Happy New Year and A Heart Felt Thank You

Happy new year! *wipes glitter off laptop*

Elizabeth here, doing a little reflecting on 2014 and taking this opportunity to say a heartfelt thank you to all our readers, friends, followers and supporters. We love you guys.

(And if 2015 is the year you're getting married, please picture us jumping up and down with giddy joy and excitement for you!)

2014 was a particularly remarkable year here at Bridal Musings. Here's why…

123 Real Weddings

First and foremost, we featured a whopping 123 beautiful, meaningful, amazing weddings. Real weddings are the heart and soul of Bridal Musings and we are so grateful to all the couples who shared their best days ever with us and no doubt inspired many of you lovely lot in the process.

CJ Williams Photography via Bridal Musings (see the full feature here)

We also featured 50 inspirational styled shoots, 25 loved up engagement shoots, more wedding dress collections than you can shake a lace covered stick at and, I'm pretty sure we typed the word ‘gorgeous' more times than anyone in the history of the world, ever.

Who knew we could fit so much love, happiness and gorgeous-ness into one year?!

(See, we just can't help ourselves.)

No Longer A Lone Muser

One of the biggest, most monumental things to happen this year was that I welcomed a fellow muser to the team in March.

Claire has been such a wonderful addition to Bridal Musings – she's full of creative ideas and her passion for weddings, photography, and floral crowns knows no bounds. I adore her fun and friendly writing style as well as her fresh perspective on all things wedding related and I couldn't be more thrilled with how she's transitioned from part time editor to the role of full time editor over the course of the year.

(Just your average day at BM HQ dressed up to the nines, drinking cocktails. Photo by Marianne Taylor Photography.)

Although I'm still very much involved in the day to day running of BM, over the past few months, I've taken a big step back from the editorial content to focus on other areas of the business, as well as a rather exciting new venture to be revealed next year. (Intrigued much?)

I'll still be popping by on the regular in 2015 to share my personal musings on weddings, travel, fashion and beauty. I'm also thinking of sharing a few blogging and social media tips and tricks I've picked up along the way for all the lovely wedding industry folk, bloggers and small biz owners who stop by.

Oh and you can always find me pinning all manner of pretty on Pinterest. Obvs.

Travel Musings

It's been a big year for me personally. Not just because of the whole hiring my first employee thing (which was huge!) there was also the whole travelling around the world, living out of a suitcase thing (which was Ah-Mazing!).

In case you didn't know, Zee and I went on an epic adventure from April 2013 – September 2014.

Thanks to our online jobs and the fact that we didn't have a mortgage or babies to tie us to any one place, we found ourselves in the unique position of both being able to work from wherever there was a wifi connection. So when a fire in the building next door destroyed the London flat we'd only just moved into back in early 2013 we thought, sod it, let's pack up and go. So we did!

(My suitcase. I'm a big fan of Cath Kidston.)

We travelled to 15 different countries and stayed in 12 different air b n' b apartments, 8 hotels, 2 boutique b n' bs, a log cabin, a safari lodge, a vineyard and an estancia along the way. It was tricky juggling work and travel but we tried, for the most part, to base ourselves in cities for a month at a time so that we could maintain some kind of routine.

We fell head over heels in love with South Africa (where we went on our first ever safari!) I spent my 30th surfing in Hawaii, we went dog sledding in Banff (where it was so cold our eyelashes froze!), we danced the night away in Rio, rode horses in Argentina, had a crazy weekend in Vegas, swam in the crystal clear waters of Bermuda, did a wobbly segway tour of Berlin, people watched in Beverly Hills, zipped around Rome on a Vespa, visited all corners of the globe for our dear friend's weddings in Ethiopia, Miami, Wales and the island of Giglio, and capped it all off with a six week tour of Italy and Sicily (where we put on about 20lbs between us thanks to all the pasta and gelato!)

(Just a few of the many many highlights. Please excuse the dodgy iphone pics.)

This September our travels came to a halt as we moved into our new home (for the next couple of years at least) in sunny Dubai.

It's been such an incredible experience – we still haven't really had a chance to look back and process it all (I have about 3000 photos and 100 films to sift through and edit) but I must confess it's rather nice to have a closet again!

Fabulous Friends Of Bridal Musings

As well as a new editor, we also welcomed some fantastic contributors – there's Bené with her stylish finds, Rose of Rose & Ruby Paper Co. who shared her gorge inspiration boards throughout the year, Jaclyn of Ivory & Rose Cake Company who shared the hottest cake trends of 2014 and our real bride (and illustrator/stationer extraordinaire) Gemma, who shared her bride's diary all the way to “I do”.

(Well, almost, we'll be featuring her utterly beautiful barn wedding in the next few weeks, so stay tuned – trust me, you do not want to miss it!)

We featured a whole host of wedding talent – from phenomenal photographers to fabulous florists, wonderful wedding planners and all the many, MANY creative and talented people who work their butts off to make each and every wedding they are a part of extra special.

We actually came out from behind our laptops, put on real clothes (as opposed to our pjs) and worked with some of London's finest (and loveliest) wedding pros on a BM focused styled shoot. Did you catch our our peony filled Bridal Musings shoot? I'm very proud to report that it was featured in both Wedding Magazine and Wedding Flowers magazine.

(Photo by Marianne Taylor Photography)

We also welcomed (and welcomed back) a highly curated selection of awesome wedding vendors to our sidebar – these are the lovely folk who help to keep the lights on here at BM HQ. All of whom pass the ‘would we recommend them to our sister or best friend?' test with flying colours.

Claire and I want to say a huge, heartfelt thanks to all of the wonderful people we've had the pleasure and privilege of working with this year. We're sending you all virtual hugs and high fives for a fab 2014.

Here's to an even greater 2015!

(photo by Ashley Ludaescher Photography see the full stylish Berlin wedding here)

Thank You, Yes You

While I'm reflecting on all the fabulous couples, people and sponsors who are part of Bridal Musings, a great BIG shout out has to go to you. Yes you, reading this right now. Because without wonderful readers, like you, Bridal Musings wouldn't be the successful blog it is today.

(It'd still just be me typing my random, wedding related musings into the ether with my mum popping by every now and again on her lunch break, leaving embarrassing comments under our cat's name. True story.)

So for those of you who've read Bridal Musings, followed us on social media, or recommended us to a newly engaged friend this year, thanks so much for sharing and spreading the love!

Wishing for you all the best 2015 can bring.