Advice pieces are some of the most enjoyable posts for me to write. I get hundreds of comments and emails from you guys asking all number of wedding planning – and weirdly hair! – questions, and being able to help you out where I can is immensely satisfying.

If you ever have a question or concern, please feel free to email me! While I can’t promise to reply one-on-one, I may turn your question into a future blog or magazine article.

Here are twelve of the most popular advice articles that were published this past year.

Life doesn’t wait for you to ‘get thin’, life is happening right now

5 things you probably don’t know about planning a wedding

Bridesmaid 101

Help! I’ve got pre-wedding cold feet

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The Green Room has been a big part of Rock n Roll Bride for the past couple of years. During 2014 I wrote more of this kind of content than ever and I’ve really enjoyed sharing my journey and musing about running your own small business.

I’m not exactly sure what 2015 will bring for this area of my site though. If I’m being totally honest, I’m feeling quite extremely overwhelmed with the pressure of everything I have on next year. Writing the wedding blog, being the editor of a bi-monthly print magazine, hosting and organising The Blogcademy in-person and full online courses (the latter of which is launching January 29th!!) I kind of feel like something might have to give… and that something might just be the Green Room.

I know so many of my wedding industry readers love it, but I’m only one little person! It won’t disappear completely, but it’s not going to be my main editorial focus going into the new year. I’ve got me a magazine to produce!

But it’s not all bad news! Here are twelve of the most popular business articles from the last 365.

Shed inbox guilt! 8 email templates for wedding suppliers

50 easy marketing ideas for wedding professionals

How to land your dream job

How to get started in the wedding industry

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I’ve been featuring less and less styled wedding shoots this year, quite simply because I love sharing real weddings with real budgets way more! However there have been a few stand out ones that I (and you!) have really loved.

Here are my twelve favourite styled wedding shoots from the past twelve months.

Colourful folky wedding shoot

Surrealist pineapple shoot

John Waters and flamingo same sex wedding shoot

Janis Joplin inspired retro picnic shoot

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Wooo Boxing Day! The traditional lie-down-all-day-and-eat-leftovers day. Is there anything good on the telly?

I hope you all had a glorious Christmas. We were at my parents’ house (as usual). My dad cooked, wine was drunk, Trivial Pursuit was played. It’s funny, as much as I might dislike traditional weddings I sure do love a traditional Christmas!

It may be a little quiet in blogland over the festive period, but if you’re anything like me you’re still going to need things to entertain you. So instead of indulging in yet another mince pie, why not cast your eyes back over some of the the best wedding DIYs of the year?

I’m no crafting expert, but DIY tutorials are one of the things I know my readers love, so I’m going to put at least one in every issue of my new magazine (issue 1 is in stores 8th January – put the date in your diary!) If I tried to create them myself I’d probably glue my eyelashes together though, so I need your help! If you’d like to see your name in print (EEK!) and create a DIY for the new magazine I’d love to hear from you. Just drop me an email with your idea and some sample photos of past projects and we can take it from there!

How to dip dye your wedding

Pastel gemstone necklace

Ombre glitter champagne glasses

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Every year, between Christmas and New Year, I like to look back at some of my favourite real weddings and share them with you again. I’ve done it for the past three years, but I’d like to do things a little differently this time.

While I am going to kick off the proceedings by sharing my fave real weddings right now, next week we’ll also be revisiting some other things that have been published.

We’ll be reminiscing over some of my (and your!) favourite styled shoots, reminding ourselves of the awesome DIY tutorials, revisiting a plethora of business articles and looking back over the meatier wedding advice-type posts. Maybe some of these things you’ve seen before, but others might have slipped you by the first time. Or maybe you’re a brand new reader? If so, I hope these posts will serve as a quick and dirty overview of exactly what Rock n Roll Bride is all about. Either way, I hope you enjoy looking back with me!

Last week I shared the top 20 statistically most popular weddings of all time, but these (in no particular order) are my personal favourites from the past twelve months.

