“Must. Remember. To. Breathe” I thought as I looked through this amazing set of images sent over by Gabby of En Route Photography last week.

It’s not just beause bride-to-be Bonnie is utterly stunning…and has blue hair…and is rocking that amazing 80’s dress like nobody’s business… but just check out the LIGHT! The relatively simple rooftop backdrop (in Berlin no less) is the perfect location for such a breathtaking bridal shoot.

Bonnie is getting married next year and brought along her own vintage dress for the shoot (oh boy I really hope she wears this for her actual wedding day.) “The shoot had a real 80’s feel to it,” Gabby told me.

“I felt like I was shooting Madonna from like a prayer! We were aiming to capture some pretty, more conventional and some out of the ballpark images with the cigarette and Peter the porcelain tiger.”

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BADABOOM!

That’s the noise my heart made when I clapped eyes on Ashley & Justin’s wedding. These guys are Rock n Roll gold and I’m so so so excited to be a-sharing these today.

The wedding was held at Red Gate Farm in Tennessee, a beautiful 30 acre farm with a view of the mountains.

“We wanted to make sure the wedding was really laid back and not a typical, traditional wedding,” the gorgeous bride told me. “I love collecting antiques, so naturally I was really inspired by vintage themes. I also found a love for rustic, barn weddings. We couldn’t find any barn venues around here that really appealed to us, so with the help of our amazing photographer Tara, we found the location. It was absolutely perfect. The owners already had a lot of things on location for us to use, and they agreed to supply us with hay bales for seating! Score!”

“With the help from my mother-in-law, we searched thrift and antique stores for lace tablecloths, vintage napkins, vases, spice tins, afghans for the hay bales, etc. I couldn’t have done it all without her help.”

“Most of our wedding was DIY, she continued. “The most special DIY was my wedding dress, because my mother and I spent so much time reworking a dress I purchased from Unique Vintage. In the end, it was completely unique and one of a kind, just like my Mom!”

Ashley teamed her dress with Vivienne Westwood/Melissa shoes but she sprayed the hearts from red to green to they were totally one-of-a-kind.

“I had always wanted to have a paper flower bouquet, so I looked up tutorials online. They were slightly tedious, but really fun to make and worth it! They were WAY cheaper than real flowers, plus I can keep them forever. I also spent some time with two of my best girlfriends to make mustaches on sticks for our party favors. With the help from coupons and a friend who worked at a local craft store, I spent almost nothing in comparison to how much they were selling for on etsy. They were a huge hit with our guests too!”

“To any brides planning their wedding with time to spare, start working on DIY projects early on,” Ashley advises. “It will save you a lot of stress and late night crafting in the end. I started working on everything when we got engaged, and the week of the wedding was almost stress-free! Accept help from others. You don’t have to do everything on your own, and believe it or not, you can’t. Chances are, there will be plenty of friends and family around you that want to help. Let them.”

“Choose a photographer that that best suits your style. In the end, you only have your photos and you want them to be the best! I knew from day one that I wanted to work with Tara at Dixie Pixel. I have worked with her in the past and she is phenomenal at what she does. Her style of photography is like none other around here and I knew she would ‘get’ my vision, even if it was hard for me to put into words at first. I couldn’t be happier with the way the pictures turned out. She and her assistant, James, were able to capture so many moments that I didn’t expect to see. It brought tears to my eyes all over again.”

Oh these are just so beautiful/awesome/crazy all at the same time!

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The love for Alice in Wonderland themed weddings has been around for a while so I don’t often share that many of them…however an Alice theme done really well is something I just can’t resist. Marisa & Noah’s wedding falls into this category like a glove.

The couple were married at Mendocino Coast Overlook, with a reception at Spring Ranch, Mendocino CA. The bride, dressed as Alice, wore a Betsey Johnson dress and shoes by Manolo Blahnik and the grrom rocked out in a Mat Hatter get up including a hat by Scala Hats.

