#genuinely thanks so much to everyone who played/tagged me when they used the template

[icouldhyperfixatehim]

BINGO ROUND UP

a GL & a disabled MC: pluto!! we got one gang!! i'm just so pleased that we're making some headway on GL being regularly scheduled as part of their production rotation as it should be <3 i will say that the plot of this one wouldn't be doing it for me if it weren't GL, and whacks of nicholas sparks a bit more than is usually my taste. BUT things change over production, and i'm more than willing to be surprised!! interesting that they're opting for another disabled lead specifically w/blindness. i'm still scared but hopeful about their engagement w disability generally, and i do think it's cool that they're not portioning out intersections to their own shows to be the ~ focal issues ~ . it bodes well i think, and i'm really buzzing to see namtan and film's dynamic.

big shock pairing to make me rub my hands together like a fly: my golden blood come collect your trophy!! also putting a dent on main role for fluke and speculative element series, this has me absolutely fucking roided with anticipation lmao. it looks bananas, and chancey, and like the people making it are determined to do so with fun and camp, which is my favourite way to see a project made. i love that as well as unbranded, fluke has managed to stay role flexible enough that he can slide into this fantasy damsel space, and i'm gagging to see it all. maybe he'll wear something white and billowing and dashed with blood, gmmtv seems to be in the spirit of granting wishes w this one.

there seemed to be some rivals to lovers edged stuff, but not in the flavours i wanted so i left it uncircled. also disappointed by the lack of girl violence...that friend vs friend/school gang series could have been fun if it'd been girls in ripped fishnets with bats but i digress.

2024 for 23.5 is not the series of numbers i wanted to write, and no final trailer. and also barely any milk!! she was only on stage the once and not for something i'm interested in, so i'm chalking that up to tragedy. but she looked fucking smashing today, so i'll just have to fold up her event portrait in a locket or smth

congrats to the enigma fans [weeps in midnight museum]

i'm frustrated by how much leaning is being done on remakes, even just because being tagged in so many people's bingo i see how many cool, original ideas there are out there, and it just makes me gag in corporate to see this laziness. i wanted to watch whatever the gemfourth offering was bc i liked them so much in moonlight chicken, but i'll probably be giving their kieta hatsukoi a miss. i've never seen ossan's love, and getting a last dance with mix was on my list so i'll probably give it a go but i'm still miffed about it

i got monkeys pawed on the fighting and stunts bc none of it (except the camp acrobatics of my golden blood) seems like my flavour. alas alack

and a campy comedic role for my girl jan in the other drama to hit my spec fic box!! just like UMG, peaceful property on sale (not 100% sure on the title) looks like exactly my bag. i'm indifferent to whether it's actually BL, but thrilled that tay will be there. i can't think of anyone better to play the guy that can see ghosts, given his huge irl superstitious dramatics and easy goosing. this show is going to be so fun, and i think i might have even spotted a similar ghost-makeup style to what they used in something in my room? i'm so looking forward to this one, and it's so rude of them to tease me with it in october of all times, and not give it to me immediately.

overall, hits, misses, dodgy singing. thanks to everyone who played bingo with me, you all have beautiful creative minds and i hope anyone who had a bingNO this time gets a better part 2 <33

[closetofanxiety]

Fyter Fest: SUCCESS

I liked this show a lot! Not everything was to my taste, but there was plenty to enjoy. Briefly:

* The Cody vs. Darby Allin match was one of the best wrestling matches I’ve seen in 2019. The crowd was a little subdued for long stretches of it, perhaps being accustomed to more of a flashy style, but I loved the whole thing. Cody, who liked like a giant compared to Allin, was trying to wrestle and old-school (dare I say, Southern) style match, while Allin was trying to shift it to a more familiar indie style, which would be to his advantage. It was a genuine collision of two different approaches to wrestling, and it worked incredibly well. Darby took at least two completely insane bumps I’ve never seen anyone do, and after one of them, Cody contemptuously did push-ups in the ring. THAT’S GOOD OLD SCHOOL VILLAINY. I also loved that this was a time-limit draw, another old school story device. Neither guy lost any face in the match, and the crowd was still excited by the end, which they timed very well (Cody hit his finisher with two seconds left, and thus couldn’t get the three-count). Cody, derided in his initial indie run as “The Three-Star General” for his supposedly pedestrian matches, has stolen the show on both AEW events so far. 

