Cupcakes

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Colour, Confetti, Candy, Cakes & Kilts: Amanda & Colin

July 14, 2011 in Wedding | 12 comments

“Colin and I have been together for almost 7 years and thought it was about time that we tied the knot,” read the email I received from newlywed Amanda last week. “Unlike most women, I don’t think I ever really dreamed of what my wedding would be like so I didn’t really know where to start when it came to the planning. I’m a complete control freak and knew that I wanted to make and take part in creating as much for the wedding that I could so I started looking for inspiration on various websites and in books.”

“We knew that we wanted a few things for certain: a great photographer (or 2) to capture every grin, tear and laugh; a sweetie buffet; lots of handmade touches; fairy lights (and lots of them!); cupcakes; photo booth; a black and white wedding with splashes of colour; a hand fastening ceremony; confetti and sparklers.”

From these simple ideas they created the stunning wedding you see on these pages! “Colin was really eager to have a hand fastening ceremony and we both wanted to involve our family in the ceremony as much as possible,” continued the bride. “It was so important to us that we showed our love and appreciation for our family and this was the perfect way to not only add a splash of colour but it was also to show them exactly how much they mean to us.”

“I am lucky enough to have a small business called Hungry Designs and through this I have made a lot of wonderful creative friends. This made the task of making my wedding handmade and fun on a budget possible. My wedding dress (and the bridesmaid’s dresses) was created by the oh-so-talented Rebecca Cobbing from Rebecca Cobbing Couture. Rebecca is a truly spectacular designer who is also a dear friend. Rebecca and I discussed what dress I wanted in great detail and Rebecca came up with the design. It was out of this world and even included some of Rebecca’s trademark black matte satin material at the base of the dress. I really wanted the bridesmaid’s dresses to be black. I really see little point in having the two dresses designed for them to only be worn once – the intention was that Steph and Cat could wear the dresses again and again and not just at the wedding.”

“The origami flowers were all made by my very talented friend Gill from Catamation. Gill was so helpful and knew exactly what I wanted. She folded over 200 flowers for the wedding and these flowers were used for the bouquets, hair accessories and the table centres. The table settings and centers were a mix of colour, vintage and brightly painted candle sticks were dotted around in the middle of the tables and tea lights littered the tables with mood lighting. The napkins were folded into big white bows and the guests were given either a bag of hand sewn jelly beans or homemade strawberry lip balm – that was made by myself and Colin’s Aunty Jeannie.”

“Colin has a massive sweet tooth and I love to bake so we really wanted to have a sweetie buffet at the reception. We thought this would be the perfect setting for the colourful cupcakes and cutting cake. The cutting cake was rainbow sponge in the middle – perfecting tying the hand fastening ceremony into the reception. The cake topper was hand drawn by me and laser cut from wood and the cake bunting was found on Etsy. The paper bags were stamped with a rubber stamp that was especially carved for us by Kozue and the vintage cake server and forks were stamped with our wedding date and Just Married as well as Mr and Mrs – these were ordered from Wooden Hive.”

“Our wedding was relatively small – with only 48 guests attending both the ceremony and reception. This meant they all spent lots of time in the photo booth. This was a great last minute addition to the wedding and meant that not only were the guests able to busy themselves between meals but also meant that out guestbook was filled with hilarious photos from the booth. There is absolutely nothing that I would change about the wedding. Everything was perfect and the guests had a ball, when they weren’t on the dance floor they were in the photo booth or enjoying some sweets and wine. When looking back at the photos it really does bring back all of the feelings from the day. It was the best night of our lives and we couldn’t have asked for a better day.”

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A Short Black Wedding Dress – Sarah & Adam’s My Chemical Romance

June 24, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | 19 comments

I’ll be honest, I’ve been looking forward to seeing Sarah & Adam’s wedding for an absolute age. You see, I saw Sarah’s incredible black wedding dress many times before the event, when I popped into see my girls at Fur Coat No Knickers in London. Laura & Emma showed the dress to me and told me I’d love the bride that has bought it – that she was cute and tattooed and wearing a black veil to match…and oh boy we’re they right! So without further ado…

“I would describe our wedding theme as American vintage,” Sarah told me. “With pretty carnival fairy lights, sweets and good music. Music was at the heart of our wedding. As My Chemical Romance’s biggest fan I had to walk down the aisle to their music (Desert Song) and we had songs that meant a lot to us throughout the day. From the music guests arrived to including Radiohead and Libertines, to the reading my Mum read during the ceremony (Bob Dylan’s Wedding Song), music playing constantly at the bar and during the meal.”

