Paperless Wedding NZ

Real Wedding: Lindsay & Ben

2012-04-15T12:00:00.006-07:00

We helped Lindsay and Ben have a Paperless Wedding. This lovely couple used the full site offering including our gift list.

Lindsay sent us these fantastic photos. She also said, "So many people commented to us about how cool the whole Paperless Wedding things was and how easy they found to use the site/gift register etc. Thanks for being part of our day right from the start."
Our pleasure Lindsay and Ben. We wish all the happiness for your future lives together as Mr& Mrs!

Something Different #photos

2012-04-11T13:00:00.002-07:00

We all hope to capture that special moment of our big day in that perfect photo. You look for hours at other peoples wedding photos, in magazines and on TV and wonder what yours will be. You can spend thousands of pounds on a talented photographer but the photo you love the best was taken by your niece, is slightly blurred but captured that moment to perfection!

What makes a photo? Is it the staged one? Is it the timeless one? Is it the family one? Each person has their own idea, but in this short post I wanted to share with you some photos that have caught my eye on, you guessed it, Pinterest!

Lets start with the proposal.

Source: love-and-weddings.tumblr.com via Emma on Pinterest

This is a great black and white photo that makes you feel you are just glimpsing in at a very private moment.

Source: Uploaded by user via Emma on Pinterest

This one captures the atmosphere of the day. That is one very happy groom!

Source: Uploaded by user via Emma on Pinterest

Although a staged moment, it still symbolises love, the tone of the day and you can only guess what the newly weds are up to when it was taken! Below is another couple sealing the deal!

Source: jamesfrostphotoblog.com via Emma on Pinterest

Source: perspectives.co.nz via Emma on Pinterest

This is a fantastic shot by our friends at Perspective, I love the way it is framed by the sea. This photo then got me to thinking about Couples that use the frame within a frame idea. There are lots of photos around, but here are a few of my favourites.

Source: stuff.co.nz via Emma on Pinterest

And then this little of the children holding the frame.

Source: Uploaded by user via Emma on Pinterest

Now for a bit of fun!!

Source: junebugweddings.com via Emma on Pinterest

I hope you have enjoyed these photos. Do drop by our Facebook page and say hi. Let us know which one your liked the best or leave a comment below!

Website #Pinterest

2012-04-04T12:00:00.003-07:00

The latest social media craze has me hooked. I am a visual person and this way of collecting cool images and pinning them on a virtual pinboard makes me very excited.

Apparently I am the “typical’ user of this new social phenomenon. Ladies, between 25-34, are listed as being the highest users of the site. You have to be invited to join (which I did by tweeting on twitter that I wanted to join and someone sent me a link!)

So what does it mean to me?

Well we have just bought a house so we have a board for each room and I am collecting images of my dream furniture and accessories. It is so easy to use and I can search for what I am looking for within Pintrest, as well as pin from websites. Once it is pinned other people can "repin" on their boards and also comment on your pin.
I also love the fact that this links straight back to the website where the original image is kept. This then allows me to order it......if my husband lets me get hold of the credit card!

What does it mean to Paperless Wedding?

I am using it to gather images for my blog posts. I am also using it to promote our Paperless Wedding page by pinning images of invites and the wedding websites. It is working and we are having lots of new visitors to our site.

We are also having a lot more readers of this post too. So hello to any new visitors to the world of Paperless Wedding.

What does it mean to you?

If you want to join, drop us a line and I can send you an invite. You can start to build boards on dresses, decorations, hairstyles, cakes, the list can go on and on. They even have a topic called “wedding and events” so you can peruse a visual concoction of all things weddings there.

Theme of the Day - Flowering Hearts

2012-03-28T12:00:00.001-07:00

This lovely simple, fresh and clean design was done for us by Claire Hammon when we first launched Paperless Wedding by in 2009. It is a popular design I think because it can fit with many wedding themes.

Flowering Hearts

You can add your own personal touches to the website by adding photos and lots of details about your wedding. What about creating "your page" which allows you to name it to whatever you want. How about Engagement Story? Details about the accommodation, ideas for days out in the area etc.

We recently got asked by a couple how the invites worked. They had multiple events and were trying to create lots of different invitations and assign multiple invites to each guest. Paperless Wedding Invites work by adding events to a single invite. Each guest gets one invite with all the events they are invited too.

For example:

Invite Name: All Day (this title is not shown to the guests)
Events included : Ceremony, Reception and Evening Party

OR

Invite Name: The Whole Weekend (this title is not shown to the guests)
Events included : Welcome drinks, Pre wedding BBQ, Ceremony, Reception and Evening Party

We hope this helps show how flexible the options are!

