Tag Archives: flower crown

A Rainy Brazilian Wedding with DIY Details: Cecilia & Luciano

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Cecilia & Luciano wanted a simple wedding inspired by their choice of venue, Pousada Estrela D’água, in Trancoso, Brazil. “My inspiration was the wedding venue”, explained the bride. “The village of Trancoso, Bahia, is beautiful and simple at the same time. That’s what I sought in all my wedding decisions. I did not want anything too pretentious. For the decorations we used photos of family and tablecloths that belonged to our great grandmothers. The decor had a bit of our history and showed a lot of our personality.”

Cecilia made her own dress from the lace of the veil that her mother-in-law wore when she married. She also designed and made the bridesmaid’s dresses. “There was no specific theme to anything really”, she continued. “We just tried to do everything as simple as possible.”

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A Simple Bridal Shoot on the Barcelona Hills

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April in Barcelona. Teresa and film photographer Miguel Varona headed away from the city and up the hills to Montseny natural park to shoot a set of simple bridal portraits. “It wasn’t the perfect day”, wrote Miquel. “The sun didn’t shine, but the atmosphere we had was perfect to recreate the special moments for a bride on her wedding day.”

“Teresa wore a leather jacket a boots with her simple dress. ‘Why not mix tradition and simplicity?’ I thought. ‘Why not show that tradition is compatible with personality?’”

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A Maryland Farm Wedding: Jamie & McKenzie

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This wedding is just too gorgeous for words…like literally. I just stared and stared at these amazing photos for (what seemed like) hours before I found the words to start writing this article. There really is something utterly breathtaking about this wedding and Lydia Jane‘s images that captured it. I’m thrilled to be able to share it with you today so please forgive my gushing…

Jamie & McKenzie were married at home. They love their lifestyle on their farm, living alongside the sheep and chickens, so a homespun wedding was really the only option. The couple have a hugely supportive family who all helped out to make the wedding happen.

“Initially our wedding budget was non-existent. Jamie had just broken his arm, had surgery with no insurance, was out of work, and I was supporting the both of us”, McKenzie told me. “Our families pulled together to make our wedding a completely different ‘animal’ than we’d initially imagined. We were going to do a modified potluck, put together a bunch of small 12×12 tents, clean out the garage and open the house up to guests if it was raining, pick our own wildflowers, etc. I think combined, our families spent about $6,000 on us. I’m not completely sure but I’ll be honest, this is a sore spot for us because $6,000 is an incredible amount of money and it’s challenging to say no to people who really just want your wedding to be beautiful and ‘normal’ and non-farmy and accessible to older relatives. We eventually gave up a lot of our original ideas because we realized that if our families were going to help us, we’d have to be flexible with our values (local food vs. Costco, etc.) It sounds like I’m complaining, but really it’s just out of concern for what people can really afford and a strong dislike for harmful consumerism. Spending even $100 to us is a BIG deal. We’re trying to start a farm and thinking about that money going towards one-day’s worth of non-local baby carrots was a little unnerving (I don’t actually know how much money was spent on carrots, I’m just saying…) Overall, it was a beautiful day, and everyone worked their butts off to make it so. We are lucky that our families care about us enough to wrangle sheep, brave potential poison ivy patches, build new stairways, and let go our non-traditional trash set-up. This was where the money spent on non-local food became okay in our eyes. We divided the set-up into recycling, trash, and chicken-scraps. After dinner, our guests scraped their own plates in a homemade ‘mess hall’ and were overall pretty respectful of us wanting to feed the food scraps to our chickens. Our chickens ate like royalty for the next few days!”

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A Spaghetti Western, Day of the Dead & Frida Kahlo Inspired Wedding: Jess & Martin

in British Brides, Wedding | Written by

Jess & Martin’s quirky wedding fills my heart with glee. It seems that these days, it’s not the wedding details I’m falling in love with (although seeing the pretty/cute/alternative/awesome ideas that people come up with is ace) but the people behind them. How can you not fall in love with these two?

“We wanted a relaxed, quirky and easy going wedding that was easy for most people to get to, so set it close to where we lived in Stoke Newington”, Jess told me. “We love the funky yet friendly atmosphere of this area and are passionate about where we live.”

The ceremony was held at Stoke Newington Town Hall and was an emotional service. “The local registry office has just been renovated back to its art deco glory and it’s a beautiful stylish venue”, she continued. “One of our friends had written a beautiful, personal speech, so much so it left the Registrar in tears – having apparently not cried during a single ceremony for 12 years.”

