Remembering

I feel I would like to just create a short post to remember my friend on her birthday.

This is also for my uncle who passed away last week and for another very good friend who lost her father recently.

It is very special to be able to reflect and remember some fabulous people that I have been fortunate enough to know.

Easter Fun

As Easter comes bouncing towards me at a rapidly alarming rate I have to admit I was hugely unorganised and even did not realise that Twinks was on her school holidays, it came so quickly!  The joys of being a working and hugely busy mother!

But we are muddling through painting eggs, colouring Easter egg pictures and generally creating decorations and buying fluffy bunnies to get into the spirit of the holiday weekend!  I now have a beautifully decorated fireplace full of her already existing planets and stars and now including fluffy chicks and rabbits :)  It really is quite creative and very cute! 

We had to share this fabulous blog with you as Jayne creates her Easter crafts, I am a huge admirer of hers and I love her ideas as she approaches everything with such a fresh eye and it is always beautifully photographed.

I have decided my next new year resolution is to be able to photograph our work beautifully as we are always busy here creating fabulous things for our parties and weddings, if only I knew a photographer to point me in the right direction ;)!

It has been a sad week for me again losing some lovely people including my dear uncle so I am dedicating this blog post to him and his family and my dear friend who also lost her father.  My thoughts are always with others and whilst many of us are having happy times there are many having very sad times.



Ombre Cushions :)

It is widely known that I have a cushion obsession and just had to share these fabulous rosette cushions with you from Etsy, aren´t they just divine and I love the Ombre touch.

I can see my lounge being transformed in the next few months and how fabulous to have a wedding or party chill out with this idea :)

Spring Inspirations

I love our 'wedding' blog and adore running our fabulous wedding planning and styling business here in Spain, but I started life as an interior stylist and designer.

I am fortunate that the wedding business I own takes up all my time now, but of course I still have a keen eye for what is new in interiors and styling.

It is this time of year I love scanning through ideas, for my own home, and to keep up with trends, ideas and inspirations for our weddings.

I had an interesting day today reading through my blog (I was actually trying to find one particular post!)  but I was quite intrigued as to how we were predicting trends last year that are only just emerging this year.

Two sprang to mind, one was the metallics and the other was the more formal romantic look of the feather and jewels coming back into weddings and stepping away slightly from the vintage look. 

Decadence is making a comeback albeit slowly and bit by bit we will see more luxurious weddings emerging with a few more jewels and florals. 

I just wanted to share this gorgeous photo with you as this is my bedroom inspiration from Zara Home and how I have decided to spend my much pleaded for Christmas vouchers but what a fabulous inspiration too for a fresh and floral wedding design :)

Pink and Gold Christmas Inspiration

Top Row 1st and 2nd image Better Homes & Gardens, 3rd Image Citrus & Orange, 4th Image Pinterest.
Second row Image 1,2 & 3 Citrus & Orange, 4 & 5 Image Unknown

Pink and Golds are definitely the in Christmas colour this year and are all over blog world.

I love them as these are the colours I have every year and mine are mixed with silvers and lots of crystal too collected over the years. I also use olive green as it is the other colour in my home but this year I am excited about using a touch of purple and deep turquoise too with lots of golds to bring a slightly grander feeling to our Christmas table. I have the crackers already and bought some beautiful olive charger plates and now on a search for a deep magenta velvet ribbon!

I thought with all these fabulous images I have found it would be lovely to create an inspiration board to share with you.

You really must head over to the Citrus and Orange blogspot, it is one of my favourite blogs and I can´t wait to see what Susana will be posting next as she shares her Christmas decoration ideas with us.

We also have some beautiful Christmas trees to share with you this week, sent in by our brides from the past few years and some of our brides for 2012 as we all get festive and share our creative ideas together!

Keeping Safe at Work

I had an interesting chat tonight with one of my friends, who is also a supplier in the wedding industry. I cannot give too much away, but this chat made me think about creating this blog post to cover what we discussed as I think it is an important subject.

This applies particularly to women who are running businesses and are required to go and meet potential clients in venues such as private villas, etc.

Our work means we are mainly at our desks working away on our computers and we can be at home or in the office safely working alongside our colleagues but we have to venture out to meet clients.

