A Classic Retro Wedding: Adrienne & Nic

February 10, 2012 in Wedding by Kat | 9 comments

Adrienne & Nic’s retro wedding was held at Greystone Hall, Ohio “My Mom and I wanted to have the wedding and reception all in one place for convenience’s sake,” the bride told me. “I wanted to have the wedding in downtown Akron for nostalgia’s sake. The building is historic and very important to the city, plus they have great food! Nic and I loved the subtle eerie goth vibe from the preserved masonic imagery.”

Adrienne wore a antique dress which she’d owned even before she met Nic, and a vintage hat which her grandmother wore at her own wedding in 1946. “I saw the dress in an antique store in NYC years ago, way before I met Nic. My Mom came to visit and I took her to the store to show her how great this dress was. They were trying to sell it to me for more than 50% off, but still too expensive for me, especially since I had no where to wear it. So we left the store satisfied knowing that we had seen the most beautiful dress in the world. A few months later it was Christmas. I opened a gift from my Mom and there was the dress! She called the antique store and bought it over the phone. One of my friends, and later bridesmaid, Kim smuggled it home over Thanksgiving. When I opened it on Christmas I announced that I would get married in it. I still hadn’t met Nic.”

As their venue was so beautiful on it’s own, the couple only had to do a few things to dress it up. They spray painted various figurines which they’d picked up at thrift stores and gathered from friend’s homes to use on the tables.  Adrienne’s Father designed and made the metal flower stands to hold the larger balls of green flowers. For their guest book they asked people to write them notes on various pieces of paper which they now plan to bind within the pages of their wedding photo album.

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Thursday Treats – 9th February 2012: Vegas Countdown & Headshot Outtakes

February 9, 2012 in Thursday Treats by Kat | 10 comments

Photography Credit: Lisa Jane Photography

Isn’t the photo at the top of this post beautiful? It’s one of my best friends, Katie, who got engaged at Christmas and is getting married in March (they’re doing it so quickly and it’s well exiting!) Photographer Lisa Jane came to Reading last week to do their engagement shoot and after seeing just this one frame on her blog I can’t wait for the rest!

I also asked Lisa if she could do some new headshots for me. I’m keeping most of them offline for now, but some of the outtakes were so funny I had to share them…

Photography Credit: Lisa Jane Photography

What a knobber…

In other news, this is the last Thursday Treats for a fortnight because I’m off to Vegas next week! Don’t worry my pretties, I promise to be back with a bumper edition on Thursday 1st March to make up for the absence.

I also want to give a little mention to my girls at Upper Street Shoes who featured me on their blog again this week. They asked me if I wanted to design some more shoes…well I couldn’t say no to that could I!?

So, what have you been loving this week? Why not share some of your favourite links in the comments below?

♥ Do not disturb the kitties (so cute!)
♥ Fear & trashing in Las Vegas
♥ Wow Max, wow
♥ This love letter to the internet is witty and sharp. I love it!
♥ Liz & Colby’s Utah Wedding
♥ Wintry Farm Wedding Photo Shoot
♥ Tangerine Tango Trellis Pattern Shoot
♥ Stunning vintage inspired Californian wedding
♥ Classic European wedding inspiration
♥ Honest to blog – being connected. This is awesome.
♥ Wild thing. Holy crap I just died and went to flower eyelash heaven…

Photography Credit: Eliza Claire

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The Wedding Circus…Epic Sneak Peek!

February 9, 2012 in My Shoots by Kat | 20 comments

Graphic designed by The Tiny Red Factory

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A Colourful DIY Wedding: Rhian & Toan

February 8, 2012 in British Brides, Wedding by Kat | 12 comments

My favourite wedding photographs are those with happy smiling faces in them. The ones that when I look at them, I hazard a guess that people’s faces were aching at the end of the day from grinning so much. Now obviously most weddings are full of joy and smiles, but I think Rhian & Toan might win the ‘most smiley’ prize. Big cheesy grins all round!

“We absolutely love our wedding photos, and genuinely couldn’t be happier with them,” begin Rhian. “We had a very tight budget for everything, but photography was the one thing I wouldn’t skimp on the quality. I love it so much in my day to day life I knew the value of getting good ones done for the big day. When I saw Shell de Mar’s portfolio I could see straight away that she has a beautiful eye for detail and lots of talent. We like to think that we found an excellent photographer who happened to do weddings, rather than a ‘wedding photographer’.”

