Showing posts with label Colourful. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colourful. Show all posts

Wednesday 25 November 2015

Totally Tropical Boho Bridesmaid Dresses

Random fact of the day - I'm planning a tropical themed New Year's Eve party {long story}. As part of my research for fun ideas, and what to wear, I stumbled upon the most incredible bridesmaid dress company E-V-E-R. If you're a boho bride, or fun-spirited, or just love a good print, you're going to fall head-over-heels for this brilliant brand called Show Me Your Mumu. Created by two fabulous girls who live in New York, their website is stuffed to the rafters with fantastic gowns, playsuits and getting ready robes. Be warned - you'll come away wanting an Hawaiian themed big day!



Tuesday 21 April 2015

How to DIY Your Wedding Altar & Aisle

The perfect wedding venue is really difficult to find, and it's partly down to the restrictions on civil ceremonies. Marriage is a serious business, but in my view the government is waaaay too prescriptive about where we're allowed to celebrate a wedding ceremony. I'm always getting emails from brides who don't want to get married in a church, but are depressed with the civil ceremony venues in their local area. My solution isn't for everyone, but it worked perfectly for us. We had two weddings; a quickie ceremony in our local Hackney Registry Office, followed by our big 'official' wedding in Aix-en-Provence in France. This gave us the freedom to create our own ceremony {click to read}, write our own vows, and most importantly choose any venue on the planet. If this type of wedding takes your fancy, then you're going to need some serious wedding inspiration for altar and aisle decorations, and that's where the Before the Big Day Pinterest board will step into the breach! Just take a look at these fabulous, colourful wedding ideas - many more here.



{Photo Credit} Kristilee Parish Photography, see more from this wedding on Wedding Chicks blog

Friday 2 January 2015

Amazing Boho DIY Vintage Wedding Part 2

It's Part 2 time for this incredible DIY-fest of a wedding. There is so much wedding inspiration in this fabulous big day, that I've had to split it in two for risk of blowing your minds! If you've missed Part 1, check it out here. From the wedding stationery to the wedding cakes {yes that's cakes plural}, no details was too small to DIY. I'm loving the recurring owl motif, the hankies '4 tears of joy' the incredible Wedding Land hand-drawn map, the burlap runners, the sweetie favour bar and the vintage camera on each table {to reflect Marissa's love of photography}. I don't think I've ever seen such a personalised wedding, and you can tell it must have been one amazing loved-up party! Huge thanks to the team at W Scott Chester Photography for their incredible pictures, and a heartfelt congratulations to Marissa and Caleb! P.S. If you want to see more pictures from this lovely wedding {plus extra wedding inspiration ideas}, do check out Before the Big Day's Facebook page.





Thursday 1 January 2015

Amazing Boho DIY Vintage Wedding

If you're a boho bride, a vintage bride, or an obsessed-with-details DIY bride, this wedding is going to knock your socks off! It's an enchanting festival-style affair, with magical wedding details, and a big dollop of homespun fabulousness. I've taken the divide and conquer approach, so instead of flooding your eyeballs with too much wedding inspiration in one go, I'll be publishing the next half of the wedding at lunchtime, so you can enjoy it with your sandwiches. But there's tonnes to feast on in this batch of pictures, so let's get started. Marissa and Caleb celebrated their wedding on a Wednesday since they wanted to say 'I do' on their five year dating anniversary {love this idea!}. They DIY'd tonnes of their wedding details, including the incredible wood ceremony entrance, with its vintage screen doors AND the lovely altar area, with its Anthropologie-style letters and owls. I'm loving Caleb's laid-back style, Marissa's cute DIY broach bouquet {buy a similar one from Etsy}, her handmade floral bunting, her bridesmaids' colour-pop pink dresses plus yellow bouquets, and the personalised fingerprint tree guestbook at the entrance. If you want to create a similar wedding style, but don't have time to do all the wedding details yourself, then I must recommend Etsy weddings, for beautiful homespun products. Huge thanks to the wonderful team at W Scott Chester Photography for capturing every golden moment in such style.





Monday 17 March 2014

A Rustic Garden Wedding with a Festival Feel & Tonnes of DIY Details

Everything about this wedding is enchanting - it's like something from a traditional Welsh faery story! Loveday and Nathan celebrated their big day with a church service, followed by their wedding reception in Loveday's parent's garden. From the handmade yurts {created by the bride's brother!}, to the traditional wedding cake, pretty floral favours and jam jar vases, everything was DIY'd by Loveday and Nathan's friends and family. It just goes to show what an amazing effect you can create yourself! The wedding had a festival vibe, with a warming fire-pit, boho decorations {by Verdigris Venue Dressing}, deckchairs, and floral arches. I'm also super-impressed that Loveday bought her wedding dress from a charity shop, and had it re-modelled with the help of a local dressmaker. No detail was too small - she even changed the buttons to pastel pretties, to fit in with their colour scheme. Enjoy these lovely pictures by Adam Cove, and Loveday's inspirational answers to the Before the Big Day Bride's Questionnaire!


We celebrated our wedding on Saturday 31st August 2013 in the chapel of St David at the University of Wales in Lampeter, where Nathan and I first met as students.Our reception was lovingly created at my parent's home, on a hill above the town. My brother, Morgan, made us two beautiful yurts, and all our friends and family worked hard helping to get the place ready, from mowing the lawns and tending the flower garden. We even spent our wedding night in another little yurt, tucked away amongst some willows near the stream. 


I wanted a simple quite classic wedding dress, but with a personal touch. After a lot of looking I finally bought my dress second hand from a charity shop in Cardiff. It was then re-modelled by a local dress maker called Rhiannon J Limited. We worked together on the design and I was able to add unique buttons and decorations. It was a simple silk gown with a modest puddle train, individual colourful buttons down the back, ruching across the waste and a small flower decoration on the left hip. Rhiannon also made my veil for me.





Thursday 17 October 2013

Wedding Trends for 2014 - Watercolour Wedding Theme

Ombre weddings have been massively fashionable this year. I'm a huge fan of swathes of colour, and the shading effect is simple stunning, particularly as a contrast against the lovely white background of a wedding marquee or wedding dress. For 2014, the trend has developed into a more subtle effect, where the colours gently blend into each other, just like a watercolour painting. As you can imagine, this style works best on wedding stationery, but it can also look fabulous on your wedding cake, or your bridesmaids' dresses. And it's surprisingly easy to DIY, with tonnes of bloggers posting tutorials {see the links below}. Take a look at these gorgeous ideas - many more on my Watercolour Wedding Theme Pinterest board.


{Photo Credit} 1. Watercolour Wedding Cake, picture by Onelove Photography 2. DIY Watercolour Escort Cards, by Once Wed wedding blog


{Photo Credit} 1. Julia Mikos | 2. Watercolour Wedding Cake, picture by Harwell Photography


{Photo Credit} 1. DIY watercolour marshmallows by Idlewife blog | 2. Unknown



{Photo Credit} Dip-dye watercolour chandelier, pictured by Dallas Curow, more from this shoot


{Photo Credit} DIY Watercolour Lavender bags by 100 Layer Cake wedding blog


{Photo Credit} Unknown

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Thursday 25 April 2013

Introducing Zalando Online Shopping For Your Bridesmaids

My postman and I have a fabulous relationship. It's not something you normally get in London, but considering my slight {okay huge} online shopping addiction, we see each other every morning. I hardly ever buy anything on the high street anymore, it's so much cheaper and convenient to try clothes on at home. You can add your own shoes and jackets, and check out how each dress fits in with the rest of your wardrobe. That's why I'm delighted to introduce Zalando. It's a fabulous online shopping boutique, stocking thousands of brilliant brands, including French Connection, Seven For All Mankind and Alice Temperley, to name just a few. With a stylish wedding boutique {perfect for the city bride}, and a great selection of men's clothes as well, it's the perfect go-to site for your wedding preparations. I'm also loving Zalando's colour search function - it's an efficient way to find the complete outfit for your bridesmaids. Take a look at these gorgeous colour combinations below - coral, turquoise and amethyst are what all the best dressed bridesmaids are wearing this summer.


