Surreal Underwater Inspiration

Creative ideas are all around us. I was reading the New York Times today and was stopped short by this Credit Suisse ad campaign featuring the fashion designer Jen Kao. When I went to the bank's site to find images I discovered short videos on the creative process -- I am really inspired by both the process and the end result.

Love the idea of a floating, woodland, undersea dinner party!

A Stunning Wedding in Sotogrande

This is one of my favourite weddings this year for a few reasons.
The main one is that Danielle and Ed´s family are wonderful and we thoroughly enjoyed working with them, the second is that Danielle works for a large event company in London hence we were under scrutiny! thirdly we had a fabulous venue to work with and I do love a challenge, lastly but not least this was a very emotional wedding.

We came recommended to Danielle´s parents who then made an appointment to come and see us at our studio and hired us on the spot to help them plan and organise their daughter´s wedding.

As Danielle´s parents live here they had already booked the church in Sotogrande and the beautiful venue, a monastery in Sotogrande, but needed someone to take over the organising including liaising with the caterers and suppliers, filling in the gaps, finalising all the other suppliers required, organising the budget sheets, styling and decoration of the wedding and someone to take charge and oversee the wedding planning details and be there on the day.

Battles were fought however as we were working with a venue that tried to insist on using certain suppliers, but we won, drafted in our team and were finally we were set for the big day.

It was fantastic, we organised a hummer to pick Danielle up and deliver her to the beautiful church in Sotogrande. Danielle looked stunning as she arrived at the church in a beautiful Jenny Packham dress that glittered as she moved. We all did that big gosh sigh moment when she stepped out the car and I am still in love with her shoes!

The church was simply decorated with ivy heart pew ends and we created some large floral displays at the altar. We even hung around to redecorate the church for the next wedding as all Danielle´s ivy hearts were then taken down to use as decoration in the marquee.

The reception at the monastery was stunning with a huge marquee and the fantastic 5 star catering by LePanto caterers was remarkable.

The monastery is such a beautiful venue that not much is needed to be honest to give it a wow factor but with all these venues lighting is important.

We organised extra lighting, lots of wow factor candles and large Moroccan style lanterns around the pool, created a fabulous chill out area in the dance area using white chill out furniture with a blue, green and silver theme as decoration.

The marquee area was kept clean and fresh, it was a large wedding party and too much clutter would have been overwhelming, so we kept it simple, decorating the tables with white and green floral arrangements and lots of tealights which we complimented with a fresh lime on each place setting sporting the guest place name on a little white flag stuck into each lime, the smell was glorious as we were setting out the tables!

The highlight for me was Danielle was inheriting the surname of Gay so all the tables were named after gay icons, fabulous!

My other very special moment, for all of us, which deserved a standing applause and many tears in the church, was the fact that Danielle´s lovely father had been ill in hospital and despite the odds made it out in time for the wedding. It was a very magical day for everyone involved.

A fantastically beautiful wedding and here is our testimonial from Danielle and Ed.

Our thanks to Anna Gadza for these wonderful photos and our congratulations to Danielle and Ed and a big thank you for allowing us to organise, style and share such a fantastic day with you both x

A Sevillian Orange Theme for Weddings

I love Sunday mornings and this morning is no exception as I get some quiet time to spend designing our weddings for next year.

Blues surged in popularity as a wedding colour this year and will be a trend colour again for 2012 along with orange which of course reflects the wonderful Sevillian orange theme for weddings in Spain.

I am currently designing a tablescape for one of our weddings and loved this styled photo shoot I found on Elizabeth Anne Designs.

We are designing a long U shaped table for an early May wedding and tulips are in season here which will keep the floral costs down quite dramatically, which is great as we can use an eclectic mix of glass jars and blue water bottles filled with tulips and white hydrangeas along with all sorts of different height candles and tealights and finish the dressing of this tablescape with small oranges and foliage. We are planning to use succulents as well in small pots to place the guests names in and tie blue napkins with raffia and a button detail :)

I am on a mission now to find orange crates and start washing and collecting jars!

As we create and design our weddings we will share our ideas and inspirations with you and of course we still have many beautiful weddings of our own to post over the coming months.