As promised today i am introducing you to a brand new blogging bride and member of the WWW crew Laura F :-)

Laura is getting married in December, and so will be helping out with The Bride Diaries as i go through the applications for the real bride hunt.

Laura has been a regular in the WWW community, commenting away and getting involved. She is having the most amazing sounding partayyyy of a wedding. I know you are going to love her, just as much as the WWW blogging girls and I do. Do make her feel welcome lovelies :-)

Welcome to WWW Laura…. XOXO Lou

Images by Kat Hill

I’m Laura Francis – well, for 5 more months, and then I’ll be Laura Carp! (almost always followed by ‘Carp??? Like the fish???’) and I am very nearly 26 (eeek!). I’ve lived in south Wales for just over a year, since we moved up from Wiltshire – which is where I’m from – last spring, where we are slowly putting our own stamp on our first little house, learning to live with almost constant rain (yay Wales!) and enjoying being beside the sea :)

I’m finally nearing the end of an Open University degree in English language and literature – In October I’ll start on my 6th and final year – and have a vague ambition to teach when all my studying is finally over and done with… it still feels like it’ll never end though! I also LOVE to take photos and have a teeny tiny sideline photographing family/children/couple sessions which I’m enjoying very very much – it’s so nice to be able to mesh something so creative with working so closely alongside so many lovely people.

My fiance, Rich, is his own brand of bearded-greatness – I won’t go on about how perfect he is… (but he really is). He is totally and utterly perfect for me in every single way, and makes me happier than I’d ever dared to hope. We met online (a truth known only by my closest friends… eeek!) when he asked me how to make pumpkin soup… we exchanged messages about geekery, drinking games and Kirsty Allsop, and he then informed me that he was off on a road-trip around Europe and if I wanted to meet up it’d have to be that weekend. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and agreed, and we had a scandalous night of cocktails in a small bar in Bath. I was smitten. And it turns out, so was he. Phew!

We have a gorgeous (most of the time) little family of our own already – with 2 daughters – Ella and Molly who are 9 and 7, and a son, Noah who is almost 2 – making wedding planning arguably even more challenging (have you ever tried visiting a wedding venue all laid out ready for another wedding with a toddler desperate to pick the flowers/climb on the chairs/ eat the bread rolls?? I have… it’s a whole new kind of fun!), but also very very exciting – being able to go dress shopping with my littlest ladies in tow was all kinds of lovely, and choosing the fun Edward Monkton readings they want to give during the ceremony was pretty special too :)

As huge winter/mulled wine/snow/cosy-fire fans, we were massively excited about our first Christmas all together as a family and had an amazing morning with the small people, despite being dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn. Once all the presents were opened and the chaos had calmed, Mr C handed me one last present – a huge Cath Kidston box (cue me getting all excited and imagining handbags…) – which I opened to find a nondescript black scarf. I was all ready to quiz Mr C. (I know for a FACT Cath Kidston don’t do black scarves!) and looked up to see him sat there, with tears in his eyes and an absolutely beauty of a ring in his hands. This absolutely floored me (and I know everyone says that but this was insanely out of the blue and totally, completely, unexpected. I hadn’t even had the tiniest of inklings…), but of course I said yes. And it was just… lovely. My favourite day ever. Even the car breaking down and not being able to get to my parents’ house for Christmas lunch didn’t put a damper on things!

Little things that I enjoy include ice-cold gin and lemonade, Big Bang Theory repeats, glitter (you’ll see a LOT of this in upcoming wedding chatter), fresh flowers, pitta and hummus, and long baths (books necessary).

And so now to the wedding – yay! We’re actually getting married at the end of this year – the 1st of December – in an amazing 3 day celebration in mid-Wales. We’re getting married in a late afternoon ceremony with 60 of our favourite people, at the most gorgeous of barn venues – The Barn at Brynich, in Brecon – our venue hunt was loooong and frustrating and so to find somewhere as perfect for us and our day as Brynich was absolutely amazing. We love it, our families love it, and every time we go back I get a little more excited (read: LOTS!) that this is where we’ll say I Do. As a fairly relaxed and non-traditional couple, we’ve tried to stear clear of lots of the stereotypical wedding ‘pomp’ and are focusing our attentions on things that mean our family and friends will enjoy our day as much as we will – a DIY photobooth, toasting marshmallows, a ‘pub quiz’, sparklers, and possibly a jukebox… There’ll be candles and lights – LOTS of candles and lights – a crackling log fire, and a selection of chimineas set up in the courtyard to keep everyone warm and cosy (as well as for toasting a marshmallow or two!). We’re DIYing locally grown flowers thanks to the lovely ladies at Brecon Blooms (for which I currently have a cupboard full of jam-jars that need prettifying!). Mr C is wearing tweed, my girls are wearing sequins, and I have a deposit down on the Oh My Honey dress of my dreams – it really is beautiful, and I am SO excited, yet SO nervous to receive it and try it on.

We were lucky – like four-leave-clover-and-bird-poop-on-the-shoulder-and-picking-up-a-penny massively, ridiculously uber-lucky – to win our wedding photography from Amy Lewin Photography – a feat that makes me smile on an almost daily basis, and doubly so every time she posts a sneak peek of the latest wedding she’s shot. She really is fabulous, and having her on board means so very very much to both me and Mr C. We’re in talks with Amy about possibly doing some kind of first-look too – and just know that if we go for it, she’ll do it justice :)

Chaos and disorganisation stress me out massively so I’m trying desperately to keep as up together with the wedding planning as possible and all of a sudden 5 months doesn’t seem like very long at all!

I have to be honest and admit I follow an alarming amount wedding blogs, but, hand on heart, WWW has always been one of my favourites. Ironically, probably my favourite features are the real bride diaries and I’m a sucker for every single DIY project Lou posts. The pictures are always gorgeous and I have an insane amount of WWW imagery all over my pinterest boards… so I am mega mega excited to be a little part of WWW myself. Exciting!

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT...