Category Archives: How To…

How to…Make Your Own Fabric Flower Bouquet (Tutorial by Josephine Sicad)

November 20, 2010 in DIY Tutorials, Guest Posts, How To... | Written by

After featuring Josephine & Radney’s incredibly gorgeous and eclectic DIY wedding last week I was inundated with emails from you lot about the bride’s gorgeous DIY fabric flower bouquet. So I asked the lovely Josephine very nicely if she’d be so kind as to write a little tutorial for you. She was more than thrilled to oblige!

I’d love to see some more Rock n Roll Brides rocking down the aisle with one of these babies! Huge thanks to Josephine for working on this feature with me.

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The moment I started planning what to have for my wedding bouquet, I had already envisioned that it would be a little bit quirky. I was inspired by the vintage brooch bouquets I had seen a lot on Rock n Roll Bride. However, I didn’t have much budget to buy lots of new brooches. Luckily for me I came across a store that sold everything “3 for $10″ and they sold lots of vintage style necklaces! I grew goosebumps when I saw the vintagey necklaces with beads and fabric flowers on them. so I then thought “why not detach the fabric flowers to form my very own wedding bouquet?!”

It was really quick and easy to make.

Materials:

Fabric flowers & assorted flower hair-clips (I would have loved fresh flowers but I wanted to have something I could keep forever)
Cotton twine
A few scraps of wool
Scissors
An egg beater/whisk (as you can imagine, it was such a ‘light-bulb’ moment when I thought of using it for the stem!)

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How to… Beat the Post Wedding Blues

October 8, 2010 in How To... | Written by

So the wedding is over. This baby you’ve been nursing for the last year or so has flown the nest and you’re now a happily married lady. You’re a wife! You’re the happiest girl in the world…now instead of wedding questions people are asking you about babies! Life couldn’t get any better and you’re on top of the world…right…right??

Well no. Maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re a little sad, blue, depressed and low. You’re so happy to be married but at the same time your bummed you’re no longer ‘the bride’. Even us self-proclaimed anti-brides can sometimes let ourselves admit that we loved being the centre of attention and that we had the best time planning the biggest day of our lives and pouring over every little detail… so much so that we really really miss it. We feel like our current situation has no purpose and we are certainly not ready for babies just yet… we’re in limbo.

Let me first say, don’t beat yourself up about feeling sad that the wedding day is over. It is perfectly normal to mourn a little bit that the thing you’re whole life has been focused around for the past year is now over and done with. Your wedding has probably been a huge feat of engineering for you. You’ve put your heart and soul into it. You’ve learnt skills you never knew you had and you’ve diy-ed, crafted and researched your little heart out… but now what?

Well I wasn’t ready to give up the wedding thing as soon as we got married (I think that’s actually pretty obvious!) Nearly 3 years later I’m still living and breathing this wedding world… in my own special way of course! I didn’t feel like bounding head first in to the traditional wife/motherhood role and you know what, I really don’t feel bad about that.

And neither should you.

So, here are a few little tips that should help you to banish those inevitable post wedding blues…

♥ Don’t feel guilty about being sad. If you’re anything like me, the planning of your wedding was a huge, life-changing experience and a massive learning curve for you (I bet you learnt skills you never knew you had and did things you never thought you’d do!) Anything that’s been that big a part of your life is going to be a bit difficult to let go of. Just because you feel a little down doesn’t make you any less happy to be married and certainly doesn’t make you a “bad wife.” Just make sure your new husband/wife knows this too – just because I’m (still) obsessed with weddings doesn’t make me any less obsessed with being married to Gareth and he knows that!

♥ Don’t have wedding regrets. This is something I still really struggle with! Surrounded by awesome weddings everyday doesn’t half make me think “Ooh I wish we’d done that”, or “Oh God her dress was so much cooler than mine.” Seriously I need to stop it and so do you. You made the decisions for your wedding because they were right for you and suited you guys at this stage in your lives. Copying someone else’s idea of what makes a cool wedding isn’t really what it’s all about is it? Our wedding was perfect for the 2008 Kat & Gareth. Would the 2010 Kat & Gareth have the same wedding? Probably not. Does that make our wedding any less special? Does it heck!

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How to…Make Your Own Cake Pops (Tutorial by Rhubarb & Rose)

October 2, 2010 in DIY Tutorials, Guest Posts, How To... | Written by

You may well remember April & Alex’s laid back garden party wedding that I featured a few weeks ago. Well a lot of you got in touch (and in fact I wondered myself!) asking about how April made her own cake pops. So I thought I’d ask the lady herself and she’s kindly written this lovely tutorial for you all.

Enjoy – and happy baking!

