Guest Blog Post; Sienna Grace Designs

Based in the West Midlands, Sienna Grace Design offer a fun and creative alternative to floral and balloon venue decorations.  Specialising in handmade paper flowers and pom poms these beautiful and versatile decorations make vibrant centrepieces, flower rings and cover dressings.  These wonderful bespoke creations are handmade to order and bring a unique and long-lasting splash of colour to your special occasion.

We offer for hire chair covers, table centrepieces and other special decorative touches. As well as hiring from us we also offer a full bespoke service where we will visit the chosen venue with the bride and groom and run through how they envisage their day looking and we will talk and advise how our designs could work with their vision. We are soon going to be hiring out vintage photo style booths too! There’s lots still to come from us!

We try to be unique. For example we offer chair covers for hire but we offer paper flower chair dressings as an alternative to organza sashes. Most of our designs and decor will involve the use of paper flowers which are all handmade in house. We also sell paper pom poms which are proving to be highly popular. These are a fun and modern alternative to balloons and can really transform a room. We are constantly looking for new and exciting ideas and have quite a few in the pipeline! We are try to put our twist on everything we do.

Website: www.siennagracedesign.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001717036880

Email: design@sienna-grace.com

Twitter: SiennaGDesign

How to choose your wedding photographer

Thanks to Claire from Weddings by Claire for asking me to write this article - there are lots of articles about choosing your wedding photographer from brides, but, less from photographers, so it's great to put across the things to look for from a wedding photographers point of view.

I'll use a bulleted list as I know these are really popular :)

1.Throw away the list of questions from the bridal press :) Actually that's not quite true - throw away the stupid questions from the bridal magazines :)

It's very easy to have a very comprehensive list of questions in a magazine - it takes up a lot of space and looks good, remember though that it can cover every type of wedding and every type of photographer.

The key thing to remember is that (hopefully) your wedding photographer will have photographed quite a few weddings already - so you won't need to ask them questions like - will you photograph the rings - this will come across as patronising and won't help with the bond you should have with your photographer

2.Create a shortlist of photographers

Don't pick the first photographer you see. I'd recommend seeing at least 3 photographers so that you can compare and contrast.

Choose a photographer who shoots in your style. If you want lots of formal photographs and posed images then you're likely looking at a traditional wedding photographer. Want minimal posed/formal images and a record of the day as it happens then you'll want to seek out more reportage based photographers. There are good and bad photographers who shoot in every style. Make sure you see at least one complete wedding and album - this will set your expectations as to the consistency - anyone can fluke a handful of good portfolio images over a couple of years. You want to be looking for a proven track record of delivering the quality that you're happy with in a style that suits you.

Finding them can be a trick - ask friends family whose weddings you might have been to - or you might know have been married recently.

Personal recommendations are always the best, failing that you can always try google or wedding fairs. Either way make sure you meet the photographer who is going to be photographing your wedding. It's very important that you get one with your photographer - they're going to be around you - a lot! So you have to feel comfortable with them. A quick test is - would you invite them as a guest?

3.Don't use price as a criteria

I know that price can be important, but, remember you will only get married once and the photos are likely the only lasting record of the day, so choose accordingly. so looking at the shortlist see if you can stretch your budget by saving money elsewhere, get your friends to give you money towards the photography, anything to let you get the photography you want and deserve of your big day. Do you want to say in years to come to your children that you had a great wedding day but you can't show them any good photos of it because you ended up with a digital CD package and no album and you've lost the CD or it got scratched? If it costs you an extra £1000 what's that over 40 years of marriage? or the depreciation on a new car? I know what I'd rather do :) (of course I'll freely admit that I'm biased in this regard)

4.Don't panic

It's easy to panic when it comes to choosing your photographer, Don't.

As soon as you have a rough idea of dates of your ceremony contact your shortlisted photographers (sooner the better). Have a chat with them see if you think they'll work for you.

