flowers

As ever, these beautiful photos are copyright to Filip Welna.

We did something a little unusual when it came to wedding flowers, and it worked out so well for us that I thought I'd share it. When we met with the florist, I had a few black and white printouts of the kind of bouquet shape I liked. I liked things with lots of texture and variation. But I didn't know what flowers I wanted. I felt like Willetton Wedding Flowers really got the feel I was going for anyway, so we booked them.

Later, I sent them a fabric swatch and some paint chips of the kinds of colours I liked, and I sent them a long, long list of Flowers I Like and Flowers I Don't Like. I sent these massive long lists because I figured it would give them more to choose from depending on what was in season. And beyond that, the bouquets were up to the florist.


To my surprise, they used nearly every flower on my 'like' list. I had kangaroo paw, geraldton wax and succulents. Roses, orchids and anthirriums. Rosemary, ferns and ranunculas. Dusty miller and cherry blossoms. Every time I looked at my bouquet I found something new. They were the most beautiful bouquets ever. And no two buttonholes/ corsages were the same.I strongly recommend giving your florist some creative freedom.

The only thing I would do differently, if I were to do it again, would be more aware of the cheap white plastic holders that are used on cascading bouquets. Had I been aware that they were going to use one, I would have hit up etsy for a vintage silver bouquet holder (such things exist), or provided some really nice velvet ribbon to hot-glue around the handle. Just a thought. If cascading is what you're thinking.

Oh, and another tip? If you use succulents in your bouquet, you can plant them afterwards and they'll grow! Pretty cool huh?

Gimme some hair

All images copyright Filip Welna.

To follow on from the makeup person I used, I thought I'd mention my hairdresser in case anyone was interested. I left hair until far too close, and all the mobile hairdressers I could find (that I liked) were booked out. In desperation I called Peggy Sue's. Not only did she agree to do it, she didn't freak out at the sentence "By the way, the Best Woman has an undercut." Now, mobile wedding hair is not her usual thing, so I don't want to promise that she'll do yours or anything. But she did mine, and the Maid of Honour's and the Best (wo)Man's and I was pretty stoked.

Also, she texted me the morning of the wedding to ask if there was any last-minute errands she could run for me (how nice is that?), and was an all-round fun person to have with us on the day.


This isn't the best photo of the Best (wo)Man's hair, but the only I could find that didn't show her face. BwM has, as mentioned above, a pretty severe undercut. On the left side of her face is a beautiful 1940s victory roll, and all her hair was swept round to trail down on the right-hand side, showing off the undercut at the back on the left. It was gorgeous.

For the Maid of Honour I gave Bee this picture for inspiration. Bee likes nothing more than big hair. Oh, so big.


This doesn't even begin to show it. Well, kind of. Look at where her shoulders are, and where her hair ends. Her hair was as tall as her face was long. It was Elvira-esque. It was a beehive. It cracked me up every time I looked at it. People came up to me after the wedding and said "You look great and all, but her hair - my god! That's a feat of architecture!" Was it exactly what she or I would have chosen? No, but I didn't ask for a redo because it was wild and silly and it looked amazing. Once in a lifetime hair.

Mine? She just made mine as big as was humanly possible, given I have thin, fine limp hair. She did a great job. C'mon, you've seen it in the other photos.

Makeup

Image copyright to Filip Welna. Do not use or copy.

I had a commenter ask who did my makeup, and, embarrassingly, it took me a really long time to remember! I think after the wedding was over I did my best to block everything out. I mean, it was fun and all, but it was nice not to have to think about it anymore.

Anyway, I remembered (whew!) It was Nicole Forde. I chose her because she did my friend's wedding, and all the girls had the most amazing, giant doe-eyes.

The other thing I loved was that when I rang her and said I didn't want to wear foundation, and would that be okay, she was completely fine with that. Even told me that she thought most people didn't really need foundation. I just hate the sensation of something coating my skin, so I was happy to have finishing powder, but didn't want a base. By the time Nicole was done with me, you couldn't even tell.

just a little note...

All photos copyright and by Filip Welna, our fab photographer

I'm looking to sell my wedding gown. I love it to pieces, but don't have the space to keep it. Knowing that Priscilla of Boston dresses are rare as hen's teeth in Australia, I'm hoping to find someone else who loves it and will give it a second outing. You can find it listed here or here, or leave me a message on this post with an e-mail address at which I can reach you. I'm open to offers, willing to post anywhere (not just within Australia), and more than happy to answer any questions! Perth people are also welcome to see it in person, of course.