Marisa told me all about it, “Noah and I are fairly unconventional in general and we wanted to have a wedding that really showed our personalities and was truly unique, creative, whimsical, colorful, spiritual without being religious, and most importantly, fun! So, we re-thought every standard of a wedding and put our own spin on it: having Noah’s dad, Joe, officiate using a copy of Alice in Wonderland instead of the Bible, different colored tablecloths, unique flower arrangements, an altar to honor our loved ones, a croquet game set up outside, etc.”

“We also featured absinthe and root beer cocktails at the bar, and a caterer, Pangea Catering, who specialize in local and sustainable food (they raise their own pigs, grow many of their own veggies, and forage for their mushrooms). Our wine was also locally sourced through a local wine company, Green Barrel Wines, which is owned by two of our good friends. They specialize in wine on tap that comes out of these beautiful barrels. Noah and I really wanted all elements of the wedding to express who we are and this piece, the food, was especially important to us since we both feel so strongly about where our food is sourced.”

“We discussed the idea of having a Garden Party reception. Then my friend suggested Alice in Wonderland, and the idea grew when we realized that the concept would give us open and creative parameters to have a unique, whimsical, and non-conventional wedding.”

“The rustic and historical location of Spring Ranch, provided a backdrop of rustic textures, whimsy, and an assortment of knick-knacks that the owner has collected over the years. We also liked the analogy to the story of Alice in Wonderland, and saw our wedding as the beginning of a lifetime of adventures together.”

“For the reception, I started to gather teacups,” Marisa continued, “but Noah’s stepmother jumped in to help with zest, and took on the task collecting the majority that you see scattered throughout the reception. The florist, Rosa, loved the concept of the wedding and went above and beyond expectations in her varied and colorful floral arrangements, and worked on creatively incorporating the flowers with teacups.”

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I honestly wasn’t 100% sure if I’d enjoy The Luxury Wedding Show, London, that was held at The Saatchi Gallery over weekend. I’m not really a luxury or posh kinda gal so I wondered if I’d walk in feeling a) out of my comfort zone b) snubbed by snooty designers or c) bored of seeing the same old same old ‘pretty white dresses’.

Oh how wrong I was!

Firstly there was zero snootiness despite it’s ‘high end’ location. The organisers were sweet and accommodating and the exhibitors I chatted to were excited to see me and eager to chat about what they did. A lot of them were debuting their 2012 collections at the show, so it was really awesome to see all the new designs and trends coming through for next year. I thoroughly enjoyed meandering around the white hallways looking at all the wedding pretty.

Wedding bloggers can’t stay off twitter. Fact…

The catwalk show was also, no joke, the best I’ve ever seen. I’ve often said that I find catwalks shows a little on the dull side, but not this one! The show started with a crash of dramatic music and flashing lights. As I sat in the front row (‘FROW’ daaarling) with some of my fellow wedding bloggers, we swit and swooed as stunning designs by David Fielden, Luella’s Boudoir, Candy Anthony, Charlotte Casadejus, Vera Wang, Temperley and (OMG) Vivienne Westwood (to name a few) sauntered down the runway.

David Fielden

Charlotte Casadejus

State of Grace

The designs were inventive and elegant, unique and original. There was not a boring strapless taffeta monstrosity in sight. This was wedding couture at it’s very best and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Silver accents, unusual hemlines and necklines, bold colour statements, textured fabrics and multi-layered skirts played a big role.

Vivienne Westwood certainly didn’t disappoint

Charlotte Casadejus‘ Isabella gown is made for a Rock n Roll Bride! The tulle and silver paint splattered skirt is to die for! I must borrow this for one of my photo shoots soon. Easily my favourite gown of the entire show.

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This Week’s Love List…

♥ The response to Rock n Roll Bride Magazine (seriously, blown. away. Issue one is now completely sold out by the way and we’re not getting any more printed. Stand by for issue two!) ♥ 10 days alcohol-free! (i’ll get back into that vintage dress yet…) ♥ The Bloggess – especially this post! ♥ sugar free red bull ♥ catch up’s, rude boy slang and general hilarity with Amma ♥ London Tattoos launch party ♥ Vivienne ♥

Best of the Rest…

The Photography Farm makes me do a happy dance…I know you wish you were there too…

Photographers, are struggling to use flash in the right way when shooting weddings? Well then this workshop is for you. This two (and a half) day event will focus on off-camera flash & light painting, and is in partnership with lighting expert Adam Bronkhorst at Viva Wedding Photography.