{Product Credits} Top L-R 1. Even & Odd Cocktail Dress, £14 | 2. Patrizia Pope Summer Dress, £185 | 3. Ravel Peep Toe Heels, £55 | Middle L-R 1. Pier One Peep Toe Heels, £50 | 2. Anna Field Classic Heels, £25 | 3. Louche Shari Dress, £65 | 4. Les Néréides Earrings, £60 | Bottom L-R 1. Ted Baker Earrings, £34 | 2. Orla Kiely Wallet, £110 | 3. Even & Odd Summer Dress, £34 |


{Product Credits} Top L-R 1. Just Cavalli Clutch, £110 | 2. Deimille Sandals, £160 | 3. Sweet Deluxe Jewellery Set, £25 | Middle L-R 1. Naf Naf Gown, £225 | 2. Tramontana Jersey Dress, £50 | 3 Cutie Dress, £46 | Bottom L-R 1. Pura Lopez Classic Heels, £210 | 2. Belle Roma Sandals, £180 | 3. Ravel Pumps, £50 |


{Product Credits} Top L-R  1. Black Lily Feather Earrings, £17 | 2. Even & Odd Summer Dress, £34 | 3. Sebastian Peep Toe Heels, £310 | Middle L-R 1. René Lezard Cocktail Dress, £170 | 2. Even & Odd Summer Dress, £26 | 2. René Lezard, £170 | 3. Gianni Chiarini Clutch, £55 | Bottom L-R 1. Hush Puppies Lolita Heels, £49 | 2. Casedei Flip Flops, £300 | 3. Me & Zena Bicycle Necklace, £38 |

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Tuesday 2 April 2013

Real Marquee Tea-Party Wedding: Holly & Jason - Reception Details

You're going to love the quirky, vintage wedding details from the reception pictures of this homespun wedding. With tonnes of DIY projects, and a colour theme based around vintage china, it's super-inspirational. With the help of Rosebud Vintage, who catered and styled Holly and Jason's wedding day, they created a detail-filled day, with tonnes of original touches. I love how they used vintage music-scores in their table stationery, and heart doilies for writing messages to their guests. Jason's mum hand-knitted a bride and groom for every female guest - a true labour of love, and their table plan was a grand, gold-rimmed mirror. Other stealworthy ideas include the luggage tag place-markers, the vintage china and old-embroidered table cloths, and the fun fancy-dress wedding favours. Huge thanks to Dominic Whiten Photography for his brilliant wedding photographs!


We chose Dominic Whiten as our wedding photographer. He’s amazing and we've had so many comments from guests about a) his presence being unnoticed, not bossy or demanding and generally being a great guy, and b) his amazing photos! 


When we were choosing our wedding photographer, we had an instant rapport with Dominic and his easy-going attitude, so we didn't bother meeting any others! We found him by looking at some of his work online. We knew we wanted something creative and arty, that would capture the day, and this is exactly what we got.


For our wedding theme, we wanted something really different and relaxed, so we set out with a mixture of ideas based on a vintage, quirky, fairytale, Alice in Wonderland type of wedding and came up with ours, which I suppose we’d now describe as a quirky, whimsical, country garden, afternoon tea wedding! 



We wanted it to be really visual, so we didn’t stick to one colour scheme. Instead we ensured we had a mixture of all colours, and brought in Rosebud Vintage to do our catering and wedding styling, which worked out better than we had ever dreamed.


For our wedding cake, we had 75 cup cakes on tiers, with a round cake on the top tier. My amazing cake-maker friends, Lindsay and Jenni made it for us. We wanted it to fit in with our vintage fairytale theme, so we chose yellow buttercream with more than 1200 cut-out flowers and buttons covering the cakes. 


