Etsy in Spain perhaps!

I am very fortunate that, as part of my work, that I am introduced to some hugely talented and creative people. I am always attracted to the people that have that certain style and more importantly are working very hard, are passionate about what they create and are reliable.

Recently a jewellery maker was bought to my attention by Sweet Things by Fi at one of our design meetings in our studio.

Fi had bought some of Sharon´s creations including some gorgeous wine glass charms, bracelets and key rings all made out of beautiful crystal beads. We discussed various ideas of how they could be used for our weddings either as gifts for bridesmaids and favours.

Shortly after this one of my friends was struggling to find a good supplier for a Breast Cancer charity night to provide some pretty gifts for her fundraising.

Having spotted this plea on Facebook, I asked Fi whether Sharon could make up 40 crystal bracelets with 3 days notice and lo and behold a wave of the magic wand produced not just 40 to die for pink and clear crystal bracelets but beautifully presented in pink organza bags and tied with gorgeous tags.

We were delighted, and so was Maryanne, the organiser of this event.

Our thanks to Sharon at Lovelissimo Designs for helping us out at such a short notice and we hope to work with Sharon a lot next year to produce favours, bridesmaids thank you gifts and just general gorgeousness!

Sharon´s new venture can be found on Facebook and her website.

Ice Pops and Cake Shooters!

Sometimes it is difficult to think outside the box and create new ideas for weddings and parties.

To be perfectly honest I have not had much time over the past few months to do much scanning of latest trends and new, fun novel ideas. Many of the blog posts I have seen are now too samey, albeit pretty just churning over the same fashions over and over again, a big kick is now needed in wedding world to get out of this rut of vintage suitcases, postcards and typewriters!

I personally think Retro is the way forward :)

Having witnessed the seventies revival in fashion with the maxi dresses plus large floppy hats seem to be a big hit this year on the beach as well, let´s bring back the seventies goodies we used to enjoy! I was thinking today that ice pops now would be a big hit at weddings, given we are now spending everyday (sorry!) in plus 30 degrees. Obviously more sophisticated grown up versions could be created and whilst googling this idea I came across this cool idea of Cake Shooters at Sprinkles. What a brilliant idea and the next step up from a cupcake perhaps?!

What do you think? Having googled this idea it appears they are not easy to make and I have seen some disasters, but get this right and it would be really fun for a wedding!

Macaroons or Cupcakes?!

Wedding world is in turmoil as the once humble but gorgeous Macaroon is overshadowing our favourite cupcake!

Sex and the City started the cupcake boom but Gossip Girl has fetishized the humble macaroon, with Starbucks recently carrying a limited edition of macaroons, it seems the little french confections are everywhere!

And how delightful they are too with these gorgeous sorbet colours presented in delightful boxes. They are certainly becoming a popular choice for weddings this year, although I have yet to see them at one of our weddings but working on this one and need to find a supplier here in Spain that makes them, as they will make a wonderful addition to a candy desert table.

My 'thing' though is the packaging as always, to have these macaroons presented in to die for gorgeous boxes tied with some fabulous ribbons and I would be in heaven if presented with one of these at a wedding!

Whilst I blog away you must visit some sites I found today, Bobette & Belle and La Duree, well worth heading over to take a look

Spanish Wedding Inspirations and Ideas

I do always feel that if you are planning a destination wedding it is a wonderful idea to try to incorporate some of that country's style and tradition into your wedding.

I am of course constantly looking at Spanish themes and details for our weddings, whether it be a full on spanish affair or just little touches here and there I hope to inspire our 2011 and 2012 brides with touches of Andalucian passion into their weddings!

There are some wonderful ideas to be had when creating your wedding with a Spanish feel from the fans (abanicos) of course, to the lace details, the spanish love their lace, churros and chocolate, tapas and soaking in the passion of Spain.

The combination of dramatic flamenco style dresses and lace veils, the beautiful spanish guitar music and the sultry, passion fuelled flamenco theme works so well for a wedding celebration.