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Everyone LOVES these little cakes on sticks. I displayed them bunched up in jam jars for my wedding but you could pile them up like sweets in a big glass jar or use them as favours for your place settings too. They take a little while to make but they’re worth it!

You need…

A cake (I’ve used a double batch of this red velvet recipe spilt across 2 x 20cm sandwich tins)
Icing (I’ve used one batch of this cream cheese one)
400g chocolate coating
60 x 15cm paper lollipop sticks
Sprinkles or sugar roses to decorate
Polystyrene block (or something to stand your pops in as they dry)
Cellophane bags (optional)
Ribbon (optional)

1. Crumble up your cooled cake into a large bowl (this feels very wrong but fun!)

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How To…Get the Best Out of Your Engagement Shoot

September 4, 2010 in Guest Posts, How To... | Written by

All Photo Credit: Browns Photography

This week I got chatting to Brighton-based photographer Joanna Brown who has just put together a list of engagement shoot prep ideas to give to her clients. I loved it so much I asked if she’d share it with you all too.

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This is a simple guide so you can get the best possible photographs from your forthcoming shoot.  The images that I get from my shoots like the ones above do not just happen; they were thought out, styled and prepared for in advance.  With just a little bit of preparation yours can be fantastic too so here are some pointers…

♥ Ideally think about your outfits, I would recommend that BOYS ~ smarten up as much as you can, this might mean a cool shirt and jeans and converse just not too casual.
GIRLS ~ my advice would be don’t hold back, I want you to feel beautiful and gorgeous in what you wear, I would defiantly opt for a cute dress, something that you feel good in and comfortable.

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How to…Look & Feel Natural in Front of the Camera

August 21, 2010 in Guest Posts, How To... | Written by

I hope you’ve been enjoying our much more frequent visits to the ‘How to…’ series. After reading your survey responses (full report to come soon) it was one of the things that was most requested. This week I asked Carina Romano of the fabulous Love Me Do Photography (based in Philadelphia) to address the subject that a lot of brides feel nervous about – how they’re going to look in their wedding pictures.

Don’t forget, I love hearing from you all so if you have any burning questions about anything wedding, business or blogging related be sure to shoot me an email and either myself or one of my carefully selected army of amazing guest posters will try and help out.

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Make Up

If you’re afraid of your makeup looking fake, book a make up artist who specializes in natural looking make up.  A good make up artist should know how the camera is going to translate the look of your skin.  If you have oily skin, you’re going to want to put something on that so that the flash of the camera doesn’t reflect off your forehead. 

Relax

Make sure you’re in the right state of mind before having your picture taken.  Any negative emotion will be apparent through your face in your pictures.  Make sure you’re allowing yourself to be relaxed.  Go to a spa the day before, make sure you get a good night’s rest, give jobs to your bridesmaids and groomsmen so that you’re not having to do everything yourself (that’s what they’re there for!), have a drink!  A wedding day is stressful, you don’t want to have to look back on your pictures and see that you have a furrowed brow in all your shots. 

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How to…Have a Perfectly Imperfect Wedding/Life

August 18, 2010 in How To... | Written by

Our walls don’t have fancy art on them…unless you count a freebie pg tips monkey as ‘art’

I live and I breathe Rock n Roll Bride. It is my life. It is my biggest passion. It is my obsession. I know from reading the hundreds of submissions and emails I receive from you all that you live and breathe it too. You ‘get’ it. You believe in it and you love the ideas behind it. But you know what, I have a confession. I sometimes feel like a fraud.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll read a lot of blogs religiously. You’ll pour over the beautiful people and their stunning weddings on Style Me Pretty, their effortlessly cool homes on Design Sponge and their awesomely unique design and style ideas on Etsy. We love to read these sites for ‘inspiration’ but secretly, don’t they make us feel a little bit like a failure? Do you ever read blogs and think “I’m not beautiful enough”? Do you ever wish you had more to spend on your wedding? Do you ever wish you lived in one of those achingly cool, funky and stylish apartments?

Yeah, me too.

My ‘office’ – ie nook under the stairs. Chic and stylish it is not

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re planning (or have planned) a Rock n Roll wedding but sometimes, just sometimes, do you ever get that teeny tiny little twinge of the green eyed monster when you see that size zero blonde with her perfectly gorgeous husband and their perfectly stylish Martha Stewart wedding? I bet she didn’t sit up until 2am making stationary or hunting for months to find a dress that didn’t make her look like a blancmange. I bet she didn’t look at hundreds of photographers’ blogs desperately searching for one that could capture her wedding whilst coming in nicely under budget. I bet she knew exactly where to look and who to book, and of course I bet she got her first choices on everything.

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