1940s

You are currently browsing articles tagged 1940s.

Marcie & Rich’s Nerdy DIY wedding was inspired by the things they love. The couple love to hang out at home with cat and dog playing video or board games and reading so the wedding theme kind of stemmed from these ideas.

“I think our inspiration for doing things the way we did was that we didn’t want the same old same old”, Marcie told me. “We’ve both been to tons of weddings where the details were essentially the same but for a few differences. People tend to do the long church ceremony with the long gown that you would never want to wear again and make a bunch of stuff for the guests that they will never use or even want just because you saw that tiny beer stein in a craft store and thought it was perfect cause you like beer. We wanted people to have fun all the way through, including ourselves! We would much rather have a swinging party and get married in the middle of it than the other way around.”

“Our ‘theme’ was loosely based on a 1940′s style Carnival. I love the time period and we both wanted a theme that would allow us to have games for our guests and fun retro style clothing and accessories.”

The wedding took place at Heritage Hall, Vancouver British Columbia, Canada. “The Hall is this great building that used to be many things in the past and is now a rentable hall,” the bride continued. “Loads of crafty-type fairs happen here and that is how I came to hear of it in the first place. It has a huge clock tower and is located in Mount Pleasant which is a funky area filled with small locally owned shops. The look of the building and the area made a perfect place to rent. Didn’t hurt that it was far more reasonably priced than any ‘wedding hall rental’ places in Vancouver and we were allowed to do things our own way.”

Marie wore a dress by Peppermint Pretty, shoes by Fluevog and a headpiece that she made herself. Both she and her bridesmaids also wore jewellery by Wicked Minky. ”I wanted a tea length dress because I have never understood why people buy these amazing shoes only to cover them up with a huge long dress. I was also very keen to get something that was a bit retro. I have been in love with 1940′s, 50′s and 60′s styles since I was little and a dress without a crinoline was not an option! I also wanted something that I could cut a rug in and not trip and fall on my face. When I dance, I go all out so the fewer restrictions the better! I fell in love with this dress straight off the bat. Erin Coleman was amazing and made something that fit me perfectly and all I did was send in my measurements. I did not want to go into a bridal shop at all and I didn’t. Most have a posh vibe that I don’t appreciate and they never seem to have anything that isn’t all along the same line of design. I find it both intimidating and boring.”

Many of the other wedding details were DIY including the bride and her bridesmaid’s bouquets, the ‘popcorn’ cupcakes (made by Marcie’s cousin Allison who owns a bakery), all the stationery and the majority of the reception decor and props.

“We made all the bunting hanging around the reception out of old thrift store sheets cut up and strung together, as well as the centrepieces. These were thrift store vases filled with tons of gum balls to hold up the Whirly Pops, handmade pin wheels, felt moustaches on sticks made by Maro Designs, and flags to name the table. We went with song names and made a game out of people winning a drink token if they were the first one to come up to the DJ when their table song was played.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , ,

Jeff & Andy had a Jewish wedding at The Legendary Park Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles which turned out to be a very special venue for Jeff’s family. “After we had signed the contract with the venue, we found out from a relative that Jeff’s great-grandfather lived at the Park Plaza, when it was an Elks Lodge, for a short time in the 1940′s.”

“We decided to include three pre-ceremony traditions that we didn’t know about until we started researching all the traditions around a Jewish wedding,” the bride told me. “For the men, Jeff had a ’tisch.’ We did our own interpretations of the traditions, so Jeff and the men gathered in a room to have some drinks and discuss the nature of love and marriage, as well as roast and laugh with Jeff about the past and the future. Meanwhile, the girls had ‘kabbalat panim,’ where the bride is treated like royalty, and I was serenaded by my friends. Finally, the men rejoined the women for the ‘bedeken,’ which is the veiling ceremony. This happens about ten minutes before the actual ceremony. Our parents offer blessings, and then the groom puts the veil on the bride.”

