Oh the bliss! After a day of racing around London (with way too much baggage & very long arms) I entered the serene & stylish haven that is the Johanna Hehir bridal boutique on Chiltern Street last night.

I utterly adore Jo’s work, as you can tell by the fact that she’s already part of the ‘who I love’ section. In her own words, her signature style is clean, unfussy and classic with romantic detailing using the best quality European silks and laces.

Needless to say, Jo is widely recognised as one of the UK’s most innovative and talented designers.

Drumrolling it please: the most fantastic news for all of those who have to be a little more creative with their budgets –  and let’s face it, don’t we all these days.

Johanna’s new diffusion collection Mae by Johanne Hehir is, again in her own words, a range of fresh, feminine dresses that will appeal to the modern bride looking for a simple yet flattering cut at an affordable price. They will retail between £1,000 and £1,500, which from what I saw yesterday is insanely good value.

But why take my word for it – here are just a few of the preview snaps I took last night.

For more imagery, keep an eye on:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Johanna-Hehir/104379076268700

There is of course also the ‘mothership’:

www.johanna-hehir.com

And to the wonderful Jo (you insanely talented gal) and the delicious Hayley (PR queen par excellence – LOVING your new business cards, Doll), a mahousive thank you for having me. I had the most fabulous evening and am still swooning over all things Mae. Can you please persuade Mr b&g to renew our vows so I can wear one of your simply stunning dresses?

Love, love, love,

– A

The 'mothership' on Chiltern Street in Marylebone.

Elegant yet playful.

Two of my favourite backs.

Aren't they simply stunning?

This gorgeous couple is especially close to my heart because I got almost a year to get to know them – albeit from thousands of miles away. They were living in Bangkok at the time and needed some on-the-ground help over here to plan their wedding(s) back home. Plenty of Skype and huge hugs when we met in person, at last.

I had asked them for a testimonial for a while – now I understand why it took a few months. The time, care and consideration that has gone into writing this is simply humbling and I’m truly grateful. I always ask the bride&glory couples to tell me what they liked and disliked about the way I work – it’s the only way to improve. The testimonial below is precisely what helps me to  do that and, if you want bride&glory in a nutshell, this is it.

So in their own words - Louise & Steve:

It’s hard to know where to begin, perhaps the most important thing that Bride and Glory did for us was help us to feel at ease when planning, what turned out to be, two weddings!  Making us feel that is was not a daunting affair, we worried it would be, trying to organise it from eight thousand miles away.  We felt secure that everything was going to work out great and that you, Anna, could be implicitly relied upon.

From our very first Skype call with you our instincts led us to believe that you were the genuine article and going to save the day or in fact days as we found out a month later when the problem arose of legalities surround marrying in England.  Your friendly, amenable and honest personality shone through.

Throughout the lead-up to the wedding your efficient, meticulous and personable approach to planning enabled us to feel calm and confident.  We felt well informed and, being a talker, I greatly appreciated our weekly Skype calls.  We also thought the summaries of our conversations, i.e. what had been arranged and the next items to be actioned were vital to help us remember so many small details in the mass of organisation.  The workbook you put together meant we really could see how manageable organising the whole event was going to be; this was reassuring.

We were completely clueless when embarking on the planning of a wedding and felt you were knowledgeable and well prepared before our conversations about the next item on the to-do manifesto.

Knowing that at times we appeared laid back and indecisive, you politely guided us with haste that was necessary but so subtle it generally went unnoticed by us. You were only ever resourceful and never let a hiccup get the better of you; there was always something you had up your sleeve to overcome it.  This meant we had confidence and didn’t doubt your ability to get us out of a difficult situation.  You were patient and composed, even when we couldn’t decide, which, out of the very many photographers you found, we would like to use.

Perhaps we might have liked to have secured the catering booking a little earlier as it would have spread the load of decision making, emails and Skype interviews we had around Feb/March (I think) time.  If we were doing it again, we would, even though it was early, liked to have got the ball rolling with that in Nov when the load was light.

