More on cake

You know how I was talking about cake that looks like food? I think this cake, covered in toasted coconut thread, achieves that. I like to think that the top of the cake is dead flat white icing though. It'd be even better in tiers, mind.


And I'm liking the almost-smooth-but-not-quite-perfect icing on this poppyseed number. And those cute little blobbets. Meringues? Biscotti kind of thingies?

These both come from the Sweetness website, which is under construction. If you live in NSW, however, the sweets themselves are available already. I'd be looking into them as my caker, if I were not on the isolated side of Australia.

Vendors aren't as scary as you think

One option we are considering for the Best (wo)Man's suit is seeing how a hire suit might work out. The girl is fairly straight-up-and-down, and I'm thinking she could probably get away with a teen boy's suit (with a woman's shirt). I was a little concerned about how suit hire places might react to the idea.

Well, one decent thing to come out of the Bridal Lair was a chat with a lady at Spurling. She said quite bluntly that they don't have women's suits. Then cheerfully added that they do do some men's jackets that are very tapered at the waist that might work out, and to come by sometime and try them on. "The worst that can happen is that you work out that you can't put her in one of our suits, and you go look for something else."

That's the worst? Seriously? Awes. With an attitude like that, we're definitely testing the waters.

The Awesome Caker

I'm not sure where this is from now... possibly Martha Stewart?

I realised I nearly forgot to blog about The Awesome Caker* I met at the Bridal Lair. Kaylee was dressed in a polka dot New Look dress, with lace gloves and a bouffant. She had tasty, tasty cakey samples. Nothing was too hard (not even choc-mint flavoured red velvet cake).** She was friendly and bubbly and enthusiastic. Without being pushy. When I admitted that I found it hard to get excited about cake she looked at me agape and said "But cake is the best part of a wedding!"

Kaylee is the Wedding Cake Lady at the Cake Box, and she has her own blog here.

Neither I nor BCB are sure what we want in a cake yet, but my growing thought is that I want it to look like food. Seriously, most wedding cakes don't really look like something that could or should be eaten. So I'm thinking maybe something a little bit home-made and organic by way of icing, and fresh fruit... or else embrace the fake and just have loads and loads of huge icing flowers.

* I've decided Caker is the verb for someone that makes/ decorates wedding cakes.
** "Well, Red Velvet is really more a colour than a flavour. It's just a whole lotta food colouring. So if you really want choc mint red velvet it can be done." I loved the honesty.

Dresses at the Grand Social

I just found the Grand Social the other day. It's a site where designers can list their wares for sale directly to the public - a little like an Australian etsy only for fashion. It has some pretty big names, and it has a couple of dresses that would do nicely for a walk down the aisle.

This, the Petal Dress (deeper links not possible), from Nicola Finetti, is advertised as being suitable for a wedding (I'm starting to secretly suspect that all designers that make a long-ish white dress are shooting for brides, without having to announce themselves as a 'bridal designer').


I really like this Principessa gown by Jayson Brunsdon. Tres chic. There's lots of shorter white dresses in the range (see 'em peeking out behind?), in really interesting shapes too. But this was my favourite.

Dressing the Best (wo)Man Part II

Sophia Coppola rocks a suit hard

Some vintage menswear from Circa Vintage (I'm only a little bit obssessed...) is modelled over here. I'm digging the ruffled pussy-bow blouses.

Hell has chair covers and ice sculptures, or The Value of Bridal Fairs

I went to a Bridal Lair-I-mean-Fair last weekend. I went because my mother was dying to go, and I was mildly curious. On the whole, it was fairly depressing. I came out particularly uninspired with bridal fashion and invitations. I dodged flyers from forceful videographers.

BUT it was not an entire loss. I discovered that wedding cars are much, much cheaper than I thought they'd be, and that if BCB wanted, we probably could get a couplea vintage Mustangs or Cadillacs (turns out BCB doesn't want).

I had an awesome chat with a cake-maker (baker? Cake vendor? I dunno). Frankly, within reason, I don't care what her prices are. She's fun (everyone in her booth had bouffant hair, New Look dresses and lace gloves), she's friendly, she's young, she gave me cake samples, and you'll hear more about her later.