I created this inspiration board for a lovely bride that is planning her wedding here this year and is keen on a truly full on spanish affair for her day, which we are hugely excited about.

Using dramatic deep reds, whites and blacks combined with lace and fans, but of course, as ever, done in a stylish understated way.

I love the element of teal in this inspiration board, combined with this colour scheme to break it up and create a more calming influence on the reds and blacks.

There is always I think a fine line between a stylish and tacky theme and it is easy to fall into the latter, with dare I say nylon lace, plastic favours and fans and castanets for me are a no no. I have only had this request once thank goodness and managed to steer them away from the idea.

What I did find interesting though is that castanets are actually a professional musical instrument that you can pay 100's of euros for the proper instrument so forget your cheap plastic version it is an art unto itself.

Pick the colour scheme, reds and blacks, dramatic colours but do always try to add in a third colour to break this combination up to create a more stylish effect otherwise you will look like a Halloween party.

As mentioned previously teal is always a fabulous colour to break this hard colour scheme up, as is saffron, orange, lemon, perhaps a lime or a fuchsia, but you need to lift this colour scheme with details colours and accents particularly for a wedding.

Garlands and bunting are huge this year so try to incorporate this into your decoration as it has so much impact at eye level, or above, and adds in that fun party element to the day's festivities.

Then add in the important details such as the lace embossed stationery, beautifully presented fans to match the decorations, some dramatic dark or lace linens and sultry lighting with lots candles and fire torches and you are well on your way.

(Clapping and stamping will have to come from the guests!)

Have pinatas strung up, particuarly if you have lots of children at your wedding, but they are just as much fun for the grown ups! this is a very popular tradition in Spain for parties, we love them!

Perhaps if you wish to go further offer locally pressed olive oils,miniature moscatels or brandies as favours, again beware of the tacky ones and have beautifully dressed bottles with carefully designed tags.

Get this wrong and it is awful, only as we were discussing this as well the other day, perhaps I am slightly too fussy but I just hate tack!

I get lots of samples all the time from potential suppliers and am amazed that they can't leave the cheap and nasty behind them.

Anycase perhaps I am waffling on, as I do but normally, but we buy the favours in strip them and decorate them in-house now as we cannot find anyone that does offer the stylish and elegant enough for us.

End your evening or start the next day's celebrations with a fabulous churros and chocolate bar, always a big hit anytime of day and brings in again that wonderful spanish theme into your wedding and who does not love churros and thick creamy chocolate :)

Another interesting idea I was discussing this week, with one of our brides, was the guest book dilemma. It is difficult when you are planning a destination wedding to make sure you can get everything home.

We do of course offer this service as part of our planning, you can send things to us to set up or you can leave things here for us to ship back to you.

But the guest book dilemma, I suggested she had time to create her personalised wedding guest book on a website such as Blurb.

Perhaps a book created using images of Spain, Andalucia and photos of yourselves and your families, how you met, photos of you on your holidays together, the engagement, etc.

You could head pages with questions such as where do you see us in 25 years time, any tips for a good marriage, etc and leaving pages blank so that the guests could write in it their messages and advice for you.

A sequel possibly with a honeymoon and first wedding anniversary book along with comments from the wedding website, an interesting idea I think and certainly one that is easily transported home and to show the kids when they are older!

Another lovely idea is to have beautiful Andalucian or personalised postcards made up (yes we do these as well) with stamps and your address on them that the guests can pick up at your wedding, go away and write a message to you and post them back to you.

When you get back from your honeymoon you will find a post box full of lovely wedding messages to place in your wedding scrap book.

On this note I am now dreaming of our hot summers and all the delightful weddings we are working on for the next two years and hope we are inspiring you with lots of novel and fabulous ideas for your destination wedding in the balmy Mediterranean, albeit it is cold, gloomy and raining here currently!

Churros Inspired Spanish Theme

Ok this morning I have yet again gone to heaven over finding this spanish inspired shoot on Green Wedding Shoes.

Using the Spanish styled theme of churros as favours or even for the dessert, we think of course is a brilliant idea, I steer clear of churros and chocolate but do succumb when visiting Marbella in the mornings! I would love to see a wedding where the guests are given hot bags of sugary churros to top them up whilst dancing.

