Firstly, huge apologies for not posting last week…there is no excuse other than to say that as May creeps up on us, we are heading into a seriously busy period of planning, and as such our blogging habits are taking a bit of a backseat. However, we’re back today with a weekly dose of pretty and we’re bringing you four beautiful bits of wedding day inspiration from around the world wide web.

So, to kick things off…

Source | Alyssa Schroeder Photography via SMP

There are two things which we love about this image…firstly, the ceremony set-up. It is becoming more and more common for couples to veer away from the traditional theatre style seating at weddings and we are starting to see more unusual seating patterns – from ceremonies in the round, to seating such as this, whereby guests face into the aisle and therefore get prime viewing as the bride makes her entrance. We also love the simple but effective aisle decor. It is not uncommon to see candles and heavy petalling adorn an aisle-way but this is a really beautiful idea which sees the aisle lined with mason jars full of bold and beautiful blooms.

Source | My Blonde Ambitions

We are becoming increasingly obsessed with fun furniture here at Just Bespoke HQ – maybe it is because we’ve been doing a lot of furniture research in the last couple of weeks! However, we love this idea for an intimate wedding breakfast – creating some colour by using mis-matched multi-hued chairs for guests to sit on. This could be used for the main meal or if you are having a large number of guests and budgets are limited, you could create outdoor seating areas during for guests to use during the drinks reception applying the same principles. It is a really eye-catching decor idea and very easy to execute.

Source | Photography by Caspix via Ruffled

When we saw this wedding it shouted out to us…we love the bright acidic hues complemented with the sultry and earthy tones of the bride’s floral crown. In fact, everything about this colour palette and the bride’s and bridesmaids’ styling is really stunning. This would be perfect for a relaxed but stylish summer wedding.

Source | A Cup Of Jo

And finally…our favourite find of the week! Wildflower ice cubes…need we say more?! These would fit nicely with a summer garden party, an outdoor wedding, or just as a cute surprise for dinner party guests. Simple to make, beautiful to look at, and a real talking point! We will definitely be making some of these over the summer months!

What have you found as you’ve been searching the web this week? And fantastic finds for your own wedding day? Please do drop us a comment below – we’d love to hear from you.

Earlier this week we showed you our inspiration for the Fifth Avenue styling at the Miss Bush Bridal, Postcard From New York event. Today, it’s all about Tribeca.

As a big fan of New York, having been lucky enough to visit it on numerous occasions, I knew that it would be impossible to hold an event without showcasing the diversity the city has to offer so I started to think about an area which was a direct contrast to the upmarket and elegant blocks around Fifth Avenue.

Tribeca
When I go to New York, I stay at The Greenwich in the heart of Tribeca and I knew this area would be a great focus for our second room in the boutique. It is bold yet understated, fashionable yet not mainstream, edgy and experimental – offering lots of flexibility to be creative and push the boundaries.

The styling for Tribeca needed to pack more punch so a colour scheme of bright yellow, dark grey and black seemed totally appropriate, along with a more modern and contemporary aesthetic.

Again, official photos from super snapper Juliet McKee will follow soon, showing the Tribeca styling in all it’s fine detail, so keep checking back for updates!

Credits
Clockwise from top left
Landmarc | Food Comas
Hanging florals | Beyond Beyond
Tablescape | Jet Fete
Tassels | Everly Lane Design
Cupcakes & Choc Sticks | Amy Atlas
Stationery | Indigo Bunting

The lovely sunshine over the last week has got us in the mood for summer…crisp whites, peachy pastels and a few pops of colour thrown in for good measure!

With that in mind, this week’s mid-week musings focus on wedding inspiration in the form of the pale and delicate…from bouquets of flowers to sweet treats…

So, feast your eyes on our latest wedding day style and design finds from around the web…

Source | Colin Cowie

I love the delicate look and feel of these dainty bud vases, overflowing with succulent florals, serving as a unique and pretty escort table. This is a really simple and eye-catching way to display guest names and table numbers and it is very cost-effective as well. The soft, pale pinks are so romantic and contrast well with the delicate bud vases.

