The Centre Pieces & Tables

I was racking my brains for absolutely ages on what centre pieces to have, and don't even get me started on the tables! 

As the wedding started to develop over the months ahead, I noticed that a theme was emerging which was olde worlde, vintage, romantic, whimsical and a "romeo and juliet" theme... I know there were a fair few themes going on, but it all kind of worked. Our aisle song we had selected was from Baz Lurhmann's Romeo & Juliet movie, the song 'Kissing you' by des'ree, the mini books that were on the tables as ornaments were "Romeo & Juliet books". Anyway. So I started looking up various centre pieces, and I got most of the usual results: Goldfish bowl with flower, Large martini glasses, Ostritch feathers, floral arrangement of some variety, vases etc. After a while, I stopped looking, hoping that something original would pop up and take my fancy, and it did! I typed into the website pinterest.com (great website for inspiration by the way - no I don't work for them), "whimsical weddings", as you can imagine quite a few results appeared. After scouring through hundreds of photos, I came across pictures of weddings were books were used as centre pieces. Just plain old books with candles on them and the odd flower. It was so simple, but it looked so romantic:

I know what you're thinking, not very weddingy, but, I fell in love with the whole idea of it. My then fiancé was training to be a teacher and it seemed appropriate! Anyway, as luck would have it I was at the Works shop in town with my parents and we came across these 'book boxes', I call them...

They're quite large measuring at 38cm height x 29.5cm width x 8cm depth and as soon as I clocked eyes on them, I knew they would be perfect for our centre pieces. The colours, the theme/pattern on the front and the places that were mentioned just fit us perfectly. There are three different kinds of these books, and we have three tables! awesome! Not only is there a Paris themed one (which is where my fiancé proposed and pictured above), but there is a London themed one and a New York themed one, all three of these cities are sentimental to us. Perfect! As we had three tables with our teeny guest list, we decided we would call our tables 'Paris', 'London' and 'New York', which also avoids any arguments about who should sit on table one etc. They are £6.99 each so very budget friendly and we can use them after the Wedding too to put our Wedding bits in, so we were really happy with them. I've had a look recently and can't seem to find them on their website anymore, so I am not sure if they are still stocking them now, I could be wrong though!

 I had a dilemma of what to put on top of these books to make them look romantic and Wedding-like. We wanted to avoid anything particularly tacky such as models of big ben or a minature eifeel tower statue. 

I walked, albeit frailly (still suffering the vertigo!), around a few charity shops (again with my parents) and found some amazing pieces I thought I could use for all of the tables.  

Here are a few candid shots, taken by yours truly and my Dad of the various items I had for each of the books and tables, and further down below is pictures of how it looked on the day. I realise, the below looks crap, I was just testing out a few ideas, bear with, it all comes together:

Here was a 'first draft' of how I wanted the guestbook table to look like:

And here was how they turned out on the day, they were lovely and we had so many comments about how nice it was:

This was the top table decoration. The sign we borrowed from a family friend, and the flower decorations were part of the venue decorators price. I thought they did an awesome job (J & G Elite). 

Thanks to Roy from Landon Road Photographers for the photographs.

My mum made these absolutely beautiful place names for us. I printed the names on to cream card, cut them out and then she made these from them! She has some serious skills, see below for more things she has made if you don't believe me! If you want to know more about the stationary we had on our day then please use the link on the left navigation bar at the top of the page called 'Stationary'. 

This was our guestbook table, I had this little suitcase which I didn't really use for anything so I decided to use this as our wedding card holder. My mum made the inside with the words 'c a r d s ' as you can see in the picture, the keys are real bronze ones and she made little envelopes with wedding appropriate minature cards! She used small wooden pegs to peg them to a strip of lace at the back. Aww! It was just the cutest and made my day when I saw it. To the right of the suitcase is a faux water barrel pump, and inside are scrolls I made with 'order of the day' details on, for more on the scrolls visit the link on the left navigation bar that says 'Stationary'. The teddy bear gave it a real 'attic' feel, as did the little book models (which are actually pen holders but have the desired effect). 

Here is a close up of the scrolls in the barrel, these were given out by our usher and were handmade by me, they were a lot of work, thank goodness we only had 27 guests. To the right is a mock vintage radio ornament, I loved that, it really did give the theme it's vintage feel. There is a better picture below...

I bought the 'love' sign in a store like Wilkonson's or B & M Bargains, I can't remember which now :S but it was only about five pounds if I recall. I decorated it with burgundy chiffon ribbon, pearls and jewels that were glued on, and pink / burgundy rose flowers. Our guestbook pen was very vintagey too with roses, this was an ebay purchase but was a gift so I am unsure of the seller details. 

Another close up of the scrolls. The strange pointy bottle to the right was a perfume bottle that just looked really interesting and feminine, I don't know I just thought it worked with everything else. 

My mum made us this. It was originally just plain and white, so all of the decoration you can see, she did. Inside were the cutest chocolate's that had our wedding date and names on them which we invited our guests to eat! These were placed on our guest book table too, along with a picture frame that said for guests to take a chocolate. How awesome is my mum, seriously. :) 

Here is how the tables looked for the wedding breakfast. I found that the items on the tables made for good talking points for the guests too:

We loved the end result, and it was more fitting to us as a couple. All of the items on the books were items that belonged to my parents, myself and things we collected as we went along, and most of those items are now situated as ornaments in our home :)

Have a look at our wedding cake next! 

The Wedding Cake

We ordered a three tier wedding cake from Cakes by Millrise in Biddulph Staffordshire. All tiers were chocolate sponge with chocolate buttercream in the middle. The icing was soft and tasted great. We got to taste a few options before we decided on the chocolate. We wanted little minature figures of me, Mark the groom and our dog Toby on the top of the cake made from marizpan. We wanted pink roses cascading down one side of the cake, like one we saw on the Cakes by Millrise website.

The cake we loved on the Cakes by Millrise website.

The ribbon we had around each tier was a burgundy colour and was finished with an ivory pearl trim. 

Here was our Wedding Cake:

The Hair & Beauty

For the big day, we had the experts in to do our hair and makeup. This was a brilliant idea and started the day off smoothly, if I had to do these things myself I may have stressed a lot, as it were, we got to drink prosecco and be pampered. We had both hair and makeup trials. Harriet opted to do her own hair. Me, my mum and maid of honour had our hair done, and all four of us had our make up done.

I wanted quite loose curls and purposefully grew my hair. I also had subtle highlights put in a week or so before the big day to give my hair depth, as it was looking a little dull. 

This was me with my hair and makeup complete.

The hairdresser, Nikki, fitting the hair bands that my mum made to Amy (my big sister and maid of honour).

Harriet wanted to do her own hair and I respected her wishes, she did a great job!

Getting my hair done, Nicola also put highlights in and cut my hair a week or so previous.

Seeing the finished look.

 For my makeup, Lauren gave me pink eyeshadow with a smokey eye effect, I love the smokey eye look, peachy pink lipstick, foundation (that she had to order in specially for my whiter than white skin!), blush, eye liner and mascara. The pink eye shadow complemented the pink rose head piece I wore.

Getting my makeup done by Lauren from Bronze & Beautyful.

Amy and Harriet's makeup.

Before and after photo of my mum (mother of the bride).

Group shot :)

A huge thank you to Nicola from Hair by Nicola Jayne and Lauren from Bronze & Beautyful.

Lauren also did my nails the day before, as the salon is across the road from the venue, it was so convenient and within quick walking distance. This was the very first manicure I've ever had in a salon and I have to say I was really impressed with the look: