Favours

Favours, bombonierres, thank you gifts - whatever you want to call them. I don't think it matters a great deal if you don't even want to do them.  But, if you do, and you are after something that requires no effort but fits in with your theme once again etsy is a good place to start.   Here are some ideas that caught my eye:

Personlised forget-me-not seeds

Pocket mirror

Personalised box of foil wrapped chocolate hearts

Mini tubes of French green clay mud mask (wow!)

Teabag in it's own little envelope with a doily on the front - so cute!

BBQ spice rub

Wooden heart magnets

Mini soaps in your choice of colour

Customised magnets                              

Or Pink Frosting  and Wedding Favours Australia have a large range and you can search by colour and/or theme.  However, some of these ideas, although gorgeous, aren't cheap.  So if you are budget conscious you may want to go down the DIY road.

I decided to do something really simple that I hoped would add to the presentation of the table and be useful to my guests.  I used yellow and white striped bags from Paper Eskimo and filled them with mixed lollies, and called it a midnight snack.  So easy, no skill required and who doesn't need a bit of a sugar hit in the taxi on the way home after a few drinks?!  I bought round Avery sticker sheets  so I could print out a little thankyou message for the backs of the bags - these stickers are very easy to use, they come with access to online templates, but you will need a laser printer (they smudged on my inkjet one).
If it was my only DIY project, I really would have liked to fill them with something I had baked - biscuits or little cakes.  But I had enough to do already, and using lollies meant I could put them in zip lock bags and do them way in advance.  They also doubled as the seat numbers, with each one individually numbered as we had one long table.

(All photos by Lauren Waye)

There are SO many ideas online for DIY favours.  Some good sites to start would be "i do" it yourself , Intimate Weddings and Martha Stewart weddings (I know, but trust me). "i do" it yourself and Intimate Weddings are really good blogs that constantly round up other people's great ideas and put them all in  the one place for you .  I still can't believe how many clever people there are out there that share their skills for FREE.  Here's a few great ideas I've come across

Daisy lollipops How sweet, and I did't know you could eat daisies!

Seasonal fruit in bags

Come with a free printable label

Choc chip cookies in CD sleeves

Chocolate bars for these you just remove the original packaging and replace it with your own colour co-ordinated paper 

Potted succulents if you were very organised and had time on your side, these plants produce heaps of off shoots meaning you wouldn't have to buy a plant for each guest - divide and conquer!

Free CD template

Rosemary sea salt with customised labels

And that is such a small selection.  See what I mean about the generosity of some people??

You can also buy some of the Martha Stewart range from Spotlight stores in Australia, such as little boxes and wine/water bottle labels.

One other idea I would have loved to use is seed impregnated paper -that way the escort cards/name cards could double as favours, and such an ever lasting gift.  Paper go round sell sheets of paper impregnated with Lemon-scented bottlebrush seeds.  Scrub Australia have gone one step further and make love heart shaped tags that have your name and the date printed on them, and you can choose from alyssum, chamomile, oregano, lettuce, swan river daisy or thyme seeds.  Then all the guests have to do is take their name cards home, plant and water them.  Eco-friendly too!

Etsy

I know I have already mentioned etsy a fair bit, but I want to make sure that everyone knows what an absolute goldmine it is.  A good starting point if you're looking for a bit of inspiration is to simply type your chosen colours into the search bar and see what comes up -  there will be page after page of gorgeous handmade and vintage items, from invitations through to decor.   There are some very talented sellers on this site, and if you're like me and love handmade stuff but are short on skill or time, then this is the place for you!  The majority of the sellers are based in America so keep the postage time in mind if ordering close to the big day, but you can set it so only sellers from your region are shown.

One of the first things I bought was a set of 12 different yellow, white and grey patterns as jpg files - inexpensive yet very versatile for the DIYer!  I could print these off as many times as I liked and used them for various things such as the lining of my invitation envelopes, and the background for the menus and dessert table labels:

These kind of digital files are available in all colours of the rainbow.  Some other things you could find on etsy:

Customised invitations including save the dates and thankyous

Flower girl and page boy outfits

Ring bearer options, including some beautiful porcelain bowls 

Cake toppers

Any colour cupcake wrappers 

Photo booth props and printables

Vintage  bridal accessories

Wedding Decor

My etsy finds 

(Photos by Lauren Waye)

1.Handmade matching ties for all the boys in the wedding party

2. My hair piece

3. Handmade clutches for the bridesmaids ( I filled these with "essentials" for the big day plus a little note thanking them for all their love and hard work)

4. Skeleton keys

5. "drink.eat.marry" stamp customised with our names and the date  

6. The bridesmaids' earrings

DIY Flowers

To me, DIY flowers seemed like a great way to save a bit of money and have some fun at the same time. I had read plenty of stories where the bride went to her local flower market the day before the wedding and did up the arrangements herself.   I only wanted very simple bouquets and even simpler table arrangements and had found some wholesale florists in Northwood St, Leederville that sell to the public and thought I had it all figured out.  All I can say is thank goodness I have talented people in my family who have done flower arranging before, realised the enormity of the task, and stepped in to help.  My aunt made the bouquets for myself, my three bridesmaids and my flower girl - fairly simple looking with only roses and lisianthus but it took her HOURS.  And my sister in law did all the button holes for the boys and little corsages for the VIP ladies, and that also took her HOURS.  Thank goodness for Aunty Suzie and Anita!