Whether you are a wedding planner, designer, or working within the wedding industry, make up and hair, photographers, etc we are all at some point required to go and meet potential clients perhaps sometimes in private villas, invited to a bar for a coffee or other meeting places.

Do we really know who we are going out to meet?
Are we making sure we are safe whilst conducting our business?

My friend actually contacted me tonight as she remembers me being stalked a couple of years ago now, and needed to ask me questions as she thought the same thing was happening now to her.

Because we run our businesses we have to put our profiles on the internet, our websites, blogs, facebook pages and twitter all of these include our contact details and images of us and our work.

Whilst 99% of the time this is great and we get wonderful business contacts and clients, there is always this 1% of weirdos that decide they want to stalk you for whatever reason.

Don´t get me wrong I have some fabulous stalkers, but I have had some not so fabulous ones as well.

It is important to remember a few basic things to keep safe whilst working.

If you have to meet a client in a remote area, private villa, etc always take someone with you. Work colleague, friend, hubby anyone will do!

Always let people know where you are going, what time and the time you are expected back.

Take as many details as possible before you meet the client, phone numbers, and other numbers in case their phone is not working, etc of friends of theirs. As we create destination weddings we normally ask for details such as passport numbers, etc as well but I can see this might be harder if you are working with clients in the same country to ask for details like this.

Try to find out as much as you can and never go alone, particularly if you are uncertain about a client and cannot get someone to go with you, postpone the meeting, if they are genuine they will of course understand your reasons.

No work is worth sacrificing your own safety.

Wedding Venues in Marbella and Sotogrande

I love this time of year.

November is getting chilly outside and as we wind down from our flurry of weddings it is lovely to look through and study all the photos from 2011 as we create new portfolios and look books for our studio.

It does take time to process the year and reflect on our work in order to refresh ourselves for our new year.

We are now working on our 2012 weddings and have some very sparky, creative brides on board so looking forward to our winter workshops and brain storming with them!

Today I have been organising photos not only for our portfolios in the studio, but also we have been asked to submit some of our favourite weddings to many hi profile wedding portals which is very exciting.

We are currently organising photos and will be in contact with our clients should their wedding be successful in our submissions to gain approval.

Having been browsing today I had to share this fabulous venue with you, we planned and designed a wedding here in September and I am in love with these photos.

For me they epitomize a Mediterranean evening, the lighting is stunning and this wedding was certainly one big party! Set in a monastery in Sotogrande in fabulous grounds this was a truly stunning setting for our client´s wedding.

We have also been out and about as well recently looking at new venues for weddings and as well as this monastery, we now have a fabulous 23 bedroomed converted convent on our books with it´s own chapel which is licensed for weddings.

You can party all night without noise restrictions. It is beautifully presented and restored and has a whole host of interesting areas to move around in, from the chiringuito bar area for the cocktail or perhaps the inner courtyard, to a fantastic setting for the dinner and dancing, a real hideaway set in the heart of Andalucian natural parkland.

These images above were provided to us by Anna Gazda of our stunning wedding in Sotogrande and having been scouring through all our weddings I wanted to share these with you again as I love them!

I might finally add that our day of venue searching ended up with us driving around looking for a zoo, which we found but was shut, apparently this area has a fabulous lake that we seemed to have missed so we will have to head back, the town I found enchanting and has a large hotel there for guests, we ended up on this day literally driving over the polo fields in Sotogrande, so not entirely sure that Carla wants to come out with me again on a venue reccie! She seemed glad to get out the car at the end of our day! :)

Hiring a Wedding Planner in Marbella Part 2

Yesterday I wrote a blog post about hiring a wedding planner in Marbella and bought up a very controversial subject covering the whole business of brown envelopes and commissions, referral fees, whatever you would like to describe them as.

I have been trail blazing this subject here in Marbella.

I am not the most popular person here at the moment with some people, but today I received so many messages and emails about this sensitive subject I thought I would do a follow up post with some of the feedback I have had. It has to be honest been very interesting and I was not expecting this sort of response.

One of our 2010 brides sent me this interesting email today which stood out and sums up the sorts of messages I have received today, it is edited of course to avoid naming and shaming. We decorated this wedding but did not plan it and have since become good friends, as I do with many of my brides.

