Christmas Sparkle!

Today is our Christmas party!

With some of the Reviva Chicks heading off in the next few weeks to other climates, the season of glitter and fairy lights has started early :)

Secret Santa is ready and we have a few little treats in store for our fab guests!

Officially now we have to sparkle and I thought I would share some sparkly inspirations with you to get into the festive spirit, all these gorgeous photos are from pinterest.

Free Wedding Websites

In a world of modern technology is setting up a wedding website important?

Well the answer is Yes.

It is an ideal way to communicate with your guests, provide details of the wedding, related activities and up to date news. It also serves as a brilliant planning tool, allowing you to keep on top of your wedding preparations, updating information without having to notify all your guests individually and allows close friends, who perhaps cannot attend your wedding, to be kept in the fold of events.

Our recommendations for the sort of information you should supply on your website are basic info, names, the date and where your wedding is being held with details of the ceremony and reception.

Directions, maps, hotel information and if you are planning a destination wedding, useful things to know, restaurants, what to do, information about the area and perhaps telephone numbers in an emergency.

You can suggest suitable attire, as everyone will want to know what to wear from black tie and sparkle to perhaps laid back, casual beach. It is always nice to include wedding party info, who are your bridesmaids and groomsmen and why.

A convenient link to your wedding registry, gift wish list is useful for your guests to take a look at and of course your story, how you met, engagement, hearing about your romance will give guests an insight and envoke excitement for your big day. Don´t post up 786 photos of your last holiday though!

There are some fantastic free wedding websites out there and with little internet skills you can create your fabulous wedding website in a very short time.

Google offer a whole host of wedding tools, including websites, online planners and useful google docs. Another brilliant website is My Wedding.

Definitely worth heading over to these two websites to start creating your personal wedding website online. After my recent blog posts many of our brides have emailed me with their websites and My Wedding certainly seems to be one of the most popular.

I hope by sharing this advice we have just eliminated one more little stress!

REAL WEDDING - BRIANA & RICHARD

Like Briana & Richard I have always loved the idea of a family wedding celebration...very Father of the Bride i know!! When we met to discuss the plans for their day it sounded so classic, timeless & sentimental and the outcome was exactly that. Real Weddings are featuring a 4 page story in their current Style edition and here is a lovely behind the scenes peek at some of our favourite moments captured by SugarLove Weddings.


The bride wore a stunning strapless couture gown with matching bolero by Steven Khalil

The bridal preparations took place at the Sheraton on the Park

The cutest little attendants (love the belts & cameras!!)

The couple chose St Philips for a traditional church ceremony.

Groom, Richard with his groomsmen pre ceremony at St Philips.

Briana handmade the paper flowers that adorned the church pews

I love these church photos, the lighting & leadlight has a yellow cast which is interesting for photography & video coverage. The whole feeling of the church was very regal, perfectly suited to the style of Briana & Richard's day.

The couples photo shoot & all-white reception to follow took place at a private family residence in Darling Point. Briana's aunty arranged the magnificent fresh flowers.

The locations for our shoot were endless...manicured gardens, private harbourside sandy beach, historic house. It truly was a paradise lost in time and a divine place to shoot.

Simple was best outside with the natural stone urns and archways embellished for the occasion with most areas left a la natural.

Briana's Dad looked after most of the preparations and planning for the private reception. Described as a dynamo and the only person who could capture the vision of the couple, the result was breathtaking.

The marquee overlooked Sydney Harbour & was the perfect setting for the couples reception. Antique lamps, french chairs, white roses, iron chandeliers and view to die for.

The bride enjoys a brief moment with one of her bridesmaids pre photo shoot. The weather was picture perfect.

White roses & candles everywhere - simple & classic!

The dining room is dressed for small groups & guests start to arrive. The canapes are served & groomsmen enjoy a laugh on the harbour.

One of my favourite SugarLove shots of Briana from the day.

The couple & their bridal party outside one of the historic buildings.

The delightful Briana & Richard share some private moments together for our team.

As the sun went down and the lanterns were lit it was time to party under the stars.

Even the little ones enjoyed a dance under the moonlight.

Briana & Richard enjoy their first dance together as husband & wife. Our video team at White Designs also covered the day in Signature DSLR style.

