By The Beach Festival: Crafternoon and Makeables

This wedding was definitely a team effort with lots of people getting involved. This is my homage to all things 'made' at the many crafternoons and late night creative soirees that occurred. We're all fairly crafty sorts (in both families) and after drooling at things on Pinterest and Offbeat Bride (whose fabulous book and site inspired us to DO WHAT WE WANTED instead of what's expected - many thanks for that, and if you've never read that book, buy it!) we made quite a lot of things in the end.

Hangables

Woah but this was a big project. We did buy some from various shops but it's the made stuff that really raised the game of our decorations. My Mum worked for weeks on handmade puffed hearts (fabric ones with lace and ribbon, and ones made from old mapbooks), hand stamped card ones and my very favourite - a whole string made from old lace doilies and handkerchiefs. Alex's mum worked with gingham and pretty fabric (one bit had mermaids on!) and they all came together in a delightfully kitsch and vintage mix up of styles.

Alongside these we bought loads of different sized and coloured paper pom-poms from Deco Pom Poms (a cheeky nod to cheerleading there!) to hang from the ceiling, Many hands helped us to get these all fanned out beautifully and it was by no means easy. They were strung across the centre of the tipi's using fishing wire from one of my Dad's rods at the cottage, so they bobbed about in the wind too. They were just so cheery! We were never going to be able to nail down a proper colour scheme for everything, our world is bright and exciting and full of colour, and the decorations just made me happy!

The absolute icing on the cake though, was the incredible banner that my Aunty Dot made for us. She stitched and knitted and noodled and whatever else incredibly crafty people do - all the way from her home on Unst in Shetland to Runswick Bay! She was crafting on buses and ferries all over the North! We hung it up right above the dance floor and it looked amazing!

Table thingers

Probably the thing I had clearest in my mind, was how our tables would look. Shabby chic, vintage and kitsch all rolled into one. I picked up table runners every time H&M had a sale over the last year and a half, and we collected glass pots from all over (dessert dishes from vintage fairs, goblets from charity shops, low containers from Nu puddings, funky glasses and tea light holders from Ikea) to house a multitude of little flickering tea lights that looked like a sea of lighters at a festival ballad at night.  Oh my Mum stuck pretty lace and ribbon around all of the plain ones to beautify them, and at the end of the night my Cousin Jo, my Sister and I were drinking champagne out of the random candle dishes and goblets - mine was called 'The Chalice'... I don't know why...

We picked out interesting books from the ten-bob-barn at The Book Farm (some very funny trips with my Mum giggling at old book titles) and lace ribboned them into stacks for centrepieces, and then I used the vectors and fonts again to create our table name cards. These were all named after areas or stages at Bestival (our favourite festival ever!) and they were held up using some pastel coloured bulldog clips I got from ebay, with some lace tape stuck over the sides and the handles removed - it's super easy and looks cute, I think I saw it on Pinterest!

Instead of putting place-cards on each spot (I was worried if the wind blew through the tents, they'd all get scattered) we thought of putting tags on all of the chairs. We took brown label tags, the kind Harry Potter would put on his school trunk, used an acrylic stamp of lettering and music scores to loosely print onto them, scoured facebook and family photos for funny pictures of each guest (much mirth when everyone tried to find their seat) and stuck on tiny shells we got from the Rainbow Shells shop in Whitby, along with their photo and name. It took aaaaaages, but we knew they'd be fun.

These were the tags before they had the funny facebook photos and names stuck on them, I just used superglue for the tiny shells and nearly all our guests remembered to take them home which is nice!

Also on the tables was a floral handkerchief in place of a napkin, we used them to make a little pocket for the cutlery, a tiny flag and a paper straw each - everyone loved these and asked if they could keep them, expecting them to be fancy/expensive ones or that they belonged to the catering company, but actually they were another great ebay find! A few origami cranes I made also dotted the tables, in Japanese legend if you make a thousand origami cranes or 折鶴 orizuru, you may be granted a wish by a crane. I didn't make a thousand. I didn't even make a hundred. But I think they're lucky regardless!