The wedding was held in a marquee in Toan’s parent’s back garden. The couple DIY’ed pretty much all of their wedding decor – and doesn’t it all look amazing?! Rhian told me all about it,

“On the tables we had plain white tablecloths, the flowers were all put together by me, after a big trip to New Covent Garden flower market on the Thursday morning before our wedding. We chose them all, mostly white with a flash of yellow from the craspedia – to offset all the colour in the marquee. My sister spray painted the bottles of champagne (or cava) that we celebrated our engagement with in the company of various friends with white paint and we used these as candle holders, the corks were used to hold up the tablenames and my bridesmaids helped make some homemade candles in teeny sherry glasses (left over from my cake stand venture, see below!) to dot around the table.”

“The table names were photos of various London streets that mean a lot to us, largely in and around Camden. The table plan was displayed on an old door we found in Toan’s dad’s woodshed. The cake table was decorated using some fabric of my Mum’s, plates and cake stands I already had and a sign saying ‘sweet nothings’ from Banter Banner. Our guest book was made by us, using brown card (with questions like ‘what should we do for our 10 year anniversary?’ and ‘do you have any advice?’ and a photo album. We popped it all in an old school desk (again found in Toan’s parents’ magical shed) and surrounded it with random bits of wood found in the woodshed which we covered in old photos of us and all the guests. We put homemade rectangular bunting round the edges of the marquee with giant multicoloured tissue paper pom poms hung from the ceiling.”

“We also had a little tent off to the side with the bar in. We decorated this to look like an old fashioned pub, using pictures I found in a charity shop (and some of Toan’s Mum’s pictures and various paraphernalia. We used my sister’s old sofa, a chair another sister found on the street, plus one donated by a friend and a £5 coffee table for the furniture. Toan stencilled a sign saying ’Ravenscroft Arms’ and the pub opened for business for its first and only rather epic night. Outside we had more bunting, hay bales, signs dotted and a menu sign for the BBQ using a stencil and a piece of aluminium I found in Toan’s garden. We also used jam jars of candles and flowers and some paper bags to hold candles in dotted around. We even had an old Triumph that Toan’s parents’ had in the garage that his Dad cleaned up for us wheeled out and set up, with a skittle alley borrowed from someone else in the village!”

“We served drinks on top of ice piled into a trough that was used when Toan’s sister had a pony! We borrowed trestle tables from the village hall too. We made confetti cones out of magazine front covers and confetti was the excess tissue from the pom pom making. On our way back to the party, instead of being formally announced or anything like that our friends formed a little corridor and we walked down into the field while they all whooped and chucked confetti at us, which was amazing!”

Phew, I feel exhausted just reading that extensive list of DIY tasks! It was worth all the effort though guys, your wedding looks amazing!

“Our inspiration just came from being on a tight budget, necessity is the mother of all invention after all – and also from just wanting to have a good old celebration with our favourite people,” Rhian concluded. “We wanted it to be bright and colourful and full of positive energy. Neither of us believe in chucking money at things without thinking about it, everything you do should be done with passion. I looked on Rock n Roll Bride on pretty much a daily basis, as I loved reading everyone’s stories (lets be honest Toan also had a good nosey) – and also on those days when people said things like ‘what do you mean you don’t have a colour scheme?’, ‘your dress is from a market?’ or ‘what are you doing for your favours?’ having a quick check on the website reminded me to stay true to what I believed in and that the best celebrations were for those who did what they loved.”

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A Help Yourself, Village Fete Wedding in Cornwall: Rosalie & Fergus

February 8, 2012 in British Brides, Wedding by Kat | 11 comments

Rosalie & Fergus had a sweet homespun wedding in Cornwall. “The whole ethos was to get all our creative friends and family together for a two week holiday in Cornwall,” the bride explained. “The deal was, that they spent the first week, sewing, making, cooking, baking and generally doing anything and everything – then we had a massive great wedding/party which continued for the rest of the week. I don’t think they feel used, it was a great vibe and a really chilled way to organise a wedding.”

“The records that we used as table numbers was a very last minute decision, we found a box of singles in a charity shop in Wadebridge (nearest town) and then made them into lollipop type sticks using our favourite musicians and some red and white tape! I had always wanted a sort of help yourself village fete type affair, so we made little flags for all the food and people helped themselves. The vintage crockery was the star of the show, having just started by business, The Crockery Cupboard, it was hot topic and really brought the whole reception to life, and because of all the colour, no-one noticed the drab marquee we were sat in!”

“We lit the garden with hundreds of jam jars filled with a little sand and a tealight, so easy cheap and looks so pretty when it’s dark,” Rosalie continued. “Also, the cake table was a massive success, we had lots of different cakes to choose from, all on beautiful cake stands to cater for everyone and people could have a cuppa and a slice of cake at any point as it was there for the whole reception, which made people feel at home and looked really pretty too with all the vintage cups adorning the tables. We didn’t spend a fortune on flowers because we had a beautiful assortment of vintage vases that only needed a few stems but dotted around everywhere gave the illusion of lots of flowers.”