The boning creates some killer curves, if I say so myself. This is me giggling madly while my poor bridesmaid tried to do up the top hook and eye.

the wedding singer

I was so excited I just had to share. BCB and I felt so, so fortunate that an old friend of his (who I actually thought he was dating when we first met!) agreed to be our all-round wedding singer. To boot, she was an absolute champ who submitted to playing covers,* along with some freestylin' ukele work. Her new single was launched today. Enjoy it, and enjoy the divine Ms Abbe May!

* Barry Louis Polisar's All I Want Is You; Nick Cave's Into My Arms, and The Darkness' I Believe In A Thing Called Love.

paper good(s).

A lovely commenter pointed out that I hadn't shown off my invites yet, which was a kuh-raaaazy oversight on my part. I think that I took some snaps, decided they were pretty terrible quality, and never got round to blogging them. But I should. So y'all can come crash the reception, non? (um, no. Please).

The invites were by HeatherJeany on etsy, based on one of her other designs (with the colours changed and a bee motif removed). They don't look so great through the plastic wrapper they're in. You can't tell that the brown-ish text is actually metallic copper (yay!) I would totally and utterly recommend Heather if you're looking for invites. Her work is reasonably priced, she is very organised and professional and her invitation design skills are just awesome.


The hand-screenprinting comes out flat, maybe a little raised where the ink is thick. There is the odd tiny imperfection which I like. Reminds you that they're handmade. As well as invites and rsvps, we got her to do thankyou cards and order of service booklet covers for us.

The 'bells' references on the rsvp ('borrowed' from this wedding here) was well worth it. We have had one guest terribly confused and concluding it means 'bring a partner' (wha? Ah well!) Someone that couldn't attend explained that 'they're allergic to bells - what are the odds?' Another guest is 'with bells' while her partner ticked 'undecided' and added 'apprehensive about bells since that incident in 2007.' And our darling MC indicated that he would be there with bells on 'and only bells on.'

$8k wedding: Food

The trickiest part of the $8k budget is definitely feeding everyone. With $4000 (according to my budget breakdown) that comes to $40 per head, including drinks. One certainly can cater one's own wedding, but I know it would do my head in. Plus it feels like cheating given that I'm trying to prove how far the money can stretch.
So I pretty much just googled caterers in WA for a bit and found that, for my town hall wedding, one can get a catered spit-roast with two kinds of meat and loads of different salad and veges for $18 per person. This was certainly down at the cheaper end of the range of prices I found, but there were a few caterers playing with this number, and it certainly wasn't the lowest price I found. Sure, it isn't the most glam option, but it's good hearty food that will fill everyone up, and it certainly has a homey, retro feel.

For the backyard wedding? What's more casual and Italian (and delicious) than woodfired pizza?


Cicciobella are a Perth-based mobile pizza oven company that offer three courses (calzone, all you can eat pizza, and dessert pizza) for a smidge over $20 per person. Brilliant!

Either options leaves you with $10 - 20 per person for drinks (depending on how much wiggle room you want to leave for contingencies). Counting one bottle of wine per person (go see the Dan Murphy's drinks calculator for a better estimate), and assuming you buy at LiquorLand or Vintage Cellars and get 30% off by buying by the dozen, you will be serving up some not shabby drinks!

Tip: Got rellies flying in from overseas for the wedding? Ask them to bring in their duty-free allowance in vodka and make up a big fruit punch for your town hall wedding, or mix it up with some red wine for sangria for your backyard (Spanish-)Italian do.

$8k wedding: Invitations

Now that we have a venue to inform the feel of the wedding, it's time for invites! Print-at-home is your friend. Failing that (or in preference to that, if you want to print on thicker card, or want the colours to look really lush) you take your stuff to a printing centre like KwikCopy. To be honest, I can only make an educated guess about the cost of printing colour papergoods at a print centre, but I am guessing you'd be looking at a couple of hundred dollars to do your invites plus a little more (rsvps, menus or thankyou cards, maybe?).

And etsy is so very much the place to look for your invitations. There are loads of simply stunning options for pdf-downloads to print at home. I think this would be perfect for the retro town hall dance wedding:

Country Fair printable invites by SugarFlowerDesign

And maybe this one for the casual-elegant Italian do?

Monogram printable wedding set by EmPaper

If either of these are busting the budget, I even found this lovely monogrammed, flourished printable set for $15!