* I did not love the post-match run-in by Shawn Spears! Without getting into any of the piping hot takes about unprotected chair shots, I thought it pulled focus from the great wrestling match that just happened, with Darby Allin being turned into kind of an afterthought. I get that they need to advance storylines and right now they don’t have weekly TV to do that, but this felt almost Russo-esque. 

* The Moxley-Janela match was really good! Going into it, I wondered how much different an AEW hardcore match was going to be from the WWE template. Like, would they go full indie and have shopping carts and pizza graters and barbecue skewers? The answer is no: we didn’t see any items in this match that would be outside the bounds of a WWE match (except maybe the barbed wire), but it was how the two wrestlers used them that made the difference. The barbed wire spots were wince-inducing without being truly gruesome, the tables were swiftly destroyed, and the barefoot thumbtacks spot at the end was a stroke of sadistic genius. What a first match for Moxley in AEW!

* The women’s triple threat match was a little sloppy at parts, but the whole thing was redeemed by Nyla Rose totally playing against type down the stretch and hitting a truly insane flying guillotine knee drop from the top turnbuckle. She then snapped off a truly brutal German suplex to solidify her status as the early badass of AEW. Yuka Sakazaki and Riho looked a little out of step a few times, but mostly they did well in the role of competitors who also have to compete against the monster opponent. 

* One thing AEW has managed to do well so far is put on three and four-way matches that don’t get bogged down the way they do so often in other companies. You know: there’s a three-way match and invariably one person spends most of it outside the ring, effectively turning into a two-person match with occasional run-ins. In the women’s match and in the four-way, AEW’s agents managed to produce matches that actually felt like all the competitors were involved throughout the course of the contests. The four-way was particularly good, and should go a fair distance toward making Jungle Boy a breakout star in the company. He’s got a great look, he’s got unique offense, and his friendship with giant dinosaur man Luchasaurus is the stuff of a marketer’s dreams. 

* The six-man tag was fine. I know this is going to sound like I’m complaining that a buffet is too good, but I think I’m full up on matches pitting the Young Bucks against the Lucha Bros for a while. They’re fun, they involve incredible athleticism and exhibitions of timing and skill, but you know what to expect. The bright spot of the match for me was the underappreciated luchador Laredo Kid, who got a lot of quality time as the Lucha Bros’ partner. 

* I really did not like the pre-show. The three-way tag match was very good, and I was really happy to see people online reacting with astonishment at Private Party. Those guys are fantastic, and they’re so young. They’re only going to get better. Everything after that match was extremely not my thing. I appreciate they’re trying to do something different with the comedy, and it’s going to be important for them to have something that connects with non-wrestling fans or wrestling-curious fans who aren’t going to want to watch two hours of matches every week. And I certainly don’t expect a company that has two shows under its belt to have a foolproof formula in place. But if they’re going to do comedy, they should really hire actual comedy writers, as much as the idea of writers has become a taboo in non-WWE wrestling. The jokes were flat and most of them centered around the Fyre Fest documentaries, which are really yesterday’s news at this point. 

* The librarian thing really died a death with the crowd. I don’t watch Being the Elite or The Road to, so I missed the explanation for this gimmick, but it does not come across well. The constant shushing is so bad it feels almost avant-garde after a while, like it’s actively confrontational with the audience over our expectations for a wrestling show. Then Leva Bates cut a heel promo in defense of books and I wanted to check out. Her match with Allie was decent for a match on a Shine midcard, but Leva’s limitations as a wrestler are pretty much what they’ve always been. The match ended with a totally blown spot that was supposed to be the pay off for the whole “the librarians love books” thing. Terrible.

* I hated the last pre-show match. Every once in a while, you’ll see a super local indie show where one of the sponsors gets to “wrestle,” usually meaning the crowd is treated to the owner of a car dealership standing on the apron for most of a tag match, until getting the chance to throw a weak clothesline and cover a hated midcard baddie for the three count. AEW, though, decided they should do that same thing but with the non-wrestler sponsor being put in a 10-minute hardcore match. I’m sure some people liked this. I am not among them. This match inadvertently featured the gnarliest spot of the night (until the Darby Allin coffin drop onto the edge of the apron JESUS DARBY WHAT ARE YOU THINKING DO YOU WANT TO DIE YOU HAVE A LOVING SLEAZY WEIRDO SPOUSE PLEASE THINK OF HER) when the fighting games convention organizer guy did a German suplex that dumped Nakazawa directly on his neck. Thank God Japanese wrestling training involves constant neck bridges! This is why super local indies only let the sponsor guys throw a weak clothesline: because they know that non-wrestlers doing wrestling moves endangers everyone’s safety. 

