From the bride, Chiara: Being old sentimental fools, it was important to Andris and me to have our wedding at a venue we would be able to visit time and time again without any hassle or fuss: having spent many a long, Sunday lunch (as well as numerous Oktoberfests!) with our family and friends at the Concordia Club in Sydney, it was the natural choice for our wedding. Our styling for the wedding was thus bounded by the opportunities afforded by the venue, and so it was decided we would celebrate our marriage on a sunny Saturday afternoon, as this is when the Concordia Club is really at its best: long, lazy afternoons on croquet greens, enjoying steins of German beer and homemade pretzels. Once a (hopefully) sun-filled lunch was decided, the colour scheme and details flowed from there, with a lot of input from our family and friends. The only other point from which design and styling decisions were made was that it was important for us that our guests felt relaxed and welcomed throughout the day.

A lot of the design elements ended up being DIY, however, this was determined more by economic reasons than a love of craft: Sydney is a ridiculously expensive city, which is compounded when anything “wedding” is involved. All of the tablecloths were hand made by my mum, whilst the table numbers, name cards and bomboniere were made during a ‘crafternoon’ with my the help of my close girlfriends.

As we really wanted flowers to almost “overwhelm” the tables, we purchased 2 cars full at Sydney Markets and spent the day before the wedding arranging them with the help of some very talented family members, with the overall effect turning out a million times better than we had expected. As a thank you to all our guests, we invited them to take home their favourite flower arrangements and vases as a gift.

Chiara’s advice for future brides: Don’t be afraid to delegate. Rest assured everyone around you will want to lend a hand: giving up the reins and handing over the control really makes for a stress free lead up to the big day. Think of the day as a group effort!

Don’t be afraid to try a ‘quirky’ venue. To be honest, our family and friends were slightly horrified we had chosen the Concordia Club as they saw it as no more than a glorified bowling club, however, we stuck to our guns: let me tell you, apologies abounded on the big day, with many guests noting they had never been to a more relaxed, fun and “genuine” wedding.

View all wedding photos here

Wedding Music:
First dance: “Everything I Do” by Bryan Adams

Wedding Vendors (Sydney, Australia):

Ceremony venue: Latvian Lutheran Evangelical Church, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia / Reception venue: Concordia Club / Flowers: wholesale and Floral Design, Roselands, Sydney / Wedding Photographer: Julian Beattie / Wedding Dress: Steven Khalil / Wedding shoes: Manolo Blahnik / Make-up: Emma-Lee Court / Bridesmaids dresses: bespoke and Exclusively Bridesmaids / Groom’s suit: bespoke by Joe Cutrone Sydney / Wedding music: Tyrolean Echoes / Catering: Concordia Club / Wedding cake: 2 Bites / Wedding invitations: Hello Lucky / Transportation: Sydney Splitscreens and Classic Wedding Cars Sydney

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2011. | Permalink | 20 comments | Posted under: Vintage Weddings Australia, blue, indie, Julian Beattie, Kariz-Matik, red, Sydney, vintage wedding dresses, white, yellow

From the photographer, Kelty: The bride used more amazing vendors and artists for her and Allen’s wedding than I’ve ever seen. Her dress was designed by a Project Runway contestant, she wore a gorgeous Ban.Do hair-piece, they rode a cable car to the church and reception site, and the wedding was basically a crafty and colorful Polish/Filipino bash following a gorgeous Catholic ceremony in a church unlike I’ve ever seen, with friends and family snapping polaroids all over the place. Words don’t do it justice.

From the bride, Jenny: Allen and I met while working together at Urban Outfitters in Evanston, Illinois. Though we’d been friends for a while, we just so happened to start hanging out when a bunch of Gael Garcia Bernal films hit the theatre, so we got to see both La mala educacion AND Diarios de motocicleta within about a week of each other, much to my delight. I think it was during the second film that Allen decided he was falling for me. And that’s a good thing, because I had pretty much already fallen for him. We knew we were best friends right from the start, but impromptu, late-night road trips; food fights; and various other shenanigans sealed the deal.