 (Photos by Lauren Waye)

If it had been left to me, I think there would have been no flowers at the ceremony and a very red-eyed bride.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't underestimate how long it will take, especially if you have other things to do the night or morning before the wedding.  By the way, how cute are those little yellow balls in the boys' buttonierres?  If you haven't seen them before they are called Billys Balls, believe it or not, and are native to Australia.  Perfect for a little pop of yellow and great as an option aside from a rose.

The table arrangments were within my skill realm, however, and with a little help from my sisters, we achieved that "simple" look I was hoping for

(Photos by Lauren Waye)

No vases, just recycled glass jars with a little bit of lace tied around the middle, and these were placed down the centre of our one long table.  I did, however, have lots of flowers left over, another by-product of inexperience.  So probably in the end DIY flowers was a false economy!

Escort cards

Something that stumped me for ages was escort cards - to have or not to have, and then if we did have them, how would they fit in with the vintage theme?  Only a few weeks before the wedding we finally decided on using skeleton keys, an idea we had dismissed before due to the lack of reasonably priced keys in our local area and I couldn't think of an original way to display them.  Luckily we found a fabulous seller on etsy who sent us some perfect keys super quickly, and we had a lucky find with a wooden ladder at my in-law's house.  I really wanted the keys to have some relevance so we attached a white luggage tag to each key with a guest's name and seat number on one side and the open ended sentence "the key to a good marriage is..." on the other.  The comments we got were priceless and I think the whole thing added a little bit of fun to the evening while we were away having photos.

(All photos courtesy of Lauren Waye)

I am still trying to figure out the best way to display them now – at the moment they are set out on a normal corkboard but eventually I would like to add a nice frame.

Here are some other ideas for escort cards I found on the net:

Handmade cards with vintage buttons and lace

Cards hung on vintage fabric backing

Mini flags stuck into wooden spools

Placing the cards in a bed of dried lavender

DIY fridge magnets using vintage illustrations

Pegging the cards to vintage lace

Guests' names printed on paper flags and then hung across vintage windows

And lots of vintage style escort cards for sale on etsy if you don't want to DIY

What to wear

We wanted our clothes to fit in with the vintage style as well.  There are some vintage wedding dress sites on the net, but I think the dress is one thing you really need to do in person.  There would be nothing more terrible than ordering your dream dress only to try it on and be disappointed.  Besides, it is so much fun trying on wedding dresses!  I was very lucky to find the perfect lace dress in a little boutique in Armadale, Melbourne  - it was a new dress but in a vintage style, and a great price because I bought it off the rack.

  

My daughter Amelie and son Oliver were naturally going to be flower girl and page boy respectively and they also needed to look the part.  I searched high and low for the appropriate dress for Amelie, and could only find frilly white taffeta numbers which are lovely in their own right but not what I wanted.  Then my sister told me about an amazing Sydney company called Tea Princess who make absolutely beautiful clothing for girls up to 8 years old, all with a very vintage look.  I chose the Amelia dress (strange name coincidence) with matching headband – Amelie and I both thought she looked gorgeous in it!

(Photos by Lauren Waye)

Oliver was nearly two years old at the time of the wedding and finding something for him to wear was a lot more difficult.  After a lot of online searching we ended up using a lady in Tasmania who has a company called Blame The Baby. She was very helpful with sizing issues and it didn’t take long to arrive once we had ordered it.  But I must say, it would be pretty hard for a two year old boy to NOT look cute in a suit:

(Photos by Lauren Waye)

Shoes were just cheap ones from Kmart because I thought all the formal ones looked too much like school shoes, and his tie matched the groom and groomsmen's ties - we bought them from an etsy seller called matilda and me.  

The vintage touch my husband added to his outfit was a fobwatch, a great find at the Paddy's Market in Sydney:

(Photo by Lauren Waye)

Cute matching one for Oli too!

A bit of a break from wedding talk...

I know there are other things in life besides weddings, although when you are planning one it certainly doesn't feel like it!   Cakes and their presentation is another of my obsessions that add sunshine to my day.  My good friend Kerryn recently discovered a very cool plate stand called "Serve it Up" that can be attached to any plate by way of suction cup. It comes in large and small so you can even stack it:

They are made by Fusionbrands, and we just had to buy one for our friend Paula's recent birthday; we got ours from Kitchen Warehouse.  What a great idea don't you think?  Much cheaper than buying a whole plate stand and easier to store as well.