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A Village Fete Meets Tattoo Parlour Wedding: Jess & David

November 14, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | 17 comments

Jess & David were married in All Saints Church in Kirby and they had their reception in the bride’s parent’s back garden. Jess wore a Candy Anthony Dress, Upper Street shoes (which she designed herself) and Vivienne Westwood jewellery. The lucky couple had Shell De Mar there to capture their day.

“We met at school and had been together 12 years when David proposed at sunrise on the beach in Mexico,” Jess told me. “Initially I’d been reluctant to get out of bed so early but something told me it might be worth it…and it was!”

“We always knew we wanted to get married in Pocklington, the small Yorkshire town where my parents live and where the school at which we met is. But finding a venue was a big problem as everything just felt too formal and wedding-y. In the end, it made perfect sense to do it in my parents garden as we had the space and freedom to do everything exactly as we wanted. We felt really strongly that if we were going to have all the people around us that we cared most about, we didn’t want to be standing on ceremony. That was one of the reasons we put our table in the middle of the room, because we didn’t want that us and them separation.”

“I knew immediately I wanted a 50’s style dress and as soon as I clapped eyes on Candy Anthony’s dresses it was love at first sight. The polka dots were just perfect and the red sash was brought everything together. I was worried that David would be disappointed that I hadn’t gone more traditional but the look on his face when I walked down the aisle told me I had nothing to worry about. The right shoes were proving extremely difficult to find and it was my Mum who eventually found Upper Street’s website. I designed exactly what I wanted and six weeks later they arrived and couldn’t have been more perfect.”

“My biggest thing throughout the planning was that I didn’t want to settle just because something was easier and I spent many hours trawling websites for ideas on how to do things,” the bride continued. “There were times, I think, when my Mum struggled with the idea that it wasn’t going to be a traditional, fluffy, sugar coated wedding, but she soon got what I had in mind and was amazing in helping everything come together. We couldn’t have done it without my Mum and Dad.”

“In the end the theme was a celebration of all things kitsch – or village fete meets Rock n Roll tattoo parlour as one of our guests described it. The biggest compliment at the end of the day was the number of people telling us how the whole wedding was totally ‘us’.”

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A Super Sweet Backyard Bash: Melinda & Jesse

October 19, 2011 in Wedding | 16 comments

Melinda & Jesse’s backyard wedding can only be described as ‘super sweet’ I feel, because that’s what it was – a super sweet wedding filled with love and family.

The wedding was held in the groom’s parent’s back garden and the bride made everything herself from the invites to the horseshoe seating cards, the boutonnieres to her bouquet (the flowers of which were picked from the garden), the hand-drawn table numbers to the centerpieces.

Although Melinda had a broken foot, a fantastic time was had by all and that certainly didn’t stop them rounding off the evening with a good old fashion boogie with their DJ Josh Styles from the band The Stalkers. CUTE.

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A Homespun, Backyard Wedding: Emma & Nigel

October 13, 2011 in Wedding | 8 comments

The garden wedding of Emma & Nigel was held at the groom’s parents house in Brisbane.

Emma explained, “The wedding was a mammoth team effort for about a week before the big day with people flying in from all over the place, gardening, weeding, cooking, shaving, marking and reporting (I’m a teacher getting married the day after the school term finished!) Somehow I still managed to sneak in a quiet moment with my bridesmaids to watch Dirty Dancing the night before and eat copious amounts of fish and chips and marshmallows.”

“We began doing things the conventional way, keeping things under wraps until we had things booked in and then we went and told the parents and families,” the bride continued. “In my quest to do things conventionally I endured a Wedding Expo. I took one of my bridesmaids along and was ignored by so many of the exhibitors there that I began to feel like I obviously didn’t scream ‘bride’ to them. After this experience, I felt like utter crap, until I realised that I didn’t like what they were selling anyway, and that my opinion of them was probably written all over my face.”

