Tag Archives: budget wedding

Lisa & Alex’s Las Vegas Wedding & Ten-Pin Bowling Party!

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I am more than a little bit excited to share Lisa & Alex’s Vegas nuptials with you today. The couple are somewhat Rock n Roll Bride regulars. Lisa was the photographer in charge of the photo booth carnage at the Rock n Roll Bride party, and I’ve already featured them twice before, in both their engagement shoot waaaay back in July and their honeymoon session just 2 weeks ago. However when I saw their actual wedding images I literally squealed with delight. The bar? Yeah that’s been raised…

The couple decided to ditch the UK and in March, jetted off to Las Vegas to be married. They chose The Artisan Hotel as their ceremony and lunch venue. They then went for portraits with their photographer’s Hannah & Kelty of Steep Street Photography at the iconic Neon Boneyard. Here, they had their ‘first dance’ with just the 4 of them in attendance. “We wanted that moment to be just about us and not have to worry about how silly we looked and how our first dance song wasn’t going to be to everyones liking,” Lisa explained. “I treasure those photos because we are completely in the moment and totally unaware of anything but each other.”

The party was then rounded off with bowling at The Orleans Casino. ”For two hours everyone was bowling,” continued the bride. “It was great seeing everyone all dressed up and wearing bowling shoes. I went round taking some polaroids for our guest book and everyone had a chance to sign a bowling pin for us as well. We wanted the day to be about us but we wanted everyone to have fun, we didn’t want people hanging around for formal shots or the having to sit through hours of speeches or wait around while rooms got changed over for the evening fun, we just wanted every to sit back and relax.”

Lisa wore a black Candy Anthony dress with red accents which set the theme for their day. She explained, “We did everything our way at our wedding and I we tried not to settle. I didnt want to hide behind traditions that meant nothing to us and we wanted to be ourselves on our wedding day. If it didn’t reflect us, it didn’t get included. A white dress didn’t give me confidence and make me feel amazing so I went with what did. I made sure I didn’t hide my tattoos or my hair because it wasn’t right for a wedding.”

“From the moment we got engaged we knew it was going to be a Las Vegas wedding and we announced our engagement to our friends by asking if they fancied a trip to Las Vegas,” she continued. “We new from the very beginning it was going to be a small wedding and we wanted to do it our way. I knew straight away what style of dress I wanted and when I found Candy Anthony, I was in heaven.  I made an appointment just to check out their range, make sure that the style of dress was right for me and after an hour of trying on some different styles and colours, I put a deposit down. It wasn’t my intention but when I walked out of the changing room in my dress, I just knew I had found my dress.I was initially really nervous when the sales assistant suggested black as I had gone in with the intention of wearing a ivory dress. Somehow, every shade of white, ivory or cream just didn’t work and I didn’t feel confident in it, I didn’t feel like me but when I put on that black dress, it all fell into place. I felt amazing and I just knew Alex would love it.”

Obviously this was not going to be a usual wedding… even in Vegas terms! The couple were keen to put their stamp on their day in any way they could. “We knew early on we wanted to be able to look back at our wedding and smile and remember how perfect it was for us at the time and I think we achieved it,” said Lisa. “We threw out the rule book, only keeping the traditions that where important and created out own traditions.”

“We made sure everything at our wedding reflected us as a couple. From our invites to our flowers to our wedding favours, everything had a place in our lives.  Alex and I meet because of music, so we had 7 inch record invites. I have swallow tattoos so added a tattoo inspired theme to our invites. We carried on the swallow theme and Princess Lasertron made us the most amazing swallow boutonnieres for Alex, our best man and my Dad. She also made my flowers. When Alex and I first started dating we used to send each other mixtapes so we made a mix CD as part of our wedding favours. Alex designed the cover and I had the fun job of cutting the covers and tracking listing to size.  We both have a sweet tooth and because I wasn’t able to create a tuck shop/sweet table in Las Vegas, we brought the sweets to our guests and after stamping the bags and labels with our initials, we filled them with our favourite sweets (and Kat you would be proud as a few of the sweet bags contained Percy Pigs.)”

More photo goodness after the ‘jump’ of course…

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Nadine & John’s Laid-Back Islington Wedding

in British Brides, Wedding | Written by

Nadine & John were married at Islington Town Hall, London in April. The short ceremony was held in the circular chamber room at 11.30 am with their closest friends and family. They had about 100 attending their laid-back reception, many of whom had met at the Albert and Pearl Pub (where the reception was held) earlier for a few warm-up drinks before walking the short distance to the ceremony venue and then back again for the party.”

