Madame Clochette

I am lucky enough to have as my sister the fabulous Madame Clochette! And for my recent wedding she gave me the most spectacular gift, a custom made handbag. It was so custom, that she had secretly contacted the designer of my wedding dress, Wendy Makin and ordered matching fabric. She then attached my new initials to the front of the bag. If that wasn't special enough, even the way she packaged the bag was amazaing!

I also chose to use Madame Clochette bags for my bridesmaids, rather than very expensive flowers that die!! They were also matched to the bridesmaid dresses, and accessorised with individual charms.

Madame Clochette bags in action.
To order your own, visit her Etsy store Madame Clochette, like her on Facebook or read her blog.

Viktoria Novak

I have to admit that I have been thinking about getting married for quite a while, especially when you consider the fact that I was single for much of this time!! When thinking about dress and veil options I always thought that I would want a Mantila veil with lace around the edge...but what if I had a lace dress!! Decisions, decisions!!
When it got closer to the possibility of getting engaged, I started thinking about things more seriously. And when a wedding expo came up where a certain milliner would be displaying her designs, I thought "hey, why don't I go along and try some on, just to see if anything suits me!" And what do you know, something suited me!
Viktoria Novak helped me try on a couple of different head pieces and they were all so beautiful. She also told me that something could be designed especially for me. And then I noticed the bouquets...these beautiful brooch bouquets that I had seen pictures off but I hadn't seen in person. Well they were just beautiful!
So I had my solution - my head piece and bouquet would be made by Viktoria Novak. Now I just needed a proposal.

Then he proposed! Yay! And we set a date, and when I called Viktoria she did point out that since there was more than 12 months until the wedding, and I didn't have a dress yet, that she could book me in but I needed to organise some other things first. She was very helpful in giving me support and advice during the process of styling my wedding.

Once I had my dress and colour theme sorted I took a trip to Viktoria's Sydney studio and we got planning. I took a swatch of fabric from my dress, brooches from my grandmother's and my mother's veil from the 70s. I tried on only a couple of head pieces until I found one I liked, and when Viktoria arranged the blue tulle from m Mum's veil on the back of the head piece I have to admit...there were tears!!
I looked at the bouquets next, and there was one that was almost perfect...but I'm so fussy! So Viktoria took out the feathers, added some pink, added my grandmother's brooches and tulle from my Mum's veil to create the most perfect of bouquets!

On our wedding day I received so many compliments, as a bride normally does, but there were so many specific compliments on my head piece and bouquet, and how they suited my dress and my personality so well. I now get to keep my bouquet for ever, as well as my head piece, and now all I need is an excuse for my next Viktoria Novak design!

I do have one HUGE complaint about visiting the Viktoria Novak Studio: it's such a horrible temptation! I want everything! And I swear if I win lotto I will spend the rest of my life wearing Viktoria Novak designs and I won't care what anyone says - hats are always appropriate!!

Visit Viktoria's website to see the range of beautiful designs!

The photos below are from Melissa at 'A Shot Above the Rest'.

Wedding Cake

When I first got engaged in August 2011 and started thinking about all things wedding related (I may have already thought about some wedding things, prior to my engagement), one of the things I decided I didn't want to do was to spend a lot of money on a wedding cake. I have heard of people paying almost $1,000 for the most simple of cakes, and I didn't want the most simple of cakes. For a three tier cake I would be looking at $600 at least, so I decided I would make one myself, I mean it can't be that hard.
So I enrolled in a cake decorating class, and I decided on the style of cake that I wanted. Three tiers with navy blue damask stencilling (in order to match with the damask print throughout our invitations).

Well I have to admit here, in writing, in public, that it was the dumbest idea I've ever had!!! Ugh, what an effort! The icing wasn't the worst part, it was the fact that to get the height of the cake tiers that I wanted I had to make 8 individual cakes in total!!
I could have bought pre-made, but un-iced, cakes but I have found that some other mud cakes I don't actually like. such as the ones from the cheesecake shops. And I found some really great recipes for the cakes that I ended up making.

In the end our guests enjoyed the cake, and many of the commented that it was the best wedding cake they had ever had. There were a few dodgy bits in regards to the icing, I had the cake set up so the best side was facing the front, but when I walked into the reception the staff had turned it around and so most of the photos that people have taken (and put on FaceBook) were taken from the worst side!!

These are the four individual 10" cakes that made up the bottom tier. You have to trim off the cakes so that they're even and so you do lose some of the height. But I have to admit that I didn't level it off as well as I should have.

The stencilling on the bottom tier ended up covering up a multitude of fondant icing sins! I used copha to help hold the stencil on the cake each time and it worked really well. Stencilling isn't really that hard at all!.

The three separate tiers - all on their own cake boards with support skewers in them as well. They were all transported separately before I put them together at the reception venue the night before the wedding.

Above is the photo from the side of the cake that should have been the front. And below is the side that almost everyone took a photo of and put on FaceBook!

A long time and many changes!!!

I can't believe it, I haven't posted on this blog since July!! Isn't that shameful!
What's my excuse? Well, I blame the wedding. I just got married on 27 October 2012 and I guess the lead up to the 'big day' really took over more than I thought it would, but it was totally worth it.

Vintage Inspiration

I'm often inspired by vintage things - and we should clarify here what I consider to be vintage, which is anything before the 1970s. Maybe it's because my Mum and Dad were young adults in the 70s, or that my sister was born in the 70s, but I just get offended when I do a search for "vintage X" (usually sewing patterns) and ebay returns things from the 80s!! 80s isn't vintage!

Anyway, back to what I was saying. I'm often inspired by vintage things but tonight I am finding myself more so. I'm typing this with hot rollers in my hair in an attempt to create a vintage hairstyle, and I'm hanging out to wear a dress I just finished making from a vintage pattern. Maybe it's because I've been searching for images to use for bridal hair and make up, and searching for these images has motivated me to watch some old movies as well. Tonight I watched a new movie about an old movie...My Week With Marilyn...and I really enjoyed it. I did have to google straight away to see if Michelle Williams wore padding to get the Marilyn figure, and I was right, she did! I don't have to wear padding, well maybe for the top half, but I have a very obvious difference between my waist and hips, which the dress I made will emphasise. It takes seeing old movie stars to remember that it's ok to have hips and that they're actually attractive! You wouldn't think so looking at todays movie stars.

I'll be wearing a headpiece which has a vintage feel to it and so I've tried to find images of actresses wearing hats or headpieces - but they are so hard to find! So here are some of my vintage images for hair and make up inspiration:

Jane Russell and Ava Gardner. You have to love the brunette vixen from the silver screen. Jane has the honour of having said one of my favourite lines in a movie: "I like a man who can run faster than I can!" (from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And Ava just has such superb grace.

Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe. Not only did Ginger do everything Fred did but backwards and in high heels, she also always lookd glamorous. I love this movie, Shall We Dance for many reasons: Fred is so funny in it, great songs (They Can't Take That Away From Me and Lets Call The Whole Thing Off), they tap dance on roller skates, and the final dance scene (minus the ballet) is just lovely. I also love her hair in this shot and she is wearing a kind of skull cap head piece that may be similar to mine.

And what can you say about Marilyn, especially before the Kennedy's got to her! She is just lovely.

I have saved the best till last. I kept scouring the internet, doing dozens of google image searches, and getting so frustrated because I just knew that I had seen a photo of what I want to look like on my wedding day but I couldn't track it down. Then I realised why I couldn't find it on the website. The photo I had in my mind was one of my maternal Grandmother, Nanna (Marie) Thompson, that my Mum has up in her house. So I took a photo of it the other day, and considering I do take after my Grandmother to a certain extent, I'm hoping that I might look something like this on my wedding day:

I'm hoping to get a photo of me in my new vintage dress soon (it's been -5 degrees in the mornings at the moment, so I haven't been able to bring myself to frock up) and I will definitely be posting it. And if I work out some perfect roller placement for perfect vintage hair I will post photos of that as well shortly.

In the meantime, what is your vintage inspiration?

To veil or not to veil

I had decided, before I even got engaged, that I would be wearing a Viktoria Novak headpiece on my wedding day - no veil, just something fabulous like this:

Cherish by Viktoria Novak - photo from www.viktorianovakdesign.com

But I have since been to a few weddings where people have worn veils and my married friends have expressed their dissapointment in the fact that they didn't wear a veil. A lot of people have said "if I could get married again, I'd wear a veil". And then Viktoria Novak posted the following photo and confused me even more!

Cloche Veil by Viktoria Novak - photo from www.facebook.com/viktorianovakdesign

So I started thinking about why brides wear veils, and this is what I discovered:

• Veils are used to symbolise virginity/purity and the lifting of the veil (by either the father or new husband) at the end of the ceremony is the symbolic 'consummating' of the marriage.
• Lifting of the veil was often part of ancient wedding ritual symbolising the Groom taking possession of the Bride.

So after discovering that information I'm back to not wanting a veil - I don't like the idea of a symbolic 'consummation' of my marriage in front of everyone! And the idea of my future husband taking 'possession' of me, well I don't think so!


Did you wear a veil for your wedding? And would you do it again, or go back and wear one if you didn't originally?

Bridal waltz - music suggestions

My fiancé and I have already organised probably 90 or 90% of our wedding to be held at the end of October. We're very prepared, just need to save the money to pay for it! One of the planning things that we are leaving until closer to the date is the music selection. We have started building 'wedding' play lists, and we have already chosen a couple of songs for different parts, but the Bridal Waltz I think will be a tricky one.
There are just so many options for the Bridal Waltz. And you have to decide whether you want to go for something slow, or up beat, romantic and sentimental or fun and light hearted.
Here are some of our options - feel free to vote...if I can work out how to do it, I might put a poll thing on my blog here.
A Thousand Years, by Christina Perri

I won't give up, by Jason Mraz

When you say nothing at all, by Ronan Keating

Just the way you are, by Bruno Mars

Cake Decorating - first class

On Monday night I attended my very first class on Cake Decorating. I have decided to learn Cake Decorating because I don't want to spend heaps of money on a wedding cake, however my fiance has since pointed out that the cost of the class would have actually covered the cost of the cake. But this is a life skill!! I will be able to decorate cakes up the wazooyie from now on! Think of the beautiful cakes I'll make for our children! These are the excuses I give.

The class consists of 10 students and is taught by a woman named Floss. The first class was fun and we learnt how to make Royal Icing, how to pipe letter and squiggles, and how to pipe the outline of letters and then fill them in, like so:

We will learn a number of different techniques throughout the five classes, and one of those techniques will be stencilling. I'm looking forward to this because I think that is what I want to do on my wedding cake. I have a damask theme running through the wedding (bonbanarie and stationary at the moment), and so I would love to have a damask border around the cake.

One of the really interesting things that I learnt (simple things I tell you) is that you don't have to pipe lettering directly on to a cake. No!! You pipe it on to some wax paper (or something similar) and then once it's dry you stick it on the cake. So hopefully this could mean that I could trace our names from our invitiations and put it on the cake - I love having things match!

First funny fiance comment (regarding cake decorating) when I mentioned this idea to him was "will it be neat though, or all kind of shaky?". I think he was referring to the fact that the letters from my first class aren't exactly perfect!!