I have been obsessed with writing and publishing wedding content for over a decade. I love sharing inspiration and planning advice every day on this website and in each issue of our print magazine. When people ask me what I do for a living I usually reply by saying I’m a magazine editor and blogger but from today I’m now able to add something else to that list – published author!
YES, THAT’S RIGHT, I ONLY WENT AND WROTE A BLOODY BOOK!
I have been so desperate to tell you about this and I can’t quite believe I am finally typing these words, butRock n Roll Bride: The Ultimate Guide for Alternative Brides is being released on January 8th and it’s available for pre-order right NOW.
If you’re wondering how this all came about then let me rewind for a minute and start the story from the beginning… Believe me, keeping all this quiet for the past six months has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do!
I have secretly wanted to write a book for a very long time. I first started thinking about doing it around five years ago. My plan back then was to self-publish, but the enormity of the task overwhelmed me so it never got off the ground (remember this was before we had the magazine so I knew literally nothing about offline publishing). For the last few years the book idea has been stuck in the back of my mind as something I’d like to revisit again one day, but without an agent, or any real knowledge of the book publishing world, I had no clue where to begin. Let’s face it, I’m a busy girl, and the thought of having to write and pitch a book that may or may not even get picked up felt a bit soul-destroying.
Then, early this year I received an email from Ryland, Peters and Small, inviting me to meet with them to pitch a book idea to ME! Serendipity was clearly on my side this time as I’d just signed with my manager who would be able to help me navigate the negotiations and all that slightly scary stuff too.
Long story short, not only did the team at Ryland, Peters and Small totally ‘get’ the Rock n Roll Bride brand and ethos but they loved all my content ideas! Their books are completely stunning and really visual with lots of gorgeous photographs, which I’m sure you know I am ALL about too. They were happy to give me almost entire creative control but using their experienced team to make it a reality – AKA the dream scenario! It was a match made in heaven and I was so excited to get started.
Yay, issue 22 is in stores today! We’re stocked in WhSmiths, Sainsburys and independent newsagents up and down the UK. If you’d like a bonus sneaky peek inside the issue you can see some previews here.
This issue is packed with 165 pages of brand new weddings, planning advice, decor and style ideas and oodles of inspiration to help you pull off your perfect, alt wedding day.
You may have seen a few shots from this issue’s editorial floating around social media already and below is a fun little video we made on the shoot. Thank you to the Ioannis of Reel Emotion Weddings for coming along and capturing all the action!
It’s that time again (yay!) the next issue of Rock n Roll Bride magazine is available for pre-order! The issue will be available in stores from September 6th but if you’d like to get yours without ever having to leave the house, you are in luck because you can pre-order or subscribe right now using the button above!
Here comes a little sneak peek of what you’ll find inside this edition. First up we have 11 brand new and totally bloomin’ gorgeous real weddings plus ideas on how you can steal their style….
Confidence. It’s something we all strive to have right? We want to feel comfortable in our own skin, we want to love ourselves, we want to be able to see what sassy, gorgeous goddesses we really are.
But we struggle. We look in the mirror and feel disappointed with our lot. We look at other people and think “Why is that not me?” Well you know what, today I want to remind you that YOU ARE FUCKING FIERCE. Yes, you reading this right now. You’re a total BABE. No matter what your outward appearance, no matter what kind of clothes you wear, no matter if you have “on fleek” eyebrows or insta-worthy make up skills. You are a one-of-a-kind powerful goddess. You have the potential to be whoever you want to be. YOU ARE FIERCE.
My friend and photographer of this most epic of magazines covers, Lisa Devlin, shared it a few days ago in a private Facebook group for wedding photographers and wrote the following… I know she won’t mind me sharing what she said because, without wanting to toot my own horn too much, it made me really, really happy.
“You know I was saying how I feel like it’s all work, work, work right now? It’s so easy to get absorbed into that feeling and not step back and see the bigger picture. I’ve just seen this, the next cover of Rock n Roll Bride magazine and I told Kat that it’s probably my favourite cover of the magazine yet. I can’t wait to see it on the shelves surrounded by vanilla same old, same old covers.
I fucking LOVE that she is a mixed race girl with a shaved head and yet that is nothing to do with why she was in this shoot or why this shot made the cover. She is there because she exudes confidence, joy and being your best self, loving life and wanting to include others in that.
To me that is what this magazine is all about and Kat’s philosophy to business. Most of us are in the ‘alternative’ market and could we just imagine for a second where we would be putting ourselves if her blog and magazine didn’t exist?
I’m going to do my best to keep my head above water for the next few weeks and remind myself to celebrate all the good things. I am so proud of this cover, proud of the team effort that goes into the shoots and chuffed to bits that I shot this. So, what if you think about it, are you chuffed to have achieved recently?”
Thank you Lara Elliott for coming along to the editorial shoot for this issue and sharing this behind the scenes peek for us. And yes, it really was as fun a day as it looks!
Cover shot by the amazing Aimlee Photography, who is based in Las Vegas!
Is planning your wedding turning out to be a massive drag? Are you struggling to choose your suppliers, arguing with your family over your ‘wacky’ ideas and tearing your hair out wondering how the hell you’re going to get all those DIY projects done on time?