* Other things: Commentary seemed to be markedly better for the most part, thanks to the addition of “Goldenboy” who might be a video game person? (sorry video game people I am no use here) ... JR is really straying into Grampa Gaffes territory with his praise of “Oriental” wrestlers and blurting out that the women wrestlers all seem like his daughters ... the camera direction still needs work, with the director missing a number of big spots ... Kenny Omega running in to pummel Moxley after the final match was good stuff ... the Super Smash Brothers’ “Dark Order” thing is treading perilously close to Black Scorpion territory ... this was just shy of four hours, counting the pre-show, and I found myself wanting more when it was over ... a friend was over watching with me and we found ourselves yelling at the screen in a way we haven’t done with televised wrestling in a long time 

[jacktherph]

Hi, Jack! We are a new murder mystery roleplay inspired by A Series of Unfortunate Events with new plot twists and characters. We would love some feedback. May we please have an opinion? Please, feel free to take as much time as you need. Thank you so much! We really appreciate it!

hi there @unfortunate-rp​! i’m happy to give you an opinion. since you didn’t specify private, i will post this on my blog. feel free to ask me to take it down if that was a mistake.

NOTE: all opinions expressed here are mine, jack’s, belonging to jack. i make no claims to knowing what is best for every group – i only offer advice based on my experiences, what i’ve seen in the community, and my personal knowledge. no one person knows what is best for you or any group other than yourself; because you were the one who put all of this together in the first place. so take everything i say as a suggestion, and remember that you have accomplished so much!!

and if you have any questions, want feedback on something specific, or want elaborations on anything said in this opinion, don’t hesitate to message me!!

this isn’t just an opinion, it’s a shoutout and a rec!! any fans of the asoue book series &/or recent netflix adaptation will adore this rpg. it perfectly captures everything snicket was about from beginning to end and the skeletons are frankly fucking amazing. what a creative admin team!! 

start: 2.30 | pause: none | end: 2.58TOTAL: HERE 28 minutes to read all pages (please don’t take this as a measure of anything, I simply time myself and am a speed reader)

*spelling error on /uptown: Mureau Cinema -- Christmas

So the first thing I’m going to say before I go into the full details of each page and contents and such is that I have one big recommendation: finding a way to adjust your line height in your code. The common theme I ran into while reading all of your pages is that after a while my eyes would gloss over certain sentences because I thought I was reading each line but they were too bunched together. Because you have such beautiful pages with so much information to give to your members, this is super important. If you’d like me to see if I can find that part of your code for you, feel free to IM me at any time and I’ll be happy to help.

My first impression of everything is a big fat fucking WOW. From the pages to the graphics to even the way you word things I feel like I’ve been transported back to that dreadfully delightful macabre world Snicket created for me as a child. I don’t know if you’ve been given proper praise for that yet but if you haven’t you certainly deserve it. You have a functional and helpful theme that works for what you need from it and your design of everything is both simple and artistic at the same time. When you have a new acceptance posted the dual ember gifs make it feel like there’s a lot going on but it’s not consistent, with too many repeated or flashing gifs, and so there’s not anything you need to do to change that in my opinion. It just tends to happen with graphics that use the same images. Really though, please feel extremely accomplished about the tone and theme you set on your main. I’ve never gotten more of an impression of what an rpg is about by one glance than I do here.

Your Plot is astounding. Disregarding the fact that you wrote it just like Snicket, I think this is one of the most original fandom concepts I’ve seen in some time. This was the perfect story to be able to take away from the canon and still keep it within the realm of possibility. I’m actually really glad you did this so well because this way people can still have all of the fun of the storyline and plots and not have to worry about the possibility of “playing a canon character wrong” or trying to fit it into the canon of the books/show.

I’ll sort of go into all of your lore pages as a whole rather than go through every single page? Because the love and dedication you’ve taken to ensure potential members and your members have everything they need in order to work within the worldbuilding of your group. I can seriously appreciate that as an admin of a group with a ton of lore, myself. That you go into so much detail on the locations pages and everything about VFD, you make it so your main is the one-stop shop for information rather than asking people to go elsewhere like a wikia page and I’m gonna shout my praises to you for that!