“We wanted a big wedding with all of our friends and family but it still had to feel personal and intimate, we had a little bit of us in every aspect of the day – from the Lost references, the comic book references and the music. People who didn’t get those little details could still enjoy them but those who understood them got that little something extra from the day and we always felt like the day was ‘us’ through and through.”

“We did all of the table decorations ourselves, tying ribbon around old jam jars and coffee jars to brighten them up and filling them with colourful sweets. We used blackboard paint and chalk for the table names.  We also designed the table plan ourselves. We had empty Coke bottles dotted around the bar with some simple flowers from Camden Market placed in them. I bought an old vanity case from Camden market and wrapped silk flowers and luggage tags to it to use as a gift box.”

Don’t you just love these guys?

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Tory & Joel’s Two-Day Vintage & Rock n Roll Wedding

June 10, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | 24 comments

Tory & Joel’s two-day wedding makes my heart sing. These two totally different days worked so brilliantly for the couple. Both had a vintage and Rock n Roll vibe and I’m utterly thrilled to share them both with you today.

The couple were married at Marylebone Town Hall, London in an intimate ceremony on Friday 27th May. Tory wore a vintage dress by Armstrong Vintage and Joel wore a suit from Next . The couple chose not to have their reception directly after as they were dreaming of eloping, and having the ceremony separate to the reception party gave them this feeling without upsetting their family and friends!

“Part of us wanted to run away together and have a romantic eloping story to re-tell but in reality we both wanted our parents and siblings there at the ceremony,” the bride told me. “It turned out to be exactly what we wanted: incredibly romantic, very intimate and with our nearest and dearest there to squeeze our hands when things got a bit emotional.”

The reception was held on the 29th at West End Farm, Bedfordshire and certainly had the Rock n Roll vibe. The bride wore a second vintage dress from Love Miss Daisy and the event was a detail-perfect party for all their friends and family.

“Sunday was a flipping blast!” she continued. “We were very clear on this day: Get a barn. Fill it with fun. Have a party. We’d seen some beautiful wedding ideas (some of which we borrowed from Rock n Roll Bride in fact!) so took inspiration from them and added our own Very English twist. Highlights for me were the pony rides, watching our dear friend Miss. Jayne Hardy sing the Joel + Victoria mini musical and feeding our dog Glory a Mr+Mrs ice cream sundae. Woah fun!”

“Our theme for the reception was vintage village fete, so we really put our families to task in order to get that community feel about our day! My aunty made all the bunting, napkins and jam jar toppers. The whole family spent 6 months prior collecting jam jars, sourcing vintage lace to wrap around them and finishing with twine to give it a farmyard look. The card basket is actually my grandparent’s picnic basket found in their loft 2 months prior. And all the old couples pictures were gathered together to celebrate couples we’ve known in the past and present who represent marriage success stories. We wanted something to aspire to!”

“The drinks dispensers and Pimms beermat were great finds on eBay and Amazon had some irresitable red and white paper straws that we fell in love with. The cake was all about positivity and saying yes to each other, yes to the good and bad times and yes to the life ahead. Just say yes!”

Wow. I have serious wedding admiration right now. How about you? Check out the beautiful video from Sassy ‘n’ Frank too!

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‘Rock n Riot’ – Behind the Scenes Photos and Video

June 9, 2011 in My Shoots, Video | 15 comments

First of all, a big load of love to everyone who took the time to comment, tweet, facebook or email me about the ‘Rock n Riot’ shoot yesterday. As ever I have been blown away with your love and support. I’m thrilled with the results but I always have to go one step further huh? So today I have the behind the scenes shots from Emma Case and video awesomeness from Pete Smyth & Simon Clarke to share.

But that’s not all, the styling genius that is the Ava team have also kindly popped by to explain a bit more about how they executed this epic (this word keeps cropping up in relation to this shoot…but seriously, I don’t think anything else could describe it as well!) styled shoot.

