Our vintage/ DIY wedding

Photo's by Juleon Green

We got married this past weekend!  Wow what a crazy ride, and what a huge challenge we set for ourselves (the organising, not the actual marrying part!).  We had a tiny budget (I'm talking TINY... like $3000 for a wedding of over 100 guests) but we knew we could pull it off.  We didn't want anything stuffy or traditional, we didn't want anybody else planning it for us or telling us what we should be doing.  We really wanted it to reflect us as individuals and our general lifestyle.  In the end it turned out exactly how we had imagined it and were thrilled when everybody told us it was one of the most personal, relaxed and beautiful weddings they had been to.  We felt the same way!  So how did we do it??  I'll break it down into a few posts but basically we got creative, we spent weeks and months getting crafty, we called in a LOT of favours, did some bartering, we looked at what we already had and decided how to best incorporate it.  The entire wedding came together because of the huge help and participation of our friends and family.  Having everybody cooking in the kitchen together for days, sewing decorations, doing the gardening etc really brought everybody together and created such an amazing atmosphere that carried right through to a few days afterwards.

Oh and psst... Nic, Ayana and I all wore vintage which I'm quite proud of.  Ayana's dress was a sweet little number that I found on Trade Me for a mere $5.00, Nic wore a suit from his huge vintage suit collection,and  my dress came from the lovely  Rose at Decadia Vintage.  I did my own make up and the flower crown was made from the wild carrot flowers that were growing all over the paddocks this summer. 

Anyway more on the wedding in later posts.

xx 

DIY wedding: Flower crowns

I'm not a romantic at heart, I can't take romance seriously at all.  But every now and then I surprise myself.  Of course I made daisy chains out in the garden when I was young and wore them proudly until they wilted into my hair.  Although I never particularly admitted it as an adult, I always secretly yearned to wear a crown of wild flowers again like some kind of fairy queen.  So when Nic finally talked me into having a big wedding (I wanted to run off and elope) I knew this would be my chance!  I found some great wire covered in neutral ribbon the other day and decided to start experimenting.  Using fresh flowers requires some trial and error.  Not all flowers can withstand the heat, or last long once they have been cut and are without water.  I discovered that some of the most hardy (and beautiful) ones were growing in the field right beside our house.  If you ask me, a bunch of beautiful flowering weeds look much more romantic than some stuffy, expensive roses.  Anyway so operation flower crown is underway.  I would love for all the girls (and boys if they like) to be able to sit down together before the wedding and each make ourselves a beautiful crown to wear.  I read somewhere recently that you can even make them the day before and then pop them in the freezer... I'm currently putting this to the test!
So with no money in the budget for a professional hair stylist to come and make us over, these blooming beauties will have to do the trick.
xx

DIY wedding: porcelain cups

We're spoiled, we're incredibly spoiled. We happen to have an extremely talented potter in the family who provides us with all the crockery we could ever need.  Each piece is thrown by hand and then fired in the big wood kiln outside from morning until night.  The end result is an abundance of unique plates, cups, bowls, oven dishes and personal tea bowls (which everybody is very protective of). 
So when we got to thinking about what 100 wedding guests were going to drink from, Elena suggested a cup for everybody.  Not only does it seem like the most perfect gift for everybody to take home, but it also saves us an awful lot in party hire gear.  Let me tell you, the moment those hire places hear the word 'wedding' they're already rubbing their palms together in glee.  At 55 cents a fork, you can imagine that it adds up!
Anyway so the first thing we had to do was figure out which glazes and slips we wanted.  There is something so exciting about submerging your cup in a seemingly plain bucket of muck, splashing it with an equally dull looking mud... and then waiting in great anticipation for it to come out of the kiln.  You never quite know how it's going to turn out, and you'll never get exactly the same look twice.
Over the last few days Elena has been a slave to the wheel and is knocking out beautiful porcelain cups so that they'll be ready in time.  I of course get the fun part which is to splash them all with glaze and give them their final touch!
So here's hoping everybody loves them as much as we do.  I can't wait to drink my cocktails out of a cup.

A DIY wedding

This morning Nic informed me that we have four weekends left until our wedding... FOUR WEEKENDS!  Okay deep breath, we can pull this off.  We have to be able to pull this off!  Throwing a wedding for a hundred guests on a budget of just $3000 is proving to be both exciting (because we have to think outside of the box) and nerve wrecking (because we have to think outside of the box!).  It requires pulling together all the contacts, outstanding favours, incredibly talented friends and guilt tripped family members that we can think of.  It requires thinking ahead (not so good at this one) and deciding what needs to be planted in the garden so that it's ready for harvesting in time, it requires trawling the internet for homemade decoration ideas, talking to the folk at our Sunday market to make sure things are locally sourced and in season, and because I'm a Virgo it requires a big scrapbook for ideas and organising!  We have a ton of friends and family arriving in the days leading up to the wedding so we're all going to knuckle down, get the set up done and have a ton of fun as we go.  Phew so with that said and done I'm off to write some urgent emails and make some coloured ribbons for the alter.
* My amazing friend Brooke drew our portrait invites. You can check out her work at Wolf Whistle Studio.