They say, “This unique advanced flash workshop at The Photography Farm is designed to give you a full understanding of how and why to use off-camera flash (also known as Strobist) and light painting in a wedding environment”

You will learn the fundamentals of off-camera flash and how to use the different techniques in any environment as well as learning post-production and business tips from wedding photographer of the year Lisa Devlin.

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This is something I’ve wanted to do more of on the blog for a while, but alas something I’m quite rubbish at myself – DIY. I really wish I was a crafting genius but no. I’m much more likely to buy something handmade than actually make it myself!

However I love DIY tutorials on blogs and I know you guys do too. It’s also so so so awesome to see the tutorials I feature are being used for your actual weddings afterwards. So baby I want more…and this is where you come in.

Are you a DIY genius or a crafty gem? If so I want to hear from you! Have you created something for your wedding that you think the readers of Rock n Roll Bride will love and you’d like to share? If so drop me an email to kat@rocknrollbride.com with a few photos of said item and a brief description of what it is. If I like what I see I’ll let you know what to do next.

Some of the past favourites that I’ve featured have included…

How to…Crochet Your Own Cupcake Garland

How To…Make Your Own 1960′s Inspired Mod Floral Hair Wreath 

How to…Make Your Own Fabric Flower Bouquet

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Photography Credit: Dixie Pixel Photography (full wedding on the blog next week!)

Sorting out the table plan can be one of the most stressful parts of planning your wedding (it certainly was for us) – knowing who’s going to get on with who and worrying that everyone will have a good time! The drama can be even more so if you have divorced parents or rowing relatives!

I asked my friend and wedding planner/blogger Kelly of Boho Wedding and Events if she had any advice on this tricky matter…

Table plans and seating arrangements can cause a complete headache when trying to do the right thing by all of your guests. In this instance, maybe the answer is to not have a seating plan at all? And let the guest fight it out (not literally of course!) between themselves. Lots of weddings I have worked on this year have had no formal seating plan at all, it gives a much more relaxed feel to your day and the guests really do get to sit with whomever they like.

If you are getting pressure of who to sit next to yourselves and who to put on the top table, why not forget the top table and have a sweetheart table instead? This way you and your husband/wife get to sit with each other on your own, and let the guests come to you. This way if there are any headaches with the whole seating plan then you never get to know about it!

If you do want to stick to the traditional table plan then try this piece of wedding soft wear from www.toptableplanner.com – it does all the hard work for you.

On a personal note, when I was sorting out my own table plan for my wedding,  I found using a photo of each guest really helped me to arrange the seating arrangements, instead of just a name.

Another way is to allocate guests to a table but not a seat and let them sort out who is sitting next to each other.

I love this last idea. Use ‘escort cards’ instead of a formal seating plan and just allocate everyone a card with their table number on. There are many cute ways to display these at your wedding too. Here are some of my recent favourite ideas…

♥ Wings at an airplane themed wedding Ashley Rose via Green Wedding Shoes
♥ Luggage labels & horseshoes Khaki Bedford Weddings full wedding here
♥ Navy stripes Glessner Photography via Wedding Chicks
♥ Oranges Lane Dittoe via Inspired by This
♥ Harmonicas (which can double up as favours!) Jesi Haack Weddings

This is a bit of a longer article than my usual Post It Notes but email is a bit of a nightmare isn’t it?! Therefore it takes longer to explain…Maybe you could write out like 25 post it notes and stick them all round your workstation instead?

I often get asked about my email management system so this week I thought I’d try to share my processes with you. First off I need to let you know that I am an email freak. Gareth often comments how I chew through emails like nobody’s business! I don’t by any means think my system is the most efficient; however it does work for me and the way my brain works. The key thing is that I actual have a system though. Finding one that works for you is imperative to staying on top of the dreaded inbox and keeping people happy.

There is nothing worse than sending an email and not hearing anything back for weeks (or not at all!) No matter how busy you are, taking forever to reply to your emails really does give a bad impression of you and your business (the people emailing you don’t know how busy you are) so I personally make it my number 1 priority after writing blog content.