So we wanted the wedding to reflect both our personal styles and cultural heritages. Allen is Filipino, so our wedding mass included some traditional ceremonies (cord, candle, veil, and coin), using the same cord and veil from his parents’ wedding. The main contribution from my Polish heritage was booze. Really strong, plentiful booze. It made for (along with our incredible DJ’s who were instructed to play old songs and 90′s dance music and did so quite expertly) a pretty fun dance party that only about half of our guests remember…

We actually ended up getting a lot of things on Etsy or at thrift stores. We collected a bunch of old floral plates from which to serve the food. We got some floral handkerchiefs to tie around the bouquets, which Hannah, my bridesmaids, and I made the morning of our wedding. Our photobooth prop mustaches and chalkboards were from Etsy, and we also found one-inch buttons to put on our escort cards made up from children’s books, a nod to Allen’s job as a kindergarten teacher. The table numbers were made from vintage valentine cards, and our friends painted the numbers on. The cake toppers, both the bunting and the deer, were also from Etsy.

One of the most important parts of the entire event, for me (besides marrying Allen, of course), was figuring out how to properly document it. In sort of going with the vintage-y theme, we decided to go with Steep Street for our wedding photography (after poring over hundreds of other photographers worldwide) because of her skill in putting a vintage touch on everything she shoots, and she knocked it out of the park! We also didn’t think we were going to go for a wedding video, but we discovered a local company that films weddings in super-8, and we knew we had to rethink our plan on a wedding film. We also decided to rent a significantly more expensive real photobooth because a digital booth just isn’t our style (and didn’t really fit in with the decor of our venue, anyway :).

I also have a knack for having hobbies and interests in things that are discontinued or generally difficult to find. To that end, we Goccoed our save the date cards (with a design drawn by my sister, Tiffany, who also painted our wedding invitations), on cardstock we also ordered from Etsy, stamped with vintage stamps which we got from . . . Etsy! Gocco is a self-contained screen printing system from Japan that they’ve stopped producing certain materials for. Rest assured, though, there’s a lot available on Etsy :). I also handed a bunch of my friends various cameras from my vast collection of Polaroids with instructions to just shoot what they wanted.

See the wedding feature here

Wedding Vendors (Chicago, IL):

Wedding Ceremony Venue: Ceremony: St. Vincent de Paul Parish / Wedding Reception Venue: Atrium Events at Architectural Artifacts / Wedding Dress: Leanne Marshall / Wedding Shoes: Marais USA Mercer Flats / Hair accessories: Ban.Do No. 11 / Groom’s Attire: Jacket by Nom de Guerre, Pants by Dunderdon, Shirt by Gitman Bros, Bow Tie by Brooks Brothers, Shoes by Adidas / Bridesmaid Dresses: Amanda Archer Collection / Photographer: Kelty of Steep Street / Photobooth: 312 Photobooth / Wedding Musicians: Kate and Rachel at Toast & Jam / Wedding Cake: TipsyCake / Late Night Snacks: “Naanwiches” from Gaztro-Wagon / Super 8 Cinematography: InFilms / Flowers: done by bride / Save-the-dates: made by bride and bride’s sister

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments | Posted under: Indie Weddings Chicago, Illinois, indie, pink, Steep Street, vintage dresses, yellow

View all images from this shoot in the gallery

Wedding Vendors (Philadelphia, PA):

Photography: Wren & Field Photography / Styling and Event Design: Glitter + Rye / Flowers: Love n’ Fresh Flowers / Paper Goods: Anne & Kate / Hairpieces and Chiffon Flower Accessories: Preston & Olivia / Hair and wardrobe: Jessica Pineda / Makeup: Josie DiCarlo of Red Letter Girl / Location: One Shot Cafe / Models: George and Blair

Love ‘n Fresh Flowers is a member of Blue Label.

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments | Posted under: Design Inspiration Glitter + Rye, gold, indie, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, pink, red, Valentine's Day, vintage, Wren & Field Photography

View all images from this shoot in the gallery!

Wedding Vendors (Philadelphia, PA)
Photography: Alison Conklin Photography / Styling: Beka and Kimberly of Styled Creative / Paper Goods: Two Paperdolls / Baked Goods and wedding cake: Brown Betty / Makeup: Beke Beau / Hair: Mack Stylist / Flowers: Beautiful Blooms

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2011. | Permalink | 43 comments | Posted under: Wedding Design Alison Conklin, indie, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, pink, red, Two Paperdolls, Valentine's Day, vintage

From that sweet bride, Sharon. We wanted the wedding to feel relaxed but still intimate, and to include personal handmade touches that reflected who we were as a couple. Because we had been together for almost eight years, we knew early on that we didn’t want a big wedding. We decided to have the ceremony at his parents’ house because we loved that it was so cozy and personal. Kyle’s mom did an amazing job with the flowers and even set up a little breakfast table topped with donuts, fruit and coffee —it was all so lovely. We were married in front of our closest friends and family.

