Bespoke Invitations

Ok, so been doing more wedding planning recently and was really struggling to find invitations that a) matched my vision and b) matched by budget too!

However I came across the most wonderful website at bespokeweddings.net

and have fallen in love with the invitations that designer, Paul, created to my own brief.

I got a free, no obligation consultation where all I had to do was write a short paragraph about what was inspiring my wedding style and he got back to me with four of the most perfect invitations I have ever seen (and trust me I have seen many invites!)

We are definitely going to be using them for our invitations - now I just have to find a venue (!) and get our amazing invites ordered :-)

xxx

Stationary Inspiration

Credits: D. Jones Photography, Wedding bee, Rochelle Mort, Blooms by Martha Andrews, Michelle Photography, Cake Stands by Raise the Cake, Linda Chaja, Erin Hearts Court, La Partie Events

Wedding Stationary

I think that the wedding stationary you have at a wedding is really important. For a start its the first glimpse of your wedding that prospective guests receive and it is also one of the easiest ways to infuse your personality and style into your big day. I put this board together to show my mum the sort of thing we are looking at for our handmade wedding stationary.

Because the stationary is so important to me I'm more than willing to spend a lot of time getting it just perfect - which helps when there are so many paper ideas that we want to incorporate into our wedding day.

We are looking at using a combination of thick cream papers and brown parcel-type paper for all of our wedding stationary and will be combining these materials with lots of personal touches such as quotes from our favorite movies, books and songs, handwriting and calligraphing all of the stationary and including lots of little extra special touches.

These extra special touches will include a personalized wedding crossword or word puzzle at each place setting, an information booklet including all local accommodation, taxi, sights and gift list information, a hand drawn map and directions insert and a wedding itinerary for our weekend guests. 

Inspiration Board - Simple and Fun summer wedding

Credits: Meg Baisden Photography, Erin Hearts Court, Heather Kincaid, Dia Rao

For me this board epitomizes the type of wedding we want. What could be nicer than a summers day wedding, all of our friends and family together in a beautiful house - BBQ and buffet in the garden… the sweet smell of summer flowers in the air… popping the corks from bottles of sparkling home-made lemonade… lemon drizzle cake on cream plates… children playing hula hoop and ball games on the grass… candles being lit all around as the sun goes down… touches of bright against a creamy white background… DIY touches to be found everywhere… Simple… Fun… Sweet… Beautiful…. ‘Us’… xxx

Grey wedding fashion

Credits: Studio Foto

Scott has always had a thing for grey suits and this was the one thing he ‘insisted’ upon for our wedding day - that he wanted to wear a grey three-piece suit and have his groomsmen in grey suits aswell. This was fine by me as i’m not too keen on black suits for weddings anyway and we certainly aren’t tux kind of people! 

Then when looking at all the different bridesmaid dresses out there I realized that I wanted my gorgeous girls in something a little bit different from the boring pink or burgundy dresses on sale everywhere - my first thought was LBDs but I have changed my mind… so in comes the LGD (little grey dress of course!).

 My maids all have very different skin tones and hair colours and body shapes so a fairly neutral colour like grey will suit everyone and I just fell in love with the gorgeous Melissa Sweet dresses. 

For the flower-girls I will be sticking to white but having grey sashes to tie in with the older girls. 

And of course I won’t be getting married without a pair of laboutins on my feet - and these silver/grey ones fit the bill entirely- so glamourous its no wonder they are called ‘Hollywood’!

xxx

DIY Touches

Credits: Meg Baisden Photography, Suthi Picotte, Kawartha Photography

I made up this board to showcase some of the DIY touches that I will be adding to our wedding (when it finally gets here!). Our budget might be low, but our creativity is certainly high and with my imagination (and hubby-to-be’s practicality) we hope to pull it off… it’s not like we don’t have enough time to plan either :-p

Most of our wedding will have a DIY touch incorporated in some way - from our invitations which we are hand-designing ourselves to our food, cake, flowers and favours. 

All of our flowers will be hand-done, incorporating a mixture of pure white and colourful arrangements in glass vases, jars and other miscellaneous holders. We’ve already got our friends and family collecting empty jam jars and vases for us to use!

