One Year Today

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you...



I truly am the luckiest. Happy Anniversary James.

Antique Brooch Bouquets

Amanda Heer of  Fantasy Floral Designs is the artist behind these amazing bouquets made of antique brooches. Each is a work of art and whimsy. Link via Wedding Chicks.

Mélangerie's Wedding Genealogy Charts

The most amazing Wedding Genealogy chart designs can be found at very talented Mélangerie's Etsy store. I encourage you to take a look, they are so detailed and beautifully designed, and would make great conversation starters at a reception.

Image by Mélangerie.

Such a Simple, Perfect Idea

... when I saw this image of a lovely group of bridesmaids, I thought, why don't more people do this?? Skirts and cute shirts = such an amazing, simple idea and one that I'm sure would mean great comfort (and style) for the ladies. One for the inspiration folder, that's for sure! Photo via With This Ring by talented Rebekah Westover.

Updates to Flickr and It's A Date Event Design websites

Just wanted to also note that I've updated the It's A Date website, did a little bit of house-keeping and moved some things around! I'm getting excited about the launch of this year's I Do I Do Creations Magazine, which will include a few of my designs - I have also been flat out with 21st invitation designs and some really beautiful wedding projects which will be uploaded after the respective events take place.



Also, I just uploaded a few photos that my talented husband took of our wedding invites up on my Flickr photostream. More about the process of designing these can be found here.

Wishing Trees

I'm looking into making one of these for a client, and I am completely inspired by some of the beautiful ones on the Internet:





Images above from Here Comes The Guide



Image above from Cristalier.

This is an 'escort card tree' I found on the amazing Michelle Rago's blog: "It was a tree-like structure created from hundreds of stems of white cherry blossom branches sitting on a base of hybrid white delphinium, hydrangea, and white macarena roses. The actual cards were cut from decoupaged skeleton leaves and loosely strung on ribbon so the guests could easily pull them off as they found their name."





Images above from Michelle Rago, Ltd.

First Dance

I must admit, at our wedding, James' and my 'first dance' was entirely unplanned. We're not dancers by a long shot, and whilst a lot of thought went into the song that we'd play (for those interested, it was this one)*, we had given very little thought to HOW to dance. We ended up swaying about trying to remember what we knew about slow dancing, fun, but a little awkward! Still, I wouldn't change it for the world!

But, should the thought have occurred to us, along with some coordination on my part, I would love to have rehearsed and performed a quirky reception dance. Here are a few of my favourites that I've seen on YouTube recently:

Song: "The Way I Are" by Timbaland:



Song: "Thriller" by Michael Jackson



Song: "California Love" by Tupac



Song: "Better Together" by Jack Johnson/"The Way You Make Me Feel" by Michael Jackson



And my all-time favourite:



Very fun and a great way to relax after the thrill of getting married.

* My husband and I had our first date at a Josh Pyke concert in 2007, and not long after we were married, Josh recorded a live version of "Under the Milky Way Tonight". If he had been a few weeks earlier, this would have been the perfect wedding song for us.

Updates to It's A Date Event Design Website

Just added two new projects to the It's A Date Event Design website - Taina & Tamara's gorgeous purple Winery themed wedding invitations, and the first of four stationery suites I designed for the Bridal Expo - Laura and Jacob's red/purple/cream wedding invitations. Enjoy!

The Expo

It was, easily, the most fun, fulfilling day I've had since I started It's A Date Event Design a year ago.

The feedback we got was amazing, it was such an honor to be able to see so many people interact with these little products I had been creating, trimming, assembling at night for the last two months... And, also, I got to talk about weddings all day, which is probably, if I'm going to be honest, one of my absolute favorite topics and one I could have probably talked about for the rest of the night too. We made lots of new friends, both with visitors and other suppliers at the expo, which will prove invaluable, I'm sure, when we get the chance to recommend other services.

Renate, my partner-in-crime for the It's A Date Event Design stand, was unbelievable. She effortlessly charmed everyone that came into our stall, talked the talk like she had been doing it for years, and was the best support to me all day, as well as making me laugh laugh laugh! My family were also amazing: both with the set-up and pull-down. I know I was a ball of nerves the day before and they humored me, buckled down and just got the job done, and done beautifully. I'm very lucky to have such great people around me!

Here are some photos my husband took at the beginning of the day of our finished set-up stall. This first one is of our entire stand. We were stand number 4, which meant visitors will still pretty fresh when they got to us - after the next few rows of stands, I'm sure it was another story!

You can see the Wedding Arch I created in this image, I mentioned it a few posts ago. This is my second wedding arch, and my favorite so far, I just adored the colors we used.



Set One: Designed after a rather inspiring chat with Renate! This was one of two elaborate sets, and featured a Wish Tree! Colours were yellow, burnt orange, brown and white, with a bit of sage green thrown in for good measure!





Set Two: Colours were aqua, black, white and silver. I went for a lace motif with this set which I think worked well against all the black!



Set Three: My favourite set, the Sweetheart Table. Colours were Baby blue, Gold, Brown, Cream and everything had a travel theme, right down to the Passport invitations.







Set Four: Colours were Red, Purple, Slate Grey and Cream, and this set had a culinary theme!





You can find out more about these projects here.

All photos © James Sann Photography and It's A Date Event Design.

New Wedding Arch - WIP

Today I started on a new wedding arch - I forgot how enjoyable the last one was, I've had a lovely time cutting and pasting tonight. Here's a work in progress shot of a flower I created using second-hand sewing pattern paper:


(Photo above is from my dodgy iPhone camera - yesterday I got to use James' Canon 350D and in contrast, it makes my photos from my phone look a little ordinary)

I got the inspiration from a fabulous tutorial by Andrea of Everyday Beauty who used the same material to make beautiful little flowers to go around her pink lights (pictured below).


Image © Everyday Beauty

I tried doing the same, without lights, with very little success, just due to not having a centre to wrap around, so I ended up fashioning the pattern paper like a big pom-pom. The leaves are just simple cut-outs in black paper. Fun fun fun!

Coloured Lollies Round-up

At the moment, I'm facing a problem that I'm sure quite a few brides have already faced: I need heaps of lollies, but not just any, lollies in a particular color. I never had this problem when I was an actual bride (and I imagine it wouldn't have been quite as hard as we had a predominately black/white theme) but has anyone recently tried finding any type of confectionery in aqua? It's hard work!

Things would be a little easier if I was in the US, as M&Ms are available in a range of 25 colors that make my heart sing, including SILVER and GOLD! How cool is this?:


Image © My M&Ms

Unfortunately this seems to be limited to the US so my dreams of cute aqua M&Ms might be a bit of a long shot. However, I have found a few good confectionery suppliers who are based in Australia who may be able to help if you're facing a similar dilemma:

Goody Goody Gum Drops has a wide selection of confectionery to choose from. 1KG of a particular colored Jelly Belly will set you back around $AU39.50 plus shipping.

Sugar Fix provides sweets and candy from the US and UK as well as some Australian brands. They have a great 'retro' section if you're looking for something a little bit different.

Tom's Confectionery Warehouse has a great selection as well, particularly in their Jelly Beans section, which has quite a few colours to choose from: blue, pink, black, a cream color, brown, deep red and quite a few different shades of green. The Simpsons range of Jelly Beans had some really great bright colours as well and at just under $AU5 a kilo (plus shipping) they might work out to be a more economical option.

I really do have my heart set on finding some kind of aqua-colored lolly, so I'll keep searching. Another option is to dye something white an aqua colour - if I attempt this, I'll be sure to post the results!