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The Inspirations: Naomi Davis of The Rockstar Diaries

May 23, 2012 in Green Room by Kat | 12 comments

Photography Credit: Carissa Gallo

I discovered Naomi’s blog, The Rockstar Diaries, in early 2009, when she published her wedding photographs. I immediately fell in love with her and her husband Josh’s effortless style and achingly cool attitude. I loved the way they shared cute little stories about their life as newlyweds – getting married, setting up home, moving from New York to DC, getting their dog Kingsley, having their first child, Eleanor… It was all very unpretentious and honest and I felt connected with them instantly.

So I thought Naomi would be the perfect person to interview today. If you have a blog and you worry about what to share about yourself, then Naomi and her family are the perfect role models to inspire you.

Hi Naomi, I’ve followed your blog for years and I’m so excited to have you in the Green Room today. For those readers that might not know who you are, could you briefly introduce yourself?

I’m Naomi (also known as Taza in the blogging world) and I live in Washington DC with my husband, Josh, and 16 month old baby girl, Eleanor. In 2 or 3 weeks, we’ll be adding a new member to the family as I’m due with our second child, a boy, in early June! We also have an English bulldog named Kingsley who is sort of our world.  We love him dearly.

My husband and I met while attending school in New York City (him, Columbia, me, Juilliard). We were married in NYC and lived there for a few years before making our way to DC about 3 years ago.  I started our little blog shortly after we were married as a way to share our wedding photos with family and friends. After I posted our wedding photos, I continued to update here and there about our newly wed lives in NYC and it sort of just took on a life of its own from there.  I never started my blog with the intention or desire to gain a large following or make money from it. We never advertised our blog or pushed it out there… I remember when we first started receiving comments from people we didn’t know… It made me terribly nervous and I almost made it private. But it’s been a wonderful experience (for the most part, ha!) and I’m thankful for it.  I’ve met some of my best friends through blogging, find constant inspiration and support from fellow bloggers and feel fortunate for the opportunities and experiences that have come our way because of it.

Is your blog your full time job and what role does your husband Josh play in the business?

I got my BFA in dance at Juilliard and was teaching up until Eleanor’s birth.  At the moment, I find motherhood to be my full time job. Although I’ll admit that our blog could definitely be considered a full time gig if we allowed it.

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Doing Things for Yourself & The Benefit of Unpublished Work

May 22, 2012 in Green Room by Kat | 10 comments

I was struggling this week with what to talk about. I sat starting at a blank page for what felt like hours begging for the inspiration to come. I started to look through my draft articles hoping that a past explored idea might jump out at me and evoke a new article of genius…and then it hit me. I’ve written a lot of articles that I’ve never published. For various reasons really, but when I looked at them all as a collective group I realised something striking – that in every single instance the unpublished works are ones that have been written more for myself than the benefit of others. There isn’t really an overall message or lesson within them, but I find writing writing very cathartic, and the time I’ve spent writing these articles has actually been time spent working through certain ideas or problems in my mind.

Some of the articles have gone on to build the foundations of other ideas (workshop topics, things for the print magazine, the beginnings of other posts) while the rest have just sat there, for no one else to see. It’s also probably no coincidence that the majority of these unpublished works tend to be my way of dealing with negative experiences or feelings. I guess it’s been a little like writing a diary. No one else needs to read it for it to serve it’s purpose.

So I started wondering if any of you ever do the same with whatever line of work you’re in. Photographers, do you ever do shoots and never share them? Designers, do you ever draw up concepts that never make your final collections? I would imagine some of you do, but for the rest of you, if not I’d encourage you to do it. Sometimes when I decide it’s best not to publish something I feel deflated, like I’ve wasted hours on something that no one else is going to see. This is entirely flawed thinking as to explore and experiment without the constant need to share is actually completely freeing. It enables you to be honest with yourself and explore ideas you otherwise wouldn’t for fear of of judgement. Maybe it’s something dark, or scary, or just simply irrelevant to your line of work. That doesn’t mean that spending some time exploring it is time wasted.

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If You Love Her, Let Her Grow: A Guest Post by Gareth Williams

May 18, 2012 in Green Room, Guest Posts by Gareth | 71 comments

Almost exclusively the Green Room centres on the successful businesses, the people who run them and the strategies they employ to get, and stay, where they are. These are all super-important and you should be learning something from every article but we have absolutely neglected something equally critical from these pages. Something it took me too long and too much effort to realise on my own.