Hi Laura
I read your blog post last night on Wedding Planners in Marbella and was super impressed by your honesty, it took guts to write that blog and well done to you for unveiling what is truly a hideous reality with wedding planners. I was nodding my head in agreement with every word you wrote. This is exactly why I fell out with one planner and the other left me with a bad taste in my mouth......the merry go round of wedding industry commissions and brown envelopes is so incredibly unfair on the person who is keeping everyone in business and that person is the bride, so that is what I call integrity, well done to you.

I do understand the other viewpoints to this subject that have been argued with me and so I will raise them as it is only fair to do so.

If you are new to this business and an established wedding planner is promoting you, then perhaps you need to pay them or reward them with a referral fee, it is another form of advertising and marketing, no different to paying for an advert in a magazine or perhaps paying for an online sponsorship on a blog, internet site, etc.

Perhaps a planner wants to keep their fee down in order to get business, so when the client contacts them initially they seem affordable, but they are making their money through the supplier bookings.

All the above I think are acceptable if the planner is transparent and tells the client this is how they run their business and makes their money, it is then left up to the client if they are happy to proceed with their services.

What I do disagree with is when it is all hidden, when the planner is selecting suppliers for their client based purely on how much money they will make and not because it is the right supplier for that wedding. When they do not disclose to the client that they are taking commissions, I cannot possibly see how this would be conducive to a good client relationship and is not in the clients best interests at all as many good suppliers are completely sidelined in favour of who pays the most.

Do all these planners really think their clients are that stupid?
Do the clients really think they are getting a fabulous wedding planner for 500 euros?
Perhaps it is the two parties combined that prefer to move on with their eyes shut, I am never sure!

There is the other side, as a supplier when you start to realise your business is being controlled by a planner, they start to tell you what they want for their clients and you are also paying them for the privilege? You find yourself eventually just running a bolt on company for them and making their weddings look amazing!

I suppose 4 years down the line, I am lucky, I run a unique business that has been very successful and now do not need to rely on referrals, I am able to stick my neck out and say enough is enough.

I am grateful to all the planners that choose to still continue to recommend us but it does work both ways, we make their weddings go from Ok and average, to looking amazing and this is what sells their company, without the fab flowers, decorations and details and the fantastic photography they would have nothing to show their clients, perhaps they need to start paying us instead!!!!

Tomorrow I promise I will be back with pretty inspirations, I guess after a fairly interesting year I have had to get this off my chest.

My final note with this whole commission thing is that in the very busy month of June when we had over 20 weddings and I was literally working an 18 hour day and sleeping and dreaming weddings and on a hugely excited creative roll, I had one planner who had probably 2 weddings in June, chasing me for 15 euros constantly every day, I was gobsmacked and found it really quite draining and sad, I think it was this that made me throw the towel in and start to think about things, can you blame me!!!

I will continue to wave my magic wand here and spread lots of glitter and fun over our weddings in Marbella.

Hiring A Wedding Planner in Marbella

Google Weddings in Spain and a whole host of websites will leap out at you.
Some are gruesome, some are OK, some are quite interesting and some are fab and exactly how you see your dream day in Andalucia.

The heart of Spain is a popular destination wedding area and many couples dream of a beautifully hot sunny wedding on the beach or inland in the olive groves of Andalucia.

However, for busy professional people, and perhaps, the not so busy, the thought of spending over 6 weeks, in total, planning your wedding abroad becomes an impossible task so having googled all the possibilities available to you, you finally email a few companies, not the gruesome ones! to see how much damage they will do to your already over stretched wedding budget.

(Note to most of our brides at this point H2B is normally breathing down your neck and this is usually the first potential row on the horizon as you throw your organised wedding planning role in)!

You have contemplated doing it yourself to save on money and have found enough information on the internet to book your dream day, but as the wedding planning progresses you hit a wall, run out of time and the actual thought of your mobile phone lodged firmly down the front of your wedding dress on your actual wedding day is not appealing.

Worse still the thought of your parents manning the phones is just not even thinkable let alone acceptable, if they are anything like mine they can barely text! I am not even going to go down the best mate or sister is great route this is truly not on the cards!

This is normally when the sleepless nights and nightmares start!

