Wedding Stationery: Protea Invitations

I created these natural, eco inspired invitations for Mandy who is getting married in July. I came up with a simplified protea design to use as a ‘window’ on the cover. The natural cover paper was laser cut to reveal the gorgeous pastel colours of the protea.

The invitation page was printed on transparent paper to give it a soft, translucent feel. If held up to the light, the colours shine through magnificently.The booklet-type invitation had a kind of seam down the side with a mint green lace to finish it off.

Looking forward to using these colours and the protea motif again for the Mandy’s on-the-day wedding stationery!

Friday’s Secret: Selling your wedding dress

Photo Credit: Robert Lewis

So your wedding day has come and gone and as much as you loved it, that big dress bag filled with satin and lace is just taking up space. I’m a very sentimental person and keep all sorts of things to remind me of happy times so it was a big decision for me to get rid of my own wedding dress. You really have to be honest with yourself – did you wear your mother’s wedding dress? Very unlikely. So your unborn daughter is just as unlikely to want to wear yours. As for your granddaughter – well they do say that style skips a generation but still, the chances of her wanting to wear granny’s old gown on her most special day…somewhere between 2 – 5%.

You may choose to be super sentimental, keep your precious and take it out maybe once a year, try it on and shed a joyful tear. But in these days of our economy where you and your parents probably forked out and arm and a leg to pay for your beautiful day – a little pay out a month or two down the line is generally warmly welcomed.

My secret for this Friday is the best way to sell your wedding dress. Most brides haven’t a clue where to go when they decide to sell their dress and it’s not something they’re too bothered to investigate before the wedding. The truth is, here in Gauteng there aren’t all too many options available. I was lucky enough to come across The Wedding Weasel. Belinda at TWW provides the service of keeping your dress on her racks, in a set-up much like any other bridal shop. TWW sells the dress for you at 60% of the original price you paid. They take a 20% commission and charge a small admin fee.

I took my dress to Belinda yesterday and have been very satisfied with how easy the process has been. Send some photos and fill in a quick form and your dress is quickly being marketed on the TWW website. If your photos show off the dress well, you’re not an odd size and your dress isn’t completely strange, you’ve got a good chance of having your dress sold via The Wedding Weasel.

The Wedding Weasel has a branch in Kempton Park as well as Randburg, Johannesburg. Take a look at their website and drop Belinda an email to get the paperwork. Apart from selling your dress, if your wedding day is still coming up and you’re battling to find a fabulous yet affordable gown -TWW is a good place to start! They have a good selection, from Maggie Sottero to San Patrick gowns.

Friday’s Secret: Choosing a venue

Image: Copyright Rosemary Hill

When planning a wedding, most brides start here – looking for a venue. Rightly so as this is one of the most important decisions you’ll make and will set the tone for all the decisions to follow.

I’m busy doing stationery for a lovely bride who introduced me to Rosemary Hill. She’s getting married there in July and I have to admit, I have bride envy! Rosemary Hill is a family owned farm situated just 10 minutes from Pretoria East.

Apart from hosting weddings, it has been a practicing organic farm for 35 years. This fact alone excites me as you know you’re going to be surrounded by natural, established beauty. There’s also something endearing about a venue that isn’t just a conference centre or a set-up specifically for weddings but something that exists and enriches people’s lives without the weekend ceremonies. The farm produces African Potato, Sutherlandia, Rosemary, Lavender, Artemisia, Lippia, Spearmint, Eucalyptus and various other plants from which they distill essential oils.  There’s even a nursery selling a variety of shrubs, herbs, flowers and trees.

My absolute favourite feature of this venue is the maze. The maze is 80 metres in diameter and is made up of 2154 trees, herbs and shrubs! This serves as a most incredible and unique setting for a wedding ceremony. The guests can all be seated in the centre of the maze and the bride can make her way down the pathways with her dad in hand.