$8K wedding: the venue

When you're playing with a tight budget, your choices of venue drop right down. You might need to be a little more flexible about the vibe of your wedding, and because you're going to have limited choices, I think the venue should inform the theming, rather than choosing the other way around. So, what options are there?

First, and most obviously: the backyard. Maybe yours, maybe your folks, maybe your extended family, maybe even friends (my mum's friend was so very eager to have our wedding reception in her backyard). Ask around, you never know who might be willing to put their hand up. And a backyard can be a fairly blank slate, so I'm going to run with a sort of elegant-casual Italian kind of vibe for my imaginary backyard wedding.

Sometimes, though, there just isn't the option of a backyard. Lord knows most of the people I know have nothing larger than a courtyard, if that, these days. And that is where the local hall comes in. Scout around and look at lots of local government websites. They can be a complete bargain. Like this:

Image from the Art Deco Buildings blog.

The Guildford Town Hall. A late-deco beauty that will set you back the grand sum of $256 to hire for your wedding reception. Seriously. And that includes tables and chairs. And yes, it is as pretty inside as out. The feel? A retro village dance, yes? Yes.

(for the record, I think the Gidgegannup Town Hall is also terribly, terribly cute).

(another) dress with bows

Zomg. If it wasn't like, five days until my wedding and I didn't already have a dress, I would totally get that one. It has bows. I think it's a well-known fact I love dresses with bows. Plus it's a bridal label called Princess Lasertron. Plus it's only $550. Triple-threat.

One week to go

This time seven days from now I'll invariably be rushing about trying to grab everything I need to take to the apartment where I'm getting ready to Be Married.

For both BCB and I the enormity of what we're doing has really only hit in the past week or so. It's really quite terrifying. I'm quite sure I'm going to sob my way down the aisle and through the entire ceremony.

Imaginary $8k wedding

Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to catch my first ever episode of Four Weddings (the Australian version). And while all the weddings had their goods bits and their not-so-good, the one that really stuck with me was the afternoon tea reception wedding, with a cash bar. The entire wedding was done on an $8000 budget. Now I am certainly not out to lay in to that wedding - it was a lovely idea, and the bride and groom really enjoyed themselves. But I couldn't help but think that $8k could have gone a lot further than party pies in the mid-afternoon.*

So, I'm using my Mad Wedding Planning Skillz to plan two imaginary weddings with different feels, each being for 100 guests, for $8000 (AUD). I started with a budget breakdown I found here:

Wedding Expense	%
Reception (venue & catering)	40
Attire & Accessories	10
Photography / Video	10
Flowers	10
Ceremony	5
Rings	5
Entertainment	4
Cake	2
Invitations	2
Transportation	2
Miscellaneous	10
Total %	100

but it needs tweaking. I think 50% on the reception is more like it. Nothing will be spent on transport, or 'entertainment' (what is that, and why is it so pricey?), giving me a little more wiggle room on attire and invitations. Flowers will be scaled right back, but that 10% will probably go towards decorating the reception venue more generally. I think realistically you won't get a celebrant or a church for under $500, so let's call the ceremony 10% of the budget, shall we?

So, let the games begin!

* Of course, I am assuming that one wants something other than party pies in the mid-afternoon. If that's your idea of the perfect shindig, please don't let my posts be interpreted as rain on your parade!

Napkins

Yeah, so my bridezilla moment of madness was deciding to make all the napkins from scratch, in all different fabrics. I ordered eleventy billion Kaffe Fassett fabrics and set to. I did start out trying to manage some kind of colour scheme, but it got too hard, so I just chucked anything I fancied in the shopping basket and waited to see what would be delivered to my doorstep. Pretty, huh? Planning to roll them into rectangles, tied with a luggage label and a few brass bells, as place settings.

Urastarhouse is a star.

My little cake toppers have arrived! Man they are the coolest things ever! I've had them out on the mantlepiece to admire (next to my collection of plaster moulds of my teeth, if you're wondering what thing to the left is).

Voila. Practice veil. Made with patterned broadcloth instead of silk. The actual veil will be fuller, but I kind of messed up all the cutting on the practice version (this is why we make a practice version, people).

After much messing around, I discovered/ decided:
i) blusher + bow + veil is too much. So long, blusher.
ii) the best bubble veil is 20 inches long, with the folded edge cut to a curved corner.