That's the process I'd go through to find myself a wedding photographer.

It's key to get someone who will work in the style you want for your wedding, and that you can stand to be around a lot on your wedding day. Once you've found them, relax, trust them and enjoy your wedding!

Thanks for listening and put your thoughts, comments and questions below :)

TP Photography

M:07834 490393

W:http://www.thurtlepower.com/

T:Twitter.com/tpphotography

Background and Supplier Details from the Noel's Christmas Presents Wedding

From my previous post you all know about the wedding I organised for Noel's Christmas Presents on Sky 1. 

Below's post is just to give you a bit more info about the actual wedding and to thank the excellent suppliers who helped me, as well as some pictures!

I was contacted originally in August 2010 asking if I would be interested in organising a wedding for a local couple who had to postpone their own wedding until at least 2012 due to illnesses and after hearing their story there was no way I could not do this.


By the time they had approval for the programme from Sky it was late September, and they wanted the wedding to take place on the 31 October! Hmmmmm.... that was leaving it very late especially for the size of wedding they wanted and the fact they wanted all suppliers to donate their time for free.


My first step was to find a venue that could accommodate the numbers and would be willing to provide all their services at no cost. After numerous telephone conversations the beautiful Dartington Hall confirmed they were interested. They are a stunning venue in Devon with separate rooms available for the ceremony and wedding breakfast, as well as gorgeous grounds ideal for your wedding photographs.



Once the venue was on board it was time to source the other suppliers to give the couple their dream day.

I had to do all of this without actually meeting or speaking to the couple as their entire day was a surprise. They only found out 3 weeks before the date that they were actually going to be getting married - they didnt even know the venue until they arrived there on the day.

As you can imagine planning a brides wedding without speaking to her directly is not the easiest thing but with some help from her mother, and being creative myself, I designed and planned the rest of the day. The only information I was given was that they would like a white and gold theme, and the bride liked lillies and roses. I had to find and chose the stationery, room decorations, flowers, cake, etc.

The wedding took place at 1pm with 85 guests all of whom we had to ferry into the venue by coach as they were also not allowed to know the venue prior to the day.

The cars the bride and groom had dreamt of having for their wedding were a Rolls Royce and a Daimler and funnily enough they had been looking at the two cars I had chosen for them at a wedding fair so they were more than happy when they arrived to pick them up. The cars looked perfect and provided courtesy of JM Wedding Cars.

The cake was a modern style three tiered sponge cake with white icing and decorated with fresh flowers to complement the colour theme, and it was made by The Cornish Cake Box.

I knew the bride liked lillies and roses so I was keen for these to be part of her bouquet. The TV company were insistent on having red in all the flowers to "show" on TV, and to fit in with the Christmas showing of the actual wedding, but I took the decision to go against their wishes as a bride's bouquet is very important and personal to the bride. In the end she had a stunning teardrop bouquet made with ivory lillies and roses.

The flower arch in the Ceremony room and table centres in the Great Hall all had red and white roses. All of the flowers were provided by Philip Taylor Corps Florist who was an absolute star and even after being let down by his helper on the day, managed to get it all done with a smile.

Glyn Archer Wedding Designs were fantastic and after much discussion about which invitations to go with and how we could match them into the theme, managed to get 40 hand crafted invitations ready for the guests over one weekend. Something I am so grateful for.

They also produced the co-ordinating reception stationery including order of the day booklets, individual menus with place names, table name cards and favours.

The finishing touches to the room were provided by The Cover Cupboard. We went for white chair covers with antique gold and champagne gold double sashes tied in a flower effect with runners on the tables, silver candelabras with diamante droplets, crystal tea light holders, mirror plates and table confetti.

All of this finished the Great Hall off superbly and looked absolutely stunning - none of the guests nor the couple were allowed into the room until the wedding breakfast was due to start, and hearing the guests' comments made everything worthwhile.  The photograph below capturing the bride and grooms face as they walked in says it all!