“We chose a laid back arty pub for the reception in Islington that was just perfect. Originally we were going to another pub in Islington but they cancelled on us 12 weeks before the wedding which was a little stressful. Actually, this worked out for the best as The Wilmington Arms were so helpful and really got into the style and spirit of the day and nothing was too much trouble – we got the relaxed atmosphere we had always wanted!”

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A Bohemian Garden Party Fairytale: Mark & Jolina

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 After seeing Mark & Jolina’s incredible engagement shoot, there was no doubt in my mind that their wedding would be AMAZING. However in my wildest wedding dreams even I didn’t imagine this. The theme for the day was similar to their engagement shoot - a bohemian/hippy chic, garden party fairytale.

“Mark & I have been active in the Philippines entertainment industry for quite some time now,” Jolina told me. “He plays drums and guitar for his band Rivermaya and they’ve been around for over 17 years. I’ve been a full-time actress, singer and recording artist for the past 22 years. Most of our lives have been spent on stage or in front of cameras, with the whole country watching and listening. Therefore we wanted our special day to be as relaxed as possible, no press, no TV cameras, no interviews, and all the ‘formalities’ were made as simple and meaningful as possible. We wanted to ignore tradition as much as possible to the day was 100% for us.”

“Only our official photographers, videographer, wedding suppliers, and our closest family and friends were there. It was simple, happy and fun. At the reception, we had our younger guests sitting on picnic blankets and throw pillows. There was a live drum circle performance before the program started and some of the guests joined in. Aside from the free-flow iced tea and lemonade, large steel vats we’re on also on the ground, filled with bottles of beer and ice. After the short program and fireworks, it was open-mic for everyone.”

The couple also added a few extra special touches to again, keep the day personal. “For our wedding invitations, we had scrapbooks made for all our guests” the bride continued. “We reproduced all our old pictures, movie and concert tickets, even airline boarding passes for each scrapbook. There’s a page where we showed what the ‘proper’ wedding attire would be. Mark and I used craft wire to create 300 miniature coat hangers and attached swatches of real fabric. Everyone said they really loved the idea.”

“Mark & I also attached lace to my shoes so they would match my dress better. They turned out much nicer than anything I saw in the stores… they’re one-of-a-kind because we made them ourselves.”

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A Footloose Meets Vintage Romance Wedding: Jessie & Mark

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You might mistakenly think that Jessie & Mark’s wedding is a little on the pretty and elegant side for me, but you’d be wrong. On the odd occasion (in between all the tattooed chicks and badassery) I do like to swoon over a genuinely beautiful wedding like this one.

The outdoor ceremony wedding and rustic barn reception were held at Fischer Hall, Texas. The bride wore a Priscilla of Boston gown which she found on preownedweddingdresses.com and real flowers in her hair.

“Our inspiration was sort of Footloose meets a vintage romance,” Jessie told me. “i.e soft beautiful flowers, vintage vases, mismatched plates and silverware, personalized touches for each guest, good wines and rockin’ music to dance the night away! What better place to do it in than an old dance hall that is more than 100 years old?!”

“Our entire wedding was DIY. Everything,” she continued. “We even hunted down enough vintage mismatched plates and silverware for every guest. Our awesome family and amazing friends all pulled together to make it happen. Anna did the flowers. Noi dj’ed. Emily almost gave herself a heart attack helping bake the gluten free cupcakes. My baby brothers, their ladies, Mark’s sister and brother in law came in at the crack of dawn to help set up the hall. But think our best diy story is about the spoons…”

“After seeing the idea (on god knows what blog, I stalked many wedding blogs during my planning!) of a set of personalized wedding party spoons I decided that we were going to do them for all of the guests. It seemed so awesome and easy in hindsight. Awesome yes. Easy no. But it didn’t matter because we wanted each guest to have something really unique and special. I first had to round up all of the spoons, all 140 mismatched vintage ones plus extras for mistakes…And although I love my husband he didn’t understand that not just any spoon would do, it had to have a specific type of handle pattern to appease my crazy vision. So this task was all me. Once gathered they then had to be pounded flat and everyones name hand hammered into them. 120 spoons, a whole lot of profanity and a few thrown spoons later we were done. It was way more work than my crazy wedding obsessed brain had anticipated but damn they were awesome. Thanks to Nathan we have pictures to prove it!”

Agreed Jessie, these are freaking beautiful. I would definitely love to receive one of these as a wedding favour…

“Not everything went as planned that day,” she concluded, “but that didn’t matter. In the end it was all about us, hand in hand, celebrating our journey with everyone we love.”

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