You have no idea whether the suppliers you have booked even exist, let alone are reliable, and of course you want to enjoy your day and not be worried and at your wits end by the time you say I do :)

Having had yet another sleepless, harrowing night you have been up early and narrowed down your top 5 websites so you throw caution to the wind and email them, you might have even been super organised and booked the venue so you google that as well to see who has worked there.

Lo and behold you get prices, information and feedback from 3 out of the 5 planners you have contacted, three super speedy and efficient planners have replied within 48 hours, tick a box, good start.

The other two will reply after your wedding whilst you are on honeymoon in the Maldives 4 months later.
We are in Spain after all said and done!

Some seem cheap, great news, some have planning added on as bolt on to their company, better still, kill two birds with one stone, well hopefully not at your wedding!
Others even offer free wedding websites, yipee yet another saving in the wild and rocky world of wedding budgets :) H2B´s are normally impressed with this one!

But what do you really want, are you really interested in a free wedding website?
Let´s face it Google offer a whole host of wedding tools including websites to help you plan your wedding. Try googling free wedding websites and you would be amazed at what pops up, but that is a different blogpost!

So you want a run of the mill wedding, a venue or a church, or both as they are offered, that obviously churns out wedding after wedding or do you want something different, tailor made, created just for you?

I would hazard a guess that the majority of couples would shout yes please it is all about us and our day, it is special but we have a budget and want to use it to the maximum.

The 10K hotel conveyor belt is looking interesting and by now quite appealing, fitting within your budget and includes, if you are lucky, a free taxi to the church but is this really you?

Finally, thank the saving grace of Google, you have found the perfect planner, they have organised lots of weddings and only charge a few hundred euros, result!

Yet, apparently they will spend about 80 man hours running around for you and organising your dream day, they will be there for at least 10 hours on your actual wedding day, will recommend and organise suppliers, pay suppliers and all the things that tick the boxes. Heaven has just landed on your doorstep and you are sold.

But hold on a minute, think about it, are they really going to run around for you and devote their life and time to you for on an average of 90 hours for 800 euros? This is less than 10 euros an hour?

No of course they are not, many planners here in Spain only work with suppliers that will offer them a commission, it is normal apparently and makes good business practise?!

I quote this from a wedding planner here who was surprised when I stated I was not offering or accepting commissions. We have since parted company needless to say as I am not feathering their nest anymore. I also did not want to jump onto yet another conveyor belt wedding scenario belting out wedding after wedding at one particular venue as this is just not our style.

So they have charged you what you think is a fair fee but are you happy in the knowledge that they are probably raking in at least another 1000 euros from all the suppliers they book for your wedding? Normally without your knowledge or disclosing to you what they are being paid from the suppliers.

Do you think this is conducive to a close working relationship? Or are you left wondering how much that wedding cake would have really cost had you booked directly or how much the DJ really charges, how much the caterers, a large budget, hand over to the planner?

Are you confident that your planner is offering you the right choices of suppliers or is merely driven by how much commission they will get and perhaps not suggesting the right person for your wedding as they don´t pay commission?

I know planners that will not recommend photographers because they make such a huge commission from one particular one that is in my opinion rubbish, but this is all the client is offered. To be honest the stories I could tell are horrifying and it abhors me that this goes on in wedding world here.

I have two sides to my business, the design, decoration and floral business is fantastic and offers an amazing range of decorations and flowers and yet many planners will not recommend us because we do not pay commissions to them but why should we.

All it means is we cut the clients budget by 10% so they are not getting their true value spent, we would have to provide something that accommodated the price not what the client was actually paying, this for me is unacceptable.

Sad but true unfortunately and yet we are unique here in what we offer, there is no one else like us that provide such a great service and encompasses so many things from chair covers and sashes, linens, vintage furniture hire, flowers, stationery the list goes on and on.

But many planners will just recommend the florist down the road because they rake in yet another 10% commission from them. Is this right?

Our planning business charges a fee for our professional services, but we do not accept commissions from our suppliers so what does this mean to you?

For me personally it means we can develop a great relationship with you, we are not hiding anything from you. We are passionate about what we do and are strict when it comes to moral business ethics, we do not accept commissions from our suppliers. If we are paid a commission that is unavoidable from a hotel or caterer or gain a discount or get a commission we give it back to our clients.