Using the spanish lace tablecloths and the spanish pottery plates really does set the tone and we love the fan menu, going to be my project now for the day, along with the chair tags with the flamenco touch.

Another huge thank you to all these creative people that make my day!

Happy New Year

As 2009 comes to a close and we enter 2010 we would like to thank all our wonderful couples whose weddings we worked on last year and hope they all had a lovely romantic festive time as newly weds!

As we come out of hibernation this week, due to lots of rain here over Christmas! we are hugely excited about this coming year, many wonderful weddings to plan, design, style and look forward to and we are even busier than ever.

We are also looking forward to our new venture with the joining forces of Reviva Weddings and Earthscent to bring the first wedding floral design studio and shop to Southern Spain.

Not only we will be offering fabulous wedding flowers, but a whole host of gorgeous, stylish wedding decorations, accessories, gifts, books, craft items, stationery and inspirational ideas for your wedding here in Spain. Watch this space for more information as we work towards our official opening here at the end of January 2010.

Fabulous Wedding at Puente Romano, Marbella

We loved this photo of the notes hastily written down, note Jeremy's and my mobile numbers just in case!
We were so excited to finally see the photos of Carla and Matt's wedding held here at the beautiful Puente Romano Hotel.

Carla was a delight to work with and knew exactly what she wanted, we only met twice to put all these lovely details together to make the day so special.

Carla chose a lemon for her main theme that we accentuated with bright colours, pinks, oranges and vivid greens. The bridal flowers were country style handties with roses in pinks and lemons with touches of green and oranges, our pedestals for the ceremony were vivid and brightly coloured to lift the wedding, which we later moved down to the beach club for the main reception.

We made up fans with lemon ribbons and fuchsia paper roses, large confetti cones fixed to the sides of the chairs down the aisle filled with pink, orange and lemon rose petals and the rest of the petals were scattered on the aisle.

After a very moving ceremony, beautifully conducted by Andrew Hunter, the wedding party moved down to the stunning setting of the Suite Del Mar on the beach.

We used the same style country style rose arrangements placed in square vases for the table centrepieces, set on table mirrors with bright floating candles in votives and lots of pink, yellow and green table crystals, the end result was very elegant.

We tied the napkins with lemon organza ribbons and the same fuchsia rose detail as the fans and tied each guest's name to the napkins.

Our decorated cava bottles marked the girls seats and personalised cigars were placed out for the men. Yet again we found a tree for our handmade, famous table seating cards!

Our thanks to Jeremy and Jenny for these fabulous photos and to see this wedding slideshow and more images of Carla and Matt's wedding, visit Jeremy's beautiful blog

Fresh Greens and Whites at Villa Bancales, Mijas

Our thanks to Gary for sending us these images of a wedding we decorated here in August at the beautiful Villa Bancales in Mijas.

Using a fresh green and white theme, we were able to do many delightful details for Chris and Keren. As it was a small wedding with just family and friends, each guest had a personal message in an envelope used as place seating. We secretly placed tissue paper hearts in each envelope as an added surprise! Our famous fans were decorated with green ribbons finished off with small cala lilies with diamante, our fresh green chair sashes complimented the theme and of course later on our lantern and candle pack made the whole garden glitter!

Stunning Spanish Reds at Incosol Hotel, Marbella

We were delighted to receive these photos of a wedding we helped to decorate back in June, at the beautiful Incosol Hotel here in Marbella.

A wonderful bride and her mother, who fed me chocolates when I visited, always sensible!

Sarah and her mother had been hugely creative and did a lot of the lovely wedding details themselves using a spanish red theme, with spanish flamenco themed playing cards as favours, our spanish fans, lots of lovely table details and red petals finished off this wedding beautifully.

Our thanks to the charming Talia from Thoroughly Gorgeous for these fabulous photos of Sarah and Joakim's wedding and to hugely talented Diego from Romance Bodas, one of our fabulous spanish wedding planners here in Marbella.