Colour Coding

A nutshell, colour coding is your friend. Every morning I go through all my unread emails and mark them orange, this means they are unread/unactioned. Once I’ve read and replied to an email it then either gets filed in its appropriate folder (more on this further down the article) or re-coloured. If I have to do something in response to an email (ie create an invoice, find out some info) I mark it blue, this means ‘to do’. If something is urgent, (ie a magazine deadline has been brought forward or I have to edit something in a live blog post) I mark it red.

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Kevin & Lindsay were married at the bride’s Dad’s farm in Ontario, Canada. Along with his wife Lynne, he spent a year perfecting the properly in order to host his daughter’s wedding. “My Dad built a beautiful deck and added a lovely pavilion that were married under appropriately named ‘the wedding pavilion’,” Lindsay told me. “Kev and I spent the week leading up to the wedding enjoying the country and spending time with our families, it was so nice.”

Although the couple told me they wouldn’t really consider their wedding to be that ‘alternative’, they did try to do a lot of things themselves to make it really special. They also enlisted the help of their friends and family wherever they could. Lindsay continues, “We did try to do a lot of things on our own. Having the wedding at a venue that had sentimental value was the best decision we made. My Dad and his wife got married three years ago on their property in a small, almost exclusively family affair. The setting was perfect, relaxed andsentimental. Although our wedding was a bigger production it had the same feeling of intimacy and informality this kind of setting afforded and inspired.”

“My Dad and his wife had pictures all over the gazebo and porch of Kevin and I throughout the years which was a really fun surprise for us and I think entertaining for our guests to see. Since we love lawn games, we had bocce ball and croquet sets all over the property providing guests with afternoon entertainment between the ceremony and reception.”

“We walked down the aisle to Crosby Stills and Nash ‘Our House’ and after the ceremony, we walked back to the Beach Boys ‘Wouldn’t it be Nice.’ My aunt was the MC for our reception and our wedding party consisted of very close friends, siblings and cousins who are all close with each other. All in all, it served for an informal but intimate day that was so much fun!”

Because the venue was so beautiful and sentimental, the couple kept their decor to a minimum. “The joke was that it was a bit of a city meets country. The colours were neutral and were really only accented by the colour of some of the seasonal wildflowers. Our hors d’oeuvre were things like cucumber gazpacho and potato latkes and the dinner was hearty comfort food followed by pie. We tried to strike a balance between refinement and understated elegance with modest decorating, food, and games that complemented the setting.”

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Credit: Organised mess from Colour Me Katie

Tonight I’m off to the launch for London Tattoos, a book I was photographed for earlier this year. I’m so excited to get my hands on a copy and see how it turned out! If you fancy getting one yourself you can order it online from Amazon or Waterstones for just £16.99 (or just £11.21 right now at WH Smiths!) The book is also available in actual bookstores. How EXCITING!

Also, a little quickly to let you all know that issue one of Rock n Roll Bride magazine is completely sold out! Thank you to everyone who bought a copy. I know some of you have received them already and the rest are being packed up and shipped out by Gareth as I type!

So what else, what else…?

♥ Atlanta anniversary shoot
♥ Skeleton Key Escort Tag DIY
♥ DIY Piggabeen Wedding – the bride’s blue & red dress is awesome!
♥ Teal & yellow Smog Shoppe wedding
♥ Colourful backyard wedding
♥ Glitter shoes DIY!
♥ Totally love the black wedding dress collection from Vera Wang
♥ Beaver Stadium Wedding – how beautiful? Loving the bride’s Oscar de La Renta dress and the yellow bridesmaids dresses!

Photography Credit: Sweet Little Photographs

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Ney & Phil’s DIY wedding was loosely based around the theme of a books and libraries.

“We wanted a literary theme and thought using vintage books as invites would be a lovely idea,” Ney told me. “We met at University studying English Literature and just love books, in particular old Penguin classics. We found some companies that can make them for you, but they’re expensive so we decided to do them ourselves.”