We will offer you a supplier that fits your needs not based on our personal gain and if we can get something extra for you because of our relationship with that supplier then great.

I do hope next time you google wedding planners in Spain this will make you think before you leap and although some planners might seem slightly more expensive, really think about what you want from them rather than opt for the cheap version with the free website thrown in.

I will of course do a blog post on free wedding websites shortly as well but in the meantime just check out Google Weddings :)

Reviva Weddings one of the World´s Best Wedding Planners and Designers

What can I say:) I have earnt the title as the Fairy Godmother of Weddings but we are truly honoured today to be now recognised as one of the top Wedding Planners and Designers in the World by Junebug Weddings!

I started Reviva Weddings in 2007 and despite the recession, we have gone from strength to strength, but of course this has not been without my passion and dedication to truly believing that what we create is brilliant, we offer a second to none 5 star wedding planning and design service to our clients and we are fabulous at what we do.

I am lucky, my journey of dragging Spain into the world of stylish weddings has meant that
I have met and developed an amazing team of hugely creative, organised and enthusiastic individuals who all support me 100% and live, eat and dream about weddings.

Without this fabulous bunch of girls I could not offer the services that create our stunning weddings. I have to reel off Loraine our floral designer, Carla my wedding planner extraordinaire and Anoulka, my right hand wedding chick who was Kylie´s dancer and now my assistant and stationery designer. All these women are wonderful and have completely transformed my life as I hope I have done theirs, well I know I keep them busy!

We are all fabulous at what we do and we giggle about the fact that
Reviva Chicks Rock Weddings!

Our design is stylish, up to date, trend setting and creative, our planning services are difficult to beat, we are with our clients every step of the way and our dedication and complete devotion to our clients weddings is hard to match.

Due to our popularity and professional qualities we now move further afield and have organised weddings in Barcelona, Madrid and are now covering Europe and beyond. Our team will move to your location whether it be Italy, France or beyond.

Can you imagine our delight to be now listed on the fabulous Junebug Weddings within their World´s best celebrity wedding planner and designer section, we had to undergo strict tests to be accepted and are delighted to share this wonderful news with you.

We will continue to update you on our progress this winter as we are attending some amazing courses which we will also share with you, developing many contacts, ideas and more wedding decorations, including our new prop hire services.

Watercolour Wedding Inspiration

We have been very busy here at Reviva Weddings and are currently designing some wonderful weddings for next year.

There is nothing more refreshing than working with creative brides and I have one in particular who is completely amazing and is actually making me quite jealous!

She is a breath of fresh air and really thinking outside the box, a challenge that I love.

So we sit here, ponder, drum fingernails on tables, watch sunrises and sunsets, contemplate, study fashions and create styles, designs, and inspirations for our up and coming weddings.

I do love this time of year, we get a chance to put our creative hats back on, drink copious amounts of tea and take stock of what we have achieved and how we can improve our service to our clients, plus of course get hugely creative and plan and scheme for next year!

Currently we are creating wedding designs based on watercolour paintings which I am really enjoying, so thought I would start to share some with you as we dream about spring and summer weddings.

Here we have created a mood board based around a painting by Pol Ledent from Belgium. The colours are fun and vibrant using a purple and yellow colour combo, hugely popular on the colour wheel when you are a design student! This is a modern wedding design, throwing out any convention and could be turned into quite a retro, quirky day if we had a brave bride!

We will be sharing more of our watercolour wedding inspirations with you over the next few weeks until Christmas takes over so keep checking back for some fabulous ideas.

We are also working on some very glittery guest blog posts so do watch this space!

We are featured on Preston Bailey´s brides blog!

I am a huge fan of Preston Bailey and his extraordinary fairytale events he creates.

Preston Bailey is every event designer´s aspiration, to think outside the box and create sublime decoration experiences using lighting, props and of course gorgeous florals.

Every day I avidly follow the Preston Bailey blog, which recently has become a brilliant tool offering advice, business insights and of course inspirations.

Can you imagine my delight when scanning Facebook last night I realised my blog was featured on his yesterday, I nearly fell off my chair and was almost hyperventilating :)

I just had to share this with you and then will get back to work!

