We hired the amazing Moo House on the Northumberland Coast for 3 nights (Fri through Sunday) and also hired a professional caterer to provide the most deeeeeeeeeelicious Tapas meal on the evening – she did all the prep and washing up for us too – fabulous! 🙂

 

Sooooo, a bit about me? Well, I'm married (obviously!), with one beautiful little girl (Eska Eleanor) who is 4 and a half. She is the light of my life and is soon to become a big Sister, as I am expecting another child in October.  My Husband Phil, Eska and indeed our entire family are absolutely thrilled that we'll soon be welcoming another addition to the family.  You would be surprised the number of folk that have asked me 'so, will it be a Baby blog next?'.  Well, the short answer to that is "No!".  I think I'll have more than enough on my plate with a young family and thriving blog (my other baby!) to contend with thank you :)  I also work full-time and manage Love My Dress in any spare time I currently have, so you can imagine how busy things are. 

You might also be surprised to learn that I get asked time and time again why I'm not working as a Wedding Planner?  The truth is, I can't imagine anything that would probably drive me more around the bend! I LOVE being able to reach out to so many thousands of people via this Blog, but investing all my energies into just a few weddings isn't what I'm about.  Besides, there are already some amazing Wedding Planners out there – who don't need me muscling in and trying to pretend I'm even half as talented as they are! See Tiffany Grant Riley, Tigerlily Weddings, Andri Benson, The Wedding Daze and Plans and Presents, to name but a few.

From left to right, Phil, Eska and I, on our wedding day, my Dad and I moments before we entered the ceremony room and, my flower girls and Bridesmaids; From left to right, my neices Freyja, Rowan and Tilly, and my little girl Eska – whose name was inspired by the river Eska that begins in Whitby, where we chose to marry…

Images Copyright (c) 2010, Karen McGowran ~ click to enlarge…

 

 

Things I love? My family comes
first, of course 🙂 But I am mildly addicted to my iPhone, Laptop and I
love being outdoors, learning about plants via my ever-so-knowledgeable
Gardener/Designer Husband.  I have to admit, I'm an appalling cook (I could burn beans on toast!), but I do
make a mean Jamie Oliver fish pie :)  I love art deco, second hand book
stores, Whitby, living by the sea, my Husbands Mac computer, reading to
my Daughter evey night, being outdoors in the sun, cloudy lemonade, very high heels, anything that sparkles and I have to admit, I am obsessed with Marmite!  I am a natural born
optimist and always view the glass half full 🙂

We live in the North East of England with our 2 dogs, Tarka and Izzie (the blondy)- both rescue pups – that's them in our garden below…

 

Phil and I love music and music is usually to be heard filtering through the house whether anyone is actively listening to it or not! It could be anything from Joni Mitchell to some of the much less commercial artists such as Susumu Yokato (who, I hear you ask?) and and everything else in between!  I wish I played an instrument – I was trained to read music when I was younger but have sadly forgotten.  One day maybe.  We have an eclectic musical taste and whilst I am somewhat addicted to my iPhone, Phil has a bit of a love affair going on with iTunes!

If I had to pick a track to represent my wedding day, it would be 'The Waters of March', as sang by Mark Murphy (we are BIG Mark Murphy fans).  We married on the very first day of March 2009 and the words and nature of this beautiful little tune get me every time :)  I can't find a version by Mark Murphy to link to here, but here is a super little version by Suzanne Vega 🙂 We both adore Spring – it is our favourite month and time of the whole year.

Getting to know this Blog…

It isn't always easy maintaining this blog, I'll say that! I referred
to the many hours that are poured into maintaining it's upkeep in my 'Sharing the Love for UK Wedding Blogs' feature.  But, I so want to stress right here and now, that anything and
EVERYTHING that I do for Love
My Dress, is a pure
labour of love. Absolutely no doubt about it.  I've had my
woes along the way – mis-understandings with one or two other Bloggers
(now all resolved, thank goodness), mis-perceptions and
mis-interpretations of what I'm trying to achieve through Love
My Dress, but the simple fact of the matter is, I love to write and
I love to share things with my readers.  There's nothing more complex
to it than that.