Amy Grzegorzek, one third of Ava Event Styling explains, “When we’re given such an out there brief as the punk riot, it’s important to do our historical research first. It’s a big part of our styling process and something we relish, working out which are the key elements of a particular era is like cherry picking from a giant visual cake! Punk was such a massive part of changing peoples opinions not only on how we looked but how we look at each other. It had its biggest impact in the 1970′s but it opened the floodgates for the diversity in fashion we enjoy today. For Ava this meant we could push the boundaries, using products and props not normally associated with weddings. Safety pin table confetti, taxidermy and a black skull & cross bone wedding cake… Not your normal day in the registry office!”

“Even the neon food colouring used for the cupcakes had to be imported from the U.S. and they were decorated to complement the tattoo theme of the day. A feature of our work is the level of detail we strive to achieve, from the the huge scale personalised graffiti wall down to the pink sticks in the cake pops. It’s this kind of attention to detail that pulls together such an avant garde theme.”

“The flowers used were a mixture of English garden classics and structural tropicals put together more for there textural clashes rather than prettiness. We love to challenge the preconceived ideas in all areas and break from the norm. We are really lucky to be surrounded by like minded independent business owners wanting to do something different. Clare at The Wedding Club let us have free reign to select from their incredible dress collection and was keen to get less well known designers showcased. We even used a dress from a final year fashion student Hannah Wilkins-Webb, it’s important to us to encourage new creative talents. Terry Terry jewellery stepped right up to the mark too with his stunning funky range punk inspired bling.”

Pretty awesome hey? Man, I love these guys – they make me look good! Enjoy, and don’t forget to watch the video below (and have a little dance) it rocks.

I also procrastinated a bit this morning and made this…just cos…

create an avatar

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Alix & Zack’s Gothic Tea Party Engagement Shoot

May 25, 2011 in British Brides, Engagement | 16 comments

Alix & Zack…ahh what’s not to love? I’m secretly still a bit of a closet goth at heart so anything gothic inspired really gets me excited…and cupcakes, cupcakes always make things 100 time better don’t they?

Alix wrote to me to tell me all about their engagement shoot with Rock n Roll Bride favourite Lisa Devlin. “So what do you say when the fabulous Lisa Devlin asks whether you’d like to shoot your forthcoming engagement shoot at, none other than, the Hasselblad Studio in Hoxton? How about “Hell Yeah!!!”

“We knew we had to do something that was very “us”.  This meant including some guitar shots, as Zach plays guitar with glam punk band Bubblegum Screw and the Camden based rock band The Hyenas.  This was reiterated by the fact that we actually met at one of Zach’s gigs in Sydney in 2007. We wanted to throw a few cakes into the mix too, as I own Black Cherry Bakery, where we specialise in Rock n Roll inspired cakes!”

“As much as I love all things vintage,” she continued, “we do prefer a darker palette so hence the gothic tea party idea was born.  We literally packed up our dining table complete with candelabra, black candles, antique silverware, black ostrich and peacock feathers on the day of the shoot and set up a home from home in the studio.  I wore my Slash-esque top hat in a nod to the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.  Yorick, the skull – who I use as a model when I’m making cakes for Metal Hammer Magazine and the like, came along for the ride too – adding a beautifully, macabre element to the setting.  Then we threw in a little leopard print, black velvet and vintage leather upping the Rock n Roll ante.”

“We love the iconic images of rock couples such as Sid and Nancy, Johnny Thunders and Sable Star, so wanted to incorporate this vibe too. We got inspiration from bands like the Kills, who as a male/female duo have some great looks for engagement shoots it turns out!  We have a whole heap of album covers from The New York Dolls to Black Sabbath and Guns N Roses engrained in our memories so that all added to the overall look too!”

“The studio was such a great place, it couldn’t have been more perfect for what we had in mind-  the checkered black and white wall just happened to be there already, adding a massive punch to our black with pops of red colour schemes.  The crazy angular wall of foam which looked like sound proofing for some futuristic recording studio – was a great find too.”

“It was such a fabulous experience to have the opportunity to do our shoot at the studio with the awesome Hasselblad equipment.  It was a great day and we are so, amazingly over the moon with the results of the shoot.”

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