Happy creating.

Traditions - Japanese Wedding

2012-03-21T12:00:00.002-07:00

A friend of mine got married recently in Japan. I was fascinated in the photos he sent through of his big day. They show the two cultures colliding and melding together to form a very special day steeped in tradition. Some of the traditions in Japan are borrowed from the west but altered in strange ways, while other customs are totally different from what we are used to.

According to Ed many Japanese couples go for a Christian-lite blessing at purpose-built wedding centres, Naomi and he wanted a traditional Shinto-style ceremony that takes place outside.

A Shinto shrine would have been the most picturesque place, but they didn't want to chance the weather (common problem no matter which country you are in!) They found a hotel with a shrine room where they could do both the ceremony and reception. Drinking Sake is a large part of the ceremony, which is perfect for any groom showing sign of nerves.

Naturally, they wore traditional dress. Naomi looked so elegant in her kimono, while Ed pulled off wearing a hakama, the male equivalent.

After the formality of the ceremony the relaxed atmosphere begins when the reception starts and they got chance to chat with all the friends and family who had come to wish them well. After the groom's welcome speech and toasts from guests (there's no custom here of a best man who divulges all your past misdemeanors, which was very lucky for Ed!), it was time to cut the cake. Ed mentioned it is common in Japan to cut the cake before dinner, which is also happening in the UK too.

Part way through the meal Naomi and Ed left the room for a costume change, which has become a feature of modern Japanese weddings. While they were away, the guests were entertained by a slide-show of photos from when they were little and some others that charted their relationship together. I love this touch because if you don’t know the other halve as well it is great to learn more about them.

It's not unlucky here for the groom to see the dress before the wedding – So in fact Ed went with Naomi to help pick it out – He assured me that seeing her wear it on the big day with the professional hair and make-up took his breath away. As they re-entered the room, all the camera flashes going off made them feel like film stars!

He said “It was a fantastic day - but all over so soon!”

I can empathize with that too. It is great to look back though and remember. They have some amazing photos and a lot of video to ensure they never forget!

Many thanks to Ed and Naomi for sharing their story and all the every best for the future!

Something Different #cakes

2012-03-14T12:00:00.005-07:00

In my post last month I wrote about how shoes can be a quirky and funky, also a way the bride and groom can reflect their personalities into the wedding. Since I have been using Pintrest, I have noticed lots of cakes that stand out for similar reasons. So I thought I would share some of my findings with you!

At Paperless Wedding we try and keep a lot of our designs local. Designs for the NZ bride and groom. Our Kiwi inspired themes of the beach, Maori and local nature, are often a hit. Here are a few themes with a matching cake!

Here is something very different!

We have also covered Vineyard themed weddings. Autumnal colours, grapes and wine. There are plenty of cakes to chose from with this them, but here is my favorite that I spotted.

Flowers are also a common theme for wedding cakes and you can go to different extremes from the elegant and simple to the over the top, but still pretty!

There is so much choice out there for you to choose from, if I had to do it again I don't know where I would start! These cakes caught my eye though.

Theme of the Day - Teal

2012-03-07T14:00:00.001-08:00

This design is one of Paperless Wedding's top 3 designs to date and it is also one of one of our very first designs that was every produced for us by Ruari McDowell. We wanted something that synonymous with Australasia. The Wax Eye is a beautiful small bird. Māori name, Tauhou, means "stranger" or more literally, "new arrival".

Source: google.ca via Mimi on Pinterest

This little white eyed bird was beautifully captured in this design looking at NZ's Christmas tree the Pohutukawa Tree. This tree was often seen in many of my photos while I was living in NZ.

The teal colour in the background has been a popular choice as a colour theme for summer weddings.

Source: theweddingcommunityblog.com via The on Pinterest

Stop by at Paperless Wedding check us out. Put together that perfect invite, email it out to all your guests and then watch the RSVP's come in through you personalised website.

Useful Apps #Diptic

2012-02-29T06:57:00.001-08:00

I love playing with photos and creating new looks and trying to make my posts on Facebook more interesting. My current favorite is Diptic. It is another app that is for the iPhone, so sorry to those android phone users. I promise to do a post that includes a cool app for them soon.

This app is great at gathering photos together to show a sequence of events, create a mood board or a creative way of showing something that was not interesting on its own. A ferry trip in Sydney and the amazing brunches in NZ are a perfect example of how I use it on a day to day basis.

I have also been using this app to gather ideas together ideas for new themes for Paperless Wedding.

They are all from photos I have taken while I have been traveling. The great thing is you can do this after the event and pull in photos that you took ages ago. It is very easy to do and links to photos on Facebook as well as photos stored on your phone. You have lots of different borders you can use and you can also put effects on them as well.

You could also use it to post pictures from your wedding or do it for someone else. Great creative!!

I have just done one now and got very sidetracked looking back through my own pictures of our Wedding back in 2008. Very happy memories!!

Do let me know if any other apps that you can recommend and I will cover them on here over the next few months.

Happy creating.

Women In Business – One job or two?

2012-02-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

I have just been reading an article in Psychologies, a UK monthly magazine, about careers and thought it would make a good post.

Choosing a career is a big decision. Some people are lucky enough to know what they want to do from an early age. Some people take time to find their niche in life. Some people are into a career and then something changes and they want to do something else and some people don’t want a career at all!

The question is can you do two careers? Or even three? Starting Paperless Wedding was not something I dreamed about all my life. My passion has always been to work in television. For over the last 10 years that is exactly what I have done. I have risen through the ranks of booking administrator to Head of Broadcast for a number of companies. Each role has been fulfilling and challenging and lead me to explore other countries ad cultures.

A lot of people catch the wedding bug and become inspired by all the beautiful things that going into making a wonderful wedding. We wanted to do something a bit different, online wedding invites and do a website. Jim’s passion was to eventually run his own business one day, after working for the same company for 10 years. We both wanted to travel and luckily my media job allowed us to do it all. Paperless Wedding was born in 2009.

Now the next chapter has begun and I want to embark on two careers. Jim has decided he is happier working for someone else and we are going to look for a new developer to support the site. I don’t want to lose touch with my media roots, but I do want to take control of our company. Make something of Paperless Wedding and launch it in the UK. I want to put all I have learned in management, planning and marketing a product into action. Can I do them both together?

The article has made me believe I can. I have two passions and that will keep me fresh and motivated and busy. I have worked out what important to me in terms of career.

“What does Success look like?” is what one boss used to always say. Is rising to the top of you profession what makes you successful or being fulfilled and challenged daily and having a good life/work balance?

We have to start creating our own definition of success. Watch out UK Paperless Wedding will be coming soon!....

……we have not even thrown child into the mix yet! Next chapter I think!

Useful Apps #Instagram

2012-02-15T01:23:00.001-08:00

I have been using this great app on my iphone to capture some great moments. What I love about it is that it makes a very ordinary picture look very arty and rather cool. As I travel around I capture these amazing sites.

A boat trip on the Thames in London

This was from our Anniversary as we looked out from the OXO Tower on the Southbank, London.

A trip to Harlam in the Netherlands let me capture this iconic shot.

Chilling out in Hong Kong waiting for the (rather average) laser show!

A quick stop for coffee on a road trip down to New Plymouth, NZ.

As you can see with the use of various filters and borders you can capture these great shots on your iphone while you are on the move. You can post them to Facebook or Twit them. This app would be great to use while you are at wedding, get your guests to post up to the minute shots for those that can't make it.

You can even use the app after the event and put these effects on shots you have in your library. So if you are waiting for that bus, train or plane, then go on and have a play. These are some I did for the wedding I just went to recently.

Something Different! #shoes

2012-02-08T00:04:00.000-08:00

We have been to several wedding over the last few months and I wanted to share with you two very cool pairs of shoes.

This pair had some really lovely fabric flowers attached to them They came to quite an usualy point at the front too. The bride did manage to wear them almost all day, then I latter spotted her in bear feet dancing and her bridesmaid (sister) wearing them!

The theme to this wedding was yellow and blue. The bride wore these fantastic bight blue shoes that matched the grooms waistcoat perfectly. She also wore a style of dress that I had not seen before but absolutely loved. It was designed just for her and came up at the front so the shoes were seen all the time. Brilliant!

(They also had a matching themed Paperless Wedding website and invites!!)

It does not have to be just the ladies that get to choose what shoes they wear. At 2 another weddings I went to the groom and groomsmen also got in on the action.

Then when I went online I just could not help posting some other really cool pictures of shoes that are a bit different!

Source: google.co.uk via Emma on Pinterest

So if choosing what to wear on your feet was not on the list, is it now? You can really make a statement about who you are on your feet too!

Women in Business Inspiration

2012-02-05T06:49:00.002-08:00

I wanted to share with you a great website that is helping me immensely get back on track with marketing Paperless Wedding online. If you are running your own business Clare's weekly newsletter from Women in Business and blog is very much worth a read.

Today I have planned and written my blog posts for the next month. I am really pleased with them. I have decided on a couple of regular themes. You will see monthly posts of quirky and cool wedding things, with this month being some great wedding shoes. I am going to follow this with fancy cakes and then clothes accessories for the big day.

