When the deputy editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine gets married, you just know it’s going to be awesome right? Well Suzy & her fiance Christian didn’t disappoint when planning their summer wedding. Choosing St Ives, Cornwall as the location, what could be more apt than a seaside themed wedding?!
“We met at journalism school in London in 1999 and were friends for five years before we eventually got together,” began Suzy. “Even though we live in London (and I’m from Oxford), we never discussed getting married anywhere but St Ives. It’s the place my dad’s been to on holiday ever year since he was a baby – so the place I’ve been to on holiday every year too. It’s the most beautiful seaside town with gorgeous cobbled streets and the most spectacular beaches. It feels magical and we wanted to share it with all our friends.”
“From the off, we were agreed on one thing: that we wanted to have a legendary party that all our friends had a total blast at. We wanted to thank everyone for coming by making them feel special and part of the day. We gave as many of our mates jobs as possible (in a nice way) and personalised as much stuff as we could without having breakdowns.”
The ceremony was held at St la’s Church and the reception at Carbis Bay Hotel, right on the beach. “We wanted a seaside theme to run through our wedding,” explained Suzy when I asked about their wedding theme and decor ideas, “particularly the stationery. One of our friends, Dave, is an illustrator and has just set up a bespoke wedding invitation business, Love Illustrated. He very kindly said he’d design our invitations as a wedding present. Dave told us to be as ‘creative and out there’ as we liked. I think he may have slightly regretted that…”
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“Well, it doesn’t really have anything to do with cake. Shouldn’t it be something a bit more ‘cakey’?” he said. I was really excited to be sat in my first proper ‘grown-up’ business meeting, up until this moment.
It was my first year as Restoration Cake and I was trying to get to grips with the concept of charging strangers for my creations. The afternoon was to be spent with a colleague who knew all the financial stuff. I went to the meeting with a website, a Twitter account, a growing list of orders, and a name.
“Restoration doesn’t really say ‘cake’,” he said.
The name Restoration Cake came to me in early 2009, as I sat at my dressing table (yes, I am totally spoilt) putting on my make-up to go to work in an office I absolutely hated. My boss didn’t like me and didn’t really attempt to hide this fact. I had just bought a house with the man I love and there was also this big thing looming called a ‘recession’ so I kept calm and I carried on.
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Happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a great week… but if not it’s definitely going to end on a high with the weddings I’ve got to share with you today. Starting with this cute-as-hell, wish-I-was-there, rocking-Aussie-party wedding!
Meg & Paul wedding was held at St Kilda Kingdom Hall of Jehovahs Witness and City Tiler in Port Melbourne. The bride wore a dress which she designed herself and had made from laser cut silk. Her lace peep toe boots added yet more interest and her red jacket, which may have had the primary objective to keep her warm, looked totally ace with her ensemble. Gotta love a bride who bucks the usual bridal trends!
“We just wanted our wedding to be a relaxed party where our friends danced all night,” wrote Meg, “… and they did. If we had to have a theme, it would have simply been ‘a celebration’. We wanted a relaxed atmosphere, no sit down formal dinner, no bridesmaids or groomsmen, no drama, a party with no formalities, and that’s exactly what we got. Good people, good food, cool music. Our friends and family ate and drank and danced and smiled all night.”
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Photography Credit: Devlin Photos
The majority of this week has been spent living it up covered in mud at The Photography Farm. It was the first workshop where the sun didn’t shine throughout (happy summer huh?!) but as you can see from the sneak peek above, we didn’t need 30 degree sunshine to create something special. That’s is my sister Rachel by the way, isn’t she just the most gorgeous thing ever?! I’ll be blogging the full shoot on Monday at 9am so be sure to pop by… just prepare to be blown away OK?
So what else has been spinning around the interwebs this week…?
Weddings & Weddingy Things…
♥ Dress designer Charlotte Casadejus has launched a new vintage accessories boutique, and to celebrate she’s offering readers of Rock n Roll Bride 10% off all purchases made before midnight on Tuesday (24th July). To qualify simple input ROCKNROLLBRIDE at the checkout.