“Basically so I didn’t have to go alone to more dress shops and be ignored because I wasn’t with an entourage of giggling women or a mum, I turned to the blogosphere and up popped Rock n Roll Bride. At first I was blown away by the colour featured in these weddings because in the past they always seemed to restrictive in their colour choices – leaving the guests to look like stuck out buck teeth on the palate of the ‘wedding’, but because finally I realised it was okay for our personalities to shine through and dictate what we wanted.”

“We wanted a more egalitarian approach, and because our friends and families are so spread out between different towns and countries, we wanted them to meet and blend. This meant no organised seating chart (you don’t like that person, just move!), no cutting of a cake and we played yard games straight after the ceremony. It was our aim for everyone to have a drink in hand and be out and about in the garden. We wanted to avoid the really awkward wait between ceremony and reception, so made food and drinks available ASAP and a place for people to sit if they wanted.”

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A Quintessentially English Country Garden Wedding: Liz & Blake

September 26, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | 16 comments

Liz moved to America from the UK where she met Blake while he was singing in a bar. After dating for a while he proposed while on holiday in Rome.

Although well-traveled, Liz wanted to have her wedding in her hometown of Brize Norton, in her parent’s back garden. She had to rely on her parents, sister and bridesmaids a lot for help during the planning,

“I arrived in the UK 3 days before the wedding and immediately had to go and meet our vicar, after that we had to fight the jet lag to start decorating the marquee,” Liz told me. “I didn’t realise how much stuff I  had collected over the year and when I saw it all piled up in my parent’s dining room I felt really overwhelmed by it all. Luckily my sister and bridesmaid were on hand to keep everything on track we knuckled down and started hanging and arranging.”

The wedding had a quintessential English feel. “I have always wanted to get married in Mum and Dad’s garden, Blake and I wanted our wedding to be casual, colourful and fun,” the bride continued. “I knew I wanted a vintage garden party feel to the wedding and I started collecting stuff. Mum and Dad were travelling around the UK picking up my eBay purchases. Dad would talk to me on the phone and say that his shed had been over taken with all my ‘junk’….”

“My mum has really green fingers so she started planting flowers to bloom in August. When my Mum and sister came over to NY for my hen party they went home with 2 huge suitcases full of stuff I had collected for the wedding – mason jars, oil lamps, vintage table cloths, vintage napkins, homemade bunting and of course my bird cages…”

“I love everything vintage, especially vintage jewelry, I started collecting vintage brooches initially to use as the escort cards. I found so many amazing enamel flower brooches that they inspired me to use them as my bouquet. It took quite a few attempts to get it to look good, but eventually what worked the best was treating each brooch as an individual flower. I attached florist wire to each brooch by simply twisting it around the pin. I didn’t want to ruin any of the brooches, all of them can be taken off the wire and worn as a brooch.”

“Once I had my bouquet together in a vase I arranged it and gathered them all up and selotaped them together. I then trimmed all the ends of wire so they were straight and bent the brooch flowers until I had an attractive bouquet with no holes. I then folded about a yard of 1” ribbon in a concertina pattern about 3” long and sewed it together at one end. I then attached this to the top of the wire stems, just below the flower heads and fluffed it out. I then took the rest of my ribbon and wound it around the rest of the wire stem attaching it with pearl dress pins. My Dad then put some mastic over the sharp ends of wire.”

Liz wore a vintage dress which she found in a shop in Cornwall. “I found it when I was out with Mum. Had no intention of buying a dress but I fell in love with it. My Mother in  law (Kim) then made me the bolero out of the fabric she cut off the bottom of the dress and shortened it. I turned out perfect, exactly what I wanted.”

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Tess & Ray’s Dream-Like Backyard Wedding

July 12, 2011 in Wedding | 7 comments

Tess & Ray’s backyard wedding is pretty much what my dreams look like. Tess told me all about it and I swooned over every detail, “From the very beginning Ray and I knew that we wanted our wedding to be relaxed and FUN, but most importantly something we could be proud of.   We wanted to stay true to ourselves and not worry about any kind of fuss or frill.  We wanted to make our dream a reality without breaking our backs trying to pay for it.”