We really enjoyed being a part of your day Brie & Richard and congrats on the birth of your baby girl on Valentines Day this year. Another sweet beginning to what we are sure will be an incredible life together x

Getting Married in Marbella

This week we are creating a blog post and guiding you through the legalities of getting married in Marbella and Spain.

We will be helping you with any questions you need to know about getting married in Spain and the paperwork involved. Whether you wish to hold a catholic church ceremony, a registry office in Gibraltar or a blessing here we will be answering your questions here on this blog this week.

Carla, our head of planning and coordination will be here to answer any questions you have so if you would like to submit a question please send an email to info@reviva-weddings.com.

Wedding Venues in Marbella and Sotogrande

I love this time of year.

November is getting chilly outside and as we wind down from our flurry of weddings it is lovely to look through and study all the photos from 2011 as we create new portfolios and look books for our studio.

It does take time to process the year and reflect on our work in order to refresh ourselves for our new year.

We are now working on our 2012 weddings and have some very sparky, creative brides on board so looking forward to our winter workshops and brain storming with them!

Today I have been organising photos not only for our portfolios in the studio, but also we have been asked to submit some of our favourite weddings to many hi profile wedding portals which is very exciting.

We are currently organising photos and will be in contact with our clients should their wedding be successful in our submissions to gain approval.

Having been browsing today I had to share this fabulous venue with you, we planned and designed a wedding here in September and I am in love with these photos.

For me they epitomize a Mediterranean evening, the lighting is stunning and this wedding was certainly one big party! Set in a monastery in Sotogrande in fabulous grounds this was a truly stunning setting for our client´s wedding.

We have also been out and about as well recently looking at new venues for weddings and as well as this monastery, we now have a fabulous 23 bedroomed converted convent on our books with it´s own chapel which is licensed for weddings.

You can party all night without noise restrictions. It is beautifully presented and restored and has a whole host of interesting areas to move around in, from the chiringuito bar area for the cocktail or perhaps the inner courtyard, to a fantastic setting for the dinner and dancing, a real hideaway set in the heart of Andalucian natural parkland.

These images above were provided to us by Anna Gazda of our stunning wedding in Sotogrande and having been scouring through all our weddings I wanted to share these with you again as I love them!

I might finally add that our day of venue searching ended up with us driving around looking for a zoo, which we found but was shut, apparently this area has a fabulous lake that we seemed to have missed so we will have to head back, the town I found enchanting and has a large hotel there for guests, we ended up on this day literally driving over the polo fields in Sotogrande, so not entirely sure that Carla wants to come out with me again on a venue reccie! She seemed glad to get out the car at the end of our day! :)

Romance and Sparkle at the Marbella Club

All of us, of course, love romance and sparkle and this beautiful wedding in September was certainly a romantic story.

Karen and Taghi had been together 25 years and finally decided to tie the knot in the hugely romantic and stylish Marbella Club synonomous with romance of the rich and famous in the golden era.

Moira at Perfect Spanish weddings organised this delightful wedding and contacted us to help with the coordination, decoration and flowers and we were thrilled to be involved in the wedding of such a delightful and charming couple.

We created the bridal flowers and decorations based on the bright pinks of bouganvillea here along with the paler pinks to soften the bridal flowers. Karen wanted to keep it toned down for the ceremony but to use the bouganvillea pinks for the reception area to create a wow factor.

The table centrepieces were tall glass flutes filled with orchids and set on mirrors decorated with bouganvillea, crystals and tealights. We dressed the chairs with pink sashes and decorated the fabulous gardens, set right on the beach, with fairy lights, lanterns and candles.

The table seating plan was written on a white shabby chic mirror and the table names were given a flower name as the top table was named after their daughter Lili which we thought was a lovely touch. Mirrors always work well at the Marbella Club as they have them set in the walls within the beautiful Andalucian patio.

We gave the mirror as a gift to Karen and Taghi which we understand now is hanging in their bedroom having managed to get it home with apparently very helpful airline staff!

It was a beautiful day and the weather could not have been more perfect for this stunning day at the Marbella Club. Our thanks to David Toms, the photographer, Moira and Karen & Taghi for allowing us to share this delightful wedding with you.