“We spent weeks to-ing and fro-ing all the vintage bookstores on Charing Cross Road (they do great bargain deals like hardback books for a pound).  I sourced a template for library card sleeves online, used an embossed gold paper to make them and then slotted our wedding invites inside to complete the book.  As much as possible, we tied our book choices to our guests’ interests, e.g. a Portuguese travel guide for my Mum, classic English poems for friends who studied literature with us, and a Guide to British Birds for Phil’s old-charmer Dad.  I love the idea that the invites had a life after the wedding, and it’s great knowing that they’re sitting on our friends’ bookshelves as part of their collection.”

“I used websites like Rock n Roll Bride and many, many (OK, hundreds of) wedding blogs for ideas and inspiration.  We have quite a taste for old vintage things and are constantly rummaging around in markets so used these trips for inspiration on how to display things or what to buy.  Things like the idea of covering books with vintage-style wrapping paper for the centrepieces we got from passing an antique shop in Chelsea, for example.”

It was also really important to the couple to incorporate their different heritages and cultures and so the second part of their wedding theme was based around this. “Throughout the day, we tried to make sure that the wedding was representative of our families’ cultures,” the bride continued.

“Phil’s got an English/Australian background – hence we started the day with afternoon tea, but made sure there were little ethnic touches (like Portuguese custard tarts on the cake stands).  As for my side, the Angolan culture is very celebratory – we make lots of noise, eat lots of food and dance like crazy, so we ended the night with a great big knees-up.”

“One of our favourite moments on the day was after the first song (Jamie Lidell’s Another Day).  As soon as it finished, my Mum made the DJ play an old Brazilian love song we’d never heard before.  Our bemusement turned to wonder as she led my entire family – almost 50 of them! – in a serenade en masse as we danced the, er, second first dance.  What a wonderful memory!  Also memorable was my lovely husband taking secret Portuguese lessons for his wedding speech.  The family went wild!”

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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.

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Athena & Jonny’s Californian vineyard wedding took place in July.

I don’t usually share the story of how a couple met in these posts but the way Jonny describes his relationship with Athena is so beautiful I couldn’t resist.

“I met Athena in an acting class at Pepperdine University,” he explained. “Well, that is not exactly true. The first time we really met was a year before said acting class, when Athena was dating my freshman year roommate, and they came to see me in the musical ‘West Side Story’ (Athena claims not to remember this first introduction, and I intend to forget it). But for all intents and purposes, we met in acting class, randomly paired by the professor, to my dismay.”

“See, Athena was by far the prettiest girl in the class, and that was bad for me because I had a deep-rooted fear of very pretty girls. And though I tried my hardest to avoid her, even with the added speed of my trusty Razor scooter, Athena cornered me and insisted we meet to pick a scene for class. So meet we did, and talk, and talk some more, and I realized that this very pretty girl might not be so scary, and maybe she realized that this dorky, theater nerd might be rather charming.”

“And so what began as a reluctant pairing in a second year acting class has blossomed into a nine year romance filled with adventures too epic (some scandalous, some even criminal!) to detail here. But this story is different from the movies, because this boy fell for the girl, then the stars aligned and he got the girl… but the stars defied their orbits; they stayed locked in formation, forever to spin the universe together – the boy kept the girl, will always keep her, will love her for all time.”

Awww!

The inspiration for the wedding was the summer, or “a perfect summer’s day” as Athena describes it. “As a child, I was able to travel a lot because of my Father’s job. I remember some summer twilights in Illinois where the day would not end and the temperature was perfect. Living in Los Angeles California, we don’t get that same country feeling, so we wanted to find a spot that would be a getaway, that was close to everyone but still felt like you were in a whole other world. We found that at HammerSky Vineyards.”

“We also wanted an intimate wedding with only our closest friends and family, and we wanted a wedding that reflected us. Our ceremony was was conducted by my stepmom Alison (she became certified for a day to marry us) and we wrote our own vows. Jonny’s groom’s cake was a replica of his old race car. It was very hard for him to cut into that cake!”

Beautiful, simple and touching. I love these guys!

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So you’re probably sick of hearing about The Designer Vintage Bridal Show (I have banged on about it somewhat) but I’ve just received the official show photographs from my bestie Emma Case and I wanted to share them soon as… I know some of you will want to see my tutu at least!

You’ve read all about the Rock n Roll Bride Magazine that we were handing out, but I thought you might like to see our stand too…cute huh?

(and no I’m not just talking about my husband…although he totally is) 

All the love and adoration must go to Gareth who organised most of it, Ava Event Styling who helped me source my ‘props’, Sugalily for the little price tags and the incredible Cutture who made our logo into a beautiful perspex creation. I love it!

Photo by Cutture

As promised, I wore a massive tutu all weekend. You could always spot me coming! Thanks to the AMAZING Monique of Ouma Cothing who made it for me. It was perfect.

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Photography Credit: Brian Livingstone

Clearly a lady of multiple talents, I’m super excited to introduce Steff Metal to you today, a lady who is genuinely doing something new and exciting within the wedding industry in New Zealand.

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Steff Metal, a freelance writer, artist, blogger and heavy metal maiden living in New Zealand with my cantankerous drummer husband and our medieval sword collection. I run three websites for people in alternative subcultures – Steff Metal (a heavy metal magazine), Grymm & Epic Copywriting (copywriting and business solutions for alternative businesses) and Gothic Wedding Planner – a blog and ebook dedicated to helping alternative couples plan their weddings.

My work ranges from copywriting for steampunk corset designers to blogging for companies like Lip Service and writing features in tattoo magazines. I’m about to launch a webcomic for heavy metal cat lovers, and I’ve recently been appointed a NZ wedding celebrant with a specialty in gothic, pagan and alternative wedding ceremonies.

I’m based in New Zealand. I’m only licensed to perform weddings in New Zealand, but I’m blessed to have an amazing group of readers and clients from all over the world.

By Steff

Wow, you sound like a very busy lady! How did you get into this kind of work?

I never wanted to do just one thing for a job. I wanted to be a writer AND an artist AND an archaeologist AND an advocate for people with disabilities and … everything! After a failed career in archaeology (no one seems keen to hire a blind archaeologist – ah well, their loss!) I started freelance writing and found I really enjoyed being able to write on a variety of subjects. I used to run a small-time alt. wedding blog, but I wasn’t giving it my full attention, and it fizzed out. I knew I wanted to blog – I just hadn’t found the right topic.

I wanted to write about heavy metal, but all the metal blogs I read were a) written by men, b) focused only on the music and c) were often quite negative and snarky. In 2009 I launchedSteff Metal, a blog about the heavy metal lifestyle. Instead of just reviewing albums and doing interviews, I talk about travel, fashion, books, movies … I even run an advice column!

Steff Metal has been hugely successful. I got the blogging bug big time and re-launched my old wedding blog as Gothic Wedding Planner. I was still working full time making Braille books, and freelance writing on the site. I’ve since discovered a talent for copywriting, so added that to my repertoire, focusing on those small alternative business I love the most.

I became a wedding celebrant after a conversation with a girlfriend. “I don’t want to have just anybody perform the wedding ceremony,” she said. “All the celebrants I’ve talked to stare disdainfully at my tattoos.” I said I could see what the requirements were for becoming a celebrant, and she was so excited by the idea I filed the application the next week!

How do you differ from others in your field?

I KNOW alternative. I’ve been an active member of the heavy metal, gothic and various other alternative scenes for over 10 years now. I understand the aesthetics and lifestyle and I’m never going to call your ideas tacky, weird or macabre.

Photography Credit: AMK Photography

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It was really important to Dawn & John to have a stress-free and personal wedding. John proposed on a bridge in Paris after the couple had been together for sixteen years (erm, excuse me guys but you don’t look old enough!) John is in a band, and although he’s used to being on stage, he was super nervous about having all eyes on him at his wedding, so his understanding bride-to-be promised a low key and intimate wedding.

After a ceremony at The Cotton Exchange, Liverpool came the reception at The Racquet Club. “Both John and I live in Guernsey in the Channel Islands but John went to University in Liverpool and we both lived there for nearly 4 years after he finished” the bride explained. “Liverpool is really in our hearts – we love it and go back as often as we can.  There was no venue in Guernsey both within our budget and that was quirky enough.  The Racquet Club was perfect – its really quirky and is beautiful in itself without needing huge amounts of decoration.”