The very best and most special things on the tables though, were the flowers. Yep, you heard me, flowers. My Mum painstakingly made hundreds of felt flowers so each table could have a beautiful posy in a little vase. Each one had a tiny button or pearl in the centre and some of them were even made from her own hand-made felt. They looked to me like the fields of wild flowers we saw on trips to France, they felt like memories and they were the first thing everyone mentioned to me. I love them.

Invitations & Branding

Yep, branding. I knew once I'd created the original images for our invitations that it would be easy to create everything in the same format, giving it all an identity. Whilst I don't much go in for matching stuff, this did make things easier. I just stuck to the same vectors and the same fonts across the board to make stuff like the table names, the lanyards and the wristbands.

Wristband design

Facebook banner

Invitation poster

Sticker/plectrum logo

So our invites were designed by me, but printed by John E Wright Printers in Leicester and the proper festival style tickets were printed by Hot Ice Printing, also in Leicester (they have proper tearable sections with foil on!) and we wrote essential postcodes and phone numbers on the tear-off section of the tickets so people could put them into their purses for the weekend. The card invitations themselves were from Pocketfold Invites and they have loads of colour/paper/size/orientation options, but we chose toploading pockets so we could put tonnes of info in. Again, Mum helped me get through all of these, even cutting all the info sheets down to size as they were a bit big for the pockets!

Info sheets (where/when/how/what to bring/hotels and cottages/gifts etc) Oh and our RSVP was a little Tipi, guests were asked to take a photo of them somewhere special or to craft up the tipi somehow and email it to us, at our Wedding email address. If you've just got engaged - set up an email account straight away! It helped us to keep track of everything and keep company contacts in one place, as well as providing a way for guests to contact us easily.

We used mini paper doilies for the front, along with a patterned paper slide printed with a key to hold it closed. Inside the papers were created to be different sizes so that only the top banners showed in the pocket, the 'poster' was stuck in the centre section and I turned printed plectrums/guitar picks (which were printed with the tipi logo above) into mini fridge magnets using a pack of cheap flat magnets from ebay and a glue gun.

I took a google image of the area and from it drew a cartoon map for the invitations as well, which doubled up for use on the back of the VIP lanyards. You can just about see it in the top left of the card inserts picture, but I won't post it here because it has personal information on it, sorry!

The table-plan board followed the same format as everything else for it's name cards, and my Mum & Dad created the board itself, using a picture frame and some pretty floral fabric - cool huh?

On our sweeties/cake table, there were also printed paper bags for putting sweets in (my sister went stamping mad on these as the thought of doing so many was hurting my brain) and I had cross-stitched a 'love is sweet' picture which was in a frame shaped like a beach hut. Rach also did all of our chalk boards, which pointed the way to the loos, what the schedule for the day was and various other things.

One other brilliant idea we got from some internet searching, is the 'finger-print guest-book' (we did have a normal guest book too, but having been to lots of other weddings, know that they don't always get filled in too well). We opted for a little couple silhouette holding balloons to be filled in with our guest's fingerprints, but you can get trees and other pictures too! I love that there's a tiny fingerprint from little Florence on there, so cute! Sorry about the picture quality - I took it on my phone and then it went through the facebook mangle as well, but the picture is lovely and sits proudly on our living room wall, reminding us of the most perfect day!

One very special section of 'made' things that I don't have a picture of, is the huge collection of hand-knitted blankets my Mum made. They are so beautiful and cosy - and they were put into our giant steamer trunk next to the dancefloor, so that if people got cold they could just cuddle up in a blanket and get warm again. Mum made loads of them in different colours and a really amazing white sewn one that had these rips in the front that show through rainbow colours!

Alex's Mum also made an awesome clutch bag for the day, which was silked and sewn and sequinned by herself - and it even had two A's embroidered on it for Anna & Alex! I was also given a really beautiful traditional lucky horseshoe at our ceremony, which my Mum handmade. It's covered in pearl and lace embellishments with touches of blue - you can see it best in this picture,

I'm sure there's more I've forgotten... I'll just add it to this post if I find more pictures!