I am going to cover cool apps and websites that have inspired and helped me personally and with the business. These can also be used to help couples plan their wedding, as well as being used on the day! This month will be my use of Instagram and it will be followed with Diptik, Pintrest and Twitter.

Of course I will continue to update you on new suppliers and new themes from Paperless Wedding and we do have one that will be coming soon from Stelloberrydesigns.

I am going to continue with my regular links to http://www.news.com.au/ and http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/weddings/ on Facebook and Twitter.

Now I have a plan I think I am going to be able to give you regualr posts that you will be able to find useful!

Enjoy!

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-02T10:13:00.000-08:00

2012 already? How did that happen?!

I trust you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year. We had a lovely Christmas and NYE with friends. It was funny as 3 years ago we spent NYE together, since then we have all married (or about to be) and there is a little one year old to add to the fun. A lot can happen in a short space of time!

So we had New Years day "off/recovering" but have spent Jan 2nd planning for Paperless 2012. What is there to look forward to.....

More blog posts!

Our bride from "musings of a bride to be" will be married at the end of the month, so we hope to hear from her.

More posts on traditions. Our most popular one of last year was Wedding Flowers.

Our Maori blog post is our most popular post of 2011 and so will look into more around this theme.

I also hope to look at weddings of different religions and countries. Destination weddings are where Paperless Wedding can help reduce paper and carbon emissions (posting letters abroad).

Themes

New beach themes
City themes - Auckland Skyline etc
Destination linked weddings - AU/SA/UK/Japan

Gift List

We have had the guest list on the site since we launched in 2009. We will be decommissioning this product in early 2012. We will honor all those couples who have it already activated, but for new couples this will not be an option. You will be able to create your own page with links to other websites, but we will not act as a wishing well anymore. Really sorry!

Thank you Emails

We will have a Thank you option made available later in 2012. This will allow you to follow through after your wedding, maintaining you eco theme.

Design

We will be launching in the UK and we are currently working on some major improvements on the site. These will then be launched in NZ.

If you would like to work with us in 2012, please don't hesitate to get in touch. We are always looking for new designs (especially if you have a 'green' ethos). Send us an email:

emma@paperlesswedding.com.au

Or leave a message below.

Have a fantastic 2012 one and all.

Em and Jim
x

More musings from a bride to be – Less than two months to go

2011-12-01T12:12:00.000-08:00

So we’ve survived a year of engagement and couldn’t be more excited about the impending nuptials. I’ve literally never used that term before in my life.

Over the past couple of weeks, as the realisation of how close we are to becoming husband and wife dawns, we have been trying to tick a number of things off our ever-growing ‘to do’ list. I’m proud to say we’re doing a good job. If only we could actually get our eating under control. It’s such a shock that we haven’t transformed ourselves into slim and toned figures of fitness and beauty you know, because we’ve been so dedicated to the cause. Oh wait, no we haven’t.

The dress is underway. I’ve had two fittings already, the first being a bit devastating. Make no mistake, my dress maker is exceptionally talented, however when not working from a pattern and just ‘my ideas’ and photos I’ve shown her, chances are the initial result isn’t going to hit the mark exactly. It would have been perfect if I was aiming for a ‘frumpy 55 year old’ look. Alas, no. Thank goodness it was in the mock up material and the second fitting wasn’t quite as depressing. I’m thoroughly looking forward to my next one, which I’m optimistically hoping will be perfect and that way she can start to create ‘the dress’.

My shoes are also looking good. I bought white ones and have dyed them and they’ve come up really well. Haven’t quite figured out what jewellery I’m going to wear yet, but will venture out on a girly shopping trip with mum during the New Year sales.

My future husband’s suit has also arrived and he looks just swanky in it. He also used a bout of 2am insomnia to produce a brilliant Groom’s speech just last week. He’s been unbelievably helpful and supportive and I don’t know how other bride’s cope doing all this stuff by themselves.

We had a wonderful meeting with the owners at the venue, who were so reassuring and lovely. It seemed to lift a bit of the weight off our shoulders, as almost everything we asked was met with “Oh, we take care of that for you.” Amazing!

We’ve both had our rings sized, which reminds me I need to go and collect mine.

Can you believe it too, we have also actually managed to finalise a seating plan! Surely it must be some kind of record. Usually one of the most stressful things was actually not that bad, thank goodness! Surely it has to be one of the benefits of a smaller wedding.

