Buttons and ribbons at Lucy and Dave's vintage wedding at St.Julian's Club

We do so many lovely weddings and are lucky enough to work with great couples all the time (it seems we avoid the bridezillas we hear others talking about), that we constantly have new "favourite" weddings.  However, this week really is one of our overall all time faves....due to a shared love of buttons, ribbons, and ice cream!  I will explain more!  When we met Lucy and Dave for the first time and we started talking about colour schemes and styles, we got onto the subject of buttons (and Granny's button boxes) and a wedding theme was born.  Lucy and Dave wanted a very rustic, country garden and vintage inspired wedding, and the "make do and mend" concept also crept in.  Finally, the colour scheme was ivory with pale ice-cream colours (mint, vanilla, lemon, strawberry etc)....totally yummy!

Lucy was wearing a much anticipated, gorgeous light ivory dress with ivory flower designs appliqued over the dress and train, with a quite high round neckline and v-back with tiny covered buttons...this gorgeous vintage creation was from.....Oxfam online!  Lucy decided to follow her ideas and principles and the theme of the wedding and bought this stunning dress and had it altered to fit perfectly.  So clever and so chic.

For her bouquet, Lucy had seen a spring bouquet she loved in a magazine full of ranunculus, tulips, narcissi, muscari etc, which are extremely seasonal.   We therefore created our version of this bouquet using nearly closed ivory peonies (looking like scoops of ice cream), Vanilla Sky roses, Guelder rose, Sweet Peas, Gilla Leptanta, trachellium, tulips and muscari (probably the last we'll see until the end of the year now).  It looked good enough to eat, smelt divine and was finished with trails of the cutest buttons from a gorgeous lace bow.  As Lucy knew she would love her bouquet, she decided she didn't want to throw it, and so we provided a smaller throw bouquet for her.

For her adult bridesmaids, Lucy chose Windsor Blue full length dresses and her two junior bridesmaids had chiffon overlaid over their dresses.  As the blue was the dress colour, we decided to create smaller versions of Lucy's bouquet, but with fewer combinations of flowers, and none of the Gilla Leptanta and the Muscari.  The younger girl's bouquets were again a scaled down version of the others.  For each we wrapped them in ivory and attached a bow with trails of buttons, and a central button on the bow.  Each set of buttons was random and from both Lucy's collection and my collection of buttons.

Whilst we often provide very simple rose buttonholes, we wanted to follow the theme through for the Groom's party and hence used chincherinchee, eucalyptus parvifolia and rosemary for the boys' buttonholes, with muscari added to Dave's as well.  Each then had a button attached (naturally!) For the ladies, we largely worked with their outfit colours, providing pink and sage green for Lucy's Mum, turquoise and deep lilac for Dave's Mum and then plain ivory corsages (wrist and lapel) for the rest of the party.

For the ceremony, we dressed the table with a long and low arrangement using flowers used elsewhere (hydrangeas, peonies, lavender, roses, muscari, tulips, gilla, agapanthus, trachellium, stocks, sweet peas, astrantia, eucalyptus and rosemary).  Whilst we often move this arrangement to become the top table arrangement after the ceremony, for Lucy and Dave we had designed a more appropriate top table, and hence this was to be moved to the mantelpiece behind the top table for the reception.

We dressed the top table with a selection of mismatched jugs, vintage vases and jars finished with ribbons, lace and buttons!  We even appliqued some vintage lace on some vases and added buttons to others.  Each had a selection of flowers and no two vases were the same.  We provided a vase for the centre of the table so that Lucy's bouquet could continue to take pride of place as well.

Each of the guest tables were dressed with a central cake stand on which a random selection of vases, jugs, bottles and jars were added, all different, and all dressed with different ribbons, lace, applique, buttons etc.  We had such fun dressing these vases and finding the right combination for each table.  A smattering of buttons were added to some, and we think the overall look is gorgeous....pretty, fun, individual and rustic and a lovely look for a venue such as St Julians.  Instead of table sprinkles, we added....buttons of course!

I know we had nothing to do with the cake, and for regular readers of the blog will think we are obsessed with cakes (probably true) but the cake was amazing (no picture as yet I'm afraid as we were too early to see it finally set up.  But suffice it to say it was a fabulous stacked three tier cake covered in random buttons made from icing, with the top completely covered and then less buttons added nearer the bottom.  It was really amazing and very original.

As I said to start, it's hard to have a favourite wedding, but the combination of colours, flowers, buttons, vases, ribbons, lace and cake along with the lovely Lucy and Dave make this a tough wedding to beat.  It's made all of us dream of weddings and wish we could all get married again!  Hope it provides inspiration for others....and if it's button related inspiration, then give us a call!