Your East Midlands Wedding news and ideas from around the region

Free Valentine's wedding with Frankie & Benny’s

Top Italian American restaurant Frankie & Benny's has been swamped with applications after offering a free wedding for Valentine's. The popular restaurant has launched the ultimate cost of living crisis busting wedding and they've already had thousands wanting to say 'I do'. The team at Frankie & Benny's have been astounded by the number of applicants, many of the lovebirds had their first date at one of the restaurants and want to celebrate their special day where they first met. You still have a chance to win, so long as you've just tied the knot, or about to, have a great love story, then you can apply for the free wedding. All applications need to be submitted via Facebook/Instagram by January 29, 2023.

New honeymoon experiences for couples with a conscience

Hotelgift is the ideal way to share the joy of travel with a newlywed couple with a conscience; from uber luxury glamping to wellness journeys for two. For every Hotelgift bought and for every gift card that is redeemed for a new hotel stay, 1,000 litres of water are donated to support local communities in places that need it most through a partnership with Made Blue.

Average ages we are hitting life’s milestones

A new study from Confused.com has revealed the average ages we are hitting life's milestones in England & Wales, including getting married at age 35! So how does your milestone timeline compare? Typically, the first milestone people in the UK reach is moving out of their parent's home at age 20, followed by moving in with their partner at 27. The next life milestone those in the UK usually meet is having their first child, with couples seeming to have children before marriage. The average age for having children is 29, while the average age for getting married is 35. The data also suggests that on average, people are choosing to have children before purchasing a property. This could be a result of house prices continuing to rise making it harder to save for a deposit.

Couples are opting for eco-friendly weddings

One of the UK's leading waste and recycling management companies BusinessWaste.co.uk collected data, which shows how much attitudes to environmental and sustainable choices in regard to weddings are changing. According to the research searches for 'sustainable wedding' has skyrocketed by 75% over the last year, while 'sustainable wedding venues near me' saw an 80%+ increase along with 'sustainable engagement ring' which saw a staggering 96% search increase. What's more, us Brits came out on top overall for our eco-friendly mindfulness, with France and Greece also seeing the biggest increase in searches for sustainable wedding venues.

Keep your wedding guests warm this winter

Putting the chocolate back into drinking chocolate with their unique fine beads, Cocoa Canopy are making winter weddings super cosy with its sample-szie offering. Perfect for winter wedding favours, they offer the ultimate in comforting hot chocolates, guaranteed to put a smile on the receiver's face! Cocoa Canopy is the only UK drinking chocolate brand to craft unique fine chocolate beads for beautifully smooth, real chocolate drinks made from only a handful of sustainably sourced ingredients.

How to throw an insta-worthy engagement party

You never have to scroll too far to stumble upon a celebrity engagement party on instagram and if you've recently got engaged yourself, you're probably thinking - should I throw one too? The short answer is yes, absolutely. While planning the wedding is always top priority, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a party to get all your loved ones together and celebrate the big news straight away - particularly when most weddings take place a good 12 to 18 months post-proposal. However, hosting an engagement party of your dreams can still be quite a daunting task. To help, wedding jewellery experts, Queensmith have pulled together 11 tips for taking your celebratory soirée to the next level.

Spotify data reveals the most popular wedding songs

Luxury engagement ring retailer, Diamonds Factory, has scraped Spotify to find the top 100 most popular wedding songs to include in your playlists. To do this, Diamonds Factory analysed over 100 Spotify playlists containing the word 'wedding' and found the most featured songs across all playlists. These playlists included 3500 unique songs, and the data scrape also used additional keywords to reveal the top wedding ceremony songs, wedding party songs and top wedding artists, too.

New planner reveals when you can afford to tie the knot

With wedding costs rising by 3,000% since the 1950s, and set to reach an all-time high in the 2020s, making and sticking to a wedding budget can be a real headache for couples. To help would-be newlyweds with the complex task of budget planning their big day, the wedding finance team at money.co.uk have created a new wedding budget planner, to help couples account for all their costs for each stage of their dream wedding. The new planning tool also helps you calculate the earliest date you should set for your big day, based on how long it will take you to save up enough money to pay for your dream wedding. The wedding budget planner page also has lot of tips to help couples save cash, including:

Serenity Blooms wins wedding award

Located in Retford, Serenity Blooms has been awarded the Wedding Florist Regional Winner at The Wedding Industry Awards 2023.The company started in 2020 and the team have worked hard to provide clients with stunning hand-crafted fl oral arrangements using locally grown florals. To be recognised for this means the world to owner Sarah Fulcher. She says, "I'm absolutely over the moon to receive the award! I'm not sure it will ever sink in that I have won; I was overwhelmed to have even been nominated by my customers. The couples I've worked with have all been wonderful and unique, which makes the job so rewarding. I'm so lucky to get to do something that I love and work with some wonderful people."

Win a ‘One Night Luxury Four Poster Hotel Break for Two’ in Colchester

County Weddings Magazine has teamed up with The Rose and Crown Hotel to give our readers the chance to win a 'One Night Luxury Four Poster Hotel Break for Two' in their 700 year old hotel. The lucky winner will receive a voucher which can be redeemed any time in the next 18 months. Also included is a bottle of champagne waiting in your room on arrival, breakfast in the morning, early check-in and late checkout, and a delicious three course dinner in their onsite restaurant.

The most popular wedding foliage 2022 revealed

Wow, 2022 was quite the year for weddings with a bumper amount taking place. Looking back at what was trending last year, perhaps inspiration for those tying the knot in 2023, wedding insurance specialists Protectivity have researched the most popular wedding flowers, based on UK Google Search Volume. The most popular wedding bouquet foliage was Eucalyptus, with 585,000 searches! Followed by, Ivy 495,000, Jasmine 458,200, Rosemary 374,600, Ferns 351,200, Monstera 319,500, Silver Birch 219,600, Philodendrons 219,400, Olive branches 143,000 and Myrtle 133,300.