“My husband is a musician and a lot of our friends are in the music industry in one way or another so we knew we wanted something a little out of the ordinary but also something laid back, personal and fun.  Whilst I love going to those traditional weddings I knew that just wouldn’t cut it for us.  After doing lots of research on the internet I knew I wanted to diy as much as I could.  It’s amazing that there are so many wonderful people out there that are willing to share their talents and their ideas in tutorials and websites like Rock n Roll Bride  I honestly don’t know how anyone ever got married without the internet!”

“I actually used a couple of tutorials on Rock n Roll Bride and elsewhere including this fabric flower tutorial for the bridesmaids bouquets, and this vintage brooch bouquet tutorial. I adapted it to make it my own though and my motto soon became – ‘if in doubt glue gun!’. I ordered fabric hydrangeas from eBay and added these around the edge of the brooches to fill it out a little.”

It was also really important to Dawn & John that they ignored a lot of the wedding fads that they’d seen on many blogs. “At first I was slightly overwhelmed by all the weddings I’d seen on the blogs,” Dawn continued. “I couldn’t get married on a cliff top at a Californian vinery or a beach in South Africa and I couldn’t afford to give everyone personalised bags full of wonderful favours but I remember reading a quote on Rock n Roll Bride that simply said ‘it’s not all about the typewriters’.”

“Although I had actually already bought my own 1960’s tiffany blue typewriter for the guestbook, I understood the sentiment and this was a turning point for me.  It taught me that it’s important to make your wedding about what you as a couple want, whether that’s a traditional church wedding with all the trimmings or an elopement to Vegas you should just go for it.  It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks and you most certainly should never organise a wedding with a view to what someone else will think of it.”

Here here lady! You guys are just aces.

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Bethany & Doug were married at Houston Station, Nashville. The bride wore a black Betsey Johnson dress. “My dress was a big deal,” she began. “I had originally purchased a vintage inspired white dress and the bridesmaids were going to wear black but I kept thinking about a photo I had seen of a model bride in black that our photographer had used as an ad for her studio. I really wanted to wear black but I was having a hard time finding one that didn’t look goth, since that’s not my style at all.”

So in the end, Bethany wore black and her bridesmaids wore white! She told her bridesmaids they could wear any white dress they wanted so they all picked their own, “I was lucky that none of the bridesmaids had bought their dresses before I found mine, so it was okay with them to get a white dress instead of black. I am so happy that I went with the black dress because it was exactly what I wanted! I wanted my bridesmaids to have something that they liked and would show off their personal styles. I had chosen each one for different reasons including their different personalities so their dresses came from everywhere from a vintage shop to Bebe.  They also picked their own shoes after I asked them to choose different colors. They also wore hair pieces that I had made for them as part of their thank you gifts.”

“I would call our wedding theme ‘random’ (as did Doug when I asked him!)” the bride continued, “That’s also how I would describe us. I am happy to say that we don’t really fit into a category. We had elements that were vintage, eco-friendly, rockabilly and modern.”

“I was inspired by so many different places, it’s hard to know where to start. I definitely kept Rock n Roll Bride bookmarked and checked back often.  I was originally looking at a lot of mainstream wedding magazines when we first got engaged but they were a little ridiculous.  They make everything look so easy when really a lot things that they feature are pretty difficult and mostly way too expensive, so I put them down and started searching the internet for things that Doug and I liked and tried to incorporate them.”

“Etsy is full of inspiration.  So many times I would be browsing a category on and find something that was similar to what I wanted but that I could make my own.  Really, I just tried to keep my eyes open and whatever I saw anywhere that I liked I tried to figure out how to put it in the wedding.”

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Sally & Clifton’s city wedding had a classically elegant but quirky vintage vibe. The wedding was held at Century Club on Shaftesbury Avenue, London, which really set the relaxed tone of the day.