Source | Style Me Pretty

Flowers are one of my favourite aspects of a wedding as I think they really add to the look and feel of the day. However, they don’t need to cost the earth as this home-made beautiful bouquet goes to show. The flowers are blooming and look and feel full of life.  And what’s more, the shades of pink, cream and green all complement each other perfectly.

Source | Maggie Austin Cake

This bright white asymmetrical cake is so delicate and beautiful. The pearl detailing around the base of each tier is stunning in itself and then the complete pearl tier gives it some additional luxe which is topped off with the beautiful white chocolate floral topper. This cake would work really well at a summer wedding to complement a soft pastel colour scheme – it could be a real focal point.

So, what do you think? Are you a fan of delicate and romantic pastels, or do you prefer a bolder and brighter colour scheme? We’d love to hear about your own wedding day and the style and design ideas which you have come up with so please do leave us a comment below.

The concept
When I first received the phone call from Emma at Miss Bush, she talked to me about Park Avenue Princesses oozing elegance and style in a palette of grey and yellow. I immediately loved the sound of her vision and a million and one ideas started to form about how we could carry this off.

As always, I let the ideas mull around in my head for a bit and started to collect inspiration from around the web and it dawned on me that we could have lots of fun with the New York theme and the contemporary colour palette.

It was about a week later that the Fifth Avenue and Tribeca styles began to clearly form and I started to work up ideas for both of the concepts in order to create two distinct rooms in the boutique, showcasing style and design ideas for each, from a range of suppliers.

Fifth Avenue
I wanted Fifth Avenue to represent the luxe and stylish side of New York. It needed to be soft, elegant and feminine, whilst also offering ideas which were accessible to all.

I started to research ideas and a clear colour scheme began to form…light grey, pale yellow, and some texture thrown in for good measure…

I hope to be able to share the photographs taken by the very talented Juliet McKee very soon, which show the room design – from tablescape to supplier displays – in minutae detail, as well as providing more detail on all of the suppliers involved…but for a great overview, head on over to Rock My Wedding.

I hope you like it!

Credits
Clockwise from top left…
Louis Vuitton Ad Campaign | MPLS St Paul
Bedroom Mirror & Curtains | Design Sponge
Charger Plate | Zara Home
Calligraphy | The Left Hand Calligrapher
Macarons | Mactweets
Tablescape | Reverie Magazine

A couple of weeks ago we told you about an exciting event that we were part of at Miss Bush Bridal in Ripley, Surrey to celebrate the arrival of JLM Couture bridal wear to the popular boutique.

Our role was to manage and style the event – taking care of everything from inviting the media and bloggers, coordinating the amazing supplier dream team, and ensuring that we translated Emma’s vision of bringing a slice of New York to the streets of Surrey – no small task then!

The event has already been featured on Rock My Wedding but we thought we’d share with you an insight into our design process and what inspired the various spaces in the boutique…

We approached the event in exactly the same way that we approach a wedding…taking a vision and transforming it into a reality and as Emma had a very clear idea of what she wanted, this made our job a lot easier. She gave us the space to develop our ideas – trusting our decisions and allowing us to simply get on with the task in hand.

So…we knew that the event would be attended by brides keen to see the latest fashions from JLM Couture. However, we also had plenty of the industry’s finest, volunteering to provide their services to give guests inspiration and ideas for their wedding day, beyond their dress and accessories.

With this in mind, we decided to really maximise the space upstairs in the boutique and showcase two very distinct styles which represented two very different sides of New York. We wanted to be elegant and stylish, and edgy and contemporary…so we used the upmarket streets surrounding Fifth Avenue as our inspiration for one, and the fashionable and artistic area of Tribeca for the other…

This gave us a great starting point…the next job was to develop the spaces…

Credits
Fifth Avenue | Essential New York City Guide
Tribeca | David Leventi Photography

So, after a hectic few weeks when we were immersed in all things New York, Friday saw the hugely anticipated Postcard from New York event take place at Miss Bush Bridal. It was a great event (if we do say so ourselves!) which included a styled shoot, a fashion show, and loads of styling inspiration. In case you missed it, take a look at what Rock My Wedding had to say about the event on their latest blog post.