Berry’s Jewellers wins two awards at the 2022 WatchPro Awards

With a handful of shops around the UK, including Nottingham, Berry's Jewellers has won Family-Owned Watch Retailer of The Year and Retail Leadership Team of The Year at the 2022 WatchPro Awards. The awards, which cover different aspects of the watch industry, took place in London during a showstopping gala dinner and the team are thrilled with the achievements. The managing director Simon Walton says, "We're delighted to celebrate our 125th anniversary alongside the WatchPro Awards 2022. Receiving these awards demonstrates the hard work the family and our incredible team at Berry's have put into the business.

Honeymooning in your married name

If you are dreaming of jetting off to sandy shores with your sparkling new ring, spouse and matching passports...then this guide from NameSwitch will tell you how to make your dreams come true. Please do have a proper think about whether having matching passports straight away is really that important to you because, trust us when we say, it's not an easy thing to pull off! With recent changes to how processes work, effects of the Pandemic, and added complications like not being handed your marriage certificate on your wedding day, or needing the name on your NHS records to be the same as the one on your passport, an already stressful undertaking just got even more nail-biting! Now it's not mission impossible, but you do need 3 key things to be aligned (and nerves of steel) if this is going to work...

The rise of double-barrelled surnames

n the past couple of years, there's been a continued increase in the number of people wishing to join their names. For example, in November, research by The London Mint Office to mark The Queen's platinum wedding anniversary shows that 11% of married couples between the ages of 18 and 30 joined their names. As the UK's leading Name Changing Service, NameSwitch has also seen an 18% year-on-year growth in couples wishing to adopt a double-barrelled surname, which accounts for 12% of the thousands of name changes we've assisted over the last 12 months. So, why are more of us opting to double-barrel their surnames?

Your wedding, your way

With the Pandemic derailing wedding plans since 2020, the next few years look set to be a busy time for couples celebrating their union. But couples themselves are evolving – from individuals who feel shoehorned into traditions or cultural expectations they don't feel comfortable with, to those who feel more confident creating their own idea of how a wedding should be, encompassing a far wider range of preferences, traditions, and cultures. When NameSwitch was invited to speak on diversity at a recent industry event, Bridelux Symposium, the overwhelming consensus of wedding professionals was that they, too, are seeing a change in how weddings are becoming more individually unique; created to celebrate the heritage (often blended) and preferences of each couple.

GREAT! romance to Launch on Thursday 5th January 2023

Dreaming of cosying up with some love-ly film entertainment in the New Year? GREAT! romance, a new, free-to-air, TV channel dedicated to bringing feel-good, romance films to TV screens, all day, every day, is launching on Thursday 5th January 2023. If you have a soft spot for romantic movies and are looking to indulge in escapist entertainment this winter, then look no further! Romantics across the UK can fall head-over-heels with the only TV channel that promises back-to-back love stories all day every day - for free! - and the curated selection of movies is guaranteed to melt anyone's heart at the start of 2023.

Christmas winter wedding music

Getting married at Christmas doesn't mean that you have to plan a Christmas-themed wedding. Here, roaming band The Travelling Hands, suggest songs that would work well for a Christmas winter wedding and the songs to avoid! When it comes to music, the same rule applies. Just because you want to get married at Christmas it doesn't mean that your musical playlist has to be full of Wizzard & Cliff Richard if you don't want it to be there. When our acoustic roaming band The Travelling Hands perform at winter weddings we see a wide variety of decisions when it comes to Christmas songs. Some want to embrace the Christmas classics - adding these into their day. Others like a few placed in here and there, whilst some want to just stick to their favourite songs without any Christmas numbers added in at all.

Outdated wedding laws need to change

In an article earlier this year there was discussion and praise aimed towards the Government's plans to allow outdoor weddings to be made permanent. The article also highlighted the eagerly awaited Law Commission report into marriage laws, which was due to be published in July. Now it has been published and we have had some time for the dust to settle, Kate Van Rol, Barrister at 4PB has looked into these recommendations, "Are wedding laws at present 'confusing, outdated and restrictive' as the Commission suggest, or would the implementation of their suggestions trivialise weddings and commercialise the ceremony?". Kate continues...

Discover Kilworth House in Leicestershire

Set in 38 acres of rolling parkland, Kilworth House is an elegant venue located in the heart of rural Leicestershire. With breathtaking views, expansive grounds, fi ne dining, luxurious accommodation and an outdoor theatre, what's not to love about this property? The hotel lies at the end of an inviting tree-lined approach that leads guests through the tranquil grounds to the well-maintained lawns and south-facing façade. Guests will love exploring the parklands and woodland areas, which create gorgeous backdrops to images. Exchange vows with 130 guests in the fully-restored Victorian Orangery, which features glorious rural views and vibrant natural lighting. After the vows, couples can enjoy drinks receptions on the terrace before returning to the Orangery for wedding breakfasts.

Christmas activities from The QHotels Collection

The festive season is almost upon us, bringing with it all that sparkles, from decorative baubles to candles, crackers, and colourful lights. But as December approaches, it's easy to let the time run away. So, The QHotels Collection list their top five ways to keep the sparkle alive, bring a little twinkle to your eye and warmth to your heart in the run-up to the holidays. 1.Start a countdown to Christmas - who says advent calendars are just for the kids? Extend the Christmas fun over the whole of December by finding a special way to countdown to the big day. Why not play a different Christmas song each day on your commute? To really get in the festive spirit why not book a festive activity for every weekend in December? It could be anything from making homemade wrapping paper to heading out to see the panto or enjoying a festive-themed afternoon tea with your mates.