So your Guidelines are something I’m a little iffy on -- and I’m gonna say this is honestly the only thing I really find debatable about your rpg. The very nature of the ASOUE series was about children being involved in all of the gruesome stuff that comes with being an adult; so in that I can see why you allow writers of any age. But you also have content warnings such as smut, violence, drugs, and etc. and state that the roleplay itself will have mature themes and contents. So that being said, I have two moral issues: allowing members under 18 and the playing of characters who are minors. Generally I’m against playing characters who are minors of any kind. That results in using FCs who are minors and yes, while they are celebrities, it gives the potential for undue associations with the child star. Have you considered possibly keeping children out of the RPG except for in the case of mentioned NPCs? Regarding the “members under 18” bit, honestly that one isn’t as much of a big deal so long as your members are tagging and using read-mores where and when needed, but i’ll include that it will deter a certain number of people from joining your group. I’m not telling you to change anything -- but these are things I think you should maybe think about and consider adding changes to?

Your Skeletons and Faceclaims are so widely wonderful and diverse. You have such a wide range of trans characters and I always look for that in RPGs. But you’re also extremely body positive and age positive as well. This is what the faceclaim page of every rpg should look like, so applause for you. I only looked at a few of your skeletons to get a feel for them, but from what I did look at each one is unique in their own way and you have done an impressive job weaving them in with not only one another but the story. Each one has an important role to play and none feel like they’re just there for any sort of token points. You must have put a lot of work into this and you admin/s need to recognize that this immense amount of creativity is brilliantly impressive.

Personally, I think all you need to do is link to your skeleton page with the filters, rather than having a whole page with links that bring people to the tags the filters divide by, but that is more of a suggestion and if you find what you have works for you then there’s nothing more to be said. As for the images on the skeleton page: you obviously make them fit better with the psd/texture, which I like, but some of them still stick out in their brightness. Maybe go back and look at them and dim some of them individually or try to get them with a matching color hue to make them seem a little more uniform?? But the distinction between npcs and skeletons with the monochrome is great.

Overall your graphics match very well!! Your character template is perfect for the vibe and the psd you have on your images ensures they all look very uniform and put-together. The sidebar gif on the homepage feels a little left out compared to the rest, though? I don’t know if you have a lot of history working with gif editing but either changing the size, adding the psd, or adding a little SOMETHING to it might make it seem a little less “floating on it’s own in a void” in your sidebar.

Your Applications, both of them, are very well thought out and you definitely ask for everything that I can see being necessary in this group. Some in the community are against fully fleshed out apps like this but those who see your group and see the effort in your applications should feel inspired with everything that they answer!! You even provide links for them in helping find occupations and such, and that’s going above and beyond. My one thing is…. Why are both applications on bright white backgrounds and not set as pages of your main? It’s just confusing to me, nothing big. And the white sort of startles me after looking at your darker-colored pages for such a long time.

My FAVORITE THING about your rpg: the complete-ness of it all. I genuinely cannot think of one thing I would like to see here, information or rpg-wise, that would help me as a potential member understand your rpg better. You obviously put so much work into everything here and I could not be more thrilled. As the story goes on you might add more pages or such but for an rpg that hasn’t opened yet (at the time I’m writing this) there is NOTHING that needs adding, in my opinion.

My LEAST FAVORITE THING about your rpg: I’m… struggling to find something, but I guess if I had to pick it would be the layout of your applications -- how they exist on a white page rather than within a page on your main. It’s just slightly jarring to go from all that darkness to a bright white page. Think about putting them as pages on your theme and honestly you’re good to go??

OVERALL this is probably one of the best examples of a put-together skeleton and bio rpg I’ve ever seen. Like, I don’t even know anything about the series beyond the show and I had to stop myself from joining while writing this opinion. Even if someone knows nothing about the fandom they could be coaxed to join after just taking a few minutes to look at everything you’ve put together and provided for people. You didn’t leave anything I could think of out and included more than I would have thought if I were the one putting this rpg together. The fact that you may have done this solo stuns me even more. This is an rpg everyone should check out because it has everything people are looking for: diversity, depth, a well-formed plot, and the potential to last for some time with the right cast and crew behind it.

Well fucking done.