The colour theme was blues, pinks, whites and yellows - our colour inspiration came from a 1920's vintage china plate!




We had lots of DIY wedding projects. I handmade our wedding invitations, even though it took months! I used a heart-shaped stamp and a butterfly-shaped stamp, and designed the invitations using colourful card and vintage music sheets. Each one was individual, and we hope to make a collage/canvas out of them all, as a special reminder of what was the beginning of our dream day and hopefully a colourful addition of art to our house!


We loved planning our wedding, and it was only stressful on a couple of occasions throughout the whole 10 months, and that was generally when Jason and I could not decide on the smallest of details! We loved visiting suppliers, getting inspiration from blogs, magazines, web sites and wedding fairs and also shopping weekly for all our vintage accessories from boot fairs and charity shops!



Our wedding favours were our pièce de résistance! The girls all had knitted bride and groom dolls that stood about 8 inches high, and were so detailed the hair alone on each groom doll took 2 hours to thread through!! We chose these as wedding favours because Jason's mum is a fantastic knitter and literally knits for England! She spent 5 months making these for us and everyone was delighted!



My advice to brides is enjoy every minute of the planning and don’t get too stressed! Easier said than done, but always remember that your guests have been chosen by you to share this special day and to celebrate your love. 


So if a table doesn’t have an accessory or the flowers aren’t quite as nice as you can afford, or any other detail is not quite right or going well, it is not be the end of the world and the chances are no one will even notice as they’ll be swept up in the ambience of the day!


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Real Marquee Tea-Party Wedding: Holly & Jason

One of my favourite wedding themes ever, is a vintage tea-party. It's the theme we chose for our London wedding, and it's quintessentially English! Holly and Jason wanted a unique wedding day that reflected their personalities, so they added an Alice in Wonderland twist to their vintage tea-party. With tonnes of DIY details, they truly personalised their big day, starting with handmade, individually designed wedding invitations for each guest! I love how Holly wore fresh flowers in her hair, and dressed her bridesmaids in vintage-style floral dresses. Jason looked seriously dapper in his high-street suit - would you believe it came from Zara? Along with Reiss, it's the go-to shop for well-dressed grooms. And as we struggle with yet another cold day, take a look at that sunshine! It was even warm enough to host the ceremony outdoors. It's almost enough to persuade me that it can be sunny in England! Huge thanks to Dominic Whiten Photography for his brilliant wedding photographs. Don't miss the reception pictures, in my blog posting later this afternoon.


We celebrated our wedding at Swarling Manor, near Canterbury in Kent on 12th May. We wanted a really beautiful venue that would firstly compliment the theme we had in mind and secondly that had a lovely garden to have the ceremony in but also a nice indoor alternative should the great British weather be mean to us!

My wedding dress was by La Sposa. My veil was by Pronovias, although it was actually a lovely soft, tulle long jacket that originally came with another dress, but my fab bridal shop, Bows in Ashford, got it made into a floor length veil for me. 


My bridesmaids' outfits were from Coast, but we customised them. I saw them and instantly knew they were perfect. They had a vintage look, with a large pale pink, cream and lilac rose print, but a great contemporary shape, so I knew the girls would like them.

We had the dresses taken up a little so they were a bit shorter than knee length, then my truly talented friend Jo {from the blog Mrs Day Makes} created a 50's style sticky-out net layered underskirt. The girls looked amazing!



Our florist was Wild for Flowers in Folkestone, and we chose peonies, roses and gypsophila. We met with Carol, showed her our ideal photos of flowers and bouquets, and explained we wanted vintage style flowers in certain colours. She then suggested all the flowers we could choose, and the looks we could adopt. So her advice, combined with being able to do everything we wanted {decorating gazebo, flower mangers, etc}, and the fact they were great on price, made our decision easy and Wild for Flowers the perfect choice.

