Bluewater Wedding Fair 2016 - In the Vintage Village

Last weekend saw us exhibiting at Bluewater Wedding Fair for the first time.  We decided we best fitted within the lovely Vintage Village designed and organised by Creative Brides alongside such lovely people as Story of My Dress, Purple Flour, Livvy Hukins, ELS Creative Design, Joes Bows, Chic n' Cheerful and many other lovely people.  It was organised brilliantly by Clair and her team from Creative Brides and felt like a totally different experience...no jostling, pushing for customers or lines of faceless stalls...just one big happy family of exhibitors joined by the passion for all things creative and vintage in the wedding world.

We decided we wanted to show that vintage doesn't just mean shabby chic, so we decided to exhibit some more glamorous vintage styles alongside some very rustic and natural styles.  Our "hook" was Downton Abbey using the upper class wedding of Lady Edith for our glamorous side, linked with the spurious imagined wedding of Downton Abbey's cook Mrs Patmore to Mr Mason at the farm.  So here's what we did...

For Lady Edith's "wedding" we showed glamorous candelabra and silver urns dripping with pearls and lace alongside silver salvers of vintage tea and coffee sets filled with flowers.  Colours were muted, soft and elegant including hydrangeas, syringa, roses, orhcids, lilies and soft eucalyptus.  Lace, pearls and brooches were added as finishing touches.

For Mrs Patmore and Mr Mason, we used mixing bowls, pastry cutters, milk jugs, vintage stilton and marmalade jars along with lots of wood, implements, urns, jars and even a pig and a sheep!  Well every farm needs them.

We had fun and met so many wonderful people, many of whom we hope to see in the studio for a consultation soon.  In the meantime I hope you enjoy our slightly quirky "take" on vintage.

Sam and Lee's vibrant and striking Cooling Castle Barn wedding

 
I first met Sam and Lee at a Cooling Castle Barn Open Day and chatted for a short while.  I was thrilled when they cam back around that day and booked a consultation.  Little did I know that they would want a fabulous multi-coloured wedding and were happy to leave most of the flower choices to me!  I think it was a truly fab wedding and I know they had a wonderful day.

Sam knew that she wanted a more contemporary and unusual bridal bouquet and liked some of the more European style teardrops I had designed in the past.  We talked colours and flowers and decided on exotic flowers, vibrant colours, buttons and multi-coloured ribbons!  As the bridesmaids were in purple, the colours we chose were pink, yellow, purple, orange and lime green!  Fabulous!  We used a range of anthuriums, grevillia, orchids, greentrick, proteas, leucadendron, aspidistras and grasses.

As we'd gone to town on the colours for the bridal bouquet, we couldn't leave the bridesmaids out, so chose hand-tied textured bouquets using as many of the flowers as we could.  We wrapped each in a different colour ribbon, with a narrower contrasting colour criss-crissed over the top and then added trailing buttons.  We scaled down the elder bridesmaids' boquuets for the junior bridesmaid and wrapped her stems in purple with contrasting ribbon over the top with the trailing buttons.  Finally, we designed different colour germini "wands" for the Flower Girls with buttons added with the germinis and trailing over the top.  I loved the overall result and it makes such a striking set of pictures.

For the boys, we continued with the multi-coloured scheme and provided germini buttonholes with added greentrick and then scaled them down further for the pageboys.  We also provided lapel corsages for the Mums and thank you bouquets.

For the ceremony, we designed a contemporary, long and low arrangement to be placed on the celebrant table for the register signing, and also added a lovely exotic arrangement to the newel post at the bottom of the stairs to herald Sam's arrival.

For the reception, we dressed the top table with a central, long and low contemporary styled arrangement and then added multi-coloured tealights in votives along the front of the table and finished the overall look with buttons scattered in between.  To finish the look and make it a little more special, we added a purple Vanda orchid to each of the place settings.

For each of the guest tables, we used a large martini vase on a central mirror and filled each vase with a different coloured sisal to make each different and unique.  We added a full and exotic arrangement to the top using all the flowers we had used elsewhere.  We then placed multi-coloured tealights in votives around the base of the vases and finished the look off with a sprinkling of buttons.

Finally, we dressed the Plough with fairy lights along with the four corner beams in the barn for that added sparkle.  We thought it looked stunning...unique and striking and just a bit quirky....everything we love.  We know that the day was amazing and we wish Sam and Lee all the very very best for their lives together.