By The Beach Festival: Beautifications, Clothing & Accessories

Ok this could take a while... anyone who has read a bit of my blog before will know that quite a lot of thought goes into my every day outfits, I like things that have special or hidden meaning, quirky things and nerdy things that will make me giggle to see out in every day life. A lot of weddings have a standard format for clothing, but if you want to - you can inject your personality into the proceedings in all sorts of ways without going wild (not that you shouldn't go wild, that's awesome too!).

The shoes

What a bloody palava this was. I. LOVE. SHOES. All kinds of shoes. This was always going to be a challenge. I shopped with... My mum. My sister. My bridesmaids. Alex. Online. In store. By recommendation. Through emailed ideas. I bought 8 different pairs before settling on the ones I eventually wore (but kept two pairs of the others for good measure...). The ones I eventually settled on are these sparkly beauties from Kurt Geiger - GRIND, which I fully intend to repurpose for the Company Ball in the future! They're a kind of blush/nude colour satin with lots of crystals stuck all over. I'm not a super girly girl but I do love a shiny thing. These are the disco-ball of shoes, they just shone light everywhere and looked completely fabulous. Sold.

The Beautfications

Hair & Makeup was done by the lovely Kate Pymm who bless her, was seriously ill with food poisoning that day, but made sure she was there at 6.30am for us regardless, what a pro! She took into account the lighting for our outdoor photos on the beach etc. and made sure I wouldn't be shiny or anything, and had to carefully match up my face with the spray tan I'd had earlier in the week too. We didn't really have a set plan for hair, just nice loose casual up-do's with some flowers in, and framing our faces nicely - no 90's slick-back buns here! (see full photo at the end!)

Tan & Nails were booked in my one of my lovely bridesmaids Emily, from afar! As we all live in the Midlands, we had no idea what Kristy's in Whitby would be like, but they were absolutely fantastic! I had my tan done a few days before everyone arrived, and my gosh it was dark! Instead of the St. Tropez spray I'd had done before, it was a different one that looked a lot stronger going on. The next couple of days the top layer washed off and settled, and in the end I was really pleased with the colour.

Heading in for the second time with Emily and Al's Mum to get our nails done (them French mani, me lace effect) the ladies were absolutely fantastic, and stayed over an hour later than they were open to get my nails right, there were all sorts of issues with the lace overlay but it worked out in the end! I had a peachy pink colour for all nails except my left ring finger, which was blue! I had matching blue toes too, and much to my delight and amusement - the blue polish was glow in the dark too, how awesome is that?! Click on the picture to zoom in for a look at the lace...

Wrist wear

Both the watch and the Wedding ring belonged to my Granny Louise and it was lovely to be wearing something of hers on the day, especially as we were at Runswick Bay - her/my family's holiday home. She had tiny wrists, luckily I have too!

The tiny blue bead bracelet you can see was a wedding day gift from my sister (a something blue) with a lucky horseshoe charm on it, very cute!

The festival style wristbands were made up by ID&C who make wristbands for big event companies and festivals all over the country. We always knew we wanted proper fabric bands made for all our guests to get into the spirit of it! I did the designs using vectored images I bought off the web, then used their wristband designer template to create it. I used the same fonts and images we put into our invitations, as well as on our table names/seating plan, so that it all tied in. The image is waves on the sea and a tiny tipi tent! 

Lanyards

As everyone knows, a fancy lanyard at a festival means you're either in charge of something important or a celebrity. Being long time hoarders of press passes from our festival escapades, we thought it was high time we got a AAA pass - to our wedding! My Bro-in-Law Adrian made these fancy things up for us, VIP ones for close family and friends, and Rob had a proper media pass to add to his collection of proper ones for photography too, haha! The designs I did match all of the invitation/reception stuff and the hand-drawn map of the Bay is on the back too - for easy access to help out any lost guests.