My biggest thank you goes to Palmer Photography who are a husband and wife wedding and event photography team based in London who came down to take the photographs. They took over 8000 stunning pictures of the day and had to put up with a lot of stress from the TV crew and for that I am ever so grateful. 

Other thank you's go to:-

Ian Stuart for the stunning ivory dress that the bride chose following a day trying on numerous dresses at his London store.

Moss Bros and Coast for the groomsmen and bridesmaids outfits

Russell Watson for performing an amazing set for the evening reception leaving the guests, and the couple, totally speechless.

Partytime & Pyro for providing the fireworks to finish off the amazing day.

This experience has allowed me to learn a lot about myself -

Firstly that I must believe in myself more now.

Before I would never have thought it would be possible to have planned a wedding with only the smallest amount of details, in the time frame I was given,  from the bride but I did and in their words "It was their perfect day, we could not have asked for more". To get all the suppliers on board, for nothing to go wrong on the day whilst working with a TV crew was pretty remarkable even if I do say so myself.

Secondly, that I can be quite forceful (but polite of course) when I have to - not letting the red flowers go in the bouquet and constantly having to remind the TV people that it was someone's wedding rather than a TV show made me have to do this a number of times.

Thirdly, there are the most amazing suppliers out there who were very generous in giving their time and supplies for free. I know everyone, especially myself, is very grateful for all your help.

Finally, not to ever do anything like that again!! 

On a serious note, I probably would but with much stricter working arrangements between myself and the TV company. A wedding can be stressful enough, let alone one which the bride and groom, nor guests, know anything about and with numerous camera's/crew rushing around filming or instructing guests where they can/can't go!

All in all it has been an excellent learning experience and my main priority was to give the couple their dream wedding which I did so I could not be happier with the results.

Thank you for taking the time to read,

Claire x

Black & Gold Inspiration Board

Last week I organised and decorated a large corporate event with a black and gold theme as it was their New Year Ball.

It looked so lovely and effective, I have since been looking around at black and gold for weddings. I have done a black and white wedding but never black and gold so was intrigued to see what was out there.

On searching I found some fabulous items from suppliers and thought I would share my favourites with you below on my black and gold inspiration board.

Inspiration Board credits:
Gold Cufflinks (S L Jewellery), Black bridesmaid Dress (Alfred Angelo), Gold & Black wedding ring (Smooch Rings), Black & Gold Cupcakes (Rosalind Miller Wedding Cakes), Gold Compact (S L Jewellery), Gold Bridal Shoes (Gina),  Black Wedding Dress (Vera Wang), Gold Wedding Dress (Allure Bridal), Black Necklace (Bridal Designs Wedding Jewellery),  Gold and Yellow Bouquet (Silk Wedding Designs), Black and Gold Chair/Table Decorations (The Cover Cupboard)   

Guest Blog Post; Starstruck Designs

Established in 2002, Starstruck Designs is a small company dedicated to providing beautiful bridal tiaras and jewellery to brides all over the UK.  Their collection also extends to cake jewellery and crystal bouquets, in fact if it can be created in crystals, they most certainly will!

Each piece is created using a carefully selected combination of materials, including glittering Swarovski crystals, lustrous Swarovski pearls or freshwater pearls, and unusual crystal filigrees.

The owner of the company, Kerri Miller, is a self confessed magpie, with an eye for detail, resulting in gorgeous sparkling accessories, with a perfect finish. 

“I always feel so honoured to be asked to create something for a brides wedding,” says Kerri, “Its such a special day for every bride, and I love hearing about all the special little details so that I can design something that fits in with each brides’ individual taste.”

The website  www.starstruck-designs.co.uk showcases many examples of their work, including the latest collection of vintage inspired side tiaras.

www.starstruck-designs.co.uk
Beautifully handcrafted tiaras, jewellery and crystal accessories.