Moroccan Style Pumpkins for Halloween

As Halloween approaches I thought I would share this photo I found tonight on pinterest of decorated pumpkins Moroccan style, a style that is close to my heart as we use it a lot for our wedding styling.

I am sticking with glittery pumpkins but if any of you are feeling adventurous this idea looks amazing, however, I am sure if I created a pumpkin masterpiece like this I would not want to be turning it into pumpkin soup or pie!

Glitter :)

I don´t think any girl can have enough glittery things.

For me it brings many lovely memories and I was delighted to find these fabulous glittery photos to share with you in Pinterest.

If you are girly and crafty like me then I hope you enjoy!

I am thinking tonight though with the beautiful sunlight we get here in Spain some glitter would not go amiss in our weddings next year, a bit of twinkle is always pretty and not necessarily reserved for Christmas so my brain is ticking away!

I have also earnt the lovely title of the Fairy Godmother of the Costa Del Sol, so perhaps some waving of the glitter wand might be forthcoming, but for now I will share these gorgeous photos with you and I will get back to my pumpkins, which you never know may even turn into carriages! :)

Glamorous Glittery Pumpkins for Halloween!

Twig & Thistle

Found on Pinterest

As we approach that spooky time of year I cannot say I am a huge lover of all things spooky and ghoulish but these glittery pumpkins are much more up my street :)

A bit of glitter and glamour goes a long way in our house so this is
our Halloween project next week which I know will appeal hugely to Twinks and I love the fact that we can turn them into candle holders.

Slightly more appealing than screaming witches and ghouls don´t you think!

If any of our clients are planning a dark, spooky ghoulish night do remember we can supply dramatic black satin chair covers, orange sashes, black linens and of course glittery pumpkins!

Design Finds

I have finally worked out how pinterest works, so now of course another time consuming past time and am in heaven :) I have two likes already and still not entirely sure how this works but only loaded up a few photos tonight!

It has been a strange week for me, my beloved father is in hospital and I have been on a bit of a standby really, just doing hospital visits, worrying about him and my mother and generally trying to be useful but finding it hard to concentrate and not really knowing how to pass the odd few hours.

So, what does a girl do when under this sort of predicament, I have been just clearing clutter that has built up over the summer and filling my mind with ideas for decorating and design, which of course is therapeutic in itself. When I spoke to my sister in London earlier, she was doing exactly the same thing!

I have a certain design style I love but of course I cannot stamp my personal taste onto my weddings or interiors, I have to make sure I translate what the client wants, whether I like it or not!

Some of my posts are not directly wedding related but they are researching design, colour, balance and style, all commodities that are applied to our wedding design.

You would be amazed what images are stored in the back of my head somewhere and are hauled back out when I meet with a client that has their own vision.

I love these images I found this evening on a fabulous design blog.

More inspiration for my decluttering and decoration plans and of course perhaps for a future wedding.

Pimp my Van!

Sorted :)!

Sharing a Few Inspirations

Top 2 Images Selina Lake Bottom 2 Images by Rebecca Newport via Lobster & Swan

We have had a fabulous time over the summer creating our beautiful weddings and now it is time for me to recharge, relax and look forward to some down time.

What should be an idyllic life in my little white washed townhouse set in a village in the mountain overlooking Marbella is indeed slightly chaotic, to say the least! I have been told today, on three occasions, that I should write a book, but that will be work in progress!

I have a few blogs I follow, well actually quite a few, but in the summer I don´t get time as we are so busy but now, in the autumn, I recharge the design batteries and love spending time looking at these hugely talented stylists work.

At the moment I am searching for inspiration for decorating a few bedrooms as it is this time of year I start reorganising, clearing clutter and creating lovely spaces.

I have to admit today I have been slightly thrown off my path for personal reasons but I know by absorbing these beautiful images and inspirations that some fabulous bedrooms will be forthcoming and I also noted that all these images have Christmas baubles in them which is perhaps telling me something?!

Perhaps tomorrow I will be digging out my Nigella and Delia cookbooks!

Some lovely emails

Image courtesy of Jeremy Standley Photography

I often receive some lovely emails about my blog which is always very heartwarming to hear that so many people out there are inspired by my work.

