Articles in the ‘The Circus ·’ Category

Our Wedding in Portugal

Monday, October 18th, 2010

To bring some love & sun into your morning… here are some stunning pictures from Leah & Mickael’s September wedding in Portugal.

They decided on a mixed culture wedding to please both families & honour a country they both love.

I personally, am LOVING the flowers!! The beading on her bouquet & the button holes.. so beautiful!

Leah says The priest was amazing and he did the whole ceremony in both languages where possible and when I said I wasn’t comfortable saying my vows in Portuguese he spent 4 days practicing his English so we could do it in English!

The Portuguese are quite particular about what happens at weddings and it’s more common for people to get married there and than in UK. “I think I made a few enemies along the way!”

And of course, the first dance…

Ahhhh, Dreamy!
Charlotte xx

Congratulations!! Leah & Mickael

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Awwww I LOVE it when people get married! AND they get married in thier stlye!

Here’s no exception.

Congratulations to Leah & Mickael who were married in September! They had a lovely romantic wedding in Portugal whilst surrounded by their family & old friends!

We wish you all the happiness in the world!!

More to come soon!

Charlotte xx

African Inspiration

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

Happy Sunday everyone!

Last weekend I went to a wedding with a difference… it was an African wedding, in Holland Park.

I am marrying Rob, who is originally from Togo. He was bought up between Lome, Paris & finally London. This wedding for me was a great opportunity to see how we can bring some of Rob’s family’s culture to our wedding.
Something I had no idea how to do, to be perfectly honest!

The Ceremony

The Reception

So how did this work for me? What have I taken from it? Well, ALOT. I can’t give too much away, but we will not be having a Harp but there will be drums & music & it will be absloutely fan-bloody-tastic.

The music & the food.
Two things that are coming to our wedding! And mosy unfortunately..the two things I can’t really ’show’ you!!

So there we go.. it was a great ceremony & very inspirational for me. I am excited to bring all my ideas to life!!
On the flip side.. it was actually the worst reception I have ever been to and I have never heard of an equally bad experience… I will spill the beans very very soon!

Charlotte xx

Get your Groove on

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

I gotta feeling wooo hoooo, that’s tonight’s gonna be a good night, that tonight’s gonna be a good, good night….

I was listening to music yesterday. I know right, nothing unusual about that, but it was one of those liberating moments.
I don’t normally crank it up in the car as I think showing off with music blaring is an attention seeking act I want no part of. I still don’t, but I did it at the weekend.

I was listening for wedding playlists & got lost in the love of the new Mark Ronson album, don’t ask how I got my sticky mits on it already, but do go buy it if you like Bang Bang Bang!

Anyway, it got me thinking about the first dance. What are the best tunes?
Have you googled this before?? OMG. Cheesetastic.
I know its supposed to be romantic, but Phill Collins is wedding magazine’s number 1???
Not for me thanks!

Well I want to give you some ideas… a bit of an alternative list…
These I have either heard at a wedding or have heard positive responses!
To keep it down from 100… here’s 10 for today’s considerations

10. Rome wasn’t Built in a Day- Morcheeba
Kind of simbolises a relationship for me. It was my friend Rachel’s first dance song, 7 years ago.. and I still remember it for being such a geat choice!!
9. Dangerously In Love 2, Beyonce
Not overplayed, cool & groovy, full of passionate love!
8. Closest thing to Crazy, Katie Melua
7. You got the love, Florence & The Machine or Candi Staton Version
6. Starry Eyed, Ellie Goulding
5. Deja Vu, Beyonce
4. Gold, Beverly Knight
3. Praise You, Fatboy Slim
2. Love Lockdown, Kanye West
1. Come Away with Me, Norah Jones

Norah Jone’s Come Away with me has been a favourite of mine for sometime… long before I met Rob, I was lying on the beach in Bali listenign to it & it just felt so dreamy.

I’d LOVE to know what yours were or are going to be?! Please do tell.

Shake your Tamberella!
Charlotte xx

The Mini Members of the Congregation

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Hello Monday!

