Good morning lovely newly engaged blog readers! How does this first thing on a Friday morning feature find you? Very well, I hope, and ready to wind down for the weekend.
It's been a couple of weeks now since we kick-started our 2014 wedding blog adventure and so far, we've loved every moment. After just two weeks there are already some hot contenders for our top ten favourite weddings of 2014, our visitor stats have soared and the feedback we've received has warmed our cockles no end.
By now, our longer-term regular readers will be aware of the pattern to which we like to blog – but we appreciate that our new readers will still be discovering how we like to do things. To be honest, it's pretty straightforward; we blog beautiful weddings, beautifully. We share the story as well as the images because we know the story is partly what inspires our readers so. But we're more than just weddings. As well as beautiful films, beauty tutorials, DIY features and inspiration boards, we also like to explore and examine issues surrounding the values of love and marriage and all things associated with planning a wedding, through our thoughtfully written discussion posts. We've an impressive archive of discussion posts already under out belt, but we are really keen to add to this by writing meaningful features that we know you, our readers, will find useful, helpful and inspiring.
Print from AmandaCatherineDes on Etsy
So far, we've debated some of the more common issues that can cause friction when planning a wedding like, whether to invite children, if it's ok to walk down the aisle unaccompanied or skip on the wedding favours – what to do about that wedding budget and whether asking for money as a wedding gift is OK. We've talked about vows, vow renewal, wedding day readings and considered what a perfect wedding is to us. We've considered if sometimes, we can all simply 'over-think' our weddings and we've also talked about what makes a wedding 'bloggable'.
We've reminisced about the first kiss and falling in love and reflected on the highs and lows of our first, second, third and fourth year of marriage. And we've also shared our planned and unexpected journeys in to motherhood and touched on the difficulties of conceiving.
Print from AmandaCatherineDes on Etsy
We've looked at practical issues like wearing glasses on your wedding day, wedding photography restrictions in church, and we've shed the light on corkage fees, catering costs and everything in between as well as shared our pearls of wisdom on how to avoid bad wedding suppliers. We covered all sorts of body image issues in our laid bare series and we listened when our some of our readers told us of the problems they were having finding a wedding dress that would fit and flatter their natural curves. We've also addressed the sticky subject of family politics and parents.
And finally, we've covered more taboo subjets such as racial equality, domestic abuse and getting into (and out of) debt as well as the sensitive subject of failed marriages and divorce and marriage and bereavement. And of course, we're on the hunt for our first team of blogging brides, The Lovettes (have you applied?!?). And that's not all!
It might seem like we've just about covered everything, but we're constantly looking to make Love My Dress the very best resource we can for our readers, so today, we'd like to ask you what you would like us to blog about in 2014, dear reader. Share your ideas with us and we will deliver!
Source: Pinterest
We want 2014 to be a brilliant year for Love My Dress and all our readers – a place you can come and hang out virtually and always feel yourself, always find support and always feel inspired. And we're not afraid to tackle any issue either. So in the spirit of community and getting to know one another, may we invite you to respond to the questions below in the comments box;
* Tell us as much as you'd like about you, your proposal and your wedding – we love to hear our reader stories! Did you get engaged over Christmas? Have you chosen your dress yet? If you prefer to use a Pseudonym and keep it anonymous, that's cool with us too. We get it 🙂
* Most importantly, please tell us if there are any particular issues you are keen for us to explore? Or would you like us to revisit a particular issue we've already covered? If there is anything you'd like us to do for you on Love My Dress, tell us now!
Source: DanielleLaPorte.com
Thank you for taking time to provide some feedback today ladies (and gents). It's super important to us that we stay connected with our community of readers and make sure we deliver what we know you all want – and we very much look forward to hearing from you!
Pop back at lunch time for the first of our two other features today.
Love Annabel and Franky
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Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.
Good morning, good morning, x
Now I know that some wedding dresses are really very fabulous and make you feel amazing and most girls can’t really put a price on that BUT have you heard from any who now think along the lines of, ‘yeah, it was great but I wish I hadn’t spent so much on one item just for 3/4 of a day’?
I want to reply before my 9am start, just to say how much I love lovemydress! I love all the discussion blogs so anything else on these lines would just be a bonus.