DIY food touches will include lots of home-made cakes, cupcakes, pies and biscuits, mini personalized jars of honey and jam for our guests to take away and lots of donated items for our buffet! Along with all of our stationary we will be designing and printing our own labels for favours, water bottles and my personal favourite - our personalised matchboxes. Admittedly they aren’t an original idea but we will be having those printed on one side with our names and date of wedding and on the other the definition of marriage and the quote ‘the perfect match’. 

xxx

Wedding Flowers

Credits: Sedona Bride

When we first started looking at planning our wedding my original plan was to go with all white flowers but after a lot of thinking, and digging through the internet and bloggers archives I realized that I just couldn't visualize our wedding being white! 

I crave colour all of the time - my favourites are the bright ones - Red, Orange, Turquoise... And although I could put together lots of weddings that featured solely white colours I soon realized that those boards that I was diligently putting together weren't our wedding, they just weren't 'Us'. So i've scrapped that plan and now have settled on having a rather un-schemed colour scheme (if there is such a thing!) 

We are going to have a mixture of bright, fun, summery colours in arrangements that are loose and handmade. Like most of our wedding we will be DIY-ing the flowers so they will be in simple arrangements, loosely displayed in various glass vases, mason jars, jam jars and other eclectic holders.

Scott likes the idea of putting some flowers in metal buckets or baskets, which I think would look great (just as long as they were done 'right'). Even for my bouquet (which I am going to go for solely white and creamy flowers) will be loose, hand-tied and probably filled with peonies, roses and greenery.

The ideal look for our wedding flowers would be 'wild and rustic' but with a touch of care that shows how much work has gone into making them look gorgeous!

xxx

Homemade Summer Wedding

More Information: image by Martha Stewart weddings, image by martha Stewart weddings

How much am I still loving Style Me Pretty's Style Circle?

This board is another of my attempts at recreating the feel that Scott and I want for our wedding day.

The inspiration for this board came from the amazing Martha Stewart cake (which I have posted on the blog before) and the colours and fun whimsy it provides. Our wedding, if everything goes according to plan and budget (!) will be filled with lots of little homemade touches - particularly where the stationary and decoration of our venue is concerned.

I have fallen in love with the idea of having paper lanterns and tissue paper pom-poms hanging through the trees, interspersed with hanging glass jars holding flickering candles as the sun sets *swoon*

The handmade guestbook is a fun and original idea, a bit more interesting than the average guest book and a lot more fun!

And of course the blackboard at the bottom sums it all up 'Live, Laugh, Love' - it's what every day and every wedding should be about!

xxx

Ice cream and Cakes

How about this for a cute, fun and retro wedding?

This cake and ice-cream board evokes the 1950s - bridesmaids in taffeta prom dresses and the groomsmen in bow ties.

Cakes, cherry pies and lemonade cocktails on the back lawn.

Sorbet colours, pastels and sunshine...

xxx

This was my first attempt at an inspiration board on the style me pretty's new style circle.

My inspiration for this board came from the soft grey's of the bridesmaid dresses and the table linen. Both are so elegant and by combining them with beautiful flowers in bright pinks and yellows means that the day can be classic, elegant and stylish whilst still being fun and showing personality.  The rustic style pies and glass urns filled with cocktails and fruit juices are a must-have for our outdoorsy wedding and I love all the extra little details such as the paper lanterns and the recycled glass jars used as vases.

xxx

Peek: The Birds, the Bees and the Butterflies

The more I search for inspiration for a late summer wedding the more beautiful and original things i find that I would love to incorporate into my own wedding. How about a classic, fun, whimsical theme such as this one: The birds, the bees and the butterflies...

The headpiece above is designed by etsy seller Whichgoose and is just one of her beautiful and fun designs. How gorgeous would these look on your bridesmaids or flower girls? 

I'm feeling inspired so I'm going to draw up some more inspiration and I'll get back to you on this theme...

xxx

Cake Toppers

How adorable are these little cake toppers? They are made by Lauren Alane on Etsy and can be customized to suit the couple. 

Scott and myself like the top birds best - the ones with the little ipod and are planning to use these instead of traditional (and unfortunately sometimes boring) cake-toppers of couples or rings :-) 

xxx

Simple, Summery Bridesmaid Dresses

No matter where we end up getting married there is one thing that Scott and I are definite about - and that is the fact that we want a warm weather wedding. 