When we were planning the wedding, we got onto the discussion of children. No, not our own – those of the guests! Matt has a lot of children on his side of the family in particular, and so we wanted to find a way to entertain them so they didn’t get bored. After all, bored children = noisy children!

Of course I have been to weddings before where they had politely requested that no children came. I think this is fair enough – the invites said it really nicely and I don’t think anyone was offended. I think its completely up to the bride and groom really – it’s their day after all.

This week I came across a really good post on the subject by wedding ideas and inspiration – check it out – it’s really worth a read!

We decided to keep the mini members of the guest list occupied with goodie bags. These were put together depending on the age and gender of the child.

For the babies we put in little rattles and shakers. For toddlers we put in things like flash cards and cotton reels and colouring books and crayons, and then for the older children we included fuzzy felts, stickers and make your own crown kits.

Early Learning Centre has loads of good stuff you can put in.

All the kids loved their bags – when we walked round we found them all furiously colouring and threading and sticking! And we think their mummies and daddies liked them too – because it meant they could enjoy the party!

We wrote the name of each little person on their own bag and put them on their seat. We had children there from about 6 months onwards, and we wanted them all to have their own personal little bit of the day.

We also got the older cousins involved by asking them to read the Bidding Prayers in the church, which was really lovely.

I don’t think it would be right to talk about kids at the wedding and not give a special mention to Isabella and Annie. Annie in particular was so excited about the wedding that on the day she woke up and said ‘Is it really true? Is it the day of the marra-arge?’ And she certainly enjoyed herself! Annie and Isabella proved themselves to be the little stars of the evening when they both got up and sang with our band!

The two of them were both up there signing into the microphone, and danced all night! X-factor stars of the future?

Love

Emma xx

PS All photos by Sophie Laslett

Walking Down the Aisle – And Worrying About Nothing!

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Hello Bank holiday Monday!

Oh dear…writing this with a bit of a sore head this morning…we all went to Notting Hill Carnival yesterday! Still, onwards we go with my wedding story!

I wasn’t nervous at all about the wedding service itself – I was actually really looking forward to it! But I was REALLY nervous about walking down the aisle!

I had a whole vision of things that could go wrong. I could run out of music, or I could trip up, or I could go at the wrong time… would I cry… the list was endless! Plus as we were getting married in a cathedral, the aisle was REALLY long!

I loved the idea of it, but I was just really nervous at the thought of so many people looking at me (even though that’s the idea!).

It turns out, as with everything I worry about – there is no need to worry. When we arrived, we came through the doors (which open onto the aisle), and I could see all the guests down the bottom end, turning around to have a look. The thing is, the aisle was so long that at this point all they could see were our silhouettes, which I thought was quite cool.

We were all just standing there for what seemed like ages but what was probably only a few seconds – thinking, what do we do?! Do we go? None of us could remember from rehearsal what on earth we were supposed to be doing! Then Father James appeared – what a relief! – and told us all what we had to do.

We had a lovely archway of flowers that we all walked though – we walked down the aisle to the ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’. Matthew is the worlds fastest walker, and as a result I now always walk really fast everywhere (otherwise with him I would get left behind ha!) – so it was really hard for me to not walk really fast and to slow down!

Luckily my dad was brilliant at this, even though there was a couple of times were I was practically dragging him along! Everyone said after how nice it was that we didn’t leg it down the aisle, as it gave them time to see us!

I can’t remember seeing any specific faces because there seemed to be so many – but I do remember seeing Matt at the end and feeling very happy :-)

I didn’t fall over (not that it would have mattered), I didn’t run out of music and I didn’t get lost. All the worrying for nothing. It is one of the nicest parts of the day and you are only going to do it once, so just ENJOY it, and remember how excited everyone is to see you!

Love

Emma xx

Something Old, Something New…

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Hey wedding lovers!

So while I am still on the getting ready bit of my big day – I thought I would do a little post on what I wore.

So, my dress as I have mentioned before was from Claire Pettibone (Lucia). I got it from Blackburn Bridal Couture in Blackheath in London. You must all go there as Russell and Mandi are fabulous. I’m taking Charlotte!