The couple wanted to add their personal stamp to their day as much as they could.  Their venue was pretty dramatic and gorgeous all by itself so they didn’t really need to create any decor items, yet they certainly put their DIY energies elsewhere! “We are both creative people with significant creative vision with a great love for throwing a well-planned party,” Andy wrote. “To that end, we took it on ourselves to create just about everything that we could. Many DIY weddings have a lot of emphasis on decorating a venue, but our venue was already a gorgeous historic building that was kept in great condition, so we spent our creative energy on personalizing the event.”

“We started by designing a logo for our wedding. Something that would end up on all our invitations, paper goods, programs, photo-booth pictures, thank-you notes, etc. Once we had that, Jeff designed the invitations and reply cards. The reply cards were blank on one-side and we encouraged all invitees to write or draw something on that back, that we later incorporated into a gallery displayed at the wedding.”

“We love dating and exploring our city and we love miniatures and we were determined to figure out a way to incorporate both,” she continued. “By far our most ambitious project, something that we definitely worked the hardest on, was the twenty, individual, terrariums for the centerpieces of each table. Each one was a different diorama, in a different glass container, of one of our favorite places. This entailed scouring every Ross, Big Lots, and Wal-Mart for cheap, apothecary-style jars and vessels, that were big enough to be the focal point of a ten-person table.”

“The actual dioramas were a collection of toys, model train people (eBay, train stores), dollhouse furniture (which for some strange reason we had a lot of), and single bottles of booze for the bar-themed dioramas. The centerpieces were placed on 16” circular mirrors and accompanied by a museum-style description placard in a clear acrylic frame. The centerpieces were our biggest challenge and the DIY element of our wedding that we were most proud of.”

“Finally, months before the wedding, my dad found a film-reel from his 1954 Bar Mitzvah! my Dad had the footage digitized and we got a friend to edit a loop of the people dancing, hook up a projector, and we projected the footage behind our DJ when our dance floor opened. The effect was magical, and felt like it added a whole room of family and friends dressed perfectly to match the vintage-vibe of the venue.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

After a church ceremony at St Peter’s & St Paul’s Church in Hampshire, Lisa & Ric had a very British wartime themed wedding at Broad Half Penny Down Cricket Club, Hampshire  - the world’s oldest cricket club.

“Life never goes the way you plan it,” the bride wrote. “I always dreamt of finishing uni, finding love, getting married and starting a family. The conventional family – we are not! I am 12 years younger than Ric, and also about 12 inches taller! Ric is frequently away with work and moved me to the south of the country, away from all my friends and family. Oh and how could I forget our 2 year old son – Bear. This was definitely not what I had planned.”

“When Ric finally proposed, I was on cloud 9 and I knew that our wedding day wasn’t going to be a ‘normal’ one. For example – I couldn’t decide what engagement ring I liked, so I have three! We also had a best woman instead of a best man, we ‘high fived’ at the altar instead of the kiss, and our son screamed through most of the ceremony then was racing his toy cars down the aisle with chocolate down his nice white shirt.”

The couple wanted a home made/DIY feel to their wedding. “Ric always jokes about me being a ‘stay at home’ wifey or being a ‘Yummy Mummy’,” the bride continued. “With Ric being in the military, it sometimes feels like we should have belonged to the 1940′s era…and I wanted to become a ‘pin-up’ for the day!”

Lisa wore a Candy Anthony dress, a hat from Jane Taylor Millinery and shoes from Aruna Seth. “I absolutley loved sourcing every part of my outfit and Rock n Roll Bride played a huge part in this. My 1950′s dress was so flattering and gave me loads of confidence with my post baby body! Walking into Candy Anthony was felt like being a kid in a sweet shop. Vicky Trainor‘s Vintage drawer stationery was also a huge inspiration, it’s so so so pretty! Our inspiration for the catering came from our son, his favourite foods include cakes, ice cream and fish n chips. Being from Yorkshire, we of course had to have a grand cup of Yorkshire Tea and I insisted on having Pimm’s on arrival. We made it a bit more glamorous by using The Tea Party‘s gorgeous vintage crockery and cut glass bowls.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I was initially sent just Ben & Shelby’s engagement session by their photographer Shani Barel, however when I laid eyes on their incredible wedding I knew I had to feature it instead! The wedding had a vintage, pin-up and sailor theme and I couldn’t think of anything more perfect to grace the pages of Rock n Roll Bride.