I’ve been reading lovemydress for about 3 months now and it just gets better, love the way you cover wedding and love having a nosey in to other people’s days. Not chosen my dress yet but pretty sure I’m on the right track thanks to lmd! would love to see some kind of chat room service so that reader could share ideas and connect, not sure if that’s what you meant or had in mind.
Keep up the excellent work!
My fiancé proposed to me on Christmas eve, it was not a romantic proposal but it wouldn’t have been right if it was, we are very chilled out and my partner decided to propose before all the mad rush began, I am so glad he decided to do it then instead of Christmas day which was his original plan! I am 23 years old and I now live in Leicester. I decided on Leicester to study for my degree, during my second year at university I decided to try my hand at online dating, I went on a number of dates before revisiting someone I had spoken to at the start of the adventure. Nearly three years later we have our own perfect home together and I’m looking forward to spending the rest of my life with my best friend and my soul mate.
We haven’t got much planned yet, this weekend we are viewing our top 5 venues and hopefully we will be able to make a decision afterwards. I want quite a relaxed day, good food and for our friends and family to really enjoy themselves.
I would like to see a blog on how we can incorporate lost friends into our big day. Love my dress has really given me some ideas and inspiration for my own wedding.
Having finally, in my mid-50s, met the man of my dreams and (miracle of miracles) finding that he’s met the woman of his dreams, we’re planning to get married early next year. In the delighted dreamy haze after he proposed, I started looking at wedding blogs for inspiration about how we might share our day with those we love – and lovemydress has become the only one i regularly read, i just love it!
Being curvy, and older, THE dress is quite an issue.
But so also is the whole event. I’d love to see more about how other older couples approach their wedding.
That said lovemydress has already opened my eyes to possibilities I just wouldn’t have considered or thought possible. I can see me being a loyal reader long past my actual wedding day!
What about ‘inside designers studios’
interviews with suppliers, particularly dress designers.
Q and A with Annabel and Frankie
I’d like to see a discussion post dealing with how you address the issue of not being able to afford to have all your guests there for all of the day. We are marrying in a Registry Office, because we don’t want a religious ceremony and we simply can’t afford the cost of a venue and registrar / humanist celebrant – but this means that we can only fit just over half of the people we want to invite into the room. Some people will only be able to come to the reception. I really don’t want those people to feel like second-class guests, and have already heard a few rumblings about it – mostly in jest, but still… how on earth do you deal with this?
I have been reading the blog for 6 months and i am sure i will be one of those brides who lkeps on looking after their wedding! One feature i would like to see is page boy outfits. I have lots of inspiration for my girls bridesmaids outfits, but my son’s outfit? Clueless.
I would really love for you to cover humanist weddings, the logistics, brides and grooms experiences and in terms of what it means to feel and be married. Most people who have a humanist wedding seem to pop along to their local registry office with a couple of witnesses to get the legal bit done a day or two before they have their ‘proper’ ceremony with a humanist celebrant and all their family and friends there. At what point do the couple feel married? If the humanist ceremony for the couple is their real ceremony, what does it feel like after getting legally married? If you’re not religious and want a humanist ceremony do you even need the legal stuff? No one has covered this, at least I can’t find anyone who has. I think it would both be incredibly helpful to brides and grooms thinking of having a humanist wedding, and to myself and my fiancé!
I’ve been reading Love my Dress for about three years now, and got engaged last year (I really love weddings!) in the Great Hall at Leavesden Studios. Yes I’m a massive Harry Potter fan and my fiancé is a complete film tech geek, so it was pretty perfect for us, and apparently we were the first people to get engaged in the Great Hall!
We’re getting married at my parents house this July and are planning on having a humanist celebrant for our outdoor ceremony, but going to our local registry office the day before to get the legal part done. I’m worried whether we’re doing the right thing by going to the registry office the day before rather than on the day. It makes the logistics of having a diy garden wedding much easier, but I don’t want to feel married after the registry office when I rock up in normal clothes and I want our humanist ceremony to be our wedding.
Oh fab! Some great suggestions coming through here already ladies – thank you so so much!
I love the way you blog your weddings, “beautiful weddings, beautifully”. Sadly there seems to be an attitude of doing things quickly and cheaply, rather than elegantly and with style and so it nice to see a different blogging approach. Very similar to own approach – we want our couples to feel pampered and adored on their wedding day.