My dress had a detachable train which was great for the Cathedral but then it came off for the party!

My flowers were from Libby Ferris. I had seen a cover of Cosmo bride with loads of candy coloured roses on it, and I took that in to show her!

I had pink, dark pink, pale yellow, white and a sort of burnt purple roses and the girls had the same but mixed with peonies and just in the pinks.

My something old was a little six pence that the lovely people at the car company gave me, which my dad drilled a little hole in and we tied a blue ribbon through and tied it round my bouquet.

My something borrowed was my mums pearl earrings and my something new was my dress!

My underwear was from Rigby & Pellar – see previous posts where I rave for ages about how great they were!

I did all my own make up, I loved doing it. I had a half hour on my own just sitting there with all my nice new stuff from NARS and Dior and MAC and had a lovely time!

I din’t have a specific colour scheme, I just wanted it all to be as colourful as possible, because it is summer and that’s what summer is about!

My shoes were from Rachel Simpson, I looked for everywhere to find a nice pair of gold sandals and these were perfect. I have to admit though that I changed into a pair of white flip flops from topshop after the dinner!

My jewellery was from Yarwood White, I think the necklace went with the dress perfectly and everyone asked where it was from, they thought it was vintage. My mum got it me for my birthday!

Hope you like!

Love

Emma xx

‘I’d Like to be a Boho Cheryl Cole Please’…My Big Day Hair

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Hurray Hurray it’s Fri-day…

My wedding tale continues – and today I am all about the hair! All photos by Sophie Laslett (except the first pic which is by my mum).

I was insanely lucky with this. My hairdresser Stuart has done my hair for AGES (since I lived in the Midlands), and I still go back every few weeks to have it done with him. No one in London has ever come close. So not only was I lucky enough that he did my hair (and all the girls and my mum) on the big day, but he came to the wedding too.

When I went up to have my hair trial, I said I wanted to look like a ‘boho Cheryl Cole with a bit of Jennifer Anniston thrown in’. And within half an hour he had done it. No faffing, half an hour and we had it sorted.

I had a little plait across the front (like a picture of Jennifer Anniston I had seen at the Oscars haha) and then he made it all bouffy at the back – back combing it and curling it. I loved it. I added in a couple of lovely little hairclips from Yarwood White and it looked fab.

I will say however that the morning was not without its drama’s… poor Stuart was half an hour late because the hotel car park was in an impossible location that was only slightly harder to find than the holy grail itself… so this led on to a chain of events where all the girls hair was running late too, and so when the flowers/cars/Sophie turned up it was utter chaos, with no one ready and me downstairs in full regalia sorting out room changes and photographs!

So…. make sure you allocate a bridesmaid per thing thats turning up. They can’t help if they don’t understand what is going on and all you can do is stand there looking terrified! So one for flowers, one for cars etc etc. that way everyone is waiting for their own job, and it is easier to control.

Also, and this is REALLY important MAKE SURE EVERY ONE KEEPS THEIR PHONES WITH THEM (including you as I lost mine almost immediately and didn’t find it until the next day) – at one point it was me and Sophie upstairs in my room (which was lovely because I got some nice pics), but no one else! And I couldn’t find anyone! And for some random twist of fate, my room was about a 3 mile walk from reception… which didn’t help!

Anyway. The good news was suddenly everyone turned up at once, including Stuart, to put on my veil. My veil was MASSIVE. My dress was not big, and because I was getting married in such a big venue I needed to add a bit of drama. So I added the biggest veil ever!

This picture makes me laugh – here is Stuart hair spraying my veil up – Mandi from Blackburn Bridal said if I hair sprayed it up then it would stay all bouffy – so here we are in an action hairspray shot!

Note how Cazza is opening Champers. This is EXTREMELY important. My poor mum had bought champagne and orange juice but when all the chaos began we didn’t open it… at the point of hairspraying the massive veil I had gone beyond orange juice and had cracked straight on to practically swigging it out the bottle. Good times…

Another big tip… If, like me you are having ’super-veil’, then make sure someone is on hand to supervise it. By this I mean pick it up.

