Category Archives: Guest Posts

SWAMPS’ POSTS: Sagas Of A Tattooed Bride – August

Today is a very sad day for Marry Me Ink & Swamps.. Today is the final instalment of Swamps’ posts until she gets married.. There will be tears shed here, be warned! This final edition of Swamps’ posts features all of her & Matt B’s trials & tribulations of planning, and coming into the final weeks and days of their big day.

SWAMPY

“Trials and Tribulations Of Your Big Day”

Hello you lovely lot. I hope you are all super duper. I feel like I have not spoken to you all for an ETERNITY! We have been very very busy. There has been lots of organising, making, rethinking and wait for it….stress! I would like to point out at this point that attempting to sell your house and buy a new one, all with 8 weeks to go until you wedding is 100% categorically a terrible idea. PLEASE if you take away zero pieces of information from my blog, make an exception for this one. However, I would recommend buying yourself a cute puppy to counter balance your stress levels, works a treat. 

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Meet Bettë. She’s currently 4 weeks old, about 10cms long and should be in prison for being illegal amounts of cute. Buying cute things really helps, trust me. We pick her up the day after our honeymoon too so we have something to look forward to when all of the build up to THE BIGGEST DAY OF OUR LIVES is over! Eeeeep.

In all of our stress we have also had moments of excitement, fear and anticipation, this is the theme that really sponsors the final run up to your big day. All I can really say is that you can’t really help the way that you feel, and you just need to do what you can do to manage this whirlwind of emotions. When you’re feeling high (not literally high; I would never encourage that, emotionally high of course) go forth, Star Trek style, find your husband or bride to be, and talk. Share your emotions and your excitement with each other, its all part of the experience. In a couple of hours you may be pulling your hair out because your wedding transports engine just blew up. Seriously, ‘these things happen’ and trust me, they fully do, and d’you know what- who cares? Book a taxi, I am going to! These little touches that you have probably spent months perfecting may actually fall apart before the big day but don’t sweat it, just sort it.

I was a bit stuck for what to write this month’s blog about, so with a little help from Rachael I’ve opted for a little bit of everything and it perfectly reflects what the run up is actually like. So point number 1. Write a list. For anyone who knows me in real life, not just in blog life, you will know that I am anally organised. I have an excel spread sheet for everything. Yes I really am THAT boring. If you aren’t stupidly organised then you need to learn! It is pivotal to not killing your future spouse in the lead up to the wedding, and they are REALLY integral to your wedding, so you don’t want to do that. A few months before, everything is done one thing at a time, no need to worry about a thing. Wait until 6 weeks before; you’ll have to do 18 things at once. You need to know who you need to see, pay and call all at the drop of a hat. Without organisation on your wedding day you may well never make it, and if you do, you’ll probs be bald from actual stress.  Continue reading

Introducing Emily Of Fishee Designs

Today I have a special feature for you! I get to introduce you to Emily of Fishee Designs. As well as being a fab blogger, she’ll also bring a fab photo booth to your wedding (Providing you book of course!). I’ll hand straight over to Emily..

I LOVE tattoos, I love getting them, I love having them, I love other people with them, I just adore them. I have even been known to have been caught in the act, full on staring at someone checking out their tats! It has only been down to a lack of expendable cash that I am not covered in them head to toe, oh how I wish! However, Brad, my future husband-to-be (nope, I have no ring on my finger yet but it is on the cards – we have talked at length about it!) will be the only man of our generation in the nursing home with out a single piece of art on his body – well his body is a piece of art in itself, but then I am biased! We are polar opposites when it comes to the ink. I casually slipped in to conversation my booking for the start of my new sleeve and a shriek of “WHAT!!?” followed by a roll of the eyes was my response. He isn’t against tattoos, he just appreciates them from afar, and he is stuck with me now so he had better get used to it!

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My tattoo artist of choice is Lucille from Scribe in Pokesdown, Bournemouth. Ever since she did my 6th tattoo on my right arm, I was hooked. Her tattoo design and my style marry perfectly together. Lucille said “I have to admit, you’re so easy to draw for, you just have such great style. It’s so much fun coming up with new designs for you”. Most of my tattoos follow a similar theme and characteristic, they all mean something to me and are a symbol of a particular time in my life. They tell a story and they pin point particular happy moments in my life. Each time I have got in the chair ready for my next one, they get bigger and better, my newest one has been inspired by my love of the water, and true to the name, all things Fishee! I sent Lucille over a rough idea of design and a week or so later she sent me the most beautiful mermaid design. Apparently a few of their customers that spotted it were very jealous that it wasn’t for them.