You might have already read about how this blog came to be, Kat has written about it on a couple of occasions but it’s necessary to go over it one more time to get this rarely discussed point across. This time the story will be from my perspective. And as everybody knows there are always two sides to a story.

A few years ago Kat was working nightshifts, five days a week, including covering the weekends. I was running a small IT company with a friend who I knew from college. In spite of my innovative ideas the business was merely treading water and the work was extremely stressful. I vividly recall several times when one wrong move would have lost millions of pounds worth of data, forever. As much as I love computers (and working with enterprise servers and infrastructure is awesomely exciting) I love my wife even more, she was my only motivation. Providing for my wife was the only reason I stayed at it. I wasn’t making much money but I had the potential, if things really took off, to give us a comfortable life.

The problem was our work schedules conflicted horribly; we had two short evenings in the week when we could spend any time together. Out of this we spawned ‘date night’, which I later found out is nowhere near a unique idea. We would go out to a restaurant, see a movie, and just spend ‘quality time’ together, which I later found out is also a euphemism. This worked really well for a while, until the blog started to take more of Kat’s time. While not working her day (night) job, Kat was busy working on the blog. Seeking out new photographers, posting content, and getting involved in forums and groups. It didn’t take long until I spent more of our date night staring at the back of a mobile phone than into my wife’s eyes. This was a serious issue, more so since at this stage the blog was making no money (we did not accept advertising requests until much later) so it seemed like a sacrifice without purpose. I felt like the only thing that was, is, important to me was becoming harder and harder to reach.

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Ask me Anything…

May 16, 2012 in Green Room by Kat | 12 comments

Photography Credit: Made U Look Photography (being shot in New York – more on the blog soon!)

I’m not calling today’s interview an Inspirations interview because just the thought of me doing that make me die a little inside (!) However on returning from The States on Monday I realised I didn’t have an interview lined up this week (whoops!) and on such a short lead time the only person I could turn to to get the answers back to me on time was…well…me. Thank you to everyone on twitter & facebook who helped this be a less cringe-worthy experience by submitting questions. If you have a burning question that I haven’t covered then leave it in the comments and if I get enough I’ll do another round of them soon!

How did you get started? When did you realise it was a full-time-oh-my-God-this-is-a-massive-success jobby?? (Giddy Weddings via twitter)

My story isn’t that remarkable or different to that of many people who get into the wedding industry. I started my blog when I was planning my own wedding to Gareth in 2007. At the time I didn’t even consider this could become a career, I simply wanted a place to collate all my wedding ideas and inspiration. Throughout my planning I discovered American wedding blogs. I loved the instant nature of blogging – how you could comment and feel part of a community and I wanted to join in!

After our wedding was over I didn’t want to give up weddings or blogging so I decided to morph my blog into a place for alternative wedding inspiration – i.e sharing other people’s weddings and not just my own. Although I loved the wedding blogs I’d found throughout my plans, none of them catered to the specific kind of bride or style of wedding that I had really wanted to find – the alternative, the offbeat and the Rock n Roll. I also noticed that none of these blogs I was reading were from the UK and so that probably meant that most UK brides were only having wedding magazines as their point of inspiration. I loved reading magazines throughout my planning (although in all honestly probably just because I felt like I was finally ‘allowed’ too!) but although gorgeous and beautiful, they were not showing the kinds of weddings I found inspiring at all. I think if a blog like mine had been around in 2007/2008 our wedding would have turned out very differently indeed!

It still blows my mind to think about where my blog has got me today. Every day (literally!) I’m shocked, surprised and honoured by the things I’m able to do because of it. I guess the very first event that made me think “oh crap maybe this could actually be a thing” would have been back in the summer of 2008 when I was still working as a producer of a shopping channel. I’d been running the blog as a secret hobby since late 2007 and one of my managers at work somehow found it and called me into his office. I thought I was in trouble for sure! However he told me that he loved the concept and the idea and that he was sure I could make something more of it. He took me to a few meetings and the like, and although nothing really came of them, his confidence in me and the brand really gave me a kick in the right direction. More solidly, it felt pretty good when I was finally earning enough to quit my job to blog full time!

I always recognize you by your hair! I was wondering if you feel that it’s a part of your brand and if you’d ever change it up? (Catherine Guidry via facebook)

Hum…yes…no…maybe. This is actually a really hard question and something I have thought about a lot recently! I love having pink hair, it feels very natural to me like it was the colour I was supposed to always have. As a teenager I flirted with every colour under the sun but I always came back to pink. These days I do like how it makes me stand out in a crowd (attention whore, me?!) and that when people see me at events or whatever they always know it’s me… but sometimes I do think that maybe it defines me too much you know? It’s kinda scary to think that without the pink hair people might not know who I was.