“We didn’t really have a theme to start with, we just went with what felt right and what would make us happy,” Sally told me. “We just wanted a really great party with only our closest family and friends and for it to be relaxed, informal and fun. So it ended up really personal and fortunately all the styling came together very nicely too. Our outfits had a 1950’s vintage vibe and my dress was from Fur Coat No Knickers.”

“I think I was really lucky with the people I hired to help too – they all really made a huge difference and all came to it with a very similar relaxed, personal, professional approach which made it easy. There were no outlandish over the top bridezilla moments (my best ladies made sure of that), nothing was over-organised so there was plenty room for spontaneity, and I didn’t go anywhere near any bridal magazines. And the result was that we loved every minute of it.”

The couple chose some of my all time favourite wedding suppliers to be a part of their day. As well as a Fur Coat No Knickers vintage dress, they employed the expertise of Elbie Van Eeden for Sally’s hair and make up and Charlotte of Restoration Cake who made their yummy heart-shaped cake.

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Dottie Photography

When Gareth & I came up with the idea of a Rock n Roll Bride Magazine to hand out at the Designer Vintage Bridal Show we had no idea how crazy the internet would go for it!

I love print. Typography and images look so much more amazing on glossy paper. This is how they are supposed to be seen! However I was always under the impression that most of my readers preferred blogs to print magazines. They’re free, they’re easily and quickly updated and you can comment and discuss things about the articles right there and then. Yet when I shared the front cover of this first issue on twitter and facebook, you guys went mad for it, demanding (serious…it was kinda scary) where you could buy a copy! So you gave us an idea…

For years people have been telling me I should write a book – a book about blogging or about wedding planning…well about anything really. But you know what? Although I hugely admire bloggers who write books, I’m not really a booky kinda gal (well not yet, anyway!)…I am however a magazine junkie. So what better way to channel this ‘oh you need to get into print’ nag than to create my own magazine?! By no means is Rock n Roll Bride going exclusively into print. The online blog will still be the main focus of the business, but I do love the idea of something you can hold in your hands, collect and keep forever.

Thanks to your support, we’ve decided to produce a yearly ‘best of the best’ magazine. It will be advertisement free and will be essentially a glossy, limited edition and highly collectable extension of the website. The magazine will be a condensed selection of my favourite real weddings, articles and DIY tutorials.

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This Week’s Love List…

♥ Brighton ♥ bacon & eggs sarnies ♥ sheds ♥ hanging out with horses ♥ honeymoon suites ♥ giant baths ♥ surprise takeaways (aww I love my husband) ♥ waking up hangover-free! ♥ kitty snuggles after being away ♥ the thought of not having to pack a suitcase for a while ♥

The Best of the Rest…

Credit: Pom Pom Factory This photo is unrelated to the post, I just loved it!

Something a little different and a little bit random for A Sunday Kind of Love this week…but a little thing I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Plus I figure if I announce it publicly I’ll be more likely to stick to it!

I’m giving up drinking for a month (I know OMG) but I’m actually surprisingly excited about the challenge. When you work from home it is all too easy to have a glass or two of wine every night…plus all these lovely industry events I keep getting invited too are always dripping in champers (oh it’s a hard life!) But seriously I do feel like my body needs a little break.

I’d love to be one of those naturally health-concious people – the kind that enjoy the gym and drink juice for breakfast…but nope, that’s definitely not me. Continue reading

I’m pretty sure by now that you’re aware of what a HUGE Vivienne Westwood lover I am, so when they guys at The Luxury Wedding Show, London called me as asked if I wanted to share the exclusive first showing of Vivienne’s latest bridal collection…well I just about died.

They say of the collection, “For this latest bespoke Couture and Bridal Collection, Vivienne Westwood has extended the collection up to 20 styles, whilst remaining faithful to her strong belief that femininity ought to be celebrated. The tailoring, corsetry, crinoline, and soft lines of this collection all enhance the feminine silhouette. There are silk satins, georgette and chiffon for the draped and slinky styles, silk duchess and taffetas for the gowns, and embroidery, lace, tulle and sequins all to enhance the couture styles. The collection is romantic yet strong with the colour palette ranging from  white, soft ivories, champagne, dusty pinks, gold, to a sumptuous red. The Westwood bride is an independent woman and this is reflected in the collection.”

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