Pretty homemade Disney inspired wedding

Epic Las Vegas elopement

Gene Simmons Vow Renewal

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Over the next week I’ll be recapping some of my favourite posts from the past twelve months, so this is the last real wedding feature of the year! Er where has the time gone please?! But believe me when I say we are going out with a bang. Claire and Ste’s wedding is not only beautifully modern and glamorous, but the way it was photographed by Lee and Bee has blown my mind. I love all this creativity and this wedding might just be the epitome of Rock n Roll Bride!

“We met while at performing arts college in 2000”, began Claire. “When we first met we couldn’t be more different. Ste was painfully shy and I was quite the opposite. However when we left college I was preparing to get married to someone else!!! We lost contact for a year or so but then reunited to form a band in 2003. I got married in 2004 and went on to have a baby in 2005. Ste had several relationships but our friendship remained strong throughout and he became my daughter’s godfather at her christening. My marriage fell apart in 2006. It was a very hard time for me but Ste was always there for me. As time went by our relationship grew into something else. That was 7 years ago and we are still madly in love with each other and better than that we are still best friends!”

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Sequoia and Andrew were married outside, in the Oakland Hills. Their wedding was a true DIY affair and they did everything themselves including all the décor, flowers, stationery and the catering. Even the band was made up of the bride’s step-dad and step-brother!

“Our wedding was a DIY Mexican boho wedding”, explained the bride. “More than anything we wanted to have an intimate setting to exchange our vows. It was really important to us that we be surrounded by love and support. We know that with marriage comes struggle and hardship at times, and we wanted to be reassured by our loved ones that they would be there to remind us of our wedding vows. The way we looked at each other. The promise that we made.”

“Having my step-dad, and step-brother play the music was really special”, she continued. “I didn’t want the traditional wedding music, we are far from traditional. I asked them to play ‘Sleepwalk’ by Santo & Johnny as I walked down the aisle, and they learned it and nailed it.”

“Instead of chairs we laid out Mexican blankets in the middle of a Redwood grove, forming a circle with us at the top. We felt like it really connected us with our friends and family. After the ceremony, we had a champagne toast and some snacks before heading to the venue for an all out PARTY.”

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It’s getting to that time of year where bloggers all over the world start to post their annual round ups. I love doing (and seeing!) them myself and will be doing a few between Christmas and New Years, but today I thought I’d look back and share my top twenty weddings of all time.

These are the twenty most popular real weddings ever posted on Rock n Roll Bride based on number of views. Is your favourite in here?

20. The Seventies rule!

1970s backyard wedding

19. Cute n colourful

Colourful DIY festival wedding

18. Just you wait, until you see the rest of this wedding!

Margaret & Edi’s INCREDIBLE “Blows-Everything-Else-Out-of-the-Water” gothic Alice in Wonderland wedding

17. Any couple that hire a carousel for their reception are OK with me!

Insane Italian vintage circus wedding

16. Oh lala!

Sophisticated & sexy wedding in The Philippines

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Sam and Sarah were married at Hornington Manor Farm, York in August. They hired their venue for five whole days so they could have a week-long celebration with their loved ones. “From the moment Sam asked me to marry her we were adamant that we wanted a really personalised wedding which was about us as a couple”, began Sarah. “We wanted to do all the food, drink and decoration ourselves and to involve our closest family and friends in all of the preparations. We wanted our guests to feel like they were coming to our house for our wedding which we were able to do as we rented the house for five days. A summer fete theme emerged as we planned lots of activities for people to do during the day.”

“We had the legal ceremony on the Thursday before and pondered for ages about what we were going to wear”, she continued. “On a dog walk one day with Sarah’s parents we decided on a Hawaiian theme. So off 10 of us went to the registry office (myself and Sam in an old black beetle) dressed in Hawaiian shirts. When we returned to Hornington Manor we had a big Hawaiian themed BBQ party where all of our guests dressed up too!”