No matter how chill you might be in everyday life, there’s just something about planning a wedding that makes even the coolest of babes have at least one meltdown. And it’s not your fault! It’s a stressful time anyway but the majority of wedding media only perpetuates that myth that this needs to be “the happiest day of your life” and that if it’s not perfect you’ll regret it forever.
This is exactly why I started Rock n Roll Bride in the first place – to cut through the bullshit and share ideas and advice that would actually help you plan your wedding.
Here’s what some of our readers have to say about Rock n Roll Bride magazine:
“I honestly wish I found this magazine sooner. I always knew my wedding would be different and that there were aspects of the traditional wedding that I wanted to reject and it’s been the best tool for inspiration in my planning process. Wedding magazines became my guilty pleasure once we started planning a wedding but so many magazines focus solely on white, heterosexual couples with massive budgets advertising everything from fancy fountain pens for your guests to sign your guest book to monogrammed suitcases for your honeymoon.
When I found Rock n Roll Bride, I cannot tell you how much it meant to me to find a magazine with quirky couples that focused more on the couple and what they wanted than the concept of spending so much to impress other people. My cousin is also planning a wedding and, since she’s the digital content editor for ELLE magazine I thought she’d be diving head first into the mainstream bridal magazines – however I found she was having the same experience as me. These mainstream bridal magazines just didn’t resonate with her either. Your magazine stands out in so many ways and is so refreshingly different from everything else on the stand. I’ve converted quite a few brides already!
It also honestly means so much to see queer representation in your magazine. For us, same sex marriage hasn’t been around long and other areas of the industry are still trying to catch up to this. So few magazines feature same sex couples and so I knew this was the magazine for me.
Thank you so much for all you do – from a fellow cat owner and renovator of a newly purchased house. Even when I’m a wife, I’ll still be picking up copies.”Gabrielle Leimon
“As a plus-size future bride, I struggled with trying to find wedding magazines that weren’t focused on thin brides, and there was always a guaranteed three-page spread on ‘shredding for the wedding’. That’s until I discovered this magazine! Not only does it include all body types, but the diversity in other areas is out of this world! I don’t think I ever could have felt accepted as a bride if it wasn’t for Rock n Roll Bride. I’d call it a ‘magazine’, but this is a movement. Thank you Kat, Gareth and the whole Rock n Roll Bride team!” Sam Leigh
“Rock n Roll Bride is definitely the best bridal magazine around! When I first got engaged, a friend bought me a couple of wedding mags and as much as I loved her for thinking of me, I HATED the mags with a passion. They weren’t me, there was nothing in them that excited me and I just felt so out of place, as if I wasn’t a real bride or I’m odd because I didn’t want to do certain things.
I then stumbled across Rock n Roll Bride, it’s completely changed my outlook on wedding mags! I’m always so excited to go out and buy my copy, and my fiancè loves it too! It’s great to find a mag that focuses on the grooms and same sex weddings too! Everything about it, from the colourful weddings to the hints and tips, even the ads, are brilliant! It really focuses on the fact that it’s your wedding – you do it your way.
Kat is wonderful, she asks opinions, and actually listens to the feedback that we offer. She’s on the same page as us, as she’s been in our position and it’s so refreshing. It’s completely changed my wedding planning experience and I’m so thankful I accidentally found this magazine.”Dannielle Robertson
“Rock n Roll Bride magazine has actually brought me and my fiancé closer together. He loves reading it too, and we find all sorts of great ideas. It also gives us a lot to think about after reading the real wedding articles. You grow up thinking weddings are a certain way, and that’s just how they are done, but reading Rock n Roll Bride has inspired us to discover that weddings can be whatever we want them to be! The thing I love about it the most is that there is something in there for the men too, as I feel they can be so excluded and removed from this side of marriage. I feel like part of a wider community with Rock n Roll Bride, it’s made wedding planning really fun!”Nicola Burke
One of my favourite things is connecting with you guys on social media and something I hear over and over in our private Facebook group (where we’re about to hit 13,000 members, whhhhaaaat!?) is that there’s a huge lack of non-sucky, non-cheesy, non-eye-roll-inducing bridal t-shirts available. T-shirts that you can wear on your hen do, to wedding shows, getting ready the morning of the big day itself… or maybe even post-wedding to celebrate your new wifed status.
So I did some research, and while occasionally a high street or online store will bring out a wedding tee, if it doesn’t 100% blow (do NOT get me started on the whole ‘shedding for the wedding’ thing!) it will usually sell out faster than you can add it to your cart and checkout. So I knew what I had to do, I needed to design my own!
INTRODUCING: The Rock n Roll Bride t-shirt collection!!!
We are launching with three designs, available on either black or white organic cotton. Each tee is made using fully sustainable fairtrade approved materials and is printed right here in the UK.
These super-duper soft boyfriend-fit t-shirts can be worn by guys or gals and are all available from an XS to an XXL. The sizing is generous. I’m a UK size 12 and I’m wearing a medium in these photos (tied at the back or tucked in, with the sleeves rolled) however I think I’d fit into a small too if I wanted an overall slimmer fit.
You’re a non-conformist in your everyday life, so you should definitely bring that into your wedding too – do your day, your way! This design is available in two colour options….