For me of course it is not work, it is a passion.

I have always loved styling and creating settings whether it be my sister´s 21st birthday party (many years ago!) a film launch party, a wedding or indeed a home or a showhome.

I have to admit though the whole romance of weddings took over and I am fortunate enough that this is my business and I enjoy every moment creating, researching and designing weddings.

We are known for particular creative ways in which we style weddings, which has become a bit of a benchmark.

Often I receive comments about weddings we have styled and weddings where we have not been present and always the feedback is that something special was missing as we were not there, which I find very flattering, the fairy godmother was not waving her magic is often quoted!

But nothing stays the same, that would be boring! and we are very excited about some of our new projects we are currently working on for 2012.

Here is a lovely email we received today from across the waters :)

Hello Laura,

I stumbled across your blog in the wee hours this morning.
I am a new wedding planner in Pennsylania (US). I spend a lot of time on the internet looking for the next best thing to write about in my blog.
I just have to tell you that I have never seen more beautiful unique weddings than the ones from your site.
Your weddings are sophisticated, simple, and personal.

Perhaps I like it so much because that is my style.
I think that the cornerstone of a beautiful wedding is picking a venue that has a lot of character. I see that a lot in your weddings. I only wish you were in Italy. I hope to add destination weddings in Italy soon (I spent a lot of time in Italy and hence the name of my business, Brava Weddings).

Thanks so much. I will be reading all your archives and look forward to your next post!

Your newest big fan, Lisa Vernon www.bravaweddings.com

We have helped clients design their weddings in Italy, France and the US, by working with them to organise and create cohesive inspiration boards and pull all their ideas into a manageable decor programme. If you would like wedding styling assistance or indeed wish us to travel to style your wedding day please do get in touch.

We are on Twitter and Facebook if you wish to follow our latest weddings, inspirations and updates.

Can you overdecorate a wedding?

Taste and style are commodoties that people desire and certainly when it comes to decorating your wedding day this is important, so are some weddings overdecorated?

We recently had this experience with one of our clients which we would like to share.

Our client had booked her stunning wedding, set in beautiful grounds with a fabulous pool, very Moorish styling, a gorgeous marquee and yet she wanted the marquee dressed with white tissue paper pom poms?

We have seen the craze of tissue pom poms and they are lovely for a baby shower and look fabulous in our local cake shop but for a super stylish wedding, sorry no!

I had to get bossy and take charge at this point and steer our client to much more tasteful styling of her wedding which thank goodness she agreed with instantly which of course is why she hired us.

She ended up with a beautifully styled evening using lots of candles, white chill out areas and it was all very tastefully decorated.

I was so relieved she had accepted my advice as I did have a sleepless night wondering how best to approach this subject!

I am sure our clients were relieved too, as the decorations I suggested were not appropriate to her wedding style were almost another 1000 euros which I immediately wiped off their quote, but I could not bear the thought of cheap wedding decorations in such a stylish setting!

I am not knocking this pom pom craze, last year at one of our weddings we used them but it suited the venue as it was a funky, fun wedding with lots of bright colours so we were able to use them and it worked.

However, we have seen a few weddings posted this year and it looks more like a children´s playground with an In the Night Garden feel to it. I think the pom poms are now on their way out unless they are super stylish silver or gold ones but not the cheap tissue paper ones unless you wish to use them for a baby shower or a cake shop decoration.

Less is more is what I tell all my clients, concentrate on the lovely details, the personal touches, thanking your guests for coming, the stationery, how things are set out on the day from the cocktail sticks to the tablescapes.

Make your wedding personal and stamp your style on it, don´t try to overdress your venue.

Unless you have a super large budget keep it elegant and simple otherwise you will spoil what could be a very beautiful wedding into a cheap decoration showground, if you don´t like it don´t use it.

You should have seen my face earlier this year when I was presented with different bags of foil confetti for each table, I had gold top hats for one table, purple hearts for another, silver stars the list was endless, I nearly died!

Don´t do it unless you really have to! If it is not stylish or tasteful then leave it out.

Creating a wedding here in Spain is all about being outside, Mamma Mia twinkling lights always spring to mind for me and keep it simple and elegant as you are in such beautiful surroudings.