“About 9 months into planning we came to the realization that we could no longer have our wedding at the venue we had originally booked – so with 3 months to go before the big day, we were left without a venue.  Luckily for us, my wonderful in-laws have a beautiful backyard and we decided to take the leap into planning our brand new backyard wedding – a much different affair than the one we had been planning for the previous 9 months.”

“To say it was easy, would be a lie.  We could not have put everything together without the help of our amazing families and friends.  From my husband and his family tirelessly working on the house and yard for weeks to my family endlessly running errands for us to getting everyone together for pizza, beer, and bouquet making the night before the wedding!”

“I had a good idea of what I wanted our flowers to look like and knew that with the help of my bridal party and family, we could pull them off ourselves.  I ordered the flowers wholesale online from fiftyflowers.com and bought a few additional rose bouquets from Costco the day before the wedding.  Best decision ever.  We saved a fortune and had a ton of fun doing it!  Over the course of our engagement I scowered etsy, eBay, and antique stores for vintage tins, glass vases, and glass cake stands for our centerpieces and the dessert table.  My dad made an awesome swing that we hung from a tree in the front yard, he also made our wedding sign, and put together – with help from my brother-in-law the hanging rose/vase arch that we were married in front of.”

“Instead of having a formal rehearsal dinner, our immediate families and bridal party all got together and set everything up together the night before the big day.  We ordered pizza, hung lights, set tables, and told stories.  The amount of work that my husband and his family put into the yard was so incredible and it looked perfect!  It was the best rehearsal dinner for us.  Putting the bouquets and centerpieces together with my sisters, my bridesmaids, my mom, and my mom in law the night before the wedding was a wonderfully calming experience for me as the bride, and made me realize how lucky and loved we are.”

“The other best decision we could have ever made was having a pig roast (sorry to all you veggies out there.)  My husband had said several times, in the beginning stages of planning, that he wished we could have a pig roast.  With our initial venue, it wouldn’t have been a possibility for us.  When plans changed months later, we revisited the idea and after doing our research we found that it was much easier (and cheaper!) to do than what we had initially thought.  We found an amazing company, Double D Pig Roasts, who literally started roasting the pig in a trailer in the driveway at 6am on the morning of the wedding.  They were incredible to work with, no fuss and down to earth, and the food was so seriously delicious!  We saved a fortune having the pig roast and it truly was a totally wonderful experience!  My cousin works at the bakery where we got our beautiful and yummy cake, Naples Bakery, and my mom got us the adorable and delicious pink macaroons from Vanille.”

“I had seen my ceremony dress at Silver Moon in Chicago a few months before Ray and I got engaged, and thought “I will wear that on my wedding day”.  About 6 months later, after literally having dreams about it, and very much doubting it would still be at the shop, I went back and miraculously – there she was!  And she fit!  It was meant to be.  My mom and I found my reception dress at All Saints Spitafields.  We weren’t looking for a dress at the time, but I fell in love, and decided that it was the perfect dancin’ dress.  I didn’t break the bank on either of my dresses and I love them even more for that reason! I also found an awesome etsy seller, Pixel and Hank, to custom make one of her veils in a blush pink tulle that would match the color of my dress.  It turned out perfectly!  The flowers in my hair were pink peonies cut from my parent’s garden the morning of the wedding, given to me by my mom.”

“I knew I wanted my bridesmaids to each wear a different dress, and I knew I wanted to try to keep the dresses as affordable and re-wearable as possible.  Over the course of a few months I picked out several dress options for each girl and let them pick the one that they liked best!  A few of the girls picked out their own dresses too!  The groomsmen were told a color scheme of black, white, and grey and to wear whatever they wanted – they looked awesome!”

“Planning a wedding is a funny thing, it can feel so wonderful and so stressful at the same time – and at the end of the day – it truly does all come together and is just the best day ever!  Our wedding was just the way we wanted it, imperfections and all, and looking through the pictures I feel the same happiness that I felt that day.  It was a whirlwind of joy, emotions, togetherness and love.  We were able to feel how much the people in our lives loved and supported us as individuals and as a couple – and we could not be more grateful to have had the pleasure of experiencing that feeling…and on top of it all we had SO MUCH FUN!”

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