Tag Archives: Red

A Black & Red, 50s Rock n Roll Wedding: Hannah & Lewiss

August 1, 2012 in British Brides, Wedding | Written by Kat

Hannah & Lewiss’ small and sweet wedding was held at St Fagans Castle, the National History Museum of Wales. For their evening party they moved to the trendy Jolyons at No.10, a boutique hotel in the heart of Cardiff. The venue choices were important to this couple and they both wanted places that stood out. Hannah explained, “We both didn’t believe in long engagements so we set a date for 9 months after we got engaged. Finding a unique venue was important to us, but this was harder than we imagined. Living in Cardiff, we wanted somewhere in South Wales but it seemed to be flooded with chain hotel venues or vast historic buildings which were too big for the small wedding we had dreamed of. After overlooking it a couple of times we went to visit St Fagans Castle. St Fagans is the National History Museum of Wales, an outdoor museum full of historical buildings from all around the country. The Castle is a Grade 1 listed Elizabethan Manor House set in the most fabulous gardens. Even though it wasn’t what we originally had in mind, we knew straight away it was perfect. Also it’s in the area where Lewiss grew up and his parents still live, so it being local meant a lot to him.”

For their wedding theme, they oped for a subtle 50s theme, but really, they just included anything they loved. “The last thing we wanted was a one colour themed cookie cutter wedding”, Hannah continued. “We are both really creative so we did pretty much everything ourselves. Not only did this help us stamp our personality on the whole day, but it worked well with our smaller budget too. We started off with quite a strict theme idea, but over time, we stopped thinking about it too much and just let our natural style and quirkiness shine through. I love the classic look of the 1950s so that inspired what I wore as well as some of the decor; we went for a simple black white and red approach. I was very specific about what decorations I wanted so ended up making a lot of it myself. I did a lot of sewing with the table runners and tablecloths, and we designed and printed the stationary ourselves. We both LOVE rock music, I’m all about 1970s classic rock, and Lewiss is obsessed with 1980s metal, so we threw a bit of that in too with the table names and some of the decorations. We filled the day with music we love; I walked down the aisle to Joe Satriani, we signed the register to Led Zeppelin and we walked out of the ceremony to Creedence Clearwater Revival. During the day reception we had on Free and more Led Zeppelin while everyone was enjoying their lunch and our DJ in the evening loved British Punk music so we danced to a lot of The Clash which was amazing!”

A ‘US Meets UK’ Rock n Roll Wedding: Aaron & Melanie

April 3, 2012 in British Brides, Wedding Day/Day After Shoot | Written by Kat

Aaron & Melanie’s rocking 50s wedding does exactly what it says on the tin. This is unadulterated Rock n Roll Bride gold and I’m thrilled to share it with you today. The couple, who met in San Francisco while Melanie was there on holiday, were married at the end of January at Old Marylebone Town Hall, London. “We met whilst out dancing at a rockabilly club called the Jay n Bee, and whilst there was instant attraction, I was only on a two week holiday so nothing really happened,” Melanie told me. “However, I returned to the USA a few months later for Las Vegas and a three month stay in San Francisco, and that’s when we started dating. We continued travelling between San Francisco and London, and got engaged on our 8 month anniversary (which was also Christmas Eve) whilst out dancing at the Southbank Centre in London. We had originally planned to get married in SF, but one sunny day last October, we were laying in the garden here in London, and I said to Aaron ‘We should get married in London…in January!’ and so we planned our wedding in just over three and a half months!”

In order to keep the wedding personal, to save money and to enable them to organise everything so quickly, the couple did as much as they could themselves, with the help of friends & family. “We are really fortunate to have a lot of talented friends who were kind enough to help us make our day exactly as we wanted it to be,” Melanie continued. “My niece’s friend Claudia made our cake for the cost of the ingredients, numerous DJ friends took to the decks on the night and my sister’s friend Leena Teperi made my dress for me (exactly how I envisioned it!) My friend Natasha from Pretty Me Vintage did my hair and make up for me and an old school friend of mine, Mike Massaro, was our photographer.”

“We knew that we wanted our wedding to be very personal, and Aaron and I spent many evenings crafting until 2am in the weeks running up to the wedding! We made bunting, table decorations, cookies for favours, the table plan, signs, labels for the sweetie jars, mini-bunting for the table names, and my personal favourite – Aaron made Mr & Mrs 3D letters from scratch, using card, glue and tube maps (to keep with the UK part of our UK meets USA theme!)”

The most important thing to these two though? Well it’s all about the love baby! “Without trying to sound too cheesy, we were inspired by our love,” smiled the bride. “We planned our wedding around all the things that are special and meaningful to us, and did the best we could, with our budget, to make the most fun, memorable, romantic and personal party possible. We wanted rockin’ music, delicious food, attention to detail, and a fun atmosphere. We started out with a very non-traditional approach, and ended up with the perfect mix of traditional and non-traditional elements. We honestly feel that even if we were not on a tight budget, and had access to double or triple the money to spend, we still wouldn’t change a thing.”

Edgar Allen Poe & A Day Filled with Love: Joann & Jacqueline

January 11, 2012 in Wedding | Written by Kat

A quote by Edgar Allen Poe was the starting point for Joann & Jacqueline’s wedding plans. ‘We loved with a love that was more than love’ made them realise that really, their love was at that mattered. Luckily for these two beautiful women, they were surrounded by the stuff on their big day.