One thing I would love to see you tackle ate the 10 biggest problems with a wedding. Thanks for the great blog Keith
Thank you so much Sophia! We will certainly look in to the feasibility. It’s something I’ve considered for a long time now to be honest, if the demand was there, we would definitely try to make it work for our readers X
Some more DIY ideas. This is really useful for brides-to-be like me who have such a small budget but have a desire to make our wedding looking wow! DIY ideas for venue decorations, e.g. floral displays, lighting, centrepieces and favours would be wonderful.
We got engaged in Marrakech in May last year when my other half got down on one knee after the romantic pre-amble of “oh sod it, I’ll do it now!” Bless him, he was just nervous as we’d spent a whole morning walking around the souks while he anxiously carried my ring around in his pocket and the rest of his proposal was very sweet! I’ve been very busy with wedding planning ever since and love using inspiration from Love My Dress and Pinterest, although I feel a bit alienated by other brides sometimes as I seem to be quite decisive with what I choose, rather than agonising over little decisions…
I’d be interested to hear more about people’s experiences shopping for wedding dresses, although I know you’ve covered this partly in posts about body image. I’ve found that the kind of dresses I covet (beautiful, slim fitted 20s/30s Jenny Packham styles with delicate beading) just don’t suit my shape at all so I’m wondering what other brides do when their dream dress is a no go?
I agree, that would be great. I feel that there is a bit of a gap in the wedding blog market there really – it’s easy to see lots of lovely weddings where clearly thousands and thousands of pounds have been spent, and that’s great for those with a lot of money to spend, and lovely to look at. But for those of us who would really like a lovely day, but don’t have the cash to chuck about, there’s not so much out there.
Hello,
I read the blog every day from Paris, as I have said before, I cannot rely to everything you post because we gave different traditions about wedding but I find great inspiration and I love to read about other brides’ stories.
If I should suggest something it would be the grooms! More insight from them maybe, or how to involve them in the decoration/ design process. What kind of suits, accessories, shoes, some men styling could be welcome.
And also another topic that I did not find on blogs was how to deal with the dress disapointment. I chose my dress without falling in love with it, it was hard, difficult and challenging to find THE one because everyone keeps saying “you’ll know when it’s THE one”… well it did not happen after so many trials so I ended chosing a classic dress that my mom, sisters and bridesmaid approved of…And this dress has nothing I wanted at the beginning of my search… I’m not saying it’s a bad choice, I just would like to hear other stories than the usual “It picked the first one I tried on!”
keep blogging, you’re the best!
Aurélie
I agree about dress disappointment! I don’t suit the slinky styles that I had my heart set on so the dress I’ve gone for is classic, lovely and flattering but I never had any kind of ‘this is the ONE’ moment either. And I certainly wasn’t surrounding by crying bridesmaids or a tearful Mum!
I think there’s a lot of mythology surrounding wedding dress shopping which puts a lot of pressure on brides (I keep having ACTUAL NIGHTMARES that I’ve chosen the wrong dress somehow…) and it would be nice to hear a range of thoughts on how people chose their dresses.
ps. mine WAS the first one I tried on – I tried on loads of others afterwards and then went back to it…
I love love love Love My Dress. The way you approach everything is perfect. I love your aesthetic and also emotional sensibilities. I’m an English girl living in San Francisco. We got engaged in Maui in 2012 whilst I was pregnant. My other half has family in South America and all over Europe. We are planning a wedding in Scotland and a big party in Spain. We have relatives all over the globe so has been tricky to figure out what is the best for us. Although we came to the agreement that we wanted a very small intimate wedding and I thought it would be nice for my fiance’s close family / friends to travel to see my other love which is Scotland for the wedding. So that they could see, feel, taste, hear what I love about Scotland. I lived in Edinburgh for over 10 years. It’s a challenge organising a wedding from overseas but with so much available online re: resources, vendors etc it’s not been as hard as I thought. I can’t wait for the wedding day and will continue to read LMD for inspiration. Thank you. Cat x
Absolutely love LMD, after marrying 2 years ago I missed my wedding planning time so I fill my desire by reading about other weddings!
I think on reflection I’d like to hear about the following;
– are you a serial wedding dress purchaser? (I was, I ended up with 5!!)