We also met with our photographer and his lovely assistant (two of our good friends), who made us feel less uptight about ‘posing’ for photos. We’ve already mapped out where to go at the venue and have been assured there will be alcohol as we roam around the grounds with our bridesmaid and groomsman. I’ve got to say as a lightweight, I’m a little worried I might return to the reception slightly more inebriated than I’d like to be if we’re relying on bubbles to ‘relax’ ourselves.

I think I’ve managed to finalise flowers too. I had a very helpful lady come back to me with a number of suggestions and I think I’m going to be able to get freesias in my posy – in Summer! Absolutely stoked!

We’re still working through our favours for people, which we are pretty excited about, however I think we’re set on our decorations for the tables now, which is good.

We are also blessed with a lovely friend’s expertise to help us design a couple of things for the wedding, which I’m sure will add to the feel of the day for our guests.

There’s still a lot to be done though, most importantly – getting through Christmas without outgrowing my dress!

Thankfully we both love Christmas, so the next month should hopefully be fun, and it’s nice that the summer weather is starting to show itself. We’ll just keep our fingers crossed for a beautiful sunny day in seven weeks and one day!!

3rd Wedding Anniversary

2011-10-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

I am a lucky lady! The wedding maybe over, but you can still celebrate its anniversary and remember what a fantastic day it was. We did that this week with a meal in the OXO Tower on London’s Southbank. This is not too far along the river from where our special day happened. It was lovely to be back in London.

My lovely husband kept with the traditions and gave me a pair of lovely leather gloves. Leather is traditionally what you give for 3 years. He has also arranged a “London Day” including breakfast in Spitalfield Market, The Lord Mayors Show, followed by Afternoon Tea at the Landmark Hotel. As I said at the start, I am a lucky lady.

Our first anniversary was in a Bach in the Coromandel and the 2^nd with our good friends in Sydney. Once again we have packed so much into our 3^rd year of marriage. More than most! We have explored Australia with highlights being Byron Bay, Ayres Rock and Cairns.

We have grown Paperless Wedding in Australia and we are now providing wedding websites and invites for couples across the country. This last weekend we had 3 big weddings and all of them used our wedding gift list too!

We have moved countries again, this time back to the UK. That has been a country a year since we have married, so I think we might stay put for a while!! We are going to continue to offer bespoke services to both Australia and New Zealand from here, as well as launch a UK business. Our aim is to ensure that we keep the themes, stories, tweets and Facebook updates relevant to each country. We understand that each country has different cultures, styles and trends so we hope to keep up to date with them.

What will this year bring? We hope this year will be the year of partnerships. We are going to offer more themes and work closely with local vendors who offer ‘eco friendly’ wedding accessories including; place names, sitting plans and orders of service. It means you can keep the theme throughout the wedding. We also hope to add some new features to the site and improved functionality.

So let the 4^th year begin!

Inspiration for the year to come

2011-10-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic night last night! I bet you are all exhausted with the excitement of the World Cup. I am not really a big sport fan, but you can't help getting swept up in it all.

We recently just celebrated our 2nd Year of business in NZ, well I say celebrated, we kinda missed it!! Things have been so hectic that the date actually just passed us by. A good sign that things are busy and that Eco/digital couples are using Paperless Wedding.

As we enter another year we want to get more designs that are synonymous with New Zealand. We are going to be working with some great local designers such as Cocoa Berry and Claire Hammon to ensure we give you some more fab NZ influenced templates.

Cocoa Berry will be our first new design off the rank. They will get a blog post all of their own very shortly, but a quick summary is they offer some great designs with some perfectly matching order of services; menus; place names; table numbers; seating charts; and thank you cards. Our website will help complement this selection of essential wedding requirements.

We will be also looking to add some themes that have a distinct Maori touch. Our highest hitting blog post of last year was the one about Maori traditions. That tells us it is something you are interested in and so we hope we can give you a little more choice in that area.

All these photos were taken by Jim and I are we traveled around NZ. So much scenery, flora and forna that we can't fail to run out of inspiration! If you have something that you want to share with us get in touch and leave us a comment. Let us know what you think of when you think of NZ.....don't say the Rugby World Cup!!

Theme of the Day – Topical Beach

2011-10-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

Our tropical themes are popular for the destination weddings. We have couples getting married in Rarotonga, Hawaii, Sumoa and Bali using this theme. We wanted something that captured the idyllic beaches that personifies the beach wedding.

This one was designed by Ruari of The Department of Design

We also did our own theme using a photo we took when we were on a beach in Thailand. This was actually our first ever design that we did and was used by our first couple Dave and Rose for their wedding Ko Samui, Thailand.