I have some really
exciting projects coming up for Love
My Dress – all will be revealed in time, and all are having a huge
amount of energy and passion invested into them not just by myself but
by those I'm collaborating with and thoes that are quietely supporting
me behind the scenes into helping turn Love
My Dress into a more interactive, enjoyable and rewarding Blog for
any reader that chooses to visit.  Exciting times 🙂

If I was to write a mission statement for
this blog, it might be a bit as follows:-

Through Love
My Dress, we aim to:-

♥  Become
an online resource with an excellent reputation for delivering 
well-researched content relating to:-

    ~ Stylish weddings and
all that goes into wedding planning
    ~ Vintage and vintage
inspired fashion

♥  Help raise the profile
of independent designers/traders whose brand appeals to our readers
tastes (we are highly committed to supporting the smaller/independent
trader)
♥  Help raise the profile of what we
consider to be some of the best Photographers around

Finding your way around…

I
just wanted to clarify for those that don't know that there is a really
EASY-PEASY way of navigating your way about this site and finding
older-content that might not appear on the home-page. Simply use the
drop down links to the top left of this page to find you way about.  I
have included two drop down menus for ease, 'Weddings', and 'Other
Popular Topics':-

'Weddings' – this
contains links to all the key categories that I file my posts against,
such as 'Bridal Wear', 'Shoes', 'Real
Weddings' and 'Vintage
Inspired Real Weddings'.

'Other Popular Topics' – I also include a second
drop down  menu that includes the other categories and topics I file
posts against.

You can also use the Search Tool located to
the top right of my page to search for any content you cannot readily
find.  If you have any issues locating content on Love My Dress,
please do email me to let me know and
I'll fix it right up for you.

Remember too, that Love My Dress has
a Facebook
Page, and we're also on Twitter – join the nearly
1500 other followers to keep up to date with the latest postings and
news.

The Return of the Cat…

My lovely dear friend Cat Hepple, who was one of the ladies who so inspired me to begin writing my Blog in the first place, will soon be returning as regular contributor to Love My Dress.  I'm so excited about this ~ never have I known a lady with such great taste and an eye for style, and whose personal motto just happens to be "you can never be too glamorous" …. hehehe 🙂

Images Copyright (c) 2010, Damien Lovegrove ~ click
to enlarge…

Aside from having recently become first time Mother to the most beautiful (and I have to say, well dressed!) little baby girl, Cat left her role as a National TV news correspondent for BBC News last
year, to pursue a career in professional photography.  Having taken some time out to adjust to the wonderful role of Motherhood, Cat is now bursting fit to launch herself into the professional UK Photography scene, and will be re-launching her website in the next 2 weeks to celebrate this.  Watch this space folks, and look forward to more from Cat on Love
My Dress very soon 🙂

Oooh and by the way, Cat's incredibly glamorous, Grace
Kelly inspired wedding was one of the very first that I wrote about
on Love
My Dress – see
it here! 🙂

Photography Copyright (c) 2010, Cat Hepple

Competitions Coming Up…

I've said it before but I do pride this blog on the amazing competitions we offer to our readers.  Look at what we've given away so far…:-

♥   Harper Collins have donating 2 x copies of The
Goddess Experience book, by Gisele Scanlon
♥   Magpie Vintage have donated £170 worth of pearl jewellery
♥   Marie Louise Public Relations have donated 2 free tickets for the Absolutely Beautiful Weddings show, held at Claridges on 28  March 2010 (we are the only Blog invited to work directly with the exhibiting team)
♥   £150 of Hello!Lucky stationery
♥   North East UK Photographer Karen McGowran donating a free ‘Cherish The Dress’ photography session
♥   A full wedding  photography package for a ‘vintage themed’ wedding by Photographer Caroline Weiss

Well I have NEW competitions coming up soon – not least the canvas being given away by Rebekah Daley mentioned above, but also, a vintage themed pre-wedding shoot by the Lovely Emily Quinton and beautiful designs by the talented crafts person that is Heidi over at Bedcrumb. Again, keep visiting and watch this space for details 🙂

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I do hope that has sufficiently updated you all for now.  If there is anything else you need or would like to know, please don't hesitate in dropping me a line – see my contact page here. I'm off to spend a Sunday (my down-time day!) with my family 🙂

With much Wedding Blog and Sunday love,

Annabel xXx 🙂

♥