Whenever I picture our wedding I see bright, summery colours - yellows, blues and greens mixed with flashes of bright, clean whites. For this reason we have decided against traditional, formal bridesmaid dresses and gone instead for light summer dresses. Of course I've been getting my thinking cap on to find the perfect dresses for the perfect girls in my life :-)

These dresses are all from Asos.com and I love them all for different reasons - the turquoise blue is such a perfect colour (not to mention one of my favourites!), the yellow is so summery and fun - I love all of the back strap details and think this sort of dress would be perfect at a backyard wedding BBQ.

To be honest though - although I love those two dresses the white would definitely be the most versatile - particularly as it would be possible to buy them up and dye them different colours according to the colour scheme. Seeing as we havn't settled on a definite colour scheme this would be very beneficial to us.

And the best bit? Not one of these dresses costs more than £50! 

xxx

A Costa Rican Wedding?

So... If Scott has his way we will actually be getting married on the beautiful south american island of Costa Rica. Most likely somewhere like the Villa Caletas in Jaco *see picture* with views across the mountains, the rainforest and it's own private beach! It is truly stunning and the sort of country that really is 'us' but we are having a few problems - namely the fact that some of the people we really want there on the day (Scott's mum and a few others) would have problems affording the price of flights out there, not to mention their spending money! 

As you can imagine its a bit of a dilemna - in an ideal world we would have enough money to pay for everyone to get out there but this isnt an ideal world - particularly when it's just Scott working at the moment!

xxx

Butterfly Wedding Ideas

I absoloutely adore the wonderful butterfly themed ideas I have come across whilst looking for wedding inspiration. These cupcake cases are from an American company called Estilo - unfortunately it doesn't look like they ship to the UK *gutted* so I shall be hunting down UK based suppliers of laser cut cupcake liners/wrappers! Aren't they just beautiful? 

xxx

Perfect Summer Party Ideas

These butterfly and daffodil filled birdcages are perfect centrepieces for a spring or summer wedding or event. You could adapt them to suit any colour scheme simply by changing the flowers or the colour of the butterflies! This is so simple but fun and really brought a smile to my face when I saw it on the Hostess with the Mostess blog! I can just see something very similiar on the tables at my wedding :-) xxx

Wedding Invitations

These invites are by the talented Iva Swan they are so pretty. The top ones are fun and Scott reckons we could make very similar ones ourselves - although I'm not sure that amateurs like us could make anything this nice! Loving the colours and the pocket fold though!

xxx

Springtime Entertaining

Photo Credit: Aimee Herring

Photo Credit: Keith Scott Morton

Photo Credit : Francis Janisch

Me and Scott can't wait to have our own place so we can start inviting friends over for dinner. Spring and Summer are our favourite seasons and so when I came upon this on the Country Living website I couldn't help but be seduced. Maybe its the light and airy colours, or the gorgeous flowers or the fact that this is exactly what we want from our wedding... whatever it is I'm in love! Scott wants to have a go at the tin can vases from the bottom picture - I'll post his attempts up on here as soon as they are done! :-)

Red and White Inspiration Board

I absoloutely love the drama of a vibrant red up against a crisp white background! This cake is such a work of Art I don't think I could possibly cut it at my wedding!

Clockwise from top left: Cake by Kate Sullivan, Picture of red shoes from Flickr via Style me Pretty, Invitation from Wedding Paper Divas (www.weddingpaperdivas.com), Dinnerware set up as tablecentre with cupcakes and mini glass christmas baubles all Marks and Spencers and Red Bridesmaid dresses J Crew.

First Inspiration Piece

Inspiration for a Blue and Orange Wedding

How beautiful is the painting at the bottom 'Impression: Sunrise' by Claude Monet? I used this as a base for a colour scheme of turquoise blue and orange. 

The cute earrings at the top are handmade from Button Jewellery (www.buttonjewellery.co.uk) and would look stunning paired with a deep blue dress for the bridesmaids.

The middle pictures are both from The Knot (www.theknot.com) and show a navy grooms suit with lighter blue shirt, coordinating tie and a sweet single gerbera buttonhole - very sophisticated but fun at the same time! The other picture is of an orange bouquet from one of their featured Real Weddings - how lovely are the different textures and subtle differences in colour? 

I love these colours together - but it's definately a look for the brave!

xxx