Image by Oskay

Bonjour!… I’ve no idea why i’m starting with a French welcome. I’ve just come back from bonny Scotland so I should be all ‘Och Aye the Noo’ and other phrases of the sort.

Anyway, cutting to the chase – i’m back, woohoo! It feels good to be blogging again. I’ve had a little break while the lovely Tasha from My Cute Lobster waved her magical design wand over the blog. I’ve now moved from blogger to my own fantastic self hosted site! I’m hoping to continue working with Tasha to add a stylish wedding boutique to the blog and some other exciting features. Ssshhh! It’s all top secret for now!

Here’s a huge shout out to Tasha for having the patience of a saint while I changed my mind about design ideas every five minutes. Tasha is very professional and worked with me tirelessley until I was happy with the final result. Thanks Tasha!!! You can check out her website My Cute Lobster here.

So you might be wondering what I have been upto behind the scenes over recent weeks. Here’s a brief rundown…

Not being 100% happy with the previous logo, I went for a brand new look. I wanted something clean and simple that conveyed the message of ‘Handmade’ and ‘Weddings’ and here is the result….

Ta dahhh! What do you think?

Creating a new blog design and going self hosted required way more effort than I had anticipated. Tasha and I did a LOT of back and forth messaging. Nearly 200 messages to be exact! We got there in the end though and look at the result! Being a complete novice to all website building things I had to faff around a bit setting up hosting, transferring domains and learning some very simple (and I mean SIMPLE) aspects of web coding. There is still so much to learn!

I’ve also been getting my head around the business side of things, creating a plan for a super trendy wedding boutique. I’m a sucker for details, which has slowed me down while I create a humongous document. I’m sure it’s way longer than it needs to be, but hey, at least all the info is there for when I am ready to go. This might be a project that doesn’t get off the ground properly until next summer, but i’m chipping away!

So it’s on with the show… Do join me for a good old natter and some pretty picture sharing by using the social media buttons at the top and and bottom of the site! Some of my pages are new and looking a little bit lonely right now so don’t be shy and say hello!

Michelle xxx

Morning all,

I hope you have a fun filled weekend ahead! There are some great plans being made for Handmade & Hitched at the moment, which means it is going to be a little quiet on the blog.  I don’t want to say too much until everything is finalised but there will definitely be a brand new site with lots of exciting new features. I’m also moving away from blogger and going self-hosted! How exciting!!!

Recently I have been trying to plan the future of H&H behind the scenes while continuing to write the blog. I’m a one woman show with a 9-5 job doing all of this in my free time (plus trying to maintain some kind of social life so that all of my friends don’t abandon me!) which means that things haven’t been moving forward as fast as I would like them to.

In order to improve the site and make things much more user friendly for you, I have decided to focus on the planning side of things and re-launch the blog when all of the updates have been made. All the content that is on the blog at the moment will remain the same and will be transferred over to the new site. So don’t worry if you have been featured, your post won’t magically disappear into thin air, you have my word!

If you’re a designer-maker or wedding stylist and you are working on a post for submission at the moment then please continue as normal as these submissions will be added to the new site. There are also some lovely real life DIY wedding stories on their way, and I would like to say a huge thank you to the brides for sharing these. They will be a great source of inspiration to others I’m sure.

Some of the main features for the new site will include…

• Real DIY / Handmade Wedding Stories
• Suppliers Stories (handmade products only)
• DIY Wedding Styling Tips (from wedding planners, stylists, beauty specialists and other professionals)
• Craft Workshops (specifically for weddings and hen parties or workshops that demonstrate how to make pieces for a wedding)
• DIY tutorials (anyone is free to submit ideas but images must be of a high quality, and with a clear writing style)

If you have any questions in the meantime or if you would like to make a submission for the new site then please contact me by using the mail button below

Michelle

xxx