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Marni and James wanted to bring their love of the big apple to their Ohio wedding. They kept things minimalistic in terms of décor, but everything that choose oozed New York cool. “I think the inspiration and theme for our wedding go hand in hand”, explained the bride. “We wanted minimalist chic. We also wanted it to feel like we were in Brooklyn, where we now live, recreated in Marietta, Ohio.”

“Getting married in Ohio saves us a lot of money. The prices there are probably 25-30% of the cost of getting married in New York City. While we really wanted a Brooklyn wedding in many ways, we ultimately decided that it would be easier for our families to attend if we had it in Ohio. That was the most important thing. Plus, we knew that we could splurge on parts of the wedding that were important to us if we had it in Ohio. I never would have been able to afford two designer dresses, for example, if we had gotten married in New York!”

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It’s just one week until Christmas and I got the BEST gift of all yesterday. I went to Giraffe Media HQ, the publishers of my new magazine, to sign everything off and send the first issue to print! It was very The Devil Wars Prada but much more friendly… I arrived and was presented with ‘The Book’ – a mock up of how the magazine will look in a binder. Flipping through each page made it seem oh so real. I can’t bloody believe this thing is ACTUALLY going to be in the shops!

Issue one hits the shelves on January 8th and will be sold in WH Smiths, Morrisons and some independent newsagents. If you can’t find a copy locally, or you’re not in the UK, you can also purchase a subscription online (details of which I’ll be sharing as soon as it’s ready!) OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS ALL TOO EXCITING, roll on January 8th!

Here are some other treats from around the interwebs over the past seven days….

Weddings & Weddingy Things

♥ Retro Rock n Roll picnic wedding
♥ Intimate summer greenhouse wedding
♥ New York meets Palm Springs wedding
♥ Plum and navy wedding inspiration
♥ Edwardian inspired wedding

Hazelwood Photo

Just when I think I’ve seen it all when it comes to wedding shoots, something like this lands in my inbox and I start to question everything!!

LA based designer Evey Rothstein was inspired by the lights of Disneyland to create some truly impossible dresses. She explains, “The Disneyland light parade opened my eyes to the possibilities of dreams and imagination as a child. I have always gravitated toward all things sparkle covered and am fascinated by fireflies and bio-luminescence. I love figuring out how things work and playing around with soldering irons, LEDs and fiber optic filaments.”

“There is different inspiration behind each dress. The chandelier dress came about because I was intrigued by the way light shines through cut glass and crystals. I created this fiber optic chandelier dress with a smashed mirror disco ball-like mosaic.”

“The rainbow paint dress was inspired by Jackson Pollock. I envisioned the body as a canvas and I splattered it with fabric, neon colors and light in an abstract experimental way.”

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Stand by and prepare to flip out over this incredible Burning Man wedding. It wins EVERYTHING. The day was the truest expression of love. There were no flowers, centrepieces, stationery or cake. They had the ceremony at the Heart Phoenix Art Car by the Embrace Sculpture with 500 people looking on.

“The inspiration for our wedding was desert, caravansary, flowy, bedouin, Aladdin (with my name being Jasmine and all… haha), white and gold”, wrote the bride. “What made it unique was the fact that it was a HUGE production at Burning Man, over 500 people dressed to the nines in white and gold showed up to celebrate our union. The challenge prior was having no way to communicate. It was like taking it back to the old school days before the internet and relying on people’s memories. We did a lot of running around to different camps to remind people that the wedding was on Wednesday, which actually faired the best in terms of weather. The universe definitely worked in our favor.”

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Luke and Emeline were married at Tunnels Beaches in Ilfracombe, Devon. Their unconventional wedding was quintessentially ‘them’, from the bride’s pink hair, the Japanese and video game theme and the groomsmen carrying weaponry!

“I’d describe our theme as a Japanese culture based experience”, explained the groom. “Video games, action adventure, samurai’s and of course a manga styled bride with pink hair.”

