Posts from March, 2010

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Anna's Adorable Cakes

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

I met Anna Tyler at the NEC Wedding Show where she was displaying her stunning cakes. Anna’s love of baking started at a young age. Getting her first mixer at age 9 perhaps explains how at only 24 she is now running a business creating custom wedding cakes from her shop in Bristol.

Her designs are just beautiful. She offers the intricate icing work featured on more traditional cakes but her designs look far from dated. Her use of polka dots, ribbon (either real or iced bows) and a contemporary colour palette ensure these cakes will look up-to-date and gorgeous on your wedding day!

As well as the classic multi-tiered cakes, Anna also creates mini cakes for those looking for something a little more unusual for their big day.

She can work with you to create a cake that is entirely to your liking. Or you could pick from one of the pretty designs on offer, all of which can be adapted to suit your colour scheme:

Anna Tyler cakes

Awesome images courtesy of Anna Tyler

Fab flavours

The great thing about these cakes, apart from obviously how lovely they look (the pink and black with cherries is my favourite!), are the flavours on offer:

  • Traditional fruit cake: matured with brandy
  • Cherry & pecan: similar to the traditional fruit cake but with extra cherries and pecan nuts added
  • Chocolate & pine nut: a fruit cake with Belgian chocolate pieces, pine nuts and marsala soaked fruit
  • Orange & ginger: a fruit cake with crystallized ginger, orange zest and fruit soaked in Cointreau and Ginger Wine
  • Vanilla sponge: infused with vanilla syrup then layered with raspberry preserve and vanilla bean buttercream
  • Lemon sponge: infused with lemon syrup then layered with lemon curd and/or lemon buttercream
  • Chocolate sponge: layered with a rich Belgian chocolate ganache

How yummy do these cakes sound?! I’ve never really been a fruit cake fan but I’d certainly be tempted to try fruit cake with chocolate and pine nuts thrown in (I’m a BIG fan of chocolate!) Luckily, for those of you struggling to pick your favourite flavour, each tier of your cake can be different. So you’ll easily be able to create a wedding cake that suits every guest’s palette and that tastes every bit as lovely as it looks.

Debs

Vendor Details:
Website: Anna Tyler Cakes
Email: info@annatylercakes.co.uk

Tags:
Posted in Fancy food | 2 Comments »

Photo opportunities

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Photographs are awesome! Personally, I think cameras are the best things ever to have been invented. Their ability to capture a moment and allow you to look at it for years to come is, if you think about it, simply amazing.

If you’re looking for a way to personalise your wedding, photographs are a great, simple and cheap way to do it. Your wedding day is just one day of your life, including photos can give guests an insight into your past, your story and how you came to be sharing your life with your partner.

Snapshot suggestions

There are a number of ways you could incorporate photographs into your big day:

  1. Have a mini photo shoot to include on your wedding invitation. An easy way to do this is to use the old style photo booths (if you can find one). The ones that allow you to take 4 different photos (so you could have the one passport photo taken and invite all your friends in and pull silly faces for the final 3). A strip of these down the side of your invite would look great! You could even hold up cards per photo such as ‘Come’ ‘to’ ‘our’ ‘wedding’. Whilst pulling silly faces of course.

  2. Buy a miniature frame broach to attach to your bridal bouquet. I think this is a nice way to include a photo of a loved one that has passed away. Examples can be found here.

  3. String up photos of you and your partner’s romance around your venue with some mini pegs and twine.

  4. Next to the cake, display photos of you and your partner’s parents (provided they’re still married) cutting their cake on their wedding day.

  5. If having a garden party tack a myriad of frames to a tree featuring photos of previous family weddings. Or hang photos from a plant or from tree branches.

  6. Name tables after key events in you and your partner’s romance. Perhaps different holidays you’ve been on or events you’ve been to see. With each table name display a photo of you and your partner on that holiday or at that event.

  7. Have a big, pretty portrait printed out of you and your partner surrounded by a large, white border. This white border can then act as ‘guestbook’ and when full of messages you have something that can be framed and displayed at home: a lovely reminder of the day.

  8. If you, or somebody you know, is confident with a computer why not make up a photo montage to project on a wall and play throughout your reception. This could start off with photos of the bride and groom as children (particularly good if you can find similar shots such as both of you on a bike or your first time swimming). Then move on to when you first met, the years you’ve spent together and finally a photo of you after your engagement. Set it all to a song that means something to the two of you and you’ve got a nice surprise for your guests to enjoy.