“The couple booked out the entire bar which is famed for it’s fantastically quirky decor including chandeliers, candles, a stuffed bird in a glass bell jar, birds painted on the walls and a pink neon sign. On arrival, the guests were given glasses of bucks fizz and mini rolls. There was no set schedule for reception, as the couple were keen to keep things chilled and low key – everyone just mingled and partied.

The bride wore a genuine 1950′s vintage dress from My Sugarland, also in Islington, with a veil from John Lewis and Kurt Geiger shoes.

“We just wanted something a little off centre, that reflected us” Nadine told me. “We didn’t want anything sugar coated, it took us forever to find a photographer who did not have couples gazing into each other eyes through the branches of trees.  We wanted it to be quirky and fun, which is us.  Traditional was not an option. A wedding can be organised in less than 3 months, ignore whatever one tells you and keep looking for what you want, you will find it eventually.”

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Hitchfest 2011 – Britt & Mike’s “Re-Do” Vegas Wedding

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You remember The Bowie Bride and her ridiculously awesome ‘Hitchfest 2010′ wedding right? Well I have news…and news that shows that even the most meticulously planned/detail-heavy/totally killer weddings can…erm…sometimes go wrong. Britt emailed me this week to tell me all about the drama!

“Basically we were told that the wedding we spent over a year planning and pouring our collective heart and soul into, didn’t count. Not one bit. We were, at first, very shocked and devastated.  Our wedding day was oh-so-special and unique and was such a personal expression of our love that upon hearing this news, made it seem all for not. We knew we were married in our heart of hearts, but legally, our marriage wasn’t legal.”

“This is what happened… we think: Our officiant was supposed to mail our marriage paperwork back after everyone put down all the appropriate signatures. For whatever reason, this step did not occur. So when we went to go order a copy of the marriage certificate, the state told us that we are not legally married and that it was too late to send them the original paperwork from our July 31st nuptials. Cut to us letting out a collective sigh mixed with a resounding, ‘F*ck’ and a couple of ‘What do we do now’s?’ We knew we had to get ourselves married. Again. But how? We had considered heading down to the courthouse and doing it quick ‘n dirty style, but that didn’t seem fun enough or crazy enough for a couple like us. I mean, we started the dance party at our ‘first’ wedding with a group shot of tequila.  If a calm and quiet courthouse certainly wasn’t our vibe then, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be our vibe now.”

“So we decided to take this sour lemon news and turn it into some really awesome lemonade. The kind with booze in it and lots of crushed ice — the gnarly, jagged kind — and get our fly asses married in Vegas. For real this time. We planned the trip in the three short days leading up to our Vegas wedding – which was starkly different from our carefully planned ‘first’ wedding.  Everything just sort of fell into place this time around. We wore the same wedding attire from our July affair, and I had since changed my hair color and style pretty drastically from our first wedding so I had a blast playing with the new look. I got to wear my Zooey Deschanel uber bangs and an enormous flower on top of my head.  I felt funky gorgeous and fun.”

“And randomly, four of our friends were in town the same weekend for various reasons.  Two of those friends just happened to be The Broke-Ass Bride and The Fresh Hubby, Dana and Hunter!  In the days leading up the wedding, Dana had stealthily put out the APB on Twitter to help find a “photographer for a super secret blogger wedding” and since The Wedding & Portrait Photographers International Convention (WPPI) was taking place that same weekend, we got an amazing photographer (and 2nd shooter to boot!) to volunteer services.  We were over the moon when we found out that this photographer happened to be THE Nick Radford, mega-talented, Southern California-based wedding photog extraordinaire.”

“The wedding itself was a mix of love-sweet-love and pure ridiculousness.  For example, we said our own vows through adoring tears, but we also took swigs out of a champagne bottle at will. At the altar. Our officiant at The Heavenly Bliss Wedding Chapel said this to us (we have video proof): ‘Out of all the Vegas weddings I have officiated, this has to be the craziest one I have ever seen.’   I kind of find that hard to believe, considering it’s Vegas, but hey, we took that as a compliment of the highest honor.”

So there you have it! Britt & Mike’s ‘first’ wedding was bad ass, but there re-do was almost more so…they got the best of both worlds AND to do it twice! Congratulations (again!) to Britt & Mike. I’ve haven’t met you (not ye, but it will happen!) but I love you so much and couldn’t be happier for you.