Sincerely,Jack

[blancagriswold]

Real Weddings: Happy Anniversary – Tammy and Dan’s 1950’s Americana Wedding

Todays Real Wedding is a throwback as it is Tammy and Dans anniversary! Today I saw a massive vintage american car and it just reminded me of this amazing wedding that we featured last March.  I absolutely adored it.  Seen at it is the New Year, I thought I would take a little look back on a firm favourite of 2016, and here it is.  Tammy and Dan’s 1950’s Americana Wedding.  Its just superb! And not just because it was shot by our very own Maria Farrelly!

So without further ado, you’re about to be overloaded with inspiration! Enjoy!

I’ve been looking forward to sharing this wedding for AGES!

As well as running Cwtch The Bride, some of you many not realise I’m also a professional photographer. This here blog was initially a little side project for me which has now snowballed into Wales’ best wedding blog EEK! Anyhow, besides having a great team now working with me on this blog, I still photograph weddings. And the one I’m sharing with you today is flipping awesome!

I had the privilege of photographing Tammy & Dan’s 1950’s Americana style wedding last July and hand on heart, it was probably one of my all time favourites! It had everything I love about a great wedding. An awesome Welsh venue, wonderful friends and family, loads of laughter, fabulous music, drinks flowing and bucket loads of love.

So grab yourself a cuppa, get comfy and enjoy!

Oh…and before I forget… this brave couple commissioned me to return the morning after and photograph all their guests hungover (some of which hadn’t slept!). it was great fun and i’ll be sharing those images with you all tomorrow morning! don’t miss that, they are hilarious!

Lets hand you over to the beautiful bride Tammy to tell you all about her awesome wedding!

Maria x

All images by Maria Farrelly Photography

What was your budget? 

Our budget was whatever we could save over 3 years including any gift money from Christmas & birthdays, think it amounted to £20,000 which included our dream honeymoon. It was hard work trying to be strict and save but totally worth it the end and not without a lot of help from family too!How would you describe your wedding theme?

50’s Rock & Roll with a splash of Americana :) We love America (especially Florida) and the closest available date for the venue we wanted was 4th July – Independence Day… how could we not add some American touches to the theme :) We had sparklers and chocolate pretzels for the favours and went all out with American style food such as hot dogs, pulled pork, sweet potatoes and waffles with syrup and ice cream for dessert.What was your favourite part of your wedding?

My favourite part of the wedding was walking out as Mrs Hagerty back down the aisle and halfway down realising it wasn’t a CD playing ‘All You Need Is Love’… it was a surprise full brass band booked by my father in law and to top it off one of our groomsmen Nathan was singing along with Scott on the drums who plays in a band with Dan – ‘Eric Unseen’. The BTM Brass band sounded amazing and technically our first dance ended up being straight after the ceremony right there in the aisle.

Tell us about your Wedding Dress

I saw a dress in a wedding magazine that was a short 1950’s style with lace sleeves, the dress was by Ellis Bridal. I wanted to get my dress from the same place that my best friend Kate got hers as they were always very friendly, Sentiments in Bridgend. I heard that Sentiments had a trunk show for Ellis Bridal so booked myself an appointment. The dress that I wanted to try on wasn’t there so I tried on a beautiful fishtail version of the dress and it just suited my curvy figure so well! I tried on plenty of other dresses including shorter styles and as fab as they all were I knew the fishtail style was the one and still in keeping with the 50’s style. Lots of people commented on my look being very Priscilla Presley which I was over the moon about! Who did you pick as your bridesmaids &/or best man and why?

We had 6 Bridesmaids and 6 Groomsmen.All of them crazy in their own way and we loved having our best friends, sisters and brother by our side! Dan couldn’t choose just one best man so he had two … Carl & Rickwood, I think they are now taking bookings as compares! They really were a double act on the day and kept everyone entertained.As for the bridesmaids they really helped me keep calm getting ready and then once their duties were done got up to their usual antics including photo bombing our professional pictures haha!

Why did you choose your venue?

We really wanted a barn venue, and once we saw the Barn at Brynich with its beautiful on site cottages we knew we didn’t need to look any further. The team at Brynich were brilliant, especially Simon who really looked after us from start to finish of the wedding planning and made sure the day ran smoothly! Having the venue for the full weekend was perfect as we really got to make the most of spending time with the family and had plenty of help the day before with making sure everything was set up! The sunday after the wedding was then time to unwind laugh and reflect! Oh and take morning after shots of the bridal party just for the fun of it! :)Tell us about your photographer

Our photographer was Maria Farrelly, I was at a wedding fayre in the Millennium Centre (Cardiff) and after seeing quite a few portfolios I came across her stand and knew that I needed to book her straight away! The work on her displays and portfolios were the exact style I was after and after speaking with Maria, she was so lovely and genuinely excited about our ideas so far!