“We both wanted something very relaxed”, Emeline took over. “We wanted our guests to have fun and feel like if they were on holiday with friends and family. That’s why we decided to have a gourmet BBQ style dinner by the seaside. We didn’t have any seating plan, it was very chilled. We ate outside, with a wonderful sunset in the background. Perfect for the last summer day!”

“We had a lot of unusual elements including our groomsmen carrying hand-engraved samurai swords and crossbows to remind them of our day and to always fight for their dreams!” she continued. “It was quite funny to hear our photographer asking the wedding party to put their weapons down. Definitely not something you would expect at a wedding!”

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We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for a very important public service announcement. Irregular Choice released their Spring/Summer 2015 wedding collection last week and it includes shoes with bride and groom heels!!!

They cost £139 or £149, depending on the style, and available to pre-order right now for February 2015 delivery.

My favourite are definitely these pink “I love you” ones. SO ADORABLE!

Although the gold glitter is pretty damn irresistible too!

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With a brand new year just around the corner, I’d imagine a lot of you are starting to seriously SWEAT IT about your upcoming nuptials. Fret not dear reader, because I’m here to help! I put a call out on Facebook the other day asking if you had any dilemmas you’d like help with and oh boy did you! In fact I received so many questions both on Facebook and via email that I’ve decided to do a few of these Q&A style posts over the next few weeks. I love doing them and I hope I can help some of you out.

If you have a wedding related question, concern or problem, feel free to email me too. While I can’t reply one on one, I may well turn it into a future blog post or magazine article!

Can you help me with dealing the post wedding blues? Or preparing for after the wedding? I wish I had planned for it as I feel quite down now the wedding is over. Sarah Helen

If you’re not prepared for them, the post wedding blues can hit you like a high speed steam train. Feeling down once your wedding is over is perfectly normal though and not something you should be ashamed of. It doesn’t mean you’re any less happy to be married, it’s usually just because you loved planning your wedding (and put so much of your heart, soul and time into it) that you’re feeling a bit lost afterwards. Hell, I got them so bad, I became a full time wedding blogger!

While the post wedding blues aren’t something you should feel bad about, you shouldn’t wallow in them either. Take a short amount of time to ‘grieve’ that your wedding is over but then make a conscious decision to (in the nicest possible way) get over it! Now is the time to throw yourself wholeheartedly into your marriage. Plan some fun days out together, keep up your date nights, talk to each other and have lots of sex!

Sure, planning a wedding is amazing, but believe me, being married is way better!

I’ve written more about the post wedding blues here.

How do we break the news to the parents that we’re eloping? Its a fine line between planning our dream and pleasing our parents… Pascale

When you’re having a unusual or alternative wedding it can be hard to navigate between doing what you really want and keeping the people you love happy. But here’s the unfortunate truth: In life, whatever the situation, it is impossible to pick one outcome that will satisfy every single person that your choice affects. Even if you had the most traditional, family-pleasing wedding, there’d be someone who didn’t like your menu, or someone who hated the band…

If I was you, I’d sit down with your parents and your fiancé and just be honest with them. Remind them that eloping isn’t a sign that you love them any less, it’s just what you feel is right for the two of you. It might be hard on them, but ultimately you do have to put yourselves first. You’ll only regret it otherwise. As much as a wedding is about celebrating with family, it’s also about starting your new life as a team… a partnership… and putting that person and your relationship before everything else.

However that’s not to say that you shouldn’t try to compromise. How about suggesting that you or your parents throw a post-wedding party once you get home?

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I’m not one of those people who expertly and meticulously wraps all their Christmas presents. I don’t have the patience and I’m too ham-fisted. So what I need is easy ways to do it. Ways that will make it look like I’ve made an effort, even if it took me three minutes flat.

Behold, ten stupidly easy wrapping ideas that not only look awesome but are so simple even I could recreate them.