Excuse my slightly blotchy skin and damp hair. That photo was actually taken the morning after my hen's night, so frankly I think I'm looking pretty damn fine, circumstances considered.

Cake Stands

Can't remember if I talked about this yet or not? Anyway, I was moderately horrified at the cost of Wedding Cake (that is, cake made by someone who professes to make wedding cakes). Not to mention it was important to me that only free range eggs, and actual real food (not the anhydrous doozamewhatsits of packet mix) be used. So we're running with three cakes from Sherbet Bake Shop instead. I asked Sherbet if they could stack their cakes, and they said (quite reasonably, with an explanation) 'no.' So I figured tiered cake stands would work well enough.

I initially enquired with local cake shops about buying a stand, only be quoted 'about $400' for what I wanted.... So then I bought a three-tier model off ebay. It was advertised with the image above. Just allow yourself a moment to fully appreciate the ghastliness of that image.

Add $40 worth of hobby store spray-lacquer in Pearlescent Red (thanks to the lovely guys at Stanbridges who not only helped me pick the right kind of paint, but kept a fairly straight face when I came back in red-handed, asking exactly what product would get the stray paint off my palms...).



Et voila. Not bad, hey? Imagine them laden with lusciously frosted white layer-cakes. Excuse any wobbliness in the stands - I couldn't be bothered to properly straighten them for their glamour-shot. So, $120 of cake, about $100 of cake stand and spraypaint. About half the price of the Wedding Cake quotes I got. I win.

Mini-me!

So... did I post about the cake palaver? I don't think so. Suffice to say, I was horrified at the price of wedding cakes, and decided to just get some 'regular' iced white cakes from a fabulous bakery (at a quarter of the price, no joke). But then I decided to spend part of the money saved on the coolest cake toppers in the entire world. Mm-hm. From Urastarhouse. And here they are! Ta-da! Don't we look grand? I love the idea of having these little mini-us figurines to keep. And yes, those are our fur-kids sitting on our heads (it's okay, they'll just sit next to us on the cake).

The most beautiful bridal accessories ever.

I'm just in love with the stunning butterfly jewellery by etsy seller Jewelera. It's made by transferring images of actual butterflies onto organza fabric... so delicate and ethereal. She has a video showing how the wings flutter in a breeze.

I would snap up the headband in an instant if I could at all get away with it. Unfortunately, my style is much more bold and structured, and I just don't think this would go. But someone else should get it, wear it, and send me the pictures! Let me live vicariously!

Maybe it's not too late for bon-favs?

I just stumbled across an American site called Beau-Coup which stocks all kinds of little party favour bits (wedding and otherwise). Unique ones (no, like actually stuff I haven't seen elsewhere, not 'unique' in the way it gets thrown about these days). Classy ones. That picture above? That's herbal cocktail infusers (add your own liquor and fruit juice). Yum!


And, most importantly, they actually ship to Australia! Well, everything except those gorgeous custom fortune cookies. Which is probably just as well. Because I don't think I could help myself. My other favourite is the personalised biscuit mix.

Excellent Underthings

Right. Trying to keep this SFW. Yesterday my goal was to find a torsolette thing that was strapless and low-backed and comfortable, to go under my dress. Myer and DJs do not stock such things, it turns out. So I had to try find a speciality store.

Problem with googling 'bridal lingerie' (or even searching the yellow pages), is that the same term is used for the formidable, structural, suck-you-in, lift-you-up, invisible-under-your-dress stuff and also for the (usually really naff) racy honeymoon sets. Eek. Cue memories of Kath & Kim and the episode with the snap-crotch teddies.

To top it off, I hate underwear shopping. I really, really do. Such a hassle.

Anyway, I made a list of potentially suitable places. First on the list was Silk Elegance Lingerie in Leederville. My mama (coming along for moral support) was sceptical. She had seen the storefront before, and thought it looked a little dingy and weird.

Oh man was she wrong. I adore this place. They had a whole wall of bridally undergarments that were both pretty and sculpting. They had a massive range of brands (they import some labels especially). They keep all their white and cream nundies in the same section, so it's easy to pick out a set.

And the staff are extraordinary. They are kind, helpful, patient and make getting your kit off in front of them seem completely normal. They are so careful when it comes to fitting. And they do alterations! Yes! Lingerie alterations! Because they want stuff to fit you perfectly. I cannot recommend them highly enough. We didn't even end up hitting any of the other places on my list. Silk Elegance Lingerie in Leederville. Checkit.