I think after the venue, Maria was the next big tick off the list as it was so important to us that we had a great photographer. We are so happy with how the pictures turned out! Every moment was captured!

How did the proposal happen? 

Dan took me to Cardiff bay to where he had asked me out 5 years prior, he was so nervous and I was just thinking about what steak I was going to have in Cafe Rouge… then he popped the question! I was over the moon and ended up too overwhelmed to eat my food!The following week we jetted off to Venice which was absolutely amazing! No cars from the moment we got off the plane, it was just fascinating.

Any DIY stories/tutorials you’d like to share?

As we both love music we had an idea for a lyric aisle backdrop to hang from the ceiling to the floor and with flowers either side. It would have been too expensive to have real flowers but thanks to ebay there’s always an option to re-create a similar look cheaper. The end result looked fab!I also made my own american style menu with vintage pictures of celebrities stuffing their faces! The idea just popped into my head and it may have taken me a couple of hours to create it but it looked fun and quirky on the tables. We bought lots of sparklers on ebay and then used a template on Pinterest to print out and use as sparkler tags. Its definitely worth seeing what you can find online if you are trying to stick to a budget as all these little things could add up!

What was your first dance & why?

Our first dance song was Elvis Presley ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’… its one of our favourite songs and we didn’t want anything too modern. Even though its a slow tempo song, everyone loved to join in swaying around the dance floor and singing the song at the top of their voices :)In hindsight, was there anything you would have done differently?

I do wish we had more video footage of the day but our budget couldn’t have stretched any further. We have had a few video’s sent to us of the brass band surprise, our first dance and lots of our friends at the end of the night singing in the tipi around the campfire so we will be putting it all together and make our own video mixed in with some of the amazing photo’s we have from the day.

Do you have any advice for future couples?

As much as I love Pinterest, try to remember what is unique to you as a couple and how you can incorporate it in to your day. The little things really do pay off! Once all the handwork has been done upfront, when it comes to the actual day… what’s done is done and what isn’t, you just need to forget about! The most important thing is getting married with all your loved one’s surrounding you.I had bought a lovely personalised cake topper but when we were decorating the tipi the day prior it had gotten lost… still haven’t found it to this day so I am glad I didn’t spend any time stressing out about it on the wedding day.

What’s the best piece of marriage advice you received?

Never go to sleep without resolving an argument :) What was your favourite thing about planning a wedding?

Our favourite thing of planning the wedding was shopping for the last bits and pieces like table decor, balloons, bunting and sweets!

The Suppliers

Photographer: Maria Farrelly Ceremony Venue:The Barn at Brynich  Reception Venue:Wedding Tipi (Placed at Barn at Brynich)  Bride’s Dress:Sentiments Bridal   Bride’s Shoes: Schuh  Bride’s Headpiece: Veil by EnVogue and Flower Crown by The Flower Shop Bride’s Jewellery: wedding ring handmade from Etsy Groom’s Outfit: Next and Mrs Bowtie  Bridesmaid’s Dresses: JJ’s House (online) Cake: By my bridesmaid’s aunty :) Flowers: The Flower shop Hay On Wye inc my flower crown Hair: Bella’s Hair Boutique – Styled by Jess Davies (A friend) Make Up: Amy at Dollybirds Beauty  Band: Jammy and the dodgers – go see them at The Brewhouse  DJ: None – We hired a jukebox  Stationery: Be Our Guest (Etsy) Caterers: Five Star Chef  Any Reception Decor/Props: Bunting & Balloons – Not on the high street/hobbycraft , favours – ebay , pretzels – Holland & Barrett Other:Ceremony Band – BTM Brass Band

Our Wedding Album

Liked this? You might also like these! :)

Tammy and Dan’s 1950’s Americana Wedding at The Barn at Brynich by Maria Farrelly

The Morning After The Wedding. By Maria Farrelly Photography

Easter Flash Sale: 50% off Cwtchfest Tickets!