– what are your wedding day regrets? ( I loved my day but being impatient I rushed the planning and missed all the little things I wanted to have but ran out if time) don’t get me wrong my day was beautiful but I could be do everthing! Which leads to my final topic….
– are you a control freak? Yes I am! I wanted to do everything, I wanted to create the cake, the flowers, the favours, invitations, decor, if I could have I would have taken the pics. It’s emotional entrusting others when the vision of what you want is in ‘your’ head. It worked out perfectly and everyone that did play a part did an exceptional job but it was really hard to let go…
I got engaged in New York City on our second anniversary – trés romantic! I’m really enjoying the whole planning process but the one bit that we’re finding tricky is the issue of a gift list. While my fiancé and I currently live together, we are planning to build a house (actually cheaper than buying where we live!) and we’d really appreciate monetary help towards realising out dream. I know it’s not uncommon for couple to ask for money instead of tangible gifts, but at the same time I don’t want people to read the invitation as “Please come to our wedding, but don’t forget to bring the cash!”
If you have any advice on this situation, we’d be eternally grateful!
Thank you Love My Dress – you’re making this whole planning lark a breeze <3
How about a post explaining why it is important for people to get legally married (in addition to having an humanist ceremony or blessing)? Being legally married has multiple benefits under the law (e.g. Inheritance tax). Unfortunately in English law there is no such thing as a ‘common law’ husband and wife – although many still believe this to be the case.
I looked into this for my law degree at Durham Uni and would be happy to help with some initial research (for free).
Some brilliant suggestions here ladies, I’ll be replying to them all tomorrow
I would love to see a bridal wear post which features ‘the best dresses for £1000 and under’. Maybe I’m being optimistic in thinking that you can get beautiful dress without breaking the bank. Would you say its the same as with a photographer, in that cheaping out really isn’t an option? Would be great to see a feature dedicated to preloved dresses which is an option I am considering. Best boutiques for preloaved dressed, best outlets for sample dresses, anything along those lines! Also, possibly consider adding a rough price guide at the end of bridal wear posts, as I’m sure a lot of brides will agree with me that the first thought that comes to mind when I see a stunning dress feature is ‘how many months rent will that cost me?!’
The posts I enjoy the most on here are the ones about marriage and the ‘happy ever after’ part. Annabel, I really, really loved your blogs on 1 year on, 2, 3 and 4 years on etc, and it would be great to see more.
I’m hurtling towards my wedding this summer and I’ve loved every single part of the planning process so far. The bits I find daunting are 1) straight after the wedding, (or more to the point, after the honeymoon… what on earth happens when I just go back to work and carry on as normal!?) and 2) how to build lasting love for the rest of our lives. I’m very lucky to have some great role models for that in my family, but it would be great to hear more from others on here as they venture past the wedding and into the big wide world of marriage…
Aurelie, great ideas – particularly around hearing more from the grooms. I’d really like to see a thread on here about what marriage means from a groom’s perspective. What made them propose? (if they did, of course!), What went through their mind on the big day? What did they feel when they saw their bride? What was the most special moment? What did they find best / hardest in the years following the wedding? Great idea!
Hi Deborah, I just wanted to say congratulations! Your post made me grin, I’m so happy that you’ve found each other! Have a wonderful wedding and many many happy years to come 🙂
Hello there Anna! Thank you so much for your reply – you aren’t the first online dating success story! We’ve featured quite a few on Love My Dress, so welcome! 🙂
How did your venue visiting go?
I love the idea of incorporating lost friends in to your wedding day – have you read these two features that might help?
https://www.lovemydress.net/blog/2011/10/breast-cancer-awareness-involving-those-you-love-on-your-wedding-day.html
https://www.lovemydress.net/blog/2011/10/breast-cancer-awareness-involving-those-you-love-on-your-wedding-day.html
I am so happy to hear that Love My Dress has helped and inspired you so far 🙂
With much love,
Annabel xXx
We love the community feel, warmth and welcom-ness on love my dress! Love the diversity of weddings you include in your features and particularly love the attention to detail in every post. It’s clear to see you love what you are doing.
We enjoy reading from the suppliers perspective too.
Loved Sam Cook’s suggestions – 5 wedding dresses-wowsie!!