Image: Copyright Rosemary Hill

Having featured this lovely venue, I’d like to add what today’s secret actually is. When selecting a venue for your wedding, look past all the well-known venues that need to be booked two years in advance. Because these venues host so many weddings (sometimes up to 5 a week) – there’s a certain lack of intimacy and personalized service.

So my advice is to look for the smaller, lesser known venues. Often a place like Rosemary Hill that doesn’t only do functions will do fewer weddings in a week as they have other forms of sustainability. Look for the venues that are family owned and run with love rather than like a business with the end goal of monetary gain. These are the places that are likely to be willing to assist you in creating your dream wedding without the rules and restrictions of the more commercial venues. You are also likely to find that these are the venues that are a lot more affordable yet with triple the quality!

If you’d like to visit Rosemary Hill, make a booking for High Tea on a Sunday. Take your mom and bff and relax, take in the atmosphere and sample some of their delicious food. The prefect way to get to know a venue!

Autumn Inspiration

Photo credits: www.stylemepretty.com and www.theknot.com

Those of you in South Africa will probably be starting to feel the early morning and evening chill in the air. It’s almost April and Autumn is round the corner. So in celebration of my favourite season, I’ve put together this Autumn wedding collage. Deep reds, mauve, orange, yellow, brown, gold, bronze and still a touch of green – these are the colours that make for the calm beauty and serenity of Autumn.

Colours: Wedding Stationery

I’m busy working on invites for a bride’s wedding in July. These are the colours I’m using to create her protea motif. The freshness of these colours is really going to bring a touch of bright vivacity to a dull winter morning. The crisp greens and blues from light sage, grass green and mint to aqua and sky blue blend so well together. They flow beautifully into each other instead of creating a muddy rainbow mess!

Friday’s Secret: Wedding Photography – Quality vs Quantity

Photo by Raine Parenzee

Most brides will agree that a good photographer is one of the most important things for their wedding day. It’s the one thing that’s left to oogle at when it’s all over. You want those memories to be captured perfectly and be a true representative of how you looked and how the day felt.

Choosing the right photographer is not an easy task – there are many of chancers out there who haven’t got the experience in wedding photographer or simply don’t have that ‘special something’ in the images they create.

Now the problem comes in when brides think: great photographer equals great deal of money. This is not true! Yes, a good photographer will probably be pricier than your cousin who has a nice camera and had a few classes in photography (shudder); but if you go for the right package with the great photographer you’ll get awesome photos at a reasonable price.

So my secret revealed today is: find a great photographer and pick the smallest package. Most photographers offer different packages which cover a certain time period. I opted for a 5 hour package and in this time the photographer (Laura Jane) was able to cover an array of scenes, from the getting ready to the early reception guest shots. She gave us over 800 photos – more than enough to make an album from. If you’re on a tight budget, rather have the photographer there till reception than have an average photographer for the whole night. You can always ask friends and family to take pictures during reception.

Many brides are also fooled by the extras – “2 specially designed albums” or “100 edited, printed photos”. These things are great but that expense can be saved for a later day when money isn’t tight because of all the expenses of your big day. Take the package where the photographer just gives you a dvd with the photos – you can look into the printing later when you and your parent’s wallets have recovered from wedding shock!

Laura Jane Photography

Ladies, are you ready to pop the question?

Today, 29 February is traditionally the one day every four years when women can turn the tables and propose to their man. Personally, I’d be petrified to take the reins in this situation but at the same time I think it’s kind of a cool idea.

So many relationships these days are stunted by the woman feeling uncertain as to when or if her man is going to propose. It can often create strain in your partnership and make for a very unhappy woman – not something you want to mess with! If the woman proposing was more commonly practiced then perhaps this dilemma could be a thing of the past. Propose, and if he says no then you know it’s time to move on and not waste your time with him any longer.

On the flip side, a lady needs to be perceptive and not emotional in making this decision to ask. If it’s something that’s come up in conversation and he’s indicated that he needs a little more time then don’t push him to the point where he’ll have to break your heart. Take the opportunity to propose when you both know it’s time but your man needs you to be brave and make “the last move”.