Theme of the Day - "Orchid"

2011-08-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

On our blog the traditions behind wedding flowers post is one of our more popular reads. We know that flowers are a big part in most couples wedding. When we commissioned this design we knew it would be a hit and it was!

I found a great blog called Wedding Flowers Guide that gave a bit more detail about the orchid and its meanings.

Orchids used to be a sign of wealth and social standing, at least here in the UK. That's because it was so expensive to cultivate the flowers in this country. Now it is possible to import orchids from overseas so you don't need to be a millionaire to look a million dollars.

There are a number of orchids that are used at weddings. One of the most popular is the cymbidium orchid. These gorgeous flowers have large heads and there are white, yellow, pink and pale green varieties.

They have robust waxy petals, which are more resistant to drying out than other flowers. This can be important if you have a wired bridal bouquet and you are concerned that it may dry out on a hot summer's day. Cymbidium orchids are the most wilt-resistant flowers that I know. You could even cut some flower heads and lay them on the tables at a reception, to make a quick, natural and colourful table decoration.

As the blog mentions there are many colours of Orchid, so we added an option to be able to have a yellow theme or white themed wedding wesbite.

This design was done by Ruari at The Department of Design and again his attention to detail and composition make this a really great choice for a Paperless Wedding!

Paperless in Print!

2011-07-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

We are a small company with big ideas. Over the last 6 months I have been seeking out people who will help spread the word of our company. In the last few weeks that has happened and we have had support from two great magazines.

White Magazine were the first to support us and featured us in there section on "What is Hot." We were thrilled with the piece that was written and the how the logo looked. We also offered a prize to a lucky reader who sent in there thoughts on what marriage meant.

This is how it looked on the "Whats hot eco speical page," and below is what it says.

We also then appeared in there next edition when they published all the answers to the competition. It was really nice to read what everyone wrote.

A huge thank you to Carla and the White Magazine and we hope we can work together again in the future.

Our next bit of Magazine coverage was in Cosmopolitan Bride. We were in the Winter AND the Spring editions. In both magazines they mention Paperless Wedding as being an option for alternative wedding invitations or wedding website.

This article covered the budget wedding and how to save money doing things a little bit differently. Cosmo recommendation column recommends using us! Email wedding invites save a couple a lot of money (and a tree!). The average invite costs around $5 and the average price for a wedding is around $500 and then add to that the cost of posting. For $115 you get the whole lot. Bargain indeed! Check it out here for more details.

As you can see this article in the spring edition covered the etiquette and the Royal Wedding. We were mentioned as an option for Wedding Websites.

We do find a lot of people sign up to us via our Facebook fan page. The bride that is often on Facebook, Youtube and twitter, we believe will be more open to the idea of a digital wedding!

Do let us know what you think!

Theme of the Day - "Floral Elegance"

2011-07-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

Our Floral Elegance design has been very popular on Save the Date invites and for evening weddings. This design was done by a friend of Ruari's (Department of Design) and she lives in the lovely town of Titarangi outside Auckland with her husband and 2 small children.

Ronja hails from an advertising and illustration back ground and did a couple of designs for us in our early days. This is the more popular of her 2 designs. She also did "Kiss the Bride' and "Cloud 9".

Black bridesmaid dresses are becoming very popular at weddings. My cousin, who married in Red, had bridesmaids in black. This design would have gone really well with her theme!

Theme of the Day - "Formal Swirls"

2011-07-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have received lots of paper invites and a common theme was embossed swirls. I do like the simplicity and the cleanness of this design. We met Claire Hammon in a nice little coffee shop in Auckland to talk about ideas. Claire runs her own design company and since we have known her she has married and had a baby. She is a busy lady!

Jim was able to alter the colours of the this design so couples have the option to find the right colour for their wedding.

The black is looks very classy and stands out. It could be good for an evening event too!

My cousin Donna actually used our site for her wedding last year and she used this lovely green designs.

Theme of the Day - "Vineyard"

2011-07-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

There are so many beautiful wine regions on both the north and south island. I loved the Kumeu Wine region when we lived in Auckland. There are so many lovely places for weddings around here. There was always something going on at Soljans and I also love wine from Matua. The other place that did fantastic tastings was Kerr Farm Winery and I hear they do great pizza too!

Only a short ferry ride and you are over at Waiheke Island where there are so many vineyards to choose from! The below shot was taken while we had dinner at Mudbrick which would be a stunning location for wedding. The views are spectacular.

I thought I would write about the ones near Auckland as I often feel that they are missed out when people talk about the great wines of NZ. I love the fact they were just on our doorstep!

