I    WANT    HER    DRESS.


and her shoes.


and the umbrella.


and the rooftop.


and might as well throw in his hat for good measure.


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how fabulous is their paper flower arch??

and dudes, they got married in a trolley barn.

wedding jealousies all over the place here.

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bow-ties are awesome.

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oh yes.

these will be happening.

along with bocce, ping pong and taking over the giant chessboard on the inn's grounds.

we see the open bar as an added asset here. (and is also why we are not having horseshoes...)

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eye candy!

of the friend and familial variety!

photographs of parent's 80's wedding!

woohoo!

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I am not a huge fan of the plastic-coated fabric tent aesthetic, which is unfortunately what we are going to have.
so I have been trying to find ideas to brighten up said tent and give it some design flair.
me = architect. can't help it.

paper lanterns in bold colours has always been on the list as possible decorations, so it's nice to see they look just as good in a plastic tent setting as they do in an old rustic wooden barn setting.

anybody who may happen to read this in passing have any other good ideas to make the plastic tent look less like a plastic tent? appreciate all suggestions.

for one thing, we will not be having to faux ballroom window sides hooked up...

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umberellas...ellas...ellas...ellas.

[finally heard that song couple weeks ago. (yeah, I'm a little behind the times.) and now it's stuck in my head...]

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dude!

or something like this dress.

can't decide between long or short?
check it.

phase one: long flowy dress for the ceremony. whimsical, romantic, get to do fun twirly spins and make the skirt poof out.

phase two: remove the full skirt to reveal the short dress for the par-tay! classic, sassy, get to show off your inevitably fabulous shoes.


brilliant.

and the best part?
(are you ready for your collective minds to be blown?)




IT'S GOT POCKETS!!

pockets, people!

everything is better with pockets.
people would be happier if they all had pockets.
wars would cease if everybody had pockets.

I am a genius.

everybody has pockets = world peace

(and an end to world hunger, as everybody would be feeling so good about their pockets they would all dig into them to help out those less fortunate than them.)

I have found the solution.

fashion designers, get on it.

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if I ever felt compelled to get a dress on the poofy side, it would be something like this.

not made up of  metric tons of crinoline, but of flowy pedals of soft fabric that actually move when bombarded by a gale force wind (unlike...ahem...crinoline).

so maybe that's what I like about this dress. not it's poofiness, but it's flowiness.

it's soft looking.

I kinda want to be able to take a comfy cat-nap on my dress, you know?

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I still really like the idea of these sort of   "couple's story"  type of things.

for fun, some possible examples from our own hypothetical one:


how they met: Ben and Bethany lived in the same dorm freshman year of college. Bethany thought Ben was cute. Ben thought Bethany was cute. Everybody else thought Ben was gay. (curse of the well dressed man)

first date: Ben asked Bethany to go see the first Harry Potter film. Bethany didn't know Ben was actually asking her out on a date until they had been together for about 3 months. (curse of the oblivious girl) 

proposal: Ben proposed on April fool's Day. Bethany had to make sure Ben wasn't actually joking before saying yes.



oh goodness...I swear we are not as dysfunctional in real life as we are on paper...

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ain't it always the way.

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weather permitting, we will have our ceremony outside. our venue has a kick-ass view of the mountains of northern new hampshire.

however, our venue does not have a very nice looking trellis/arbor/thingy.
it is your standard one.
white.
arched.
and in my overly picky and judgemental mind, utterly blah and cliche.

you can kinda see it in these photos. (second down on the right, in the gridded photos at the bottom). it is very small (the photo, not the arbor).

but if we could get married under something like this, all of a sudden an arbor isn't seeming so bad.

however, Ben's working on something.

suffice to say, it involves the colour red.

and is not an arbor.

I will let him reveal it in his own time and way.

but it's pretty cool.

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update:

found some images my mom took when she and my dad went up to visit the manor the first time round.
gives you an idea as to the setting/view. (these were taken in february.  our view in early september will be greener and with no snow.)

the arbor is not quite as bad as I remember it.

however, it still needs work.


and yes.
that is a gaint chess board.


oh, that will be happening.


[photo credits: my wonderful mother]

.

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more proof that lawn games at weddings are awesome.

also that groomsmen, croquet mallets and an open bar may not be the best combination.

or, it might be the best combination ever.

depending on your groomsmen.


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these would look abesolutely fabulous on my feet on my wedding day.

just look at them.

how can you say no to those buttons?

they are just begging to be paired with a prettily patterned dress and be danced in all night.

well, shoes.
you win.
if you absolutely insist, I will try to find you and make you mine.

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flower bouquets (and pimms) were had by all on sunday!

the great floral experiment was a total success.

our day started with a trip to Columbia Road flower market.
hadn't been in ages, and it was fabulous.

if you've never been, essentially picture a stretch of road about 150 metres long absolutely packed with flower vendors. and these are the actual farmers (or representatives of such), so the flowers are wicked cheap. we're talking 3 bundles of whatever for £5. and if you are there towards the end of the market, when they are packing up and trying to get rid of stuff, oh the deals you can get. suffice to say, we walked away with many many more flowers than we initially intended on buying.

the damage...

provisions of the floral variety

 

provisions of the snack/pimms variety

and now to the educational portion of this post. the step-by-step instructions! 

(from a you tube video found by Sam)

1. de-leaf and de-thorn all floral stems. in the case of roses and other multi-pedaled flowers, remove the outer petals to give a cleaner appearance to the flower.

2. arrange the heads of the flowers while crossing the stems in a twisting manner a bit below the base of the flower heads. (wow, the step is hard to phrase in a way that makes any sort of sense. but trust me, when you start playing with the actual flowers, it all starts to come together.)

 

3. using floral wire, tightly bind the stems at the twisting point.
this may be easier with two people if you can bribe a friend/flatmate/fiance/friend's fiance.

 

4. wrap the stems and wire with florist tape to stiffen and keep everything in place.

 

5. take a break for delicious pita chips and hummus and to fish out that elusive strawberry from your pimms.

 

6. wind a piece of ribbon or cloth around the stems to hide the florist tape and wire.

7. using quite long large headed sewing pins, secure the ribbon/cloth in place by sticking the pin through the fabric and up into a stem to ensure the pin will not end up on the other end arrangement and stick you.

8. trim the stems off in an even manner to the desired length.

9. admire your handiwork, take plenty of pictures and proclaim how much of a genius/awesome you are.

 - these are some other bouquets we threw together.

 - our final products:

 - what we learned:

1. always do a test run. not only are they wicked fun, and allows you to strew your living room floor with flowers, but they let you know exactly how long it will take you to create your bouquets and exactly how many flowers you will need, because

2. you will need more flowers than you think you will. flowers in bouquets are packed in fairly tightly. when we were juggling armfuls of loose flowers on the bendy bus back to my flat from the market (not the easiest thing in the world to do, by the way), we figured we could easily get 8 or 9 bouquets out of our stealthily purchased flora. we got 5. two full "real" ones (sam's), two very thin ones (mine, will try with many more next time around) and the leftovers of some button daises sam had got and not used all of.

3. simplicity really is the key. you start trying to put too many different things (flower types, colours, shapes) into the bouquet, it has a tendency to look a bit forced and over done. it can look wicked awesome, but it more often than not leans the other way. another reason to experiment.

4. florists are, in fact, moot points. bam. proven.

5. and last but not least, pimms is awesome.