We are politicians, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and in the army. We change light bulbs, fix the washing machine, drive by ourselves, go camping by ourselves, and raise little human beings by ourselves. Why not take the opportunity to propose and create a potentially beautiful union. The most difficult question should really be, who pays for the engagement ring?

And the Academy goes to… Wedding Dress Inspiration

This past weekend was the 84th Academy Awards. I’m not really one for sitting through three hours of thank you’s and curtsies but the fashion – I LOVE! This year, tones of white and silver were very popular amongst the ladies’ gowns. If you’re a bride this year then be inspired by these celeb beauties for your own wedding dress. You don’t have to be as daring but maybe there’s a detail in one of these dresses that’ll add a wow factor to your own “red carpet” moment.

My favourite from the night is E!’s interviewer on the carpet, Giuliana Rancic wearing Tony Ward. The nude chiffon mermaid style gown with detailed white beading and petal appliqué down the sides and on her shoulders is just so interesting and makes her look like a rare jewel.

From left to right:

Giuliana Rancic wearing Tony Ward

Cameron Diaz wearing Gucci

Rooney Mara wearing Givenchy

Milla Jovovich wearing Ellie Saab

Gwyneth Paltrow wearing in Tom Ford

Jennifer Lopez wearing Zuhaiir Murad

Octavia Spencer wearing Tadashi Shoji

Shailene Woodley wearing Valentino

Kelly Ripa wearing Carolina Herrera

Related articles

• Best & Worst Dressed: 2012 Academy Awards [PHOTOS] (socialitelife.com)
• Oscar Red Carpet Looks: Wedding Dress Ideas (weddingpartyapp.wordpress.com)
• My Red Carpet Top 10 Dresses (diariesofastylemagnet.wordpress.com)
• The Oscars 2012 (bysandrapedersen.wordpress.com)
• Giuliana Stuns in White Tony Ward Couture Gown at the Oscars (mystyle.com)

Friday’s Secret: Paint Swatch

I’m very excited about today’s post. Why? Today is the first of many secrets revealed! Every Friday I’ll be posting a wedding secret. Nothing scandalous or jaw-dropping…I won’t be letting the cat out the bag on the latest Kardashian wedding! Having been recently wed I’m feeling rather wise on the ins and outs of wedding planning. I’ve decided to very generously share my experiences with all the bride-to-be’s out there so that you too can benefit from these simple but handy tricks.

So today’s secret was actually inspired by my sister-in-law, Raine. At the end of a shopping trip at Builder’s Warehouse she hopped into the car with a stack of paint swatches – she’s obsessed with the colour purple and had collected all the purple swatches. I browsed through them to look for the purple I planned to use for our wedding. This sparked the idea of getting all the colours I wanted for the wedding in the form of paint swatches. I had quite specific colour choices – navy blue, plumish-purple and a pale sage. The modern bride no longer goes with generic primary colour choices. The clients that come to me always refer to a “pale yellow, cherise pink or dove grey” – we have become fussy and specific in our colour choices.

So my tip for the newly engaged or even “half-way-through planning” engageés is to go to your local hardware or paint shop and grab a few of the colour swatches that you have in mind. Then go home, compare them and cut out the ones you’re sure are the closest to the colours you want. Stick each one onto a long-ish piece of card and Voila! – you have your own wedding swatch!

Now stick this in that little Wedding bookie you carry around with you (every bride should have one) and it’ll always be handy for you to refer to. As you can see in the picture, mine is quite worn around the edges. I whipped it out on countless occasions – at the venue, at the material shop, with the cake-maker, you name it!

A Blog for the Modern Bride: B.loved

As a wedding blogger I’m spoiled for choice when it comes to perusing other wedding blogs. I made a great find today : B.loved. www.blovedweddings.com is a UK based wedding blog that has a clean, modern but pretty style. The site is wonderfully fresh but is infused with brides and weddings that are classic and inspiring.

This photograph from B.loved is by a Cape Town based photographer, Monica Dart.