However, despite juggling this and some beautiful client weddings, we’ve still had chance to find our weekly fix of ideas, inspiration and interesting finds to help couples looking for some wedding day style and design ideas.

Source | Style Me Pretty

Brides are getting even more creative when it comes to asking their friends / siblings to be their bridesmaids. We’ve seen bridesmaid cards, jewellery and small gifts exchanged when it comes to asking the question, but we love this novel ‘Be My Maid’ box. Complete with details on the wedding, the other girls in the bridal party, their roles – and most importantly their outfits – this box is a great little keepsake for your future bridesmaids and you can have lots of fun making it in the process.

Source | Bustle Events

Using flowers to accessorise your hair on your wedding day has been popular for years, however we are starting to see hairstyles becoming more and more influenced by what is seen on the catwalks. This beautiful up-do, interspersed with a range of different types and colours of flowers, is a very fashion-forward look but is yet subtle and beautiful at the same time. We love it.

Source | Inspired By This

There is something about this colour scheme that makes us smile. It is rich, playful and also extremely eye-catching and we love the use of the emerald glasses to really finish off the tablescape. The black and white stripes remind us of humbug sweets and contrast beautifully with the bold emerald hues throughout…beautiful!

So, what do you think? How will you be asking your maid’s to join you on your special day? Are you planning on mixing pattern and colour to create a captivating tablescape? Or perhaps you’re planning on adding a bit of floral flair to your hair on your big day…drop us a comment in the box below…we’d love to hear from you!

As a wedding planner, it is always good to have an understanding of how brides and grooms are planning their weddings – not only here in the UK but around the world. With this in mind, Liene Stevens from Splendid Communications in the States is conducting a worldwide wedding survey to better understand the decisions made by Brides and Grooms when it comes to their wedding day.

The survey looks at everything from what tools you use to plan your wedding and where you go to find inspiration, to what influences you when selecting suppliers and what budget you set aside for your wedding day.

The survey is open to anyone who got married in 2007 or later, or who is currently planning on tying the knot, so we would love for you to get involved and share your responses with us. The survey is totally anonymous but will help us to get a clearer understanding of how you plan your wedding so that we can provide services which reflect your decision-making and better answer your needs.

If you want to take part, please click here and we look forward to sharing the results with you in due course.

In the meantime, enjoy the sunshine and happy planning…!

With just two days to go until the ‘Postcard from New York’ event at Miss Bush Bridal, there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get through our normal workload and keep up with all of the pretty that is on the web.

However, we’ve got our top three finds of wedding inspiration to feast your eyes upon for another week…so, without further ado…

Source | Design Mom

I love the idea of bright tablescapes and these DIY polka dot napkins are a great way of adding colour to your place settings without costing a fortune. You can choose linens to complement your colour scheme and even change the colour of the spots. Why not have some fun in the process and invite your bridesmaids over for an afternoon of crafting before the big day as well…the more the merrier!

Source | A little sparkle on the side

This wedding is the ultimate in dreamy. I love everything about it – from the simple grass floor and complementing olive and brown table linens, to the floral pops in pink, purple and blue, the romantic lighting and the natural trees. Love it…

Source | Belle the Magazine

I talk a lot about utilising ceilings to create a focal point, encouraging guests to look up and not just at what is directly in front of them. Whether it is gobo lighting, hanging decor or fancy florals. And this particular wedding does it so well. I love the ceiling florals combined with the beautiful centrepieces – it is simply stunning.

Have you seen anything on the web this week that has inspired an element of your own wedding day? What are your favourite sites for inspiration? I’d love to hear from you!

Wedding planning in the UK is a constantly growing industry and here at Just Bespoke we are always looking to increase our knowledge, meet suppliers and improve our business in order to provide a first class, professional and knowledgable service to our clients.

With this in mind, over the last two weeks we have been back to school. Most recently attending Blogshop in London to learn the basics and more of Photoshop to help improve our website and blog and increase our design knowledge and know-how for our clients. And, the previous week, we spent two days in the company of fellow members of the UK Alliance of Wedding Planners at the annual Wedding Planning Excellence Seminar.