Having spent numerous hours {14 to be precise} shopping around Bicester Village for a snazzy designer suit, Jason ended up getting his suit {blue, skinny fit with black lapel detail} from Zara! He also bought a gorgeous grey tweed waistcoat, and striped tie to go underneath it, so the Bicester trip was not such a waste of 14 hours after all!

Swarling Manor had the most amazing gardens, and a lovely barn which we could decorate if we needed an indoor alternative for the ceremony. Luckily we didn't need the indoor option!



My shoes were from Irregular Choice and my hair accessories were individual fresh flower {gypsophila and wild orchids} stems on wires.





We chose Dominic Whiten as our wedding photographer. He’s amazing and we've had so many comments from guests about a) his presence being unnoticed, not bossy or demanding and generally being a great guy, and b) his amazing photos! 



When we were choosing our wedding photographer, we had an instant rapport with Dominic and his easy-going attitude, so we didn't bother meeting any others! We found him by looking at some of his work online. We knew we wanted something creative and arty, that would capture the day, and this is exactly what we got.


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Monday 7 January 2013

Real Tipi Church Wedding: Jess & Alistair - Reception Details

With tonnes of colourful, bright wedding details, and a wedding reception set in a tipi {so on trend}, you're going to love Jess and Alistair's big day. After their church wedding ceremony, they head to the beautiful Church Farm on the Wirral, right near the sea, for their wedding reception. With the help of friends and family, they DIY decorated their wedding tipi with bright paper lanterns, handmade hanging hearts, jam-jar tea-light holders, and pretty green ivy. Jess even created her own wedding table plan out of a humble piece of mdf, plus blackboard paint! I love the countryside feel of the hay-bales, wood-fire and cheesecake, and it's all pictured perfectly by Victoria Phipps Photography. If you missed Part 1 click here, and don't miss Jess' answers to our questionnaire - she has tonnes of inspirational wedding advice.


We got married end of July 2012 in Thurstaston, on the Wirral Peninsula. The ceremony was at St Bartholomew’s Church and the reception was in Papa Kata tipis at Church Farm on the Wirral.



We had three different florists for my bouquet, the church and the reception. My bouquet and the bridesmaid’s corsages/groomsmen buttonholes were by Eden Florists in West Kirby, Wirral. Friends of Alistair's mother did the flowers for the reception, and members of the church did the church flowers.




Al is wanted quite a traditional wedding, and I wanted something fun and relaxed. We compromised by having a church wedding and a tipi reception. The church had meaning for both of us as it was where my parents had got married, and it's somewhere Al and his family had visited on Sunday walks.

We didn't have any wedding theme as such. We just wanted a colourful and personal wedding. Creating a fun atmosphere was important to us, as was throwing an amazing party with some seriously tasty food!


There were a few of DIY projects, and as the reception was in a tipi there was a lot of decorating to do. The blackboard table plan was some cheap mdf, that I painted with black board paint. We collected lots of jam jars for rustic tea light holders, and the green ivy was picked and put up by Al’s mum and a couple of her close friends.



As part of my hen-do we did a crafty session at a local artists studio where we made hanging hearts in different colours. We put these hearts up as part of the decorations. I painted numbers on white paper lanterns for hanging table numbers, and the hanging lanterns for the dance floor were bought and set up by us. 


I like to illustrate in my spare time, and we thought it would be nice to have an illustrated wedding invite. Jim Fleming, a local artist illustrated our cards. I added in the lettering, and drew a whimsical map, and I also wrote the place cards and the table plan.

We were lucky enough to have two cakes. We went for a cheesecake from the Liverpool Cheese Company, and Al’s mum baked a yummy fruit-cake wedding cake for us.


We spent a year planning our wedding, and tried to not let it take over our lives. We had creative control over every aspect, which made the day just what we wanted, but it was also a lot of work!


My advice for other brides starts with learning the art of delegation! We couldn’t have planned the day we had without the help of our parents, our friends and anyone else who offered assistance.


Our photographer was Victoria from Victoria Phipps Photography. We really liked her natural photography style.


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