If you needed a celebrant, it would be a great place to quickly meet and greet a whole bunch.

So, in all, better than I thought, (but I don't think I need to do another).

I had lunch with a friend on the weekend, and tentatively (mostly because I don't know for sure exactly what we want by way of ceremony yet) whether she might want to sing a Shaker hymn at the wedding. The other 'tentatively' is that she is a trained opera singer, and sometimes has an understandable reluctance to force herself into another style.

"Sure," she said. "I'll find a nice one, if that's what you want. Otherwise, I know a really nice opera piece from [insert name of opera I've not heard of and promptly forgot] that's for a cello and two voices. M* can do the cello part, and my friend V will do the other vocals. She'll do them for free because she's my friend and I'll make her."

"Oh," said I, pushing my luck, "I'm also thinking of doing the flowers myself, but I'll need someone to drive them, and probably other stuff, to the reception venue on the day.
"Done," said my friend.
"Seriously dude, I meant to tell you, whatever you need me to do, I'll do it."**

I love my friends.

* M is another of my oldest friends, and a performance cellist and performance artist. Why, yes, I am the least creative one in my circle, since you ask.
** The only concession my friend asked for was that she not be made to wear black and white performance clothes, and instead be allowed to wear her own choice. Um, not even a concession. So a requirement.

Dressing the Best (wo)Man

I don't know that I've mentioned yet, but our Best Man is in fact not a man. It's not exactly clear what your inner bridezilla makes 'em wear, when your best man's a woman. The polite, safe choice seems to be a black dress (to match with the groom's suit). We are planning on dressing the lovely wee thing in a suit.

East Side Bride helped me out something awesome with my concerns that we'd be making the B(w)M look like she was in drag (not our intention). Check out her rather awesome advice here and here.

Given our gal is pint-sized, I'm thinking way skinny trousers are a nice way to keep the suit feminine. And way cool. Given that we are picking up the tab for this outfit,* I'm thinking of taking her into Myer Miss Shop and checking out the work/ evening wear stuff.

* The Best (wo)Man is a waitress by day, and an artist by night.

Papel Picado

From one of my favourite 'stories' at Brides.com

I've been so tickled by pictures of American weddings that feature papel picado (something I'd not heard of until I entered the Wedding Arena). They're cute and fun and simple but they make you go "Oo! Skilled!" too.

I love the customised ones the best - the idea of having my and BCB's names surrounding kitschy sacred hearts and startled looking doves really, really does it for me. I've found a few places that will do customised papel picado, in differing quantities. Here, or here, say. Or here (an etsy site).

But if you don't need 'em customised, you can get them in Australia! The Lark is now selling papel picado. She has 'love' (red and white) and 'wedding' (all white) papel picado. I'm loving the red and white best... Since most venues in Perth forbid you in no uncertain terms from attaching anything to wall or ceiling (and few have beams that you could tie the string around) I'm thinking these could be strung in front of the bridal table in place of ruched tulle. So long as the tablecloth wasn't white. Pink, maybe?

Another pretty hat-thing - this time Edwardian

I think it's so, so beautiful, but a little too soft and romantic for what I think I'll eventually wear. Someone go grab it now!

Men in Vests

BCB picked up a vest from Circa Vintage in Melbourne last year. He was hoping for a full three-piece suit, but nothin' doin', so he bought a complimentary vest (powdery blue-grey suit; commodore blue vest). And he's been wearing it a bit on its own, too.

This post over at GreenShoesBride shows off the vest-without-a-jacket thing quite nicely. I like it. I think it could work well with a short dress, non?

Also, there is a gorgeously intellectual thread on appropriate wedding attire over here, at the London Lounge.

PS: Sorry for the lack of pictures. You have no idea how many *uncool* grooms in red or gold rental tux vests there are out there.

Okay, screw the short dress

That's the back view, duh.

I am in love with this dress. It's a little bit big, but that could be altered. Sadly, it's also a little out of budget (that heartwrenching amount where you go "Maybe I could just stretch to it? No... no, really I can't"). If someone feels like making my day, it's available at The Frock (bridal, page 2).