Creative Brides Vintage Village at the Bluewater Wedding Fair 2014

On Thursday 6th February, Frida picked me up from my sleepy state at 4.30 a.m. to travel to New Covent Garden Flower Market to carefully select some beautiful blooms for our stand at the Creative Brides Vintage Village at the Bluewater Wedding Fair.

It's cold, raining and very dark, but as soon as I get in that car, Radio 1 is pumping out some tunes and already we're giggling and chatting away about our antics over the past few days.

We arrive at the market just after 5 a.m. and as is always the tradition - head straight to the cafe in the centre.  Two Americano's one with milk, one without.  It's buzzing in there already and the lovely man at the counter is always cheerful and chatty.  Frida manages to point out some mascara that I've skilfully painted onto my top eyelid in the dark this morning - that's what she's there for!  I manage to tell her how cute she looks in her red Converse and leopard print hat!  She laughs....as usual!

We always like to do a tour of the place first, check out who's got what!  We have our favourites of course, which it would be unfair to disclose - but it's still good to get a butchers at what is out there.
We start to gather some large blooms in a variety of pastel colours - continually running through in our heads the items that we know we need to produce.  Then comes the foliage - lovely Porters has a fantastic range and always served with a smile.  We gather some delightful greens - always soft and with texture and movement.  We don't do stiff foliage!  We did find some beautiful Magnolia which gives amazing lines and once in bloom is really beautiful.

We did about three trips to the car and finally decide that we think we have everything we need.  By now, it's light, we're hungry and now start to feel tired!

Here's a little video of the blooms and Frida's cute hat!

I feel my video-ing skills need a little practise - but hey!

So, we travelled back to Tenterden and worked on our designs all day - three staple items, coffee, Radio 1 and Diet Coke!

Friday 7th Febuary - we're up early, load the car and off we head to Bluewater to set up ready for the 5p.m. start to the three day fair.  All goes smoothly and to plan despite the sixteen trips backwards and forwards to unload the car - our biceps pumping!

What did we produce?  Here are a selection of photos taken by the lovely Rebecca Douglas of our Vintage Village stand.  Hope you like them!

Meet Geraldine.......our spray painted polystyrene model

A big thank you to Clair at Creative Brides for hosting a fantastic three days.  We met some lovely couples and some very talented suppliers.  We rounded off the successful weekend with a fantastic glass of red wine and a yummy burger at GBK!  Finished off the event nicely ;)