So to the 'Theme of the Day'! We had to have a Vineyard theme with so many amazing venue options in NZ being vineyards. This design was done by an Aussie designer called Lyndsay Meager Sann who launched her own boutique studio, Its a Date Design, in January of 2008, concentrating on graphic design, illustration and paper craft for all kinds of special occasions. Paperless Wedding LOVED her style and it was really different to other designs on the site.

We actually hooked up thanks to the wonders of Twitter. We put a shout out for designers and Lydnsay got in touch. We then lined up a Skype call and away we went.

I love the way she combined the chandelier and grapes together. It is was just the kind of thing we were looking for!

Thanks Lyndsay.

Theme of the Day - "On the Beach"

2011-07-14T20:08:00.000-07:00

This is one of the very first designs that we had done for Paperless Wedding and it was produced by Ruari McDowal of Department of Design. Ruari is the designer behind the whole of Paperless Wedding and has been a fantastic to work with.

Ruari saw our first effort and then showed us how it should be done. Ruari lived in Titarangi, just outside Auckland and so had a great affinity with what would appeal to the NZ couple. The beach is a massive part of Kiwi culture. Ruari captured a NZ beach to perfection in one of his many fine photos. He then just needed to manipulate it to fit the templates.

The invite has the lovely swirls with the Koru curl and is a popular choice for our FREE save the date option. The challenge with all the invites is to get a design that allows couples to write as much as they want. The top section is locked in and then it moves onto a white background so the couple can add as many events as they want. I have seen as many as 8 different events!

This invite then is sent to guests via email. They click on the RSVP heart and it links them to the website to enter their RSVP response in.

The website shows the great photo of the beach on a bright spring morning. The background is a repeat pattern of sand. The repeat pattern allows couples to add additional pages and expand this page downwards.

When looking at other company sites I have noticed they always put wedding photos on the site. We had done it too, but it has struck me that of course a couples website would not look like that....seeing that they are not married yet! This screenshot is how it might look instead.

This design has been one of more popular designs and a personal favorite of mine!

Traditions - The colour of the wedding dress!

2011-07-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

"Married in white, you will have chosen all right. Married in grey , you will go far away. Married in black, you will wish yourself back. Married in red, you’ll wish yourself dead. Married in blue, you will always be true. Married in pearl, you’ll live in a whirl. Married in green, ashamed to be seen, Married in yellow, ashamed of the fellow. Married in brown, you’ll live out of town. Married in pink, your spirits will sink.”

This old poem reflects some of the early thoughts on the colour of young girls wedding dresses. You can also see wedding dresses have not always been white!

White has always symbolised virginity and purity but the impracticalities of a white dress were apparent and so dresses with colours that were acceptable as 'best' dresses for regular use afterwards were preferred.

The wedding of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert in 1840 was the main influence towards the current trend of white wedding dresses but even then many women continued for some time to wear different colours.

Queen Victoria was also the first bride to have bridesmaids carrying her train.

If a bride was in mourning it was considered appropriate for her to wear grey or lilac…black was considered bad luck.

Above is a blue dress (as worn by a bride of 1870, left, whose gown is in the London Museum), it's colour is said to have associations with the Virgin Mary. For some blue was the colour of choice as it represented faithfulness and true love but as the fashion changed a blue token was worn by the bride and retained as a symbol…something borrowed, something blue!

By the 1920s white became the universal colour and Coco Chanel introduced the knee length wedding dress worn with a long train. It was a fashion that was short lived as it was considered unsuitable wear for church and thereafter the long bridal skirt has remained no matter what length of skirt was the norm for that time!

The current fashion trends are often reflected in the royal weddings of the day.

This is the wedding photograph of the Duke and Duchess of York on their wedding day January 13 1923. The dress was designed by Madame Handley Seymour, a former London court dressmaker to the dowager Queen Mary. The dress followed the essential fashions of the day, but has never been considered memorable for its beauty. It had an unshaped bodice and a headdress worn well down over the brow.

The Queen's dress for her marriage to Philip Mountbatten took place at Westminster Abbey had lots of beading and embroidery and a long silk veil and train.

WW2 brought about a change for many women as rationing restricted what the bride could buy with her coupons and often family and friends would chip in to help out . The bride may have borrowed a dress from a friend. Sometimes if she was in the services she may have married in her uniform.

In 1956 the film star Grace Kelly married Princes Rainier of Monaco. This dress was a lot more simple in style and has been compared to the most recent dress worn by Kate Middleton.

Princess Margret's stunningly tailored Sixties gown also reflected its time in history and was also very simple. White silk organza with a satin-bound silk tulle veil and not a stitch of embroidery in sight. Surprising that it was also designed by her sisters wedding gown designer. The whole design was made to accommodate the princess's short stature!