I was also pleased to hear that the ideas behind the style of their wedding were actually 100% reflective on how they are in ‘real life’. Ben is actually in the Navy and Shelby is a pin up model!  ”I was stationed on the USS Los Angeles that was originally home ported in Pearl Harbor, HI,” groom Ben told me when I asked the couple how they met. “The ship was on its way up to Bremerton, WA to decommission but made a stop in LA for a decommissioning ceremony. On Sunday, January 24th, I was the cook on duty aboard the ship but I was all finished and cleaned up with dinner, so a friend of mine asked if I wanted to go out.  So we immediately went to the bar. Sailors….. Anyway Ian and I went to what seemed to be the only place open in town called The Whale and Ale in San Pedro, CA. A few other sailors from the ship showed up and we all had a couple of beers and played cricket. As the night went on, I proceeded to the restroom and I notice in a huge way this cute blonde girl all fancy in a vintage dress and her hair all done up walking down the stairs. I was in awe. I had never seen a girl dressed in such a fashion and so stunning!”

“Ben being a sailor was definitely a big inspiration for our wedding,” confirmed Shelby. “The Queen Mary, stationed at Long Beach California has always been one of my favorite places and was the perfect setting for a sailor and a pin-up girl, it was like we went back in time to WWII.”

The bride wore a vintage dress (of course)…well in fact two dresses. The first was by Emma Domb and was originally her Mother’s and the second, the feather dress, was made by her Mother who makes dresses for a living.

She even wore a genuine 1940′s tiara and vintage jewellery. She even carried a paper flower bouquet from the 1940′s. The groom wore his Navy uniform.

The cake was also a special touch as the bride’s grandfather made the based and the cake topper was, again, genuine vintage. “Our cake topper was an antique sugar cake topper from 1944 with a little sailor and his tiny blonde bride I got it for just $14 on eBay due to the fact that somebody had taken a bite out of the base of it and chomped off one of the bride’s arms! I repaired the topper and added extra flowers and leaves to the arch they stood under we also added our wedding date to the back of the topper to mirror the original wedding date that was painted on the front.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , ,

Sierra & Jake met while in the music store where Jake worked, “I shopped at the music store he worked at for a long time,” laughed the bride. “I had the biggest crush but was way too shy to talk to him much. I always thought, “I want to end up with a guy just like him!” but certainly this one was out of my league. One day I was pretending to be interested in harmonicas, of all things, to get his “assistance” and he told me casually that he was joining the Marine corps. I panicked! I was running out of time to scoop up my dream man so I had to act fast. A few days later I finally got the nerve to ask him out. I decided for sure on that first date that he was the one for me. Two weeks later we started talking about marriage… crazy, I know! But here we are and he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The couple wanted their wedding to reflect their interests and so it ended up being a bit of an eclectically themed day with military, vintage and wartime themes. Their guests even dressed up in 1940′s attire! “I have always had a bit of a vintage touch in my everyday style, my husband is in the Marine Corps, and our country is at war… so I thought it would be fitting to have a wedding in the style of the WWII era,” explained Sierra. “Although my dress did have a bit of a modern touch, being that it was strapless.”

“We requested all the guests show up dressed to our 1940′s theme. Most of them actually did and it really added to that old vintage feel. It was really neat having our guests all matching our decorations we worked so hard on.”

“The car we drove away in was a project my dad and I started when I was 15. It’s a kit car of a 1929 Mercedes Gazelle Convertible. We spent a lot of time restoring her from the ground up, just the two of us,” the bride concluded.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , ,