Blackboard says "Huurry up!"

I've been contemplating the idea of having items at your wedding that are not just featured that day but can be recycled and featured in your day to day life. For example, I use the music play list from my wedding all the time, at dinner parties, when I'm cleaning; I even gave birth with it in the background. If you are going to put in a substantial amount of time and effort into something that for the wedding, wouldn't you like more than just photos to remember it.

With that in mind, lets talk about a growing trend:The Blackboard
Blackboards can be used in a variety of ways at a wedding. They are becoming increasingly popular and with the new options of different colour blackboard paint available you can tailor the item to suit your wedding style.
A blackboard could be used in many different ways at a wedding, such as pure decoration (think JD hearts DT), to label something (imagine "Picnic Hampers, help yourself" or to give directions, (picture "Toilets this way"). You could also use them to take photos in front of. Can't you see a Polaroid of Nanna with the speech bubble behind her saying something sweet (or not so sweet) to the couple, or the angel wings and halos drawn on and the bride and bridesmaids standing in just the right spot.

Then the next day, when you are going through the boxes of decorations trying to find places for every thing, you take out that blackboard and up it goes on your wall. Now think of this same blackboard in ten years time with a shopping list in one corner, a reminder to drop the DVDs back in the other and maybe your kids drawings all over the rest. It would be a reminder of the day that got you to this point.  

Amy and Ollie's Pre Wedding Shoot 'em Up

Welcome to part one of Amy and Ollie's wedding, the couple with the over 8,000 kilometres between their home towns, nearly 9,000 kilometres between their current home and their wedding and about 40cms different in height.

Amy and Ollie met in the UK where they were studying at University and living next door to each other at college. After finishing Uni, as Ollie is French Canadian and Amy is Chinese, and English being their second language, and rather than learning a third, they chose Australia as their new home. After living in Sydney for a year, they decided it was time to get their wedding on. They chose to have a traditional wedding in China, but to bring some of their life here to that wedding, by having a pre-wedding photo shoot. Amy had 4 dress changes and Ollie 2, and having a full day were able to be captured in some of Sydney's most beautiful and recognisable places. These photo's were printed and hung at their wedding as well as used in a slide show at their wedding in China, giving everyone a glimpse into their life so far away.  Stay tuned for part II of Amy and Ollie's story.   



What's in Season?

I knew I would get here sooner or later. Hydrangeas are one of my favourite flowers. My wedding and all the flowers, stationary and timing of the wedding where all based around hydrangeas. When I saw Jemma starting to write this post I promptly took it over. This one was mine!  

Hydrangeas are such versatile flowers and you get a lot of bang for your buck because of the gorgeous clusters of tiny individual flowers on each head.

They are elegant and simply classic on their own, or mixed with other flowers like roses, peonies, lisianthus or pretty much any other flower you can think of and the hydrangea starts to have a cottage feel.

But that's not even the best part. The best part is the colours. Blues, pinks, purples and whites. If you pick them early you can have greens and if you get them late the colours become muted before turning brown. And you can control the colour of the bush by controlling the pH of the soil. Acidic soil produces bright blues flowers where alkaline soil give you pinks and purples.

Because of the amount of flowers you get per bush if you time it right  you can use flowers from your own yard. My parents planted extra bushes the year before my wedding so that we would have them in a years time. As things always go the flowers didn't come out in time, but Hydrangeas are easily purchased from market, florist or stolen from out side pubs like I do at Sutton Forest all the time.   

The shape and size of the flowers complement decorations like paper pom poms or lanterns and lends itself to a variety of different uses such as these flower balls and wreaths.

All in all the hydrangea gets a 10 out of 10.



  

 

Dior... now, then and forever

When you're looking for a wedding dress, you want to pick something that you know will be beautiful and fashionable in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years time. You don't want to look at the pictures and think "why the puffy sleeves". But the answer to the the puffy sleeve question is, it was really fashionable at the time. It was something that everyone would have told you was amazing. And it would have been at the time.

But with the puffy sleeve phenomenon of the 80's in mind I think there is a tendency not to be as daring these days. Where for some, a classic A-Line satin strapless is so them they look like they were born in it. But for others, in their everyday life the clothes they were are bold and rich, and putting them is something simple would be taking away some of their personality.

So I wanted to show these two Dior dresses. Designed 58 years apart but remarkably similar, both are bold and rich and full and are will remain breath takingly beautiful for now until forever. Classic design will always remain fashionable.  

So don't be scared to be your bold self, just avoid puffy sleeves.   

Christian Dior - Paris Fashion Week Fall 2011

Christian Dior Bridal - 1953

I want that one!

Mariana "Light my Wick" Hardwick:

You know there's those dresses that you look and and immediately think "who would wear that?"...
Meet Daphne Du Maurier!

I was like that with this dress, but when I really looked at it I realised how the mix of soft and firm and matte and glossy fabrics creates beautiful textures and shape. Classic and modern, soft but structured this dress is full of contradictions that make you really consider the design of it.  It's beauty grows on you, until the mortar in your bricks is eaten away and you say "who would wear that.... I WOULD!"

Little Red

So I’m not married. I have a long term partner, and sometimes I feel really bad for him. While I know that some men are just as involved with making wedding plans as their fiancé, there are also some men for who, the time between proposal and wedding will be painful. And it’s not because they don’t want to get married or aren’t interested in how the day will turn out, it’s just that flowers and centrepieces aren’t their thing. You know the type of guy that says “A barbie and a couple of tinnies would be fine with me as long as everyone’s around and most of all as long as I’m marrying you”. And what sweeties those men are, they put up with months of “which one do you like better?”, because they love their fiancé. My partner is definitely one of those men. And here’s the part where I start to feel sorry for him. I think about what our wedding will be like…. A LOT… and for a long time, I just kept my musing inside, or obviously would talk to my sister, but this has stopped. I now talk to him all the time about our wedding… and he hasn’t even proposed. I guess doing this blog seems to give me an excuse. Like it’s ok to plan an imaginary wedding because “it’s for work”. So where most men only have to put up with a couple of months, my poor David is going to get YEARS of “peonies or David Austin roses”?




ANYWAAAAAAAAAAY, one of the things I think about is the fact that I want to wear red lip stick. I wear red lipstick every excuse I get. Mostly when I know I won’t see David because my favourite lipstick, Diorific Rouge Bingo Roulette Red, goes EVERYWHERE when I kiss him. So the dilemma is as such, I imagine I’ll be doing a lot of kissing on my wedding day, but I don’t want David looking like Boy George in a suit. So I have done some research into the best dramatic lipsticks that stay on your face.

1. Nars Velvet Matte Lip Pencil $24 – My favourite colour, “Dragon Girl”. This does stay on like red wine on cream coloured carpet, but it lives up to its “matte” claim. If you’re after a vintage look, it was much more the style to have matte lips than glossy between the 1920’s to 1960’s.

2. Revlon Just Bitten $15 – I’d pick “Lust” as a colour. Has mixed reviews however is proven to last up to 12 hours. As a lip stain this will need a different style of application, but will give you a glossiness.

3. Mac Pro Longwear Lipcreme $40 – I’d go for “Prolong”. Rated highly everywhere and with many colours available, give it a go. It’s not one I’ve tried, but mac are pretty solid products, and they’re available on the net, and at most department stores.

Important Note: There are a myriad of different reds. They can go from brown to orange to purple tones. You really need to try some on to make sure you’re getting the colour to suit your skin tone. Go into David Jones and demand some help from the fancy make-up counters.

Bridesmaids Dream

As a follow on to Cass's post about Arie Barcelona, she is right, you can get lost it the satin and chiffon filled forrest that is this website, for a life time. I had decided that at least 10 of the dresses will some day be mine, with in about 10 minutes. That's one a minute. I call that a 100% success rate. Anywho, one of the great things about the website is that it has beee-utiful bridesmaid dresses, the kind that a bridesmaid will thank you for making her buy, as pictured below.