“No matter how much planning that went into that day, we were both blown away by the amount of love we received from our family and friends,” they explained. “We can’t fully explain or describe how it felt, but hopefully the love and laughter in the atmosphere of our wedding day had everyone just as thrilled and excited as we were. Our wedding was held at Penn Park, in Whittier, CA. The greenery was vivid and lovely just the way fairytales usually are, except this time there were two princesses.”

“Joann looked beautiful in her dress,” gushed Jacqueline. “I told myself I wouldn’t cry, but when we got to the front of the aisle and I looked at how gorgeous my bride was, and felt the amount of support we had from our family, we both couldn’t help but let the water works run wild.”

After a touching ‘sand ceremony’ (where each partner takes a different coloured sand and pours it into one vessel to symbolise the joining of their two families) they hosted a reception at Memories Dance Hall in Uptown Whitter. “The Ceremony was romantic and simplistic,”" Jacqueline continued. “We used white, ivory and hints of black to show our softer, feminine side. An outdoor wedding with the greenery of the earth and a commitment of love between two people. We expressed our commitment through a sand ceremony to symbolize the joining of our families, while we read our vows said from personal feelings and poems by Edgar Allen Poe.”

“Our Reception was the complete opposite – fun and flamboyant. We both love black, so the theme and colors completely changed to black with hints of red and gold, showing our Rock n Roll side. We never would have expected the decorations and everything to look as beautiful as it did. It captured the very essence of us and we couldn’t be happier. Our friends and family are not shy when it comes to having a good time, and that was fine by us. The Curse and Cure cover band started off the night. Our first song was a cover by Adele ‘Promise This’, we both had left feet and had never slow danced before, but in that moment it was just right and everything fell into place. The DJ was up after the speeches and from that point the love, laughs, booty drops and kisses were endless.”

A Village Fete Meets Tattoo Parlour Wedding: Jess & David

November 14, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | Written by Kat

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’.”

A Patriotic Red, White & Blue Wedding: Julia & James

October 20, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | Written by Kat

Julia & James had a handmade and patriotic Great British theme for their September wedding – red, white & blue. “I knew from the moment we started to plan the wedding that I wanted it to be DIY,” the bride told me, “and to be able to keep all the aspects to decorate our home. We had so many great comments on the day from the registrar and venue that they had never seen a wedding like ours before. I am a avid follower of Rock n Roll Bride, Ruffled blog & Green Wedding Shoes so I scrapbooked a lot of ideas from them all over the past 2 years!”

Julia wore two dresses, the first was made by her Mother which she wore with Union Jack Irregular Choice shoes. In the evening she changed into a dress which she bought from eBay. “I saw it one evening when looking for a joke dress to wear to a friend’s hen party and my heart stopped,” Julia continued. “It was the one! I bid as far as my purse would let me, and I didn’t win. I was tweeting away and some of my followers suggested I contact the seller directly.”

“So I did, and asked her how much she wanted for it. I was devastated when she told me the amount as it was more than I could pay at that time. Anyway, I kept tweeting my dismay and had resigned to the fact that the dress wouldn’t be mine. I had a DM from one of my friends saying that I could start a group on facebook asking all our mates to donate some money and that it would be a wedding present from them all. I didn’t think anything would come of it but not long after the same friend DM’d me saying ‘check your email’ and there was a PayPal amount awaiting me – to cover the WHOLE amount for the dress. As you can imagine I cried and laughed and jumped for joy!”

The reception decor was all DIY including the bunting, 400 pinwheels (which they had instead of flowers on the tables as well as instead of traditional bouttonierres for the boys), the string ball decorations and all the table decorations. Instead of a traditional wedding cake, they had a cake competition where they asked their guests to bring a homemade cake. They had all kinds of entries including a barbie doll cake, apple and cinnamon muffins and sparkly cake pops.

Aimee & Ben’s Heavily Tattooed, Handfasting Vow Renewal

May 26, 2011 in British Brides, Wedding | Written by Kat

Bride Aimee and photographer Naomi Kenton connected through Rock n Roll Bride. They both got talking via facebook about some weddings they’d both seen and liked on the blog and so after getting to know each other well in this informal way, Naomi shot her vow renewal to Ben.

Can we also just please stop for one minute and share some love for Aimee & Ben’s ink?! Seriously…wow. “Tattoos are a big part of both our lives as Ben is a tattooist,” explained Aimee, “and we are both really into all things rockabilly, hot rods and VW lovers so that’s what we wanted for the day. We are just ourselves and we do things the way we want and are happy as a result.”

The handfasting ceremony was held at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire in April. “We wanted to celebrate our relationship and our two children, so we decided to renew our vows – we chose a handfasting as it was a lot more personal to us and was performed by a good friend Caroline Johnson.”

“I made the flowers myself and also used Jack Daniels bottles as decoration on the buffet table,” Aimee continued. ” I gave all the guests a favour bag that we got a couple of ‘meet & greet’ girls to hand out – which were white paper bags lined with tissue paper, in each I put a little spell bag, some heart bath fizzers for the women and skull shaped soaps for the men. For the children I gave duck shape bath fizzers and rhubarb & custard soaps.”

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