The time you spent getting to know us meant the suggestions you made were very us, we couldn’t have done a better job ourselves.   I think this demonstrates how much you care about your clients and how much you value the wedding day and lead up to it.   Your intentions were only ever to ensure it was the best for us and we feel that you bring hope to the wedding industry. You stood by your word, and our wedding wasn’t part of the big money making scam that it is for so many others.  If the price was right you found it and that was certainly reflected by your modest fees.

We felt that you went out of your way for us, all the little extras*, those that we knew about, and those that we didn’t (the piper in Scotland!) were all things you didn’t have to do and it made us feel particularly special.  One would have thought that holding a day that is ‘all about you’ wasn’t already special enough; well you trumped that notion with your efforts.

I, right from the onset, was quite transparent about the fact that I wasn’t a girly girl and didn’t like the gushiness of the weddings. However, you thought of touches to the big day that I was surprised to discover I liked and that were just right for me (ones that boys just don’t get).   You added sophisticated details that pleased my mum to no end (she’s been trying to ‘sophisticate me’ for decades).

On the subject of family, this was another aspect that I thought you handled superbly.  Your management of family email conversations and questions was admirable, particularly those involving alcohol and especially those over great distances.  My father is a difficult man to impress and you were successful!

When I was home-hospital bound with my back you took up the slack and filled me with confidence that we could move forward and that I could rely on you. I am sincerely grateful.

We have had two truly marvellous extra-special weddings that came together in rather unique circumstances.  Added to that the many wonderful comments from our guests, one such declaring it was the best wedding they had ever been to, made our big days all that we hoped they could be and something that could not have happened without your fabulous work.

Thank you, and may your great vocational success continue.

Louise Crichton Bullock

*none of them were little and the list is long. I don’t need to list them. You know that we know what they are!

 

Louise & Steve - Captured by Lucy Stendall (www.lucystendallphotography.co.uk)

Tadah – you are witnessing the birth of a new me. And as you’ll notice, there’s no ‘us’ anymore.

That’s because, as a very kindly friend and savvy brand-expert pointed out to me:
‘bride&glory IS you and you represent your brand, so what’s with saying ‘us’ all the time?’

Let me explain. The use of ‘us’ whenever I spoke of bride&glory was never meant to trick you into thinking that there’s this huge business behind the brand. I’ve always been honest about the fact that bride&glory is me and that I’m a one-girl-show, with the support of some simply amazing people around me (cue Mr b&g, the official Finance Director and all those others without whom the brand wouldn’t exist).

Using ‘us’ whenever I talk about my work comes from years of working for an agency, where the message was clear: we are working as a team representing the agency and therefore it should always be ‘we’ and never ‘I’.

So it made sense for me to adopt the same rationale when I first launched bride&glory. Some habits are hard to break. I also figured that, as I was now my own boss, it would help me to psychologically differentiate between the business ‘us’ and the personal ‘me’.

Two years and the most amazing learning curve later and I’ve come to understand that, once you launch your own business, there IS no difference between the business and the personal you. It’s all the same thing.

I have literally become bride&glory – so much so that whenever Mr b&g calls during the day, he just calls me bride&glory. He just knows that, next to him and our mad dog, b&g is the 3^rd biggest love of my life.

Cue the time to take pride in my small but perfectly formed business and start talking about me and bride&glory as what they are: one thing.

I’ve rewritten the content of this website to reflect this and hope it will make you feel like you’re getting to know me personally more so than feel like talking to a corporate brand.

I’ve also developed bride&glory’s strapline to reflect one of the biggest lesson I’ve learnt since starting out:
more than anything, bride&glory’s brides and grooms want someone they can offload anything they can’t or don’t want to handle themselves on to – a bonafide Go-to Girl for all things weddings.

I’ve also (at last!) added a section for wedding suppliers I love. It’s just a start though. I have so many more suppliers I’d like to tell you about, I simply ran out of time this week. Keep checking back in regularly for updates – there’s a plethora of incredible wedding people who deserve to be mentioned.

Other than that, bride&glory’s ethos and services haven’t changed and my mission is still to de-frazzle the brides and grooms of the UK.