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One of my favourite things about tattoos is how they look in photos, I covered this more on a previous post for my regular series of Wedding Wednesdays on my blog. I love looking at Tattooed brides on Pinterest, you can check out the board here. Were you a tattooed bride? Are both you and your other half tattooed? Or are you like me and alone in your love for them within your relationship? I would love to hear your thoughts, tweet me @fisheedesigns and tell me more! Below are some of my favourite Tattooed Brides that I have found on pinterest. I can’t wait until I get a ring on my finger and my ass in a wedding dress that shows off all my wonderful tats!

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SWAMPS’ POSTS: Sagas Of A Tattooed Bride – July

July is an exciting edition for Swamps as the date of her & Matt’s wedding is getting closer! Swamps has has some more of her tattoo sleeve extended and is sharing it with you all today. Seriously, it’s super cool! I’ll let her tell you all about it.

Hello fellow bride folk. I hope that you have had a super lovely June. The sunshine is finally here and I am feeling like the wedding will be here before I know it. Scarily, after this blog I only have one more month before the wedding will actually be upon us – eeeeek! It is exactly 9 weeks until D-Day. Everything is coming together and its just finishing touches now.

 I must admit that throughout my whole blogging ‘experience’ as much as I have L.O.V.E.D sharing my wedding experience with you lot (and at times it has helped keep me sane) I have felt like a bit of a fraud. Being your resident ‘tattooed bride’ and all I feel like my posts have been lacking slightly on the tattooed front. It is like when you look at suicide girls and there’s some half naked chic (she’s probs fully naked but let’s not be vulgar haha) on their website and there isn’t a single strand of multicoloured hair, and shaved head or tattoo in sight! Ok, ok, it’s not quite that bad as I do have tattoos so I guess I’m not a complete impostor, but never the less some of you may be thinking “This chic isn’t really living up to her title here”. Well wait no more. This month I finally took the plunge again. To say I have had a bit of a tattoo draught would be an understatement. Tattoos certainly aren’t cheap and when you have to pay for your venue and registrar and all of the other ‘relatively’ important wedding elements, getting another tattoo end’s up taking a bit of a back seat. Now we are into double figures on my wedding countdown app – yes I am that person that annoyingly posts her countdown on her Instagram every month – soz! I decided that actually if I don’t want to look like a half finished drawing then I should probs just pull my finger out and book in and get some more work done. So alas my June has been very, erm, painful shall we say. 

I get tattooed by two separate guys, also both called Matt. I think I must have an attraction to all males called Matt. I blame my brother, also named Matt; he must have been good to me when I was a kid. Let’s not introduce another Matt into the situation though as I fear 4 Matt’s may get a little confusing. So for the purposes of less confusion to your wedding filled heads I shall refer to them by Surname and in one case nickname.

So the first guy I get tattooed by is called Webb. Coincidentally I went to school with Webb, back in the day. I say back in the day – it really wasn’t that long ago! Oh wait, it was 7 years ago when I left school. Cripes I don’t want to think about that too much. God knows what I have done in the last 7 years it all seems a bit of a blur.

So anyway, when we were in high school me and Webb had a little to do with each other but we weren’t best pals or anything. To be fair in the politics of being at school we filtered more in the ‘GREEB’ category so we know each other by way of association I guess. Now, all of the people who though we were ‘greebs’ are actually now also covered in tattoos – such is life! Webb is an absolutely fantastic tattoo artist. 

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You can find more of his work here. He owns his own studio 72 Street Tattoo. The fantastic thing about Webb, besides his talent is that he is local to me. I don’t know if any of your have ever had the fortunate experience of visiting my hometown of Stoke on Trent, but it isn’t the most diverse of cities and so it is a little limited on good tattoo artists. Webb’s style would described more as traditional and he has done some absolutely incredible pieces. His work tends to use lots of bright colours and look really vibrant. The piece of the left is one that he has done recently and I think I am a little bit in love with it. I love the bright colours and the little teapot.

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Introducing Casey Avenue Photography

Weddings, Lifestyle, Portraits

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Good morning! Today on Marry Me Ink, we have a new sponsor! Hannah of Casey Avenue Photography has been featured a couple of times already on Marry Me Ink, on of my favourites being Jo & Lal’s red retro wedding. I’m going to hand straight over to Hannah to let her tell you all about Casey Avenue Photography and why you should  choose her for you wedding photography.

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“After a fellow photographer posted up a link to his feature on Marry Me Ink a few months back, I hopped on over for a nosy and I was like WOW, totally need a bit of this in my life!”

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