Helen Carter Weddings provides bespoke wedding planning throughout London and the South East. We have a wide range of services available, from full wedding co-ordination to venue or supplier sourcing and wedding day management. We’re passionate about creating distinctive and stylish events, and are dedicated to ensuring our clients enjoy a unique, personal and stress-free wedding day.
We love everything to do with weddings, and we’ve created our blog to share advice, ideas and inspiration. We try our very best to credit everything we show both here and on our design boards page. However, if you see something that hasn’t been properly referenced and you know who it belongs to, or you see something that is yours and you would rather it didn’t appear here, please contact us.
Description of this blog.
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Posted in Planning Advice, Wedding Press
It’s always lovely to be asked to put together an article for a magazine, and when You & Your Wedding come knocking, we’d have been foolish to turn down the chance to be part of their £5000 reception challenge feature. However, it must be said that this was one bit of research which really gave the HCW brains (not to mention search engines and telephones) a work out.
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
Posted in HCW News, Planning Advice, Uncategorized, Wedding Press
We were delighted to be invited by Nikki of Knots and Kisses to write a blog post for her new look website. In the post we provided brides (and grooms) -to-be with some basic wedding planning tips to help them conquer the months of planning ahead of them. By kicking off their planning process by allocating a realistic budget for each area of the celebrations and by setting easily achievable targets we show how planning your wedding can be an enjoyable experience rather than a nightmare.
Thanks again to Nikki for giving us the opportunity to share her new site, and we look forward to catching up with the other guest blogs she has lined up for future weeks.
Monday, April 18th, 2011
Posted in Planning Advice, Wedding News
It’s been a busy start to the year here at HCW headquarters and I can’t believe we’re already a quarter of the way through the year! March was a particular highlight for me, with two great weddings (which I’ll be blogging soon), and the Wedding Sanctuary – a unique twist on the traditional wedding fair organised by the UK Alliance of Wedding Planners (UKAWP).
As a UKAWP member I was delighted to be involved in this event, and I was really proud to see how over 20 wedding planners, headed up by one of our lovely directors Kelly with assistance from members Andri and Isabel, came together and used their individual expertise to make it such a success. I’ll be reporting more on my involvement in the Sanctuary over the next week or so, but for now I want to give you a tour of what happened and share some photos from the day.
On arrival at Somerset House guests were greeted with champagne and given their own goody bag, custom-made by the team at The Original Wedding Tea Towel, which included some tasty treats from well-known caterers Table Talk, who also served up some yummy canapes, and delicious cookies from Zoe Clark.
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
Posted in Planning Advice, Wedding News
I think I speak for most wedding planners when I say that one of the best things about our job is having the opportunity to share our advice, experience and ideas with engaged couples. So today I’m really excited to share a very special and inspirational bridal event that’s being organised by the UK Alliance of Wedding Planners (UKAWP), and as a member I’m delighted to be involved.
The Wedding Sanctuary is a unique wedding show being held at the beautiful Somerset House on Sunday 20th March 2011. “Not another wedding fair” I hear you say? Absolutely not! This event has been conceived by wedding planners with the aim of being anything but a wedding fair, and is designed to provide a wealth of inspiration and the best one-on-one planning support that’s available. There will be the opportunity to chat with some of the industry’s top wedding suppliers, get styling ideas for your big day from the inspiration zone, and pick up some insider tips on wedding planning from members of the UKAWP.
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Posted in Planning Advice
A couple of weeks ago I looked at the work of a wedding planner, so I thought it would be a good idea to follow this up with some advice on what to look for if you are thinking about hiring a planner to help you organise your special day.
Choosing the right planner for your wedding isn’t easy. It’s up there with the likes of the venue and the dress, and I personally believe that it’s the single biggest decision you’re going to make when planning your wedding. You are going to be trusting someone with one of the biggest days of your life, and you need to have complete confidence in both their organisational capabilities and their ability to bring your dreams to life. You will also have an incredibly close relationship with your wedding planner (I’ve become good friends with several of my brides), so it’s also important that you feel comfortable talking about your ideas with them, as well as trust their professional judgement.
Now it’s no secret in the industry that over the last few years wedding planners have started popping up all over the place. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it provides more variety and choice for brides and grooms, and it offers a great network and some healthy competition for us planners. However, there are unfortunately a minority of individuals that start up a wedding planning business without any training or realistic idea of what it takes to plan someone’s wedding (it is NOT the same as planning your own!), and this not only gives our industry a bad name but it means that some couples will, sadly, be let down or have a bad experience. So with all the choice available to you, how do you find the wedding planner that’s right for you?
Friday, January 21st, 2011
Posted in Planning Advice
Last week I offered my advice on how to get started with your wedding planning, and as part of my ‘newly engaged’ series today I want to talk about what I actually do on a day-to-day basis. If you’re thinking about whether or not you need a wedding planner, or you know you need help but are worried about handing the arrangements over to a third party, hopefully this will help you make a more informed decision.
Thursday, January 13th, 2011
Posted in Planning Advice
If you were asked the all important question over Christmas or New Year, congratulations! Now is the time when you’re probably getting down to the business of planning your wedding, but no matter how organised you are, or if you’ve secretly been planning this day since you were 5 years old (!), actually being faced with organising one of the biggest days of your life can be a daunting prospect. Where do you start? What should you do first? How do you keep track of everything? Today I’m offering my advice on how to go about getting started with your wedding plans, so if you’re a new bride-to-be read on for some top tips to help you on your way.
Thursday, November 11th, 2010
Posted in Planning Advice, Top Tips
If you’re having a mixture of sponge and fruit cakes for your wedding cake, make sure that the fruit layer is used for the bottom tier(s). Fruit cake is heavy, and you risk your cake collapsing completely if you try and stack it on top of sponge layers.
Monday, October 11th, 2010
Posted in Planning Advice
Autumn is a great time to get married – an explosion of vibrant colours, coupled with harvest festivals and Halloween are all great inspiration for styling a wedding. It’s also outside of peak wedding season, so you may well save a fair bit of money on venue hire.
However, autumn is also one of the most unpredictable times in terms of weather. Now I know in this country you can’t really guarantee the weather at any time of year, but autumn is perhaps more mixed than most – one day you’re enjoying warm rays of sunshine, and the next you’re digging out the winter woollies and waterproof boots.
So what do you do to make sure that our fickle climate doesn’t spoil your special day?
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Posted in Planning Advice, Top Tips
If one of you has a significantly larger family than the other, avoid the traditional ‘bride’s guests on the left and groom’s guests on the right’ seating arrangements for the ceremony as it will look unbalanced in your photographs. Instead, ask your guests to sit on either side of the aisle and have the traditional split seating just for the wedding party.
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
Posted in Planning Advice, Top Tips
Keep children occupied during the wedding breakfast by providing them with fun activity packs. Include items such as colouring books, pencils, stickers, puzzles and bubbles.
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Posted in Planning Advice, Top Tips
Make the most of your budget by re-using flower arrangements from the ceremony at the reception. Pew ends can be used to decorate staircases or tied onto the back of chairs for the wedding breakfast, whilst altar or ceremony table arrangements can be used to decorate a long top table or mantelpiece.