And with that, I shall let you have a look around. I’m off now for a celebratory glass of Prosecco.

Love, love, love,

Anna

I just couldn’t help myself and had to give you a sneaky preview before it goes live ‘properly’. This will be the new section about my background – it’s a new me!

Whilst we’re working furiously on updating the content for the brideandglory Website, please don’t be deterred if you happen to click on any links or forms that temporarily don’t work – just give us a little time, it’ll all go live tomorrow afternoon so please check back then.

about Anna

Before you could even consider entrusting bride&glory with your wedding day, you might want to know a bit more about it, its credentials and how it all began.

The driving force behind bride&glory is me, Anna. Originally from Munich, Germany, I’ve been living in England for over 12 years and been thoroughly assimilated, not least by marrying a man in a kilt a few years ago. Go on, I dare you to pinpoint my accent in exchange for a Laduree black forest macaron!

I was lucky enough to be trained in the delicate art of event management in the world of Formula One, which is inarguably one of the most prestigious (and fastidious) environments to run events in. Contrary to popular belief, the motorsport world isn’t just about cars going round in circles – there’s a whole scope of different events like gala functions, PR stunts, media dinners and opening ceremonies.

Over the past twelve years I’ve been part of teams tasked with planning and coordinating events in the UK and overseas, some of them in Italy, China, the Middle East and the Caribbean, from 10 to 10,000 guests.

Successful events are seriously hard work (both mentally & physically) and simply not possible without meticulous planning, attention to the smallest details and lots (and lots) of lists.

And then I jumped ship

… and found myself in my very own bay. This may come as a surprise but I didn’t go into wedding planning because I love weddings but because I realised that, like any other event, planning and coordinating a wedding is not only glamorous but seriously hard work.

How are brides & grooms, some of whom have never even thrown a dinner party, suddenly supposed to take on the role of trained event manager, all whilst holding down full time jobs and remembering to enjoy their engagement and have a glorious wedding day?

Something’s gotta give – which is why so many brides & grooms end up stressed & exhausted rather than happily relaxed come their wedding day. I’m a mushy romantic and would like all couples to be able to focus on promising to spend the rest of their lives together, rather than whether the chair covers really do match the napkins.

Cue my ‘tadah’-moment, the birth of bride&glory and its mission to de-frazzle the fabulous brides & grooms of the UK.

bride&glory is one of the loves of my life, coming third only to Calum (aka Mr b&g,) and Barley (aka the b&g Doodle). I run the business full time from our small & crumbling (former) Chapel in Bucks, where the doors are always open for visitors.

So if you like what you’ve seen, don’t be shy! I’d love to meet you too so go on, pick up that phone and call me so we can have cake and you can tell me all about the plans for your wedding day.

Anna & Barley (the b&g dog) at the Chapel

And today, in the beautiful Bucks countryside, I thought I’d let a bona-fide bride-to-be tell you about her experience of riding the roller coaster that is planning a wedding. Hope it’ll make you smile as much as I did!

The floor’s yours, Mrs Moore-to-be:

Well, hello all you B2B! Delighted to make your acquaintance. I expect you’re wondering who I am and what I’m doing here.  So let me introduce myself: I’m Mrs Moore-to-be and at the tail end of last summer I decided to write a blog describing my experience of planning a wedding: www.awarwickshirewedding.com

Quite by chance, Anna stumbled across a post I had written about buying The Dress which resulted in her inviting me to guest blog on her site. It’s an invitation that I’m delighted to accept.

I can hardly believe that in less than seven months I’ll have dispensed with the ‘to-be’ bit of Mrs Moore-to-be and will, I hope, be basking in a kaleidoscope of beautiful memories of our wonderful wedding day. But, to be honest, the way I feel right now, I’ll be lying in a darkened room in a state of complete exhaustion.

I guess you might be thinking that my malaise has been caused by the stress of juggling too many pre-nuptial balls or the constant pressure of attempting to shoehorn the ever expanding costs of our wedding into a budget which is straining at the seams. And, I confess, there are moments when I feel that my project planning and financial management abilities are unequal to the skills required to get this show on the road.

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