Your Big Day the Rock n Roll Way · Alternative Wedding Inspiration
It may be a massive generalisation, but in my experience no-one does engagement shoots like those creative folks in The Philippines. It’s very rare that I featured these kinds of shoots any more, but when I’m presented with something like this, there is no way I’m going to turn it down!
So what do you think? Would you ever do something and over the top, awesome and creative as this for your own pre-wedding shoot?
Photography: Happy Living
Did I mention that I’m off to New York next Wednesday for the next round of Blogcademy workshops? Gosh where is the time going this year?! I’m so super excited. NYC might just be my favourite city in the whole world, and of course I get to see some of my favourite people in the whole world while I’m there too.
If you’re a last minute booking kinda gal we have a few spaces in the NYC class still available as well as some for the Minneapolis one the following weekend. We’d love to see you there!
Cripes, I have so much to do before then though, must dash. I’m a busy, busy, busy bee. I hope you enjoy this week’s links before you run off though…
♥ If you’re on the lookout for a new theme for your WordPress blog, this search tool is awesome
♥ Facebook ads: good for likes, bad for sales
♥ The business of blogging
♥ The art of being a goal-getter
“So often people think that as soon as they set up shop (their website, a retail location, an ad in a magazine, etc.), the world will come knocking. But no one will know about what you do or what you have to offer unless you tell them and show them.” Joy Cho
Sharon and Huw didn’t really wanted to have a wedding theme but through just picking things they liked they ended up with a wedding that reflected their love of music and of London. “When we started to plan the wedding we were adamant that we were not going to have a theme but I think we ended up with a London one”, Sharon began. “It was so important to us to get married in the city that we live in and which we love and incorporating iconic features such as the routemaster bus and vintage taxi for transport just felt like the natural thing to do.”
“After we got engaged Huw and I identified what was important to us and set out to incorporate these things into our plans. We kept it basic knowing that we wanted to get married in London, ensure our guests were well fed and watered and, of course, have awesome music for the ceremony and party. If things ever seemed to be getting too complicated or stressful we went back to these basic concepts to get back on track. We were conscious not to get caught up in details that were not important to us – we had no interest in chair covers!”
Phew! What a week. I kicked it off with a trip to see Elbie to get my scary roots sorted out and decided, on a whim to go for something new. Don’t worry, the pink is still very much intact, but with some added lavender to my roots! Its quite hard to photograph and is actually a lot more purple than it looks in the photos but what do you think?
Then on Tuesday I continued my style makeover with a trip up to Birmingham to get some tattoo work done. I’ve had my sleeve for about two years and while I loved it there were always a few bits of it that bugged met. The red bits were too red (sounds stupid but I was really after something more – surprise, surprise – pink!) and some of the details were a little flat. I wanted it to be more colourful and girly basically! I found Leah Moule via Instagram and immediately knew she was the girl to help me out. Her candyland-esque designs just made my heart sing!
I was super nervous on the drive up. I know it’s stupid as I’ve already spent 18+ hours under the needle with this sleeve but I find tattoo studios weirdly intimidating places. I also didn’t have any totally solid ideas about exactly what I wanted Leah to do. I was putting my faith in her completely to just ‘make it better’! But I need not have worried. Leah, and everyone at Spear Studios, was super friendly and put me at ease instantly. The walls were decorated with Cath Kidston pink wallpaper and there were cupcake motifs everywhere. I slurped tea and we gossiped about trashy tv shows as she worked. I had clearly found my people!
Leah asked me what it was I didn’t like about my sleeve to help her come up with some ideas. I also showed her a pinterest board where I’d collated some designs. We decided to add some purple clouds to offset the red, to add definition to the face and to add some new details to fill in some of the weird gaps. Anyway, I’ll stop boring you with this long ass story now… but needless to say I’m thrilled with the changes already. I have to go back in August for one final session but I’m already so much happier with how it looks. YEY! Having such a huge tattoo that I wasn’t 100% happy with was really starting to get me down so I am over the moon that I’ve finally been able to get something done about it.
I’m now trying to decide if I’m brave enough to continue the design on the underside of my arm too… I have a cool idea for what it would be but it’s pretty ouchy down there!
♥ What marriage means
♥ Love this bride in blue
♥ Joshua Tree elopement
♥ Fairytale Disneyland wedding
♥ Incredible woodland elopement
♥ Cornish cliff top wedding
♥ 15 awesome wedding tattoo ideas
♥ Crafty eclectic wedding
Photography: Apryl Ann Photography
Rachel and Neil were married at Derwentwater Youth Hostel in April. Having a small budget of just £5000 didn’t stop this couple going all out though. The bride wore two dresses, the rooms were was filled with amazingly creative décor ideas and they even had a bouncy castle! The whole day was orchestrated by the bride who had a very clear vision of what she wanted the day to be like.
“I basically created a large version of our living room!” she laughed. “Neil coined the phrase ‘Rach-fest’, as I tend to take the lead where décor is concerned (he apparently assumes the role of quality control), and I seem to have fairly specific (albeit questionable) taste. I pretty much just went for everything that I liked rather than commit to a coherent theme. There were a lot of doilies and chintzy charity shop trinkets, mish-mashed with not so dainty floral decorations. The True Romance reference just sort of happened as a result of my hen party theme and a mild obsession shared between me and my maid of honour. Luckily it all seemed to tie together quite well!”
Kyle and Lauren wanted a completely casual wedding and that meant no DIY! “How do people find the time?!” Lauren laughed, “We both work very stressful full time jobs and as much as I would have loved to do a variety of cute and quirky crafty bits, we simply did not have the time.” This attitude filtered through to the rest of their wedding with the simple cocktail style tables, the finger food and the bring your own bar.
“We wanted the entire wedding to be more like a party than a wedding”, she continued. “We wanted to keep the traditional stuff to a minimal and if we did anything traditional, like cutting the cake, we wanted to do it with a twist (we cut it with an axe!) For the furniture, we opted for cocktail tables and lounge areas rather than the staple long or round tables. This meant that there were no seating placements and everyone could sit where they wanted to.”