♥ Austin picnic photo shoot
♥ Fiery dragon and phoenix art gallery wedding
♥ Colourful & quirky bridal shower ideas
♥ Great tips for what to wear on your engagement shoot
♥ Stunning outdoor wedding
♥ Ojai wedding
Photography Credit: Honey Honey Photography
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When Gareth & I were in New York in May we met up with photographer Steve Gerrard as he was also over from the UK to shoot Natasha & Marc’s wedding! The couple, also from England, flew him over with them as they knew he was their perfect wedding photographer after seeing him featured on Rock n Roll Bride.
The intimate ceremony was held in the Ladies Pavilion in Central Park, which was followed by a photo session around some iconic NYC locations (they also met up again the next day to shoot some more!) The reception was on a private yacht with incredible views of the city.
“We originally looked at having a wedding within the UK, but after viewing a number of venues something didn’t feel right,” began Natasha. “Everything was expensive and quite strict and we wanted something a bit more unique. I loved Emma Case’s wedding which Steve had also shot. I actually cried reading about it on Rock n Roll Bride while sat at my desk at work. It was so beautiful and in the back of my mind, it was similar to what I aspired to as well – a smaller, intimate, romantic and unique wedding. Luckily for me it turned out Marc wanted that too! Phew!”
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Ren & Tim pulled off their amazing colourful and alternative wedding with a £9000 budget. They spent on the things they felt were important and saved by DIYing the elements they knew they could do themselves (reception decor, stationery, cake). Although these things didn’t always go to plan, in the end it all turned out alright and the things that didn’t work really didn’t matter on the day! I particularly love this wedding because it took place in Reading (where I live!). In fact the bride moved to this little town of ours from London to be with her boy. Awww!
“We didn’t really want a big family wedding,” Ren began. “We originally wanted a small and intimate destination wedding but after talking to our families we accepted the fact that a big UK wedding was on the cards. We tried to find things that we liked but we also wanted to make our families happy. We didn’t really care what happened or where it was as long as we got married so most of the big decisions were made with family in mind. We realised that it wasn’t just our wedding – it was both our families as well so by giving them the bigger battles we could do what we wanted with the smaller details.”
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There’s something about this wedding that makes me wanna get up and dance. I’ve never been much of a salsa dancer (read: I’ve never tried it in my life) but these guys make it look seriously fun!
The April wedding of Tatiana & Luis in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil had a massive party vibe. Both the ceremony and reception were held at Centro Cultural Carioca, a ‘house of samba’ bar located in an old building in downtown Rio de Janeiro.
The ceremony was officiated by a friend of the couple and it was full of love and especially laughter when he told funny stories about them both through out. “When the bride entered, the groom spontaneously grabbed her and gave her a great and long kiss”, wedding photographer Felipe Luz told me. “Everybody applauded.”
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I love love love Shell de Mar‘s wedding photography. Every single image is bright and fun and vibrant. They just make me feel so happy. I don’t know what it is… It’s probably a little to do with the amazing way she captures colour but more likely than not it’s a lot to do with the firecracker behind the lens. Shell is a cute as hell force to be reckoned with. She’s also one of my best friends and so it’s always an honour to share her work on my blog.
Today’s installment of sunshine comes in the form of Jenny & Gary’s woodland ceremony, hillside portraits and pirate themed reception. “Our ceremony was held at Wittenham Clumps (i.e. up a hill!), just next to the reception venue”, Jenny told me. “When we came to see the barn as a potential reception venue we fell in love with the view, the fresh air, abundance of wild flowers and birdsong (sounds cheesy but it truly was idyllic) and just had to have the wedding there. Amazingly the sun shone on the day, although it had been raining for weeks before and after. We were bloody lucky! The only down side was there was no license so we had to have a small civil ceremony the week before (no great burden really – having an intimate day was also wonderful).”
The couple knew they wanted their wedding to be laid back, fun and colourful but they didn’t really know where to start. After being engaged for years they finally decided to start organising with the help of their amazing wedding planner Josie of Savoir Weddings. “I avoided DIY like the plague although I bought a strip of parrot fabric for our ceremony backdrop that I got the drycleaner to hem and my Dad to hang”, Jenny laughed. “I can honestly say that our wedding wouldn’t have happened without Josie. We had been engaged for years with only the vaguest notion of what our wedding might be until I stumbled upon Josie’s website. She expertly teased out of us what mattered to us about our wedding and encouraged us to start making some decisions (like setting a date!) After that her expertise and support were truly invaluable every step of the way.”
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I ain’t gonna lie… I harbor a certain level favoritism for pink haired brides… hum, I wonder why!? So when I saw Josie & Nick’s camping themed wedding I was very excited indeed. The couple didn’t spend a bomb on the day, utlising things they already owned (hello, look at Jodie’s awesome Antaina boots!), by having the reception in Nick’s parent’s back garden and by making as much of it as they could themselves.
“We DIY’ed everything”, Jodie told me. “It can be really easy to bite off more than you can chew though so my advice would be to decide on a cohesive theme early on. Select projects you know you can complete both skill wise and in the time you have. And start early! Anything you can do well in advance is great.”
For the reception they set up tents and and sign posts which is where the ‘glamping’ theme started. “Our wedding was planned long distance. We had to drive 250 miles to Kent the week before the wedding and do 80% of the work and projects that week! We took the seats out of the back of our (quite large) car and piled stuff to the roof. We still had to leave things behind! If you have to travel with your wedding stuff I would definitely say pick small but effective items – bunting, food flags, fancy tablecloths. You will save yourself a lot of stress trying to cram picnic baskets, fruit crates and wedding dresses in your car!”
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Downtown Las Vegas provided the perfect backdrop to Nicole & Jamie’s retro themed wedding portraits. After a ceremony at Valley of Falls chapel in the Mandalay Bay resort, the couple and their guests had a photo session in and around the iconic Fremont Street area.
Nicole wore a short and simple wedding gown from Ting Bridal on etsy and her bridesmaids rocked their Modcoth dresses with nude coloured glasses. I love this idea!
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I wake up with a jolt. CRAAAAAP I’ve missed my flight. Bollocks I’ve forgotten to pack. Boo-hiss I forgot to arrange a car to pick me up…
I’ve been having these dreams over and over for the past few weeks. Waking up at 6am in a panic is not fun let me tell you. I’m not sure if they’re happening more and more because I’ve done so much travel this year and I hate to be late or if they’re just my brain’s way of informing me that I’m stressing out and feeling overstretched (er yeah thanks brain, I’m well aware).
When it happened again the other night I started putting together this list of ways to unwind. This is a guide for myself as much as anyone else… in fact maybe more for myself… but if some of you are feeling similarly stressed out (hell, we’re in peak wedding season I’m sure you are!) then maybe it can help you too. Some of these things I do. Some of these things I need to do more often. Hell, most of these things I need to do more often…
♥ Get out of the house/office
♥ Take a nap
♥ Procrastinate
♥ Make art/photograph/write for yourself
♥ Switch to tea
♥ Ignore your emails for 24 hours
♥ Take a social media vacation
♥ Have a clear out
♥ Get drunk (not every night…!)
♥ Treat yourself
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“Matthew is an architect & loves modernist architecture and things that are minimalist, well designed & have clean lines so we decided we’d like our wedding to reflect this”, newlywed Hayley wrote. “The venue really set the scene with it’s amazing art deco features but funky modern interior so we chose not to detract from this keeping decorations & flowers to an absolute minimum & only in white. We wanted the guests & bridesmaids to add the pop of colour which they did!”
The bride wore a gorgeous Jenny Packham wedding dress and as anticipated, the bridesmaids stood out and looked spectacular in their red and purple Dan Kerr cocktail dresses and matching bouquets. “I wanted poppies but everyone told me they die too quickly so our florist suggested red anemones”, Hayley explained. “When I started researching anemones I just loved the bright colours they came in (red, purple, blue, pink, ivory) so decided to incorporate all these colours in the bridesmaids, who all had different mixed bouquets with different coloured flowers in their hair too.”
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You may have seen me talk about Bitchless Bride before, especially on twitter. She is my new wedding industry hero! The alter ego of a wedding planner (and no, even I don’t know her true identity!) who was sick to death of crazy bridezillas and mental wedding vendors, she set up her blog to give it to us STRAIGHT. I loooove her. She’s a hoot. And hell, she rocks a pink wig. We’re definitely destined to be BFFs.
I just about wet my pants with excitement when her video guest blog landed in my inbox. Some exclusive Bitchless Bride on Rock n Roll Bride?! Hell. Yes. We are a match made in wedding heaven. Listen up brideys, listen up wedding suppliers, cos Bitchless is about to give it to you. No holds barred.
(FYI there are a few swears in here, if you’re at work… or you’re of a delicate disposition then you might wanna save this for later…)
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Filipino born Ariane & Jonathan now live in New Zealand, which is where they chose to have their May wedding. The 3pm ceremony was held at in the vineyard of the Ascension Wine Estate in Matakana. “We wanted to showcase how New Zealand is part paradise and part home with our wedding, Ariane told me. “Marrying in a vineyard in the dead of autumn, what could be more gorgeous than that? Ascension Wine Estate was the perfect backdrop for us. The theme was a mish-mash of our passion for travel, photography, literature and the French countryside. We didn’t really set something in stone, but in the end, the travel-bohemian theme dominated, with hints of shabby chic and vintage.”
For the ceremony space decor, the couple added personal touches such a flowers in beer bottles, twine and pinwheels. “In the vines where the ceremony was held, we tied beer bottles with twine and hung it around. We also made pinwheels out of colorful scrapbook papers in lieu of flowers to grace the aisle. We carried that over to the reception venue by having wine bottles adorned with lace and twine as centerpieces. We also had disposable cameras in French-country muffin trays on the tables. The colors of the pinwheels in the ceremony were carried over to the reception through a candy buffet where we served colored popcorn, gummy bears and red licorice.”
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Happy Monday everyone! I thought I’d start this week with a bang, some much needed sunshine and the gorgeous May wedding of Theron & Erin. The couple were married at Vizcaya Pavilion and Mansion in Sacremento and had a red & black themed celebration.
“Our advice to future brides & grooms would be to stay organized and delegate tasks in order to stay sane”, Erin told me. “Don’t change anything in order to make other people happy… stay true to who you are and what you like. We knew that people were going to want to rock out and mingle, so we didn’t force anyone to a sit down dinner… it was all about the open bar and heavy hors d’oeuvres!”
The couple strived for an out & out Rock n Roll vibe with music, shot glass cake toppers and a hilarious but super personal ceremony being some favourite details. “My husband thought it would be badass to have one of our groomsmen, a talented guitarist, play the Top Gun Anthem as our exit song… He did and it was awesome. I couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out! In addition, our cake toppers were little shot glasses with a little glass bride and groom at the bottom. One of the best parts was one of our groomsmen becoming ordained, just so he could marry us. He did a very loose and casual ceremony, fully equipped with a Rick Roll in the middle. Hence the reason I’m laughing through a majority of it. I knew, he knew, part of the wedding party knew, but the other 180+ people didn’t. It was hilarious. I guess you could say our inspiration was simply ‘fun’. We didn’t want anything traditional – the exact opposite, really.”
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Tomorrow I’m off to the Photography Farm, Lisa Devlin‘s epic three day wedding photographers’ workshop, for the third time. You might say I’m a bit addicted to it! I’m not just there to hang out and learn (although that ineviablly happens at each one anyway) I’m on board to help style the shoots and impart some of my bloggy and wedding industry knowledge to those lucky farmers.
On day one we have two styled shoots. The first is the engagement shoot of one of Lisa’s real life couples, and the second is a bridal shoot with my gorgeous sister and her boyfriend playing models! For the latter we’ve gone for a ‘Hippy Luxe’ theme – think dreadlocks, birds nest crowns, multi coloured jewelley, wall hangings, henna, Moroccan style poofs. Oh and a tent! I can’t wait to see it all come together.
I’m pretty sure there isn’t another photography workshop out there that does styled shoots like this…
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Jo & Lal worked together but only realised they both liked each other when at a 1940s themed work party at The Picturedrome, Northampton. When they were engaged 6 months later they decided that having their wedding at this same venue would be pretty cool. There wedding theme also happened to suit the surroundings perfectly.
“The emphasis on our wedding was inclusion of all our friends who contributed massively” Jo told me. “From the registrar to the DJ, the favours and the cakes, we had out friends involved as much as possible. The emphasis of our wedding was not to spend ridiculous amounts of money but to create a fun and relaxed day, which reflected our personalities. We did not allow ourselves at any point to become influenced by other people’s opinions. What we really set out to achieve was a fun day for all! Our budget, although limited, did not prevent us in anyway from having exactly the kind of day we wanted.”
Jo wore a short 50s style tulle wedding dress with a dramatic red sash from Brides of Wellingborough and bright red shoes to match.
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I seem to be featuring a lot of weddings with pub receptions at the moment but I love the idea and the fact that they are a cost effective venue option. However the thing I love about the particular pub weddings that I share is my readers. Even with similar venues the weddings couldn’t be more different from each other! Take Maddy & Victor’s mod-esque wedding for example…
“Our reception was at Clissold Arms in North London”, Maddy began. “The ceremony was at St Michael’s Church in Highgate and Victor wanted a good exit from the church and journey to the pub. Whilst we discussed leaving in a Delorium and re-enacting a scene from Back to the Future, there just wasn’t the budget! But Victor is a huge fan of scooters, and had the idea of leaving with an entourage of vespas following us was born. So we gave the local scooter club, New Originals North London Scooter Club, a call and they were more than happy to help!”
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Originating from New Zealand, wedding photographer Cathie Watts of Phunkey Photography is a Facebook wizz. With just shy of 11,500 ‘likes’ on her photography facebook page she boast more ‘likers’ than many full time wedding bloggers! So how did she get so popular on the social network? What things did she do to get herself ‘liked’?
This week I asked Cathie to share some of her top tips for getting started when using Facebook for your business. If you have any more specific questions for her, hit us up in the comments. I’d certainly love to read a follow up from her! Over to you Cathie…
Brand your Facebook page
A consistent and streamlined brand is essential to your small business. If you’re unsure about your branding, a good place to start is to decide on three words that you want your clients to use to describe your business. Once you have these words, be sure that all your Facebook posts clearly communicate at least two of your three words.
For example, my three words are fun, funky and professional. So I make sure that the content (‘content’ refers to everything you put on your page, from your profile picture to your ‘about’ section) I publish on my page communicates at least two of my words. Branding is a subtle art, you can’t set your ‘about’ section to say ‘Phunkey Photography: fun, funky and professional’ and expect people to just believe you… they have to feel like they’ve formed this opinion on their own… after all, actions (even digital ones) speak louder than words… right?
For more (glorious) information on branding read ‘Enchantment’ by Guy Kawasaki.
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Located in East London’s trendy Shoreditch, Mike & Louise went for an urban vintage vibe for their wedding.
“We met in 2009 in Sydney where Louise had just relocated to and where she was working for a charity with an old college friend of mine who set us up”, Mike wrote. “It didn’t take long to realise we had a similar outlook on life and after 1.5 years we decided to get married. Being from opposite sides of the world we faced the tough decision of where to get married as either location would see some of our family and friends unable to attend. In the end we opted to marry officially in London as Louise really wanted her Nan, a huge inspiration in her life, to be there on her special day.”
“We had travelled to London for one of Lou’s friends weddings in September 2010 and had spent some time in Shoreditch. We felt quite strongly that we really wanted a non-traditional wedding for just our closest family and friends. We also knew from our time there previously that we would love to incorporate the local graffiti which so characterises the area.”
The ceremony was held at Shoreditch Town Hall and the reception was at The Fox pub. “On a return trip to London for work, and armed with the knowledge of roughly how many people would be attending, Louise started looking for venues. After much debate we settled on Shoreditch Town Hall for the ceremony and The Fox for the reception as they were both informal and more suited to our small crowd.”
“The wedding was themed partly around a vintage 60s feel which suited both the Shoreditch area and our own taste, and the invites which were loosely based on a design we saw in a stationery shop here in Sydney. We were both adamant that this should be a very relaxed and casual, non-traditional wedding that didn’t follow any of the normal rules. Most of all we wanted it to be about and feel like ‘us’.”
“It was tricky planning a wedding from the other side of the world”, Mike replied when I asked about the styling of the wedding. “We had to guess at a lot of things. Louise sourced some custom made bunting for the day online from Emma at Sherbet Rose which was brilliant and really good value. We also got incredibly lucky with many things. Louise found her dream dress, on sale for only $200 on the very first day she went looking. The headpiece, which looks like it was made to order was found in a vintage shop in Shoreditch the day before the wedding. The pub, which we were initially concerned would look sparse without lots of flowers everywhere instead looked amazing in all its wood panelled glory in the London sunshine and with only small amounts of bunting and simple place settings. The love hearts were left over from Louise’s hen do and really made the table settings – along with the conversation starter cards we had stumbled across in Sydney.”
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