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#BBAREALBRIDE: MEET THE WINNER OF OUR ZAZZLE COMPETITION & OUR NEW RESIDENT REAL BRIDE REPORTER
Photo by Devlin Photos
You might remember a few months back that we partnered with Zazzle, to run a competition for one lucky bride-to-be to win £1000 to spend with Zazzle and a chance to become our first ever official Real Bride Reporter. It is now with great pleasure that we introduce to you the lucky winner – Sophie!
Photo by Devlin Photos
You might have realised that Sophie is no stranger to Bespoke Bride. As the founder of Crown & Glory, her products are often seen gracing our pages, as well as being on sale in BB Boutique, but when we heard her heart warming engagement story, we just knew she had to be our winner. Here she is to tell us more about that her wonderful proposal and her wedding planning journey so far…
Photo by Devlin Photos
“Gareth popped the question in July 2015, after completing a 1000 mile bike-ride from South Wales to Spain. He’d planned the trip – from his home-town to the campsite that he spent every summer holiday at as a child – in memory of his late mum, and to raise money for a charity that gave her much-needed support in her final weeks, the St David’s Foundation.” Sophie told us.
“I’d sat grumpily in a sparse airport lounge for 5 hours waiting for my lift to him after 3 weeks apart – he was in sweaty cycling gear and it took ages for the rest of the group to dissipate so we could be alone. His legs were so sore from cycling and meant he couldn’t get down on one knee but none of that mattered – when he brought a ring box out of his pannier bag (he kept it with him the whole trip to spur him on), told me how much he loved me and how important it was to ask me to marry him in the place that meant the most to him in the whole world, I laughed and cried and said “oh my god’ repeatedly over and over again until he had to sheepishly ask… so is that a yes then?”
Photo by Devlin Photos
“We quickly knew we were on the same page for what we wanted from our wedding – a non-religious ceremony, a laid-back, festival vibe, spending time with the people that mean the most to us, and above all, not getting ourselves into eons of debt to start the rest of our lives together. We’re in agreement on the things we won’t compromise on – photography and food, mainly – and cut-throat to the things that don’t mean jot – goodbye, elaborate wedding cake and grand wedding cars. But being on a budget doesn’t mean we’re not going to be creative – and our first port of call was our save the dates, via Zazzle.” explained Sophie.
“Admittedly, we could’ve just sent around a group email, or text. But as we’re having a weekend-long celebration tucked away in beautiful, leafy West Wales, we wanted the opportunity to be able to give our guests a hint of what to expect for the weekend. We wanted something simple and inexpensive, yet just a little different – so decided on a pairing of postcard save the date, with personalised magnet, so that it can be popped onto the fridge with ease.”
“Initially, I thought that we’d design all our print from scratch – but the huge variety of designs available via Zazzle meant there was no need. Every theme you could possibly think of is available from one of their in-house designers, or from independent designers listed on the site – you can even message the designers directly to request customisation if you want! We chose designs that hinted towards our venue and theme – a rustic vibe – without giving the game away completely. We’ll save that for the invites!” She added.
“For the postcard, we chose the ‘Rustic Wooden String Lights’ design and using the customisation feature on the site, built our save the date details and were even able to choose our own fonts and colours, and preview the design before going to print.”
“For the magnet, we chose the Woodgrain button magnet design as a background, and then I built the custom engraving in Photoshop – I downloaded a rustic heart clipart free from welivehappilyeverafter.com, converted the colour via Photoshop to white, and then overlapped this onto the magnet design within Zazzle’s easy to use personalisation software. I finished this with our initials and celebration date, using the same text as the postcard to tie the designs together.”
“We’ve finished our save the dates with custom stickers, in the same design as our magnets, for our brown Kraft paper envelopes and white ink. We’re hoping that from the moment this lands on our guests doorsteps, they’re going to get a sense that our wedding isn’t going to be a regular church + hotel reception affair!”
We can’t wait to bring you the next instalment of Sophie’s wedding planning but for now if you would like to read anymore of our real bride stories, just head over to Instagram and search #BBaRealBride.
xxx
