If last year is anything to go by then over the next few weeks we are going to have quite a few new readers visiting our Festival Pages, most of which will be sporting a new sparkling ring on their left hands! If you have just got engaged over the Christmas and New Year break and are reading our blog for the first time then welcome to Festival Brides and a massive congratulations on your engagement! I'm sure you are buzzing with a mixture of emotions right now and are probably spending most of your time staring at your ring at every possible moment! Hold on to that engagement high for as long as you can because it is such a lovely and special feeling and one that should be enjoyed for as long as possible - you're going to marry the person you love and I promise that you are going to have a ball when you do! Your wedding day is going to be like no other day you have experienced before - it will be awesome and so much FUN!

So I guess I should tell you a little bit about Festival Brides and how we aim to inspire you with free spirited, festival and bohemian style wedding inspiration and to encourage you (and only you) to plan a wedding that is a reflection on you as a couple and your values and desires on how a wedding should be. Not your families, not your friends.......just yours.

I'm Laura and I'm the founder of Festival Brides (that's me in the picture above on my wedding day. As you can see, I had a blast!) I started Festival Brides in 2011 when Bob and I decided that we would love to put on a mini festival for our wedding. We have always had a huge love for music and spent most of our time either at gigs or at festivals so it seemed like the most natural way to celebrate our marriage. At the time, there was absolutely nothing online about festival style wedding venues, festival wedding suppliers and inspiration on a festival style wedding. Pinterest was still relatively unknown and the blogs that existed were more generic. Finding festival specific wedding inspiration meant trawling through pages and pages of results on google which took up a lot of time and often led to me feeling disheartened and frustrated. I thought that if I was struggling to find festival suppliers and inspiration, then other couples might be too, so Festival Brides was born. 5 years later and the blog has grown into something that I am extremely proud of and very passionate about. We are the only blog in the world that focuses on festival and bohemian style weddings and over the years have built a niche readership of over 100,000 unique readers a month. You've now added to that so thank you so much and I really hope you keep coming back and enjoy reading the blog.

I am also very lucky to have the very cool and the very lovely Clare as part of the Festival Brides team. She joined in 2013 after she planned her wedding in just 9 weeks at one of our woodland venues. I was so impressed by her planning skills that I just had to offer her a job! She is the brains and talent behind our Instagram and Pinterest accounts, our DIY Tutorial posts and our life style posts. She also looks after all of the advertising for Festival Brides so if you are a cool supplier and would like to reach out to our awesome readers then email her for details on how to join.

You can read more about both of our weddings by clicking here and here!

Festival Brides works a bit like an online magazine where each day we bring you new and innovative posts with ideas and inspiration, real weddings, styled shoots, DIY Tutorials and advice to help you plan the best day of your life. We also try to do a weekly bridal style post (usually every Wednesday) as well as interviews throughout the month with our lovely sponsors so you get a chance to meet the people behind the brand before you book. They're the people with adverts to the right of the screen. If you haven't already I would give them all a click because each and every one of them rocks and I genuinely mean that.

On top of all that we run a regular feature every Monday called Independent Love Song where we share with you alternative first dance love songs. This is such a popular feature so definitely check it out. We also do a life style post every fortnight on a Friday called 10 Ways To Make Life Lovely. The aim of this post is to give you a break from all of that wedding planning (as it does get consuming at times) with 10 examples of how you can make your life that little bit lovelier! From trekking in the mountains to sharing a really good article we've read - this post is all about making you feel good. The next one will be on the 15th January so make sure you check it out as it's well worth a read.

Just to give you an idea, a typical week on Festival Brides looks a little bit like this......

Monday - Am: Real Wedding, Pm: Independent Love Song

Tuesday - Styled Shoot/Featured Supplier

Wednesday - Trend/Style Post

Thursday - Inspiration Post/Festival Brides Love

Friday - DIY Tutorial/10 Ways To Make Life Lovely/Advice and Planning Post

If you are searching for something in particular then take a look at our categories which you can find in a drop down menu to the right hand side of the screen, underneath all our lovely sponsors. You can also try typing in keywords into our search bar in the top right hand corner of the site which is pretty good at finding relevant posts.

I mentioned earlier about our awesome Festival Wedding Directory. If you are looking for suppliers then this is the place to start. Our directory is home to the crème de la crème of the wedding festival industry. Any supplier worth their festival wedding salt will be in there so make sure you have a good look through.

If you are looking for a venue then another string to our festival bow is our Venue and Land Hire page. Here you will find some beautiful unique venues that have been specifically hand picked by us for their individuality, quirky style and alternative ethos. We are very proud to be working with such fantastic venues so please do take a look and get in touch with us if you would like to learn more or would like to arrange a viewing. The majority of these venues are exclusive Festival Brides locations which means that if you book, you will have access to some of the best suppliers in the country at discounted prices and can take advantage of our planning services for completely free. We also have 5 new venues joining us in the next month in Kent, Norfolk, Hertfordshire, The Cotswolds and The Yorkshire Dales so if the venue you are searching for isn't listed at the moment, keep checking back as more are joining all the time.

Last but by no means least, to ensure you are kept up to date with all our latest news, inspiration and blog post make sure you follow us on Twitter and Instagram and also like our Facebook Page. We often run competitions across these 3 platforms so it's definitely worth keeping your eye on these. Also, if you haven't already discovered Pinterest then my lovelies, you are about to find wedding inspiration gold! I used Pinterest so much when planning my wedding. It is a fantastic way to collect ideas and also to help explain to other people what you're hoping to achieve. Clare looks after our Pinterest Page and really does do an amazing job of finding cool wedding inspiration. Make sure you follow her here.

So I think that's everything!!!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this post and I really hope you find our blog helpful in planning your wedding.

If you need any advice then please do not hesitate to get in contact as we would love to hear from you.

Oh and 1 last thing. We love to share our readers experiences so if you are planning a festival/outdoor wedding then let us know and maybe you could write about it on our blog? Email me for more details on how you can write for us. Equally, if you are getting married and are having a boho, festival, or outdoor style wedding then don't forget to submit your wedding to us. Real weddings bring so much inspiration to our readers so it would be great to share yours.

All that's left to say now is HAPPY WEDDING PLANNING!

Big Wedding Love

Laura xxx

Please click on the relevant image for it's photography credit and source.

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