Some images of some ideas

Here are some examples to give you an idea of how using photos can add a lovely touch to your wedding day:

Photo opportunities

Awesome images courtesy of:

Photo opportunities key

  1. Eclectic Images
  2. Jose Villa
  3. Eclectic Images
  4. Tec Petaja
  5. Tec Petaja
  6. Tec Petaja
  7. Tec Petaja
  8. Tec Petaja
  9. Tec Petaja
  10. Eclectic Images

Debs

Tags:
Posted in DIY | No Comments »

Kissed on the piste

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Jodi & Jon’s wedding has been blogged about before but when I saw it I just had to feature it!

When imagining the type of wedding for me I’ve always imagined a warm, summer wedding. Mainly because I am always, always cold. And I hate being cold. So I wouldn’t want to feel really uncomfortable on my wedding day and have goose pimples in all the pics.

But then I found the following wedding and it’s just so cosy! That’s the one thing that is good about the cold. Being inside in front of a fire with a hot chocolate and just feeling so snug.

So I think I could brave the cold, just for a few photos, if it meant that I could get married in front of a roaring log fire.

Jodi & Jon's winter wedding

Awesome images courtesy of Alison Events

This wedding took place at a ski resort in Utah and was designed by San Francisco company Alison Events. Every last detail has been thought of: the branch as escort card holder, the custom coffee cups, the cupcake tree and Ugg boots. And I love the wall-mounted wooden skis that are surrounded by photos of the couple’s family taken in winter.

I do think a wedding like this would be absolutely impossible in the UK however so you would have to think about getting married abroad. This winter we did have snow. A lot of snow. But, with it, most of the country came to a standstill. So even if you are lucky enough to get several inches of snow on your wedding day it’s also likely you’d have no guests!

Debs

Vendor Details:
Alison Events’ Website
Alison Events’ Blog
Email: info@alisonevents.com

Tags:
Posted in Real weddings | No Comments »

Rowboat romance

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Emily and Jasen’s wedding took place at Mohonk Mountain House (in New Paltz, New York) which was the inspiration for the (awesome) film Dirty Dancing.

These stunning photographs were taken by husband and wife team Jesse and Whitney, from Atlanta, aka Our Labor of Love. I love these photos as they reassure me that even if you don’t get bright, beaming sunshine on your wedding day you can still get truly beautiful images:

Emily & Jasen's Lakeside Wedding

Awesome images courtesy of Our Labor of Love

There is something really rather romantic about the wet weather and the dense fog. And the rowboats? Well… getting married by a lake has moved up the top wedding destinations list for me!

Debs

Vendor Details:
Our Labor of Love Website
Our Labor of Love Blog
Email: jesse@ourlaboroflove.com

Tags:
Posted in Real weddings | No Comments »

Gorgeous garters

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Apparently in the days of yore (or 14th century England) a bride’s dress was seen as good luck. After the wedding, and with the understanding that the bride wouldn’t be wearing the dress again, guests literally tore pieces off it! Clearly that would not be allowed to happen today. Can you imagine if the dress you’d dreamed of all your life, that you spent hundreds, perhaps thousands on was ripped off you at the end of the night?! I wonder if the brides were just left standing in their underwear because that really does not sounds like a nice end to the day.

Luckily tradition evolved and brides decided to throw their garter instead so they could keep the dress for themselves. This often caused problems with rowdy (probably drunk), male guests that tried to steal the garter off the bride. And so came about the groom removing the garter from his bride to throw into the throng of male guests, with luck supposedly bestowed on the man that caught it.

This tradition seems to be much more practiced in other countries than it is over here. I’ve seen a lot of images with the bride sat on a chair in the middle of the dancefloor and the groom with his head up her dress. Perhaps we’re a little more prudish over here (I do think that’s actually a popular stereotype of us Brits isn’t it?) But I just think there’s being prudish and then there’s just wanting to avoid any excruciating embarrassment. The thought of my grandparents having to watch my husband remove my garter with his teeth = excruciating embarrassment. So I’d definitely not include the garter removal tradition.

However, I’m certainly not against the wearing of a garter tradition. But perhaps nobody would need to know I was wearing it (also not a fan of bride with foot on groom’s knee showing off gartered leg for photo). And perhaps, instead, the groom could remove it in private.

Previously, though, when I’ve imagined garters an image of hideous, cheap lace with a bright blue bow has sprung to mind.

And then I saw these:

Florrie Mitton garters

Awesome images courtesy of Florrie Mitton

These beautiful (and really rather sexy) garters are made by Claire, a fashion design graduate who, after spending 5 years as an underwear designer in the fashion industry, decided to focus solely on her own business. She trades under her great grandmother’s lovely name: Florrie Mitton, producing timeless pieces that I believe would make a lovely wedding heirloom.

No tacky lace in sight, gorgeous chiffon and tulle, beautiful beading and lovely muted duck egg ribbons for those in search of their ‘something blue’.

Debs

Vendor Details:
Florrie Mitton Etsy shop

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Posted in Accessorise | 1 Comment »

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