On a decade and to Princess Anne’s Tudor styled sleeves that led the way to another era of wedding dresses.

My childhood favorite was Princess Diana’s extravagant bouffant dress with a long train. Every little girls dream. It was again a dress of its time and is summed up perfectly by this blog Order of splendor.

"Lady Diana Spencer was just 20 years old when she married Prince Charles in front of a congregation of 3,500 in St. Paul's Cathedral, gathered crowds of 600,000 in the streets of London, and a television audience of 750 million around the world. She was just 19 years old, actually, when the engagement was announced and the dress design began.

And what do you do when you are 19 years old? You experiment with fashion. Nineteen and twenty are prime ages for trends. You’re much too young to have a defined personal style (at least, not one that you’ll hold on to past the next decade of your life), and you’re still too inexperienced to understand the meaning of elegance in its true, timeless form. Of course this dress is Eighties-orrific. Of course she looked like a girl all dressed up in a fancy party dress. That’s what she was! We judge the dress from today’s standards (even Diana did, later on in her life), but we often forget to consider what this dress was in the context of its time. This wedding was an event. The dress, accordingly, was also an event. This is one instance in which the gasp factor as she came out of the carriage was fully realized."

Today’s brides choose dresses to reflect their personalities or to fit in with a theme they have chosen and the dresses are not always white! Whatever the colour or shape every young girl imagines her fairy tale dress!

More musings from a bride to be - Who will marry us?

2011-05-22T01:06:00.001-07:00

Choosing a wedding celebrant is a strange thing to do. Having never been married before, it’s one of those new experiences that you find yourself faced with and unsure how to approach. There are so many people out there, but you have no idea who they are – how do you know if they are the ‘right’ person to marry you? Aside from judging a photograph and a brief blurb on their website – you’re given little indication whether you will ‘click’ with them and if they’ll understand who you are as a couple.

Feel slightly embarrassed, I decided to go down the track of sending out a few e-mails with a few questions to suss out who these people were. My fiancé is still hassling me that I ‘screened’ potential celebrants, but I think he now admits it was a smart way of going about it. Sure, it felt a bit weird doing it, but we don’t have time to meet loads of people – we needed some way of ruling out the ‘weirdos’. The first cut was ruling out anyone with a giant fascinator in their hair. We’ve seen some shockers over the past couple of years; the best, I swear was an oversized Christmas decoration from the 1980s. We also decided we wanted someone a bit younger than the average aged celebrant. While I’m sure there are some lovely ladies in their sixties who are very experienced at marrying couples – I’ve seen too many of them put on ‘easy listening love songs til midnight fm’ voices and slip into autopilot, spilling out clichés every 20 seconds. We wanted someone with a bit of a fresher approach, someone who had a more contemporary attitude and understanding of a relationship in 2011.

I e-mailed five younger looking celebrants, two of whom came back saying they weren’t available on our date (which was helpful to at least start cutting people out), one came back with some strange answers to the questions (which proved the questionnaire worked a treat – screening out someone who thought ‘Te Radar’ was funny), and two lovely women took the time to answer the questionnaire in a way that made us think that we’d like to meet up with them to find out more.

The first lady was nice. My fiancé thought she felt like she was being interviewed, but honestly – we just wanted to have a laid back conversation, a few laughs and get to know her. She seemed quite business-like and had a competitive edge to her that didn’t sit overly well with me. It wasn’t as if we didn’t like her – we just didn’t ‘click’ with her the way we were hoping to with someone.

So we had one more lady to meet. Goodness knows if she’d be any better than the first lady – maybe we were going to have to settle for the first celebrant, maybe we’d have to find some others to meet with.....

We arrived at the second celebrant’s house and both fell in love with her cat. Apart from him attacking my hand at one point – he was incredibly cute. Aside from the feisty feline, it didn’t take us too long to realise that the conversation was flowing freely and we were laughing heaps, sharing stories and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. My fiancé and I snuck a look to each other at one point and agreed that she was the one. She was just lovely – funny, laid back, intelligent.... I knew we’d been there for a while, but after we left, I realised we’d spent two hours there. Oops! Poor lady, but how lovely of her to spend the time with us. We were both so excited that we clicked with her and actually just wanted to continue hanging out with her because she was so nice and easy to be around.

She loves the fact that we are going to personalise the ceremony and that we are both so involved. I think we will really enjoy the process with her, and I know she’ll be a calming influence on us both on the day. She helped us get excited about our wedding planning again and has allowed us to tick another big thing off our ‘to-do’ list.

We just can’t wait to see her again!