Valentines Day Offer: 50% off CWTCHFEST Tickets

Real Wedding: Aled & Caroline by Smith Imaging

The post Real Weddings: Happy Anniversary – Tammy and Dan’s 1950’s Americana Wedding appeared first on Cwtch The Bride.

[blancagriswold]

Real Weddings: A 2016 Favorite – Tammy and Dan’s 1950’s Americana Wedding

Todays Real Wedding is a throwback one. Today I saw a massive vintage american car and it just reminded me of this amazing wedding that we featured last March.  I absolutely adored it.  Seen at it is the New Year, I thought I would take a little look back on a firm favourite of 2016, and here it is.  Tammy and Dan’s 1950’s Americana Wedding.  Its just superb! And not just because it was shot by our very own Maria Farrelly!

So without further ado, you’re about to be overloaded with inspiration! Enjoy!

I’ve been looking forward to sharing this wedding for AGES!

As well as running Cwtch The Bride, some of you many not realise I’m also a professional photographer. This here blog was initially a little side project for me which has now snowballed into Wales’ best wedding blog EEK! Anyhow, besides having a great team now working with me on this blog, I still photograph weddings. And the one I’m sharing with you today is flipping awesome!

I had the privilege of photographing Tammy & Dan’s 1950’s Americana style wedding last July and hand on heart, it was probably one of my all time favourites! It had everything I love about a great wedding. An awesome Welsh venue, wonderful friends and family, loads of laughter, fabulous music, drinks flowing and bucket loads of love.

So grab yourself a cuppa, get comfy and enjoy!

Oh…and before I forget… this brave couple commissioned me to return the morning after and photograph all their guests hungover (some of which hadn’t slept!). it was great fun and i’ll be sharing those images with you all tomorrow morning! don’t miss that, they are hilarious!

Lets hand you over to the beautiful bride Tammy to tell you all about her awesome wedding!

Maria x

All images by Maria Farrelly Photography

What was your budget? 

Our budget was whatever we could save over 3 years including any gift money from Christmas & birthdays, think it amounted to £20,000 which included our dream honeymoon. It was hard work trying to be strict and save but totally worth it the end and not without a lot of help from family too!How would you describe your wedding theme?

50’s Rock & Roll with a splash of Americana :) We love America (especially Florida) and the closest available date for the venue we wanted was 4th July – Independence Day… how could we not add some American touches to the theme :) We had sparklers and chocolate pretzels for the favours and went all out with American style food such as hot dogs, pulled pork, sweet potatoes and waffles with syrup and ice cream for dessert.What was your favourite part of your wedding?

My favourite part of the wedding was walking out as Mrs Hagerty back down the aisle and halfway down realising it wasn’t a CD playing ‘All You Need Is Love’… it was a surprise full brass band booked by my father in law and to top it off one of our groomsmen Nathan was singing along with Scott on the drums who plays in a band with Dan – ‘Eric Unseen’. The BTM Brass band sounded amazing and technically our first dance ended up being straight after the ceremony right there in the aisle.

Tell us about your Wedding Dress

I saw a dress in a wedding magazine that was a short 1950’s style with lace sleeves, the dress was by Ellis Bridal. I wanted to get my dress from the same place that my best friend Kate got hers as they were always very friendly, Sentiments in Bridgend. I heard that Sentiments had a trunk show for Ellis Bridal so booked myself an appointment. The dress that I wanted to try on wasn’t there so I tried on a beautiful fishtail version of the dress and it just suited my curvy figure so well! I tried on plenty of other dresses including shorter styles and as fab as they all were I knew the fishtail style was the one and still in keeping with the 50’s style. Lots of people commented on my look being very Priscilla Presley which I was over the moon about! Who did you pick as your bridesmaids &/or best man and why?

We had 6 Bridesmaids and 6 Groomsmen.All of them crazy in their own way and we loved having our best friends, sisters and brother by our side! Dan couldn’t choose just one best man so he had two … Carl & Rickwood, I think they are now taking bookings as compares! They really were a double act on the day and kept everyone entertained.As for the bridesmaids they really helped me keep calm getting ready and then once their duties were done got up to their usual antics including photo bombing our professional pictures haha!

Why did you choose your venue?