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Alice in Weddingland – The Honeymoon & The Gift List

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So this month is my penultimate column for Rock n Roll Bride, and I wont lie, that makes me very sad indeed!  However, I feel I have at least a couple more words of wisdom for you all, as my wedding planning journey has been far from smooth sailing.  If the problems I have encountered can in some way help you guys in your planning, then in my eyes it will all have been worth it!  So this month I am going to write about two topics, one quite ‘normal’ topic, and another fairly controversial one.  I welcome to you to a dual-issue article; honeymoon’s and the problems of gift lists.

Photography Credit: Impress Photos

When it came to organising our honeymoon I felt an enormous amount of pressure to conform to the typical beach-side retreat honeymoon.  In all the bridal magazines every month they feature an idyllic island where you can lay by the crystal clear waters for two weeks, being waited on by your own personal butler.  Now this all sounds very lovely, but for me there were two problems…firstly, Graham and I are very active and we physically couldn’t lay still for two weeks.  Secondly, the £6000 price tag was absolutely horrifying, and beyond unrealistic.  So we began to realise that we were going to have to think outside of the box on this one, and find a holiday solution that not only suited our personalities but fit in our budget of £2000.

Initially I was really interested in the option of a dual-city honeymoon, something along the lines of Paris and Monaco, New York and Las Vegas, that kind of thing.  They cost only a little bit more then staying in one place for the entire duration of your honeymoon, as the only extra supplement you pay is for the internal travel to the second destination.  This is a really good way to explore a new country and add a sense of adventure to your honeymoon!  However I was soon to find out that Graham had a particular place in mind for our honeymoon, a place that he had been dreaming of going to since a little child…

Photography Credit: Joe Penniston via The Honeymoon Project

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Sandra & Colin’s Budget, DIY, Bicycle Ride Wedding

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Sandra & Colin’s were married on 10.10.10 at The Franklin House, a private mansion in Tucson, Az. Their wedding was a super budget affair and 99% DIY. The couple did it their way and Sandra even had her dog walk her down the aisle (after some family disagreements.)

“Our wedding was 99% D.I.Y. and very low budget,” the bride told me. “We did get our wedding cake as a gift made by Busy B’s Bakery. Colin designed all the programs and invitations and printed them at Vistaprint. We used all biodegradable bamboo utensils (that were wrapped with recycled fabric napkins I made) and sugar cane plates we found online pretty inexpensive Green Party Goods. At the time I was teaching a recycled art class in a middle school. For one of the classes I had the students decorate the plates with edible markers.”

“All the food we prepped and made the day before the wedding as well as that morning by the wedding party and us both. We wanted to keep it really simple and picnic style since it was outside, so we had bread, crackers, spinach dips, bean dip, cheeses galore, pasta salads and sandwiches.  I baked our favors which consisted of vegan banana bread, oatmeal raisin cookies and we got maple leaf cookies from Canada. My husband is Canadian and we wanted to pull in that a little to the mix, as well as the fall theme. From the start of us dating I always baked for him. His favorites were the banana bread and oatmeal cookies. Somehow I think that is how I won over his heart, with sweets. I packaged them in brown bags and tags made on moo.com of our engagement shoot.”

“All of our flowers were purchased locally from the supermarket and the bridesmaids put them together. I made the decorations that were all over the place and together that morning we set everything up. It was a lot of work but totally worth it. His parents were so amazing to us. They rented tables and chairs from a local friend for the event not to mention helped us pull it all together.”

“Since we met on a bicycle ride and he proposed there too, we had to incorporate bicycles. We had our guest bring or ride their bikes over and after the ceremony we went for a little ride downtown.”

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Linsey & Wes’ Totally Rock n Roll Wedding

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Linsey & Wes found their photographer Jessica Monnich through a feature on Rock n Roll Bride (yeeey!) so it’s only right that it’s come full circle and I now get to share their awesome wedding too. The wedding took place in February at Mercury Hall in Austin, Texas beginning with a beautiful ceremony in the gardens.

“I was not a traditional bride in any sense (even down to the short dress), so I just kept looking for things that felt like us,” bride Linsey told me.  ”We were always going after more of a feeling than a look, which made it hard, but in the end the feeling was achieved and everything just fell into place thanks to awesome friends and family.”

“It was challenging with everyone else’s opinions and being told things have to be done a certain way, but we threw that out the window a long time ago.  Working on a budget that we put together from the beginning, we were also able to get more creative and decide what were the most important things for us on that day – friends/ family felt loved for and had fun and that we were able to enjoy ourselves.”

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