The Bouquet

So so so so sooooo special. If I didn't dream of the dress I would have, I definitely lusted after these. Yes you've seen them on every wedding blog ever, probably all one colour, matching and perfect. But I am a hoarder. My family are hoarders. Not just of stuff, but of interests. The brooches and badges in this bouquet represent different memories and parts of our lives and I adore it. We collected brooches from family members, home, vintage fairs and I had some as gifts too, I used florists wire to steadily get them all 'stalked' and then my Mum and Sister worked tirelessly over Easter (and beyond) to wrap each stem, add flowers, arrange and turn it into this masterpiece. Needless to say, I did not 'throw the bouquet'!

Prefect badges from school, a Norwegian Krone with a tiny ship's wheel in the centre (we lived in Norway when I was little) a Steampunk key from WGW, a Kangaroo (we lived in Australia and my Roller Derby name is Anger Roo!), My Granddad's Model Boat Club badge, an owl (Owls are so in right now)

Yankees logo (double significance, Yankees are my baseball team and Alex plays baseball, and it was actually a gaudy necklace prize from the 2p machines in Whitby, haha!), a rocket for Alex, and earrings that belonged to Alex's Nanna. There are some more you can't see like a Knight (Alex used to do battle reenactment), a Peacock for my Mum, a Guitar and a Drum (I play both - not exceptionally...) and a snowflake for winter too.

A blue heart brooch from my Aunt & Nanna, a better look at Granddad's MBC pin, a pirate ship. Ooh and a proper look at Kathy's necklace!

Lovely Ladies


My lovely bridesmaids wore their own dresses and looked more amazing than anything I could have put them in! You can't see too well here but we got them and my Sister custom made nautical name necklaces from Punky Pins, Emily & Kathy had small boat charms on theirs and Rachel had a tiny blue anchor on hers! I'll try and add a photo in when I can find one...

Here's Rach doing a reading at the ceremony of Edward Norton's 'A Lovely Love Story'

Emily & Kathy also needed a bouquet, so we decided on blue swirly lollies! I wrapped them in anchor print ribbon to make them easier to hold and they looked adorably delicious (the lollies and the ladies!)

My Mum also wore the most amazingly chic outfit and the colours all complemented what we were wearing perfectly, I have to give her snaps for looking great as I've seen some other 'Mothers-of-the-Bride' wearing some diabolically outlandish things before!

Manly Men

Slater's Suits in Birmingham decked out Alex & his Best Man (Trigger) with grey 3-pieces (the waistcoats even had blue satin backs!), Al's brown brogues were from Hudson Shoes and the shirts were from the very helpful and patient staff at Hawes & Curtis. Both Al & Trig liked their shirts so much, they bought a few more each for special occasions/fancy work events!

Alex's very dapper cufflinks were given to him on the day by his Mum, and belonged to his Grandfather:

We knew we weren't going to have flowers at our Wedding (lots of reasons, mostly organisational but also to do with costs... we had other things to spend money on!) so buttonholes were always destined to be something interesting. We decided to make lego figurines of all the guys, and let me tell you it took a while! We scoured ebay for the right faces and bodies in individual bits to make up each little lego man and all were related to their personalities or hobbies. My Dad and I glued them all together and stuck pins onto the back so they could just be put straight onto lapels, ebay win! We had:

John: A Tourist with a camera, Dan: A chef with a goatee/beard, Dave W: A DJ with headphones, Trigger: Hulk costume, ginger hair and glasses, Alex: Baseball outfit with a Ninja sword, Mike: A dinosaur costume, Tom: A mountain bike and helmet, Ade: A squash player with raquet and a Mandalorian cape to represent his tattoo, Dave H: A paintball player

As part of our Wedding-Day gift packs that we gave to our Groom/Bridal parties, the guys also had these amazing handmade tweed bow ties from the online store Mrs. Bow Tie, who make a frankly incredible range of bow ties, including cartoon/comic prints and a mystery box which asks you to say a few key words about yourself on purchasing. Alex went for it and put in something along the lines of "I'm a physicist and I like space" and they sent three stunning nebula/galaxy print bow ties (coming to a work-do soon!).