If you blind them with neon, they won’t notice if you’ve done a crappy job

Source: NeonLdn

This is totally my style. Just cut to the chase already!

Source: Plate and Pencil

Wrap the whole galaxy around the gifts

Source: Norman’s Printery

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Meghan and Andy planned their wedding while travelling around Australia so they really relied on their friends and family pulling together to help them out. That being said, they did an awesome job by keeping things relatively simple.

The inspiration for their reception space was a photograph of another wedding filled with balloons that Meghan saw on Rock n Roll Bride! “I saw a photo once on Rock n Roll Bride of a wedding filled with balloons… and after seeing it that one time I could never find it again” [is it in here?], she explained. “But as soon as I saw it I knew this was what I wanted. Our wedding began to look a bit like like the movie ‘Up’. We attached 375 multi-coloured balloons to 100 chairs.”

“We really wanted our wedding to be relaxed,” she continued. “We are late for everything so time didn’t really control anything on the day. We weren’t really bothered if things went wrong either. I was actually sick the whole day! To me, our wedding was unique because we did it all ourselves. I would think of something and Andy would make it come to life. People had said they never had been to a wedding like it and they had so much fun… That to me alone is a success.”

For flowers they bought heaps of babies breath online and arranged it themselves. “We used it for everything and it looked amazing”, she said. “For bouquets, headdresses, and to decorate the ceremony area. It was also a more affordable option than elaborate flower arrangements.”

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Pearce and Angela love all things vintage and retro, so their 1950s wedding theme came easily to them. They wanted a theme that their guests could be a part of (with fancy dress!). The celebration was held at Craig Y Nos Castle near Brecon Beacons in South Wales. “We loved the venue because it was quirky, wonky and theatrical so it suited us down to the ground”, Angela said. “It was once owned by a very famous opera singer, Madam Patte, in the 19th century, who used to throw lavish parties and entertain the great and good back in the day. It was actually completely different to what we initially had in mind for a venue, but when we walked in we just knew it was perfect!”

The bride wore a vintage dress from the 1950s which she bought from Rachel’s Bridal Boutique. “Even though the dress had lovely details, it wasn’t too fussy, which appealed to me”, she explained. “Like a lot of things that I wear, I really wanted to have fun with it and make it my own by incorporating colourful accessories. I added a flower and beaded wedding belt that I made with my Auntie Katherine, and a colourful 50s style petticoat. Colour is such an important part of my life – it makes me so happy, I wanted to build as much colour into my outfit as I could get away with whilst still keeping traditional with a white dress and veil.”

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Not all Rock n Roll weddings need to be epic DIY extravaganzas, rainbow heavens or tattoo-fests. Sometimes it’s just the fact that two people, madly in love are saying “I do” in their own unique way. That’s exactly what Jeanne and Lawrence did in August this year.

The wedding was held in the family home, a watermill in Loze, Tarn et  Garonne, South West France. “We are both very political, and very much on the left”. wrote the bride. “We would also both identify as radical feminists so we really wanted to reclaim the concept of a wedding, out of its problematic patriarchal roots and into something that was meaningful to us. We only followed tradition when it made sense to us. For example, my godfather had really insisted to walk me to the altar (both my parents having passed away), but I had to vehemently refuse, as the symbolism of the bride being taken to her husband by a father­ figure is rather problematic to us. It was important to me to walk alone, yet surrounded by my chosen family: my bridesmaids and bridesmen.”

“We did not have traditionally gendered wedding parties”, she continued. “There were both men and women in the groom’s and bride’s crew (and I refused to have a ‘hen do’ too. I had a ‘wombat do’! it was a karaoke party two nights before the wedding and everyone was invited!. Lawrence and I wrote our own vows and discussed them with each other in advance to make sure we were OK with what we were promising each other. We took our vows very seriously so we did not want to keep them a surprise from each other. It was, rather, a collaborative experience, about articulating what we were really committing to.”

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