A big part of my job is to make the ordinary extraordinary and as Preston Bailey puts it ‘create affordable dreams’. To do this, I am forever searching for inspiration and ideas and many of these come from across the atlantic as the American wedding industry is still more advanced compared to here in the UK.

So, I was really pleased to be able to hear from Whitney Wing-Drake, a US wedding planner who runs Wish Wonder Dream in California, at WPE’12. Whitney gave us the low-down on US wedding trends so that we know what to look out for in the months ahead.

Key Trends…

Burlap
Burlap (or hessian) is becoming a popular choice of material in US weddings. Teamed with lace to create a rustic-feel tablescape, used as ties for floral bouquets, and not forgetting burlap favour bags.

Cake Toppers
Having a cake topper on your wedding cake used to be quite one dimensional…a slightly tacking-looking figurine of a bride and groom. However 2012 is all about the custom cake-topper – from laser-cut wording and perspex figures, to unusual objects and fancy shapes – what’s on top of your cake is a big focus this year.

Itineraries
As a big lover of stationery and printed goods at weddings, I was quite upset when Whitney said that the traditional Order of Service was becoming less common at ceremonies over in the States. However, while we may be waving goodbye to ceremony programmes, we are welcoming wedding itineraries in all shapes, prints and sizes, which detail the wedding party but also double-up as an itinerary for guests so that they know what to expect during the day.

First Look
As a big reader of the US blogs, I became familiar with this term earlier last year however it appears that ‘First Looks’ are definitely on the increase for American couples. The concept is simple – the bride and groom choose to see each other, in private, before the ceremony and have it captured in photos. As these become more common-place, couples are becoming more creative regarding how they create their ‘First Look’ making for some really lovely imagery.

In the Round
Last year I planned the wedding of an American couple here in the UK and they elected to have a ‘Ceremony in the Round’. This is a great idea as it puts the bride and groom in the centre of a circle of chairs as they take their vows, enabling all of the guests to have a prime viewing spot during the ceremony and ensuring that the couple remain the total focus throughout.

Bistro Lighting
Couples are opting for urban and rustic decor for their weddings with a big increase in the number of weddings taking place under the beam of bistro lights – bare bulbs strung from trees, beams and ceilings – to create an intimate and romantic atmosphere for the ceremony and wedding breakfast.

Tiffany shared a number of other US wedding trends which we’ll be posting here on the blog in April so be sure to come back then to see what other style and design ideas are proving popular at weddings in the US this year.

Credits
Burlap | Ruffled
Custom | Miss Cake
Itineraries | Under Consideration
First Look | Next Exit Photography via Wedding Bee
In the round | Tony Page
Bistro | Beyond Beyond

Weekly wedding inspiration from around the web

This week we’ve been doing lots of research for upcoming client weddings, and during our hours on the web we’ve come across some amazing wedding day inspiration to share for this week’s mid-week musings.

Source | Style Me Pretty

Creating memorable touches on your wedding day doesn’t have to mean grand gestures, huge expense and complicated design. This cake table is a perfect example. Positioning it underneath an existing light, decorated with ribbons and flowers, and surrounded by tealights, creates a focal point and dresses up the simple white cake to make it really eye-catching and even more beautiful. Remember though, certain cakes are more prone to melting than others so be careful of the light strength to avoid a cake disaster!

Source | The Guardian

This is such a novel idea for a canopy which would make a beautiful backdrop for an outdoors wedding, a modern take on the traditional chuppah or mandap, or even just a decorative feature for guests to marvel at. There are lots of ways to customise the canopy – using different coloured balloons and statement fabric for example. This is totally dreamy…

Source | This is Glamorous

Chanel is the epitome of class in our humble opinion and when we saw these pearl-pinned models from their latest catwalk show we felt that it was the perfect look for wedding day style. We are especially loving the pearl back train…perfect for backless or low-cut wedding dresses to add some more detailing. Love. Love. Love.