100 Layer Cake

26 Apr

Guest blogger: Indigo Bunting, Hello

Hello!
I am Erin Jang from The Indigo Bunting and I am so happy to be guest blogging this week.

I work as an art director at a magazine but on the side I design custom wedding invitations. I specialize in creating one-of-a-kind invitations that are tailored for the couples I work with.

What makes a great custom wedding invitation are the details. Through the format, shape, color, wording and illustrations on an invitation you can convey a lot about yourself and your wedding. I always want to find that one special detail or memorable nugget about a couple or their wedding that could inspire the entire look of their invitations.

The inspiration for this invitation came from an amazing pair of Vivienne Westwood heart-adorned heels that the bride wore on her wedding day. The reception venue was a red velvet room in a restaurant, and that shaped the color palette too.

For this invitation suite, the couple mentioned their love for vintage ephemera and passing secret notes and letters to each other, and that was the inspiration for folding up a small invitation inside the mini envelope.

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Sometimes the venue can really inspire the look of the invitation. The outside of this invitation was inspired by the exterior design work on the old chapel where the ceremony was held. The inside featured illustrations of specific vintage chandeliers that hung in their reception space.

Other times, a couple’s story inspires the imagery on an invitation. This couple met as colleagues in a science lab. She baked cupcakes and would bring them to work; he fell in love, and they got married!

More than anything, I love when a couple has put a lot of consideration into the wording and content for their invitation. It makes the act of reading it that much more fun and personal. This couple decided to have a map of Manhattan annotated with their favorite spots. They let guests know that “food, drinks, dancing and ridiculous amounts of joy” would follow the ceremony, and they selected three untraditional, evocative quotes about love and New York for the backside of the invitation.

Hopefully these examples will inspire you to consider what kinds of lovely details you can share with your guests on your wedding invitations.

xo, Erin

23 Apr

Guest blogger: Yes, Please Design: peg board flower box

categories DIY Wedding, Flowers + Greenery, Guest Blogger

Today, our DIY centerpiece comes from the simplest of materials: particle board and peg board. Personally I’ve always loved the graphic pattern of particle board. My grandfather used to outline all of his tools in sharpie marker on the particle board in his garage. I’ve had a crush on this unassuming material ever since.

To create the peg board flower box you’ll need floral tubes, a sheet of peg board, particle board, a box of galvanized roofing nails, and a penchant for power tools (or, in my case, that handy mister again). Cut out 2 pieces of particle board sized 7×11” and two pieces 7×6” (if you ask nicely someone at your local hardware store may just cut these pieces for you). Form the four pieces into a box and hammer the galvanized nails into the seams. You can use as little or as many nails as you’d like. Then take four nails and hammer them horizontally into the about ¼” below the top. This creates the ledge for your peg board top to rest. Next cut a 6×10” piece of peg board for the top.

Let’s beautify this thing. I found the most stunning peonies at the market this morning. Cut your largest bloom leaving about a 4” stem. Insert the stem into one of the peg board holes and then insert the stem into a floral tube. Repeat these steps with as many blooms as you’d like. We used two large blooms and a bud here – but you can fill the box as much as you’d like.

Place the flower filled peg board atop the box and viola you’ve got a stunningly simple and terribly beautiful centerpiece.

Thanks, Kelly, for all your thoughtful floral arrangement ideas! To continue to be fueled with inspiration be sure to check out Kelly’s blog Yes, Please or better yet book her for your next event.

22 Apr

Beachside Hawaii wedding: David + Nazare

categories Neat Venues, Real Weddings

We’re desperately longing for summertime already, even though it’s barely spring. This beautiful Hawaiian wedding isn’t making things any easier.

To start, doesn’t everyone need a portrait on a surf board?

Pretty much everyone that attended the wedding helped out in some way. One of David’s groomsmen, Johnny, owns a fine foods company and he did all the catering for the wedding as a gift to the couple. The groom’s parents grew the berries for the pies, and the other wedding party members helped out with the prep and cooking of the rest of the food. A family friend grew all the flowers on her estate and David’s mom Susan and a few of Nazare’s friends arranged them.

And the best part… the bride’s dress was custom made out of white bathing suit material, modeled after her favorite sundress. How cool is that?

Photography: JL Photografia / Venue: The Plantation House on Maui

21 Apr

oh, hello friend engagement pics: Danni + Nick

categories Engagements

Hello dear friends! I’m so glad to be back on 100 layer cake with a follow up post on my engagement session – you may remember a couple of my guest posts about engagement shoot inspiration. A few weeks ago, Nick and I headed to Las Vegas, Nevada to meet up with photographers Vania & Christine from Simply Bloom. We worked really hard to get really unique and fun props for our shoot: we ended up coming up with giant 4 foot letters we found on etsy, bubbles, and vintage handkerchiefs. Here’s how the shoot turned out, I hope you enjoy it! There are also a couple tips I wanted to share after having experienced my own engagement shoot.

The location the photographers chose was a beautiful desert with these amazing mountains in the background. I really love how the letters turned out. We did paint them but nothing too bold, I am a fan of this soft yellow color so it was very us.

I happened to have these beautiful vintage handkerchiefs that I purchased from the flea market a few months back. Nick and I went to home depot to figure out how to make some makeshift poles that we could tie the handkerchiefs onto. Even though you can’t see them, it was fun little diy project for us.

This is probably my favorite shot of the day, just because it was so natural. We saw a flock of birds nearby and thought it’d be fun to get them in the background. It was such a silly sight – as we started to walk toward the birds, they slowly moved further away from us.. so we’re trying to walk through deep deep mud to get this great shot. The photographers were so open to work with us. We finally stopped nearby a group of birds and the sound of some nearby motorcycles made the whole flock fly – it was perfect! So perhaps in your session you can look for other natural elements to make for a good shot.

One thing I would remember to notice is your details, even the small ones. The first thing my mom commented in a couple of these images was that the letters were switched. Of course, we didn’t even think of it when we were shooting. While I don’t think it’s really that big of a deal, it’s interesting to hear what other people notice.

You can’t notice at all but it was started sprinkling during our shoot, then by the end it really picked up. We were freezing by the end of it. So just bring clothes for all possible weather conditions. We also didn’t think to bring any mats so our car got really muddy but it was so exciting we didn’t care too much.

Time for the bubbles! We bought a couple bubble machines from Party City, they were just toy machines. We tested them before we left so we’d know they worked when we got there. We weren’t sure how it’d work in the rain but it went great!

I’m really happy with the shoot, it was so fun to see the results of all the planning we put into it. Just have fun with it and be yourself. Thanks for viewing our pics! Now it’s time to finish our wedding plans!

You can view more pics at Green Wedding Shoes!