It actually makes me feel quite vulnerable thinking I might one day be without it. I definitely think my hair is very strongly associated with my brand and so I do wonder, would I fade into the background without it?! Who knows…I don’t think I’d ever go back to having ‘normal’ hair but maybe I will change up the shade one day. Let’s put it this way, I’m looking forward to being a granny with a purple rinse!

Photography Credit: Joanna Brown Photography (‘Desperate Housewife’ editorial

How do you decide what weddings or shoots to feature? (Lucy Carter via facebook)

It’s basically all down to my own personal taste. I started the blog with no other agenda than to share the kinds of weddings I loved but didn’t see represented in the wedding media. Even though the blog has grown exponentially that hasn’t changed at all. The most important things I look out for are:

♥ A unique idea or theme. I want to share weddings to inspire my readers and make them think “wow, I would have never thought of that.” I do not want to share weddings that you’d see on every other wedding blog. I admire what many of the other blogs do and feature but it’s just not for me. I want to show new, different and exciting ideas.

♥ Details. First and foremost a wedding is all about a couple in love and dedicating their lives to each other. However a wedding blog is primarily there to inspire other brides and grooms for their own weddings and so generally I want them to be full of lots of cool ‘stuff’ and ideas. Clear and clean photographs of things like stationery, clothing, accessories, flowers, cakes, props etc are really important.

However I have featured many weddings that could be described as detail-light. Sometimes the most simple wedding can be really inspiring, just in a different way. Maybe the vibe or the couple and their love really stands out, or maybe the photographs are truly epic. My readers tend to have very similar tastes to me so if I love something often my readers will too!

♥ Great Photography. It makes me really sad when I’m submitted an awesome looking wedding but the photography is naff or just darn right awful and doesn’t show the wedding in the best way. Sure, I understand not everyone has the budget for a wedding photographer, but if getting your wedding featured on my blog is something you’d like to be able to do then professional photography is nearly always a requirement. I have featured weddings where there was no pro photographer but these are few and far between.

A professional photographer will shoot things in a way to show them clearly to people that weren’t at the wedding and that’s the kind of stuff I need to be sharing.

Photography Credit: Devlin Photos (‘Rock n Rainbow‘ editorial)

What made you decide to make the change from working and writing a blog to writing a blog full-time and what lessons did you learn about that transition? (SixteenEighteen via twitter)

I didn’t start my blog in order for it to become a business. However when I was earning enough money to supplement a portion of my income from my full-time job I decided to go part-time. I set myself (monetary) targets to reach before I did this and I certainly didn’t recklessly decide to just quit and see what happened (I probably would have done but Gareth was very strict!) Then, when I was earning as much from the blog as I was from my job we decided that it was time for me to quit completely. I was very lucky because my previous employer offered me the option of working for them on a freelance basis if I ever wanted or needed to, so I always had that added bit of security. Luckily I’ve never had to go back!

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Knowing When to Quit

May 15, 2012 in Green Room by Kat | 22 comments

Photography Credit: Made U Look Photography (more on the blog soon!)

I started smoking for the stupidest and most predictable of reasons, the reason I would assume most teenage girls do in fact…in order to look cool. All the anti-smoking adverts and scary warnings about blackened lungs and throat cancer didn’t deter me from lighting up alongside my school friends as we walked through the park to school. My addiction raged for 13 years but 20 days ago I decided enough was enough and I quit. Just like that. No patches, no nicotine replacements. Screw the softly softly approach I thought…I went cold turkey and just stopped.

In all honestly I actually wasn’t enjoying puffing away any more. Sure, I enjoyed the initial rush of those first few inhales, but after that it was just getting to be a pain in the arse. It was anti social (the majorty of my friends have now quit), it was expensive and it made me feel like crap. I’d wake up in the morning after a big night out and feel like my lungs were burning. Gareth hated it more than anything and I knew how much it would mean to him if I was no longer sneaking out to the back garden after a few glasses of wine.

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About The Green Room

The Green Room is the backstage area of Rock n Roll Bride, a quiet place to read about and discuss all things related to running your own wedding-related business.

I strongly believe that the most important thing in any business is being your own person, standing out, having a different outlook or opinion and giving your clients a reason to invest in you. This is what I want to achieve with The Green Room - to give you a place to figure out your personal path in a non-judgmental and friendly space.

Each week we'll discuss topics related to running your own business as well as read interviews with some of the most inspirational people I know.

So sit down, grab a cup of coffee and lets muddle our way through together!

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