We also got all the guys 'Port & Starboard' socks from the RNLI shop in Whitby. Instead of money or presents - we asked all our guests to donate to The Runswick Bay Rescue Boat and The Staithes & Runswick Lifeboat so we tried to get a few of our wedding things from the RNLI shop too, every little helps!

The 'Other' Shoes

With a reception in a field, my beautiful heels were never going to survive so there had to be an alternative. What else but the iconic shoe we both have lots of pairs of already? Converse. Comfy and stylish. What else could make a pair of converse better? Customisation. Two colours of blue to match the bow and underskirt of my dress, moustache print on the inside and 'Bride' and 'Groom' embroidery on the back tab. Awesome.

By The Beach Festival: THE DRESS!

Okay so to say I've been gone a while is an understatement... I sincerely apologise and offer an explanation... I did some marrying! Hooray! Yes, we had a pretty crazy run up to our wedding in May, and since then it's been non-stop into festival season too so we've been pretty busy as you can imagine. However, I wanted to save up stuff to make a series of wedding related posts as I've got quite a lot of people to thank and suppliers to mention! They'll be coming as soon as I can churn them out and photos are mostly courtesy of our lovely Photographer and friend Rob Ball (go look at his site, he's rad, but we'll talk about him later too!)

So there was a loose 'festival' theme to our wedding, as you know I've been a festival journo and photographer for a fair few years now, and Alex has been on pretty much all of those adventures with me (as well as having worked festival security himself while he was at uni) so it made sense to give our friends and family a taste of what we love and celebrate in a way we felt at home with.

So here's 'THE DRESS' edition of By The Beach Festival 2014 (aka, our wedding!)

The Dress!

I'm not at all the kind of girl who ever dreamed about what kind of dress I would wear on my wedding day. I didn't even wear dresses until I was about 16! I always knew this was going to be tough, and I absolutely didn't want to go to a place that was going to do the whole 'everyone fawns all over you, the assistants cry when they see you, they call you darling' type of thing. I would hate that. 

Luckily serendipity (and a bit of online research by Mum) took us to Birmingham and into the hands of the extremely talented Jo and Co. at The Couture Company. I had found a safe haven in the world of weddings. Jo is down to earth and knows exactly what will suit you right from the off, The Couture Company create bespoke wedding gowns as well as some rather saucy corsetry from their shop at The Custard Factory. With some design work, chatting about what I'd like, looking at fabrics and a few fittings - I was presented with the most exciting thing I've ever worn...

I knew I didn't want a stark white dress, so after some expert fabric picking from my Mum and Jo, I settled on an ivory with a kind of honey coloured net underneath, and way way underneath is actually a blue underskirt to match the bow! The lace overlay continues from the waist over the hips and down into the dress, and I specifically asked for kind of drop waist on the dress so that I didn't look all short in the top (those dresses that cut off from just below the bra always make me look really frumpcious. It's a neologism.)

The bow was inspired by one we saw in Jo's shop, I just loved the idea of adding a pop of colour to the dress, much more my style! I've always liked the look of buttons down the back of a dress, and luckily I had helpful bridesmaids to do them all up for me ;) 

The length was the first thing I knew was a must - our wedding reception was in Tipi tents in a field and we had photos done on the beach, nothing floor length for me, and I absolutely loved being able to move around freely and comfortably on the day - playing games and dancing without worrying about tripping over it or it getting on the floor at all. Plus one major bonus of a shorter wedding dress: being able to go to the loo by yourself! I've heard all kinds of horror stories from helpful bridesmaids trying to keep the dress out of the toilet or having to be party to things they should never be party to... ha!

So a huge thanks to Jo and The Couture Company for making me a dress that I truly felt special, comfortable and probably most importantly to me, like myself, in. Another huge thanks goes to my Mum who played devil's advocate, helped at all the fittings, did the research and made sure I got something I was completely happy with!

www.the-couture-company.co.uk

xxx