We really wanted a barn venue, and once we saw the Barn at Brynich with its beautiful on site cottages we knew we didn’t need to look any further. The team at Brynich were brilliant, especially Simon who really looked after us from start to finish of the wedding planning and made sure the day ran smoothly! Having the venue for the full weekend was perfect as we really got to make the most of spending time with the family and had plenty of help the day before with making sure everything was set up! The sunday after the wedding was then time to unwind laugh and reflect! Oh and take morning after shots of the bridal party just for the fun of it! :)Tell us about your photographer

Our photographer was Maria Farrelly, I was at a wedding fayre in the Millennium Centre (Cardiff) and after seeing quite a few portfolios I came across her stand and knew that I needed to book her straight away! The work on her displays and portfolios were the exact style I was after and after speaking with Maria, she was so lovely and genuinely excited about our ideas so far!

I think after the venue, Maria was the next big tick off the list as it was so important to us that we had a great photographer. We are so happy with how the pictures turned out! Every moment was captured!

How did the proposal happen? 

Dan took me to Cardiff bay to where he had asked me out 5 years prior, he was so nervous and I was just thinking about what steak I was going to have in Cafe Rouge… then he popped the question! I was over the moon and ended up too overwhelmed to eat my food!The following week we jetted off to Venice which was absolutely amazing! No cars from the moment we got off the plane, it was just fascinating.

Any DIY stories/tutorials you’d like to share?

As we both love music we had an idea for a lyric aisle backdrop to hang from the ceiling to the floor and with flowers either side. It would have been too expensive to have real flowers but thanks to ebay there’s always an option to re-create a similar look cheaper. The end result looked fab!I also made my own american style menu with vintage pictures of celebrities stuffing their faces! The idea just popped into my head and it may have taken me a couple of hours to create it but it looked fun and quirky on the tables. We bought lots of sparklers on ebay and then used a template on Pinterest to print out and use as sparkler tags. Its definitely worth seeing what you can find online if you are trying to stick to a budget as all these little things could add up!

What was your first dance & why?

Our first dance song was Elvis Presley ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’… its one of our favourite songs and we didn’t want anything too modern. Even though its a slow tempo song, everyone loved to join in swaying around the dance floor and singing the song at the top of their voices :)In hindsight, was there anything you would have done differently?

I do wish we had more video footage of the day but our budget couldn’t have stretched any further. We have had a few video’s sent to us of the brass band surprise, our first dance and lots of our friends at the end of the night singing in the tipi around the campfire so we will be putting it all together and make our own video mixed in with some of the amazing photo’s we have from the day.

Do you have any advice for future couples?

As much as I love Pinterest, try to remember what is unique to you as a couple and how you can incorporate it in to your day. The little things really do pay off! Once all the handwork has been done upfront, when it comes to the actual day… what’s done is done and what isn’t, you just need to forget about! The most important thing is getting married with all your loved one’s surrounding you.I had bought a lovely personalised cake topper but when we were decorating the tipi the day prior it had gotten lost… still haven’t found it to this day so I am glad I didn’t spend any time stressing out about it on the wedding day.

What’s the best piece of marriage advice you received?

Never go to sleep without resolving an argument :) What was your favourite thing about planning a wedding?

Our favourite thing of planning the wedding was shopping for the last bits and pieces like table decor, balloons, bunting and sweets!

The Suppliers

Photographer: Maria Farrelly Ceremony Venue:The Barn at Brynich  Reception Venue:Wedding Tipi (Placed at Barn at Brynich)  Bride’s Dress:Sentiments Bridal   Bride’s Shoes: Schuh  Bride’s Headpiece: Veil by EnVogue and Flower Crown by The Flower Shop Bride’s Jewellery: wedding ring handmade from Etsy Groom’s Outfit: Next and Mrs Bowtie  Bridesmaid’s Dresses: JJ’s House (online) Cake: By my bridesmaid’s aunty :) Flowers: The Flower shop Hay On Wye inc my flower crown Hair: Bella’s Hair Boutique – Styled by Jess Davies (A friend) Make Up: Amy at Dollybirds Beauty  Band: Jammy and the dodgers – go see them at The Brewhouse  DJ: None – We hired a jukebox  Stationery: Be Our Guest (Etsy) Caterers: Five Star Chef  Any Reception Decor/Props: Bunting & Balloons – Not on the high street/hobbycraft , favours – ebay , pretzels – Holland & Barrett Other:Ceremony Band – BTM Brass Band

Our Wedding Album

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Tammy and Dan’s 1950’s Americana Wedding at The Barn at Brynich by Maria Farrelly

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