For the reception, we went downtown to one of our favorite brunch spots, Lamberts BBQ, where the rest of our friends were waiting. We served a ‘Texas home cooking’ style buffet—including prime rib, new potato salad, cheddar & roasted poblano grits and mac and cheese—everyone loved it! In lieu of a traditional wedding cake, we decided to serve frozen bananas (as a tribute to our favorite show, Arrested Development) from a local food trailer here in Austin, in addition to the restaurant’s own fried cherry pies and cupcakes.

My mom and I baked 16 pounds of candied pecans and gave them out at the reception in hand-stamped kraft bags. We also used an address file as our wedding guest book.

Any advice for brides planning their weddings now? Don’t feel like you need to make your wedding fit a particular mold. We wanted to keep ours small and personal (not to mention budget-friendly) so we opted out of a lot of the traditional aspects (ie. first dance, grand entrance/exit). It ended up being perfect for us and exactly what we wanted.

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Wedding Vendors (Austin, TX):

Ceremony location: Groom’s parents’ house / Reception Location: Lamberts BBQ / Florist: Groom’s mother arranged the flowers / Photographer: Nessa Kessinger / Wedding Dress: Saja, available at OnceWed.com /Shoes: Jimmy Choo / Hair piece: Handle & Spout / Hair: Shanna Letbetter of Aveda Salon / Makeup: Mandy Hernandez / Caterer: Lamberts BBQ / Frozen Banana desserts: Bananarchy / Wedding invitations: illustrated by El Lohse and printed by bride and groom

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments | Posted under: Indie Weddings Austin, brunch, green, indie, ivory, Nessa Kessinger, pink, short wedding dresses, Southern charm, Texas

View all wedding photos in the gallery

Wedding Vendors (Portland, OR):

Wedding Ceremony Venue: South Park Blocks / Wedding Reception Venue: The Cleaners at the Ace Hotel / Photographer: Brent Salo / Catering: Clyde Common / Wedding Dress: JCrew / Groom’s Suit: JCrew / Groom and Groomsmen Ties: Me and Matilda / Bridcaage Veil: August Veils / Cake and Cupcakes: Finales Desserts / DJ: DJ Aquaman / Flowers: arranged by the bride, her mother and best friend

Christina, the bride, is selling most of her wedding items in our recycle your wedding section. To sell your gently used wedding items, click here.

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2010. | Permalink | 25 comments | Posted under: Indie Weddings Brent Salo, city chic, cupcakes, DIY, indie, modern weddings, Oregon, Portland, typewriter, yellow

Brace yourself for creativity overload of do-it-yourself ideas and gorgeous images in the gallery:

From the bride, Mel: We searched long and hard for a ceremony location that would be unique and special to us. Not one of the usual wedding spots around town. We eventually decided on a quiet, tucked away park down by the river in the suburb in which Dave grew up. He used to bring his family dog down to this park to have a swim in the river and run along the bank. When I moved back from the UK to be with Dave, we lived in his family’s house just around the corner and so this whole area reminds us of happy times when we were filled with excitement and hope about what lay ahead in our future.

We also searched long and hard for a reception location. Eventually we came across a venue that is owned by some of Dave’s most regular customers – they come in for pizza every Thursday night! The venue is a converted warehouse style room in which the owners have set up their own coffee roasting business. We felt so lucky and grateful that they were happy for us to use it for the night.

I was so lucky to have such great friends help me out with the decorations, which included handmade fabric poms, ‘romantic notions’ in collected vintage frames, and weaved fabric hearts. We had a couple of girly nights which involved hot glue guns, fabric and a bottle or two of wine!

We never really had a theme as such, except that we wanted everything about the day to represent us. So I guess our theme was ‘Us’? One of my super talented besties and bridesmaids Rachel did the design of our invite and we really tried to inject parts of Dave and I all throughout it, as well as include tidbits of information about the day to get people excited. We went to a lot of trouble to find décor which has a vintage feel to it (yes I collected 90 vintage dinner plates!) as we both love vintage style. We even collected furniture which my dad has helped us restore and another one of my talented besties is making new cushion covers for a couch we found!

