WEDDING DIY, STYLING & DECORATIONS

I absolutely loved planning our wedding, if you, like me, love all the little details that go into a wedding, hopefully, you will enjoy reading this blog post. If you click on the grey drop-down boxes below under each area, you can also see the imagery of everything being created before the day.

All professional photography by Sophie Eleanor

We had the lovely and extremely talented Bianco Blanc Paperie. Bia had already created our stunning invitations, which made me so excited for the stationery she would create for the day.

THE DESIGN
I wanted something, simple and elegant, using silk ribbons, wax melts and different textures. Bia designed the simple and stunning floral fine art drawings, which were perfect as knowing my dress had flowers on, I wanted to incorporate subtle flowers across the stationery too.

For our table plan and naming tables. We have always loved going to concerts/gigs together, so as massive music lovers we opted for naming the tables after some of our favourite/meaningful songs to us.

OUR STATIONERY
Below is a list of the stationery I had planned for our wedding and on the day.

A2 Mounted Welcome Sign {unfortunately I had a problem, so we didn’t have this, but as we couldn’t get another in time, Bia was so hopeful still making something a couple of days before for us to use on the day}
A2 Mounted Table Plan
Order of Service
Menus
Place Names**
Table Names
Wedding Favours**
Signs ** For all the following – Flip Flops, Smore’s, Sweets/Dessert table {Haribo’s, Krispy Kremes, Cupcakes, Brownies), Guest Book, Cards & Memorial table.

*As we booked the wedding less than a year away, we didn’t bother with save the dates.
**These are all the things I made myself.

CANDLES
We loved the idea of shots for favours, but as this wasn’t allowed at our venue, we decided to go for candles. I absolutely LOVE candles and Mat loves moaning about my candle obsession, perfect haha. I used all the scents throughout the day and thought it would be nice for after the day and have loved seeing all our friends and family send us pictures of these lit at home.

If you would like to make candles for your wedding home or a gift. For 140 candles I used approx 10 1KG bags of soya wax and had these all scented in either Pomegranate, English Pear and Fressia or Vanilla. Once the candles were made, I labelled each with the candle stickers I designed these in Photoshop & then got these printed on Avery, where you can easily design on there too. I wrapped each candle in clear cellophane {using 2 rolls for 140}. Lastly, I tied each with white 7mm silk ribbon, which used 50 metres. If you would like a go at making candles, I have linked my blog post on what you need and how to make candles here: Blog post linked here.*

Candles
White Silk Ribbon: eBay
Cellophane: Hobbycraft
Candle Labels: Avery
Glass Vases: Hobbycraft
Smoked grey little vase: The White Company {these were from last summer and are no longer online}

*I did make candles as part of a paid partnership with Hobbycraft earlier this year, these were used for centrepieces. However, to be transparent I purchased everything from Hobbycraft myself to create the favours.

The venue had stipulated fresh petals must be used, which meant that on the morning the bridesmaids and I chopped up the white hydrangeas I bought from M&s and put these in the confetti bags I made. I couldn’t find vellum envelopes, personalised and not too large, therefore, I made these from Vellum Sheets. In hindsight, making these wasn’t cost-effective and I had a lot of ruined envelopes when stamping.

We had 140-day guests and I made 70 pouches and left the hydrangea petals in the bottom of the box to be used too.

NAPKINS
I love white linen napkins and I wanted a more rustic/ relaxed style napkin with a fringe edged. The cheapest ones I could find were £5 each, which seemed excessive on napkins for the number of guests, therefore, I decided to make these. I got the material from Ikea for only £3 per metre, I made 160 to allow for extras, which cost only £60 in total.

NAME SETTINGS
I love different textures, natural materials and creating something a little different, I saw some gorgeous capiz chandeliers where we got engaged {Blog linked here about our engagement if you would like a read} therefore, I thought this would also be a nice sentiment for us to that special trip. I used scissors to make the holes larger to thread the silk ribbon. I then wrote the names on the shells, using a fine sharpie {after much trial and error, as most ink wouldn’t stick} and lastly I then threaded the silk ribbon around each in a little bow. for 140 shells I used 30 metres of the 20mm natural silk ribbon.

Name Settings
White Silk Ribbon: Crafty Ribbons
Capiz Shells: Online Shells
Fine Permanent Pen: WHSmiths

I wanted something that wasn’t too distracted and blocking views, therefore either really high or very low. As the food was sociable style, all being served on platters to help yourself, I wanted everyone to be able to see chat/see one another. Therefore, I decided to go for a split of faux Olive trees and the other would have vases for bouquets. I made the green garlands from a couple of different garlands which I twisted together to make these look looser and less structured.

As we couldn’t set up everyhting the day before, I had done a practice set up and printed pictures in all the boxes for the venue (more in the below ‘day before images‘).

Mini White Easels: Gingeray Hobbycraft
Candle vases: Hobbycraft {how to make candles linked here}
White & grey pots: The White Company
Green Garlands: Country Basket
Candles: Jo Malone & The White Company
Glass Vases: Country Basket
Olive trees: Silk Flowers Deco Flora
Linen Hessian: Boyes
White hessian bow: Country Baskets

I wanted the top table decor to feel quite relaxed and nothing too formal and structured, but very English country with lots of different height vases amongst the stone candle pillars.

Mini White Easels: Gingeray Hobbycraft
White & grey pots: The White Company
Green Olive Garland: Country Basket
Candles: Jo Malone & The White Company
Glass Vases: Country Basket
Stone Candle Pillars:
Glass Vases: Arket

SWEET BAGS
I think a sweet table always goes down so well at a wedding, but in keeping with the style and theme of the wedding I decided to put the sweets into cello bags {to keep them fresh} which went inside the linen bags, which I stamped these with the personalised stamp I had made. I made up 120 bags and I think only a few came back, I was so happy to see they went down well! I’ve had friends and family send me pictures of them with these on their travels following our wedding, which is so nice too!

MINTS
I bought 2000 mini heart mints. I couldn’t find reasonably priced mini stickers therefore, I made these on Zazzle, but made the text a lot smaller so the stickers had a plain border and could be cut to size.

S’MORES
Everything I used to make up the S’mores packs listed below. As I couldn’t find graham crackers in the UK, I used Chocolate Leibniz which worked perfectly.

S’mores
Chocolate Leibniz: Sainsbury’s (but stocked in most Supermarkets)
S’more Love Personalised Stickers: Zazzle
Large Marshmallows: B&M
Sticks: Sainsbury’s