Alex my MOH did a sterling job until I went out to have my photo taken with the cars after the ceremony… it had rained while we were inside and I trailed it all over the floor and the end got all wet… which made it heavy! She was not impressed I had gone without telling her! This meant that she then had to pick up 1.a wet veil and 2. constantly stop it from going anywhere near my dress!

So always tell your MOH where you are going if it’s wet :-)

Anyway, after half an hour of chaos (including 10 minutes where my mum lost the pin off her flowers – my poor mum, it really was a constant flow of things happening!), everyone was ready, back on time and back on track!

And then we all had a nice glass of champagne.

Then we were ready to start the 3 mile trek down the stairs to leave for the church! Stay tuned….

Love

Emma xxx

Under my Umbrella

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Yes its summer, but its also the UK & we all know what ’summer’ can mean. I still remember the flooding that has plagued us for so many years now.
So unless you are getting married abroad, you will be keeping a close eye on the weather for your day & will be prepared for, the RAIN.

Its a dampening thought, but let’s not dwell. Let’s find some super brollies to brighten your spirits & help you feel prepared!!

I have found Umbrella Heaven.

A Duo is perfect to assist on the day for both of you!

They can also be a great photo prop if you like!

Or maybe you want to rescue more of your wedding party from the weather? How about a package deal of brollies?!

You could try Hire-a-brolly.co.uk

The do different types of packages from a Silver package at £54.39 which includes 10 umbrellas, a free Golf size umbrella worth £4.99 in hire & a Bride’s keepsake umbrella purchase.

Handy.

Have you found a great supplier you would like us to share with other Brides to Be?
All recommendations welcome!

Stay Dry.
Charlotte xx

Guest Post: Anna and the Ring

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

A quick word from Emma: I just wanted to give a little introduction to this guest post.  We have been following Anna and the Ring for some weeks now.  Anna is getting married and has her blog is fantastic.  She is an amazing writer and her posts are full of original content and beautiful images.  We are so very pleased that she has written a guest post for us!   Here she is…

So when the lovely Emma said I could write a guest post for Electric Wedding I got rather excited! Oh what to write? What do you fabulous ladies want to read about? Hmm, well I’m a bride too so I guess I wanted to write about something that has been troubling me! At this moment in time it is thinking about wedding readings. For a girl whose brain is one of a scientist rather than a wordsmith this has been a long road with no appreciable end in sight!

Indeed, I cannot seem to get enough of reading different texts and verses.  I find myself buying obscure old second hand books in the hope of finding a gem. If you have ever tussled over a book long out of print with someone on eBay I imagine it was me! We are not having a religious ceremony so no ubiquitous Corinthians or Romans for us. Furthermore I am not interested in hearing my closest family read from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or an anthology of Shakespeare. It’s just not very us. There is nothing wrong with such readings it is just they are rather too predictable. I do pride myself on being slightly unpredictable! I recall the scene in Wedding Crashers where they place bets upon which verse is to be read. (I sort of love that film, do not judge me harshly!)

We very much want my little brother to speak but he is yet to find love (being a boy having fun!) and so it seems incredibly weird to have he speak of love. Oh the fine line of finding a reading without it being wildly inappropriate. I would be happy with slightly inappropriate but if he suggests the opening lines of Terminator 2 one more time!* Grr. Bless his youthful exuberance. Yet this is a passing issue in comparison to vows.  However* *that is another post for another day! Although in my linguistic travels I have come across a few beauties.

The following is one of my favourites. It just seems to say what I want to say. If you have any trouble finding beautiful words for your service you should look no further than the wondrous Pablo Neruda. His work evokes such heartfelt emotions. Indeed I am rather worried that his work will become boringly mainstream and lose it magically quality. Whilst most of his work has been translated from the original Spanish I find that the words have lost little meaning and are amply able to bring me to tears. Is that not what poetry is all about?

What do you think? Sit back and enjoy. I would love to hear your ideas for your readings.

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist,
nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

*3 billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance, John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The second was set to strike at John himself when he was still a child. As before, the resistance was able to send a lone warrior, a protector for John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first.




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