View all images from this wedding in the gallery

Wedding Vendors:

Photographer: Rachel Thurston / Reception venue: Blue Sky Coffee / Day-of Coordinator: Danielle Manning/ Celebrant: Emily Jade O’Keefe

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2010. | Permalink | 22 comments | Posted under: DIY Weddings Australia, balloons, Brisbane, DIY, indie, international weddings, pink, Rachel Thurston, teal

View all images in the gallery

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments | Posted under: Engagement Sessions Dixie Pixel, engagement sessions, indie, Lenoir City, Tennessee

From the bride. It’s very weird – but I didn’t actually think about a certain theme – or feel, I just wanted something very individual to Jon and I. I knew I wanted something pretty, relaxed, happy – and not too stiff or contrived – but for it to have a bit of personality!

There was no set theme or colour, it was very organic. I bought the bridesmaid dresses early on and that kind of set a tone for the colours, which were pale neutral pastels. I kept all of the decoration in the teepees to white, as I knew my flowers were going to be the main colours inside.

I hand made the pom poms, hand stamped the order of service, and bought all decorations and decorated everything myself.

View all images from this wedding in the gallery

Any advice for brides planning their weddings now? Start collecting decoration bits and pieces early on, so that you have lots of nice things to choose from, and don’t have to worry about going out and getting it all at the last minute. Check out wedding blogs for inspiration – also fashion magazines, such as Jalouse and Japanese Vogue.

Wedding Vendors (London, England):

Ceremony and reception location: Groom’s uncle’s house / Florist: Scarlet & Violet, family / Photographer: Rosie Parsons / Wedding Dress and Headpiece: Delphine Manivet / Bride’s shoes: Margiela / Makeup: bride / Hair: bride’s friend / Bridesmaid Dresses: Smallable, Mango / Bridesmaid shoes: Camilla Skovgaard / Groom’s suit: Raf Simons / DJ: Stick It On / Caterer: bride’s friend Janie Fraser / Wedding Cake and Dessert: Laduree / Wedding invitations: Groom / Videographer: friend / Transportation: Devon Cool Campers

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2010. | Permalink | 15 comments | Posted under: Vintage Weddings 1920's, 1930's, doilies, England, indie, international weddings, London, pink, Rosie Parsons, UK

From the bride, Jenna: I think of our wedding as being rustic, vintage, and personal. We wanted to go with our laid back theme and add some elements of the home. A lot of the furniture we used was from my grandma’s house. The color scheme we went with was completely random, but we wanted to make sure to have the guys and girls match (to give some sort of order). Up to the very last week of the wedding, we had a bunch of people coming over to our house all the time to help make most of the decorations. We made the succulent frames, the bottle chandelier, the aisle runners, my maid of honor designed the programs, all of the signs around the site were all made by us and an army of helpers. It was such a great time, and really helped with making our wedding unique and personal to John and I.

John and I both wanted our celebration to match our personalities. We are both laid back people and wanted to have a fun time without letting too much elegance get in the way. Once we found the venue, our vision began to take off. We went with a flea-market/Parisian feel because we both love that eclectic style and once we started collecting and making all the decorations, our style began to form.

Finding a place to get married was a work of God. We didn’t want something fancy, we both wanted a backyard-type feel…but we had NO CLUE where that would be. My mom saw the venue on our photographer, Matthew Morgan’s website, where he had shot another wedding there. We were the second or third wedding at this field in Trabuco Canyon, CA…because it was in somebody’s humongous front yard!

Any advice for brides planning their weddings now? Have fun! We only had 4 months to “plan” everything, so once all of the big things were taken care of, my mom and I both went crazy with collecting and making all of the decor, and having people over to help. It really made it a communal affair, and that made it so fun! There is no need to stress over anything…this is meant to be a celebration! Don’t be afraid to ask people to come over and help…you can’t do it all by yourself!

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Wedding Vendors (location: Trabuco Canyon, CA):

Ceremony and reception location(s): field in Trabuco Canyon, CA / Wedding coordinator: Pamela Lowe / Florist: Pamela Lowe / Photographer: Matthew Morgan / Wedding Dress: Etsy seller EnglishDept / Shoes: Urban Outfitters / Jewelry: Etsy seller sora designs / Hairpiece: Twigs and Honey / Groom’s suit: H&M / DJ: Eric Golding (949)-310-5753 / Caterer: Piaggio (949)-350-6557 / Wedding Cake: bridesmaid Caitlin Knoop, churros from caterer, and sno cones from Sno-on-the-Go / Wedding invitations: Bride and friend Janice Doan Myers / Videographer: Danny Lipinski

© 2008-2012 Ruffled® , 2010. | Permalink | 19 comments | Posted under: Garden Weddings backyard weddings, California, French inspired, green, indie, Matthew Morgan, succulents, Trabuco Canyon