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Interiors Addict

Get the look: the Interiors Addict guide to wedding styling

Today it’s 2 months since I married my love. How times flies when you’re honeymooning, moving house and enjoying married life! Before I completely let go of being a recent bride and get on with being a wife, I thought I’d share one last wedding post with you, this time about the styling aspect.

interiors addict wedding styling

It will come as no surprise that I was more interested in what my wedding would look like than what I’d look like! I don’t DO dresses. I do however, do decor! So I had a lot of fun with this part of wedding planning. Here are some highlights and details of all my suppliers.

Perhaps the most talked about things at my wedding were: the dress, the flowers and the vintage caravan which I had arranged to serve tea and biscuits (I know, how English) as a fun and pretty time-killer after church and before the reception. That Vintage Caravan were brilliant. I’d seen their pink caravan (Sweet Jane’s Travelling Teahouse) at events before but when I found out they had a new addition, Spencer, who was not only very handsome but also navy and therefore on colour scheme, it was just meant to be!

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Suffice to say none of my guests had ever been to a wedding where they served tea from a caravan parked on the street outside the church before and everyone said it was “very Jen”. The priest, in his wisdom, didn’t hesitate to give us the go ahead. Kelly Holcroft and her team did a top job of styling the grassy area around Spencer too, which suited the relaxed, pretty vibe we were going for. Total event professionals!

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Interiors Addict

10 things I learned from planning our wedding

1. A wedding planner or on-the-day co-ordinator can be a lifesaver! We used the lovely Katie Moore from Piccadilly Events. I was all over every detail of our wedding. I had spreadsheets and lists; LOTS of lists. So I wasn’t sure I really needed someone to help on the day (as well as my many generous friends who got stuck in) because I thought I’d already organised everything. Wrong! When there’s a wedding there is ALWAYS something else that needs doing! Katie was our wedding angel. So many guests commented on how fabulous she was.

That's Katie behind the flowers!
That’s Katie behind the flowers!

As well as the million things she probably did that I knew nothing about, she took the flowers from the church to the reception, made sure everyone knew where they should be and when and made sure my dad had a torch to read his speech with (he was seriously nervous that his eyesight was going to let him down, although I was of course oblivious!). When I arrived at the church, she produced a small tin of M&Ms, offered them to me and said: “Sugar hit?” Brilliant! Katie came to our rehearsal too so she knew the plan for the day as well as I did (we merged our respective run sheets!) and who all the key players were. I thoroughly recommend having someone like Katie as a go-to girl on the day. I told everyone that if they had any issues at all they should go and speak to the girl in the yellow dress (yes, she even told me what she’d be wearing in advance).

And she did all of this IN HEELS.

2. While we’re on the subject of extra pairs of hands, the next thing I learned (after a while) is that it’s okay to ask for help.

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Interiors Addict

Our incredible wedding video by The Story of Us

We’re a little bit in love with our wedding video and very happy to share it as so many of you have sent well wishes and asked about our day.

Jen + Damian from The Story of Us on Vimeo.

We had a beautiful day, full of love and smiles. We honestly wouldn’t change a thing. So many times we looked around and said to each other: “Can this really be our wedding?!”

Tom and Kate (who also designed our invites) from The Story of Us captured and edited our day so well. We are thrilled! We almost didn’t get a videographer but we are so glad we squeezed it into our budget, especially as my sister wasn’t able to come from the UK. I remember asking lots of married friends in the run-up if they had any regrets about their own wedding (in case I’d missed something important!). Time and again they told me they wished they’d worn a veil and they wish they’d had a videographer. I’m so glad I had both! As much as we love our photos too, the film is such a lovely keepsake and one day we hope to show it to our kids!

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Interiors Addict

Introducing my new blog, Appliance Addict

Appliance-Addict-Logo_LowRes

I’ve been (annoyingly) hinting at it for a little while and today I’m delighted to reveal that my new blog is all about home appliances. A sister site to this one, for those of you who are also interested in the latest gadgetry for your lifestyle (and to save annoying those who aren’t by keeping it separate), you now have Appliance Addict too. We have a great launch competition to win a Bodum BISTRO stand mixer in a colour of your choice.

I’ve been wanting to launch a new site for some time, it just took a little while to work out the perfect little sister for Interiors Addict (exteriors definitely aren’t my forté!). That’s the beauty of the online world and indeed self-employment; if you have an idea you can just go for it and move quickly. I’ve had some wonderful support from my friends and my web developer behind the scenes, for which I’d like to thank them. They know who they are. When you work on your own it’s great to have people to bounce ideas off and to get excited with you.

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Interiors Addict

Welcome to Appliance Addict!

Hi there and welcome to Appliance Addict! If you love the latest gadgets and home appliances, you’ve come to the right place. If you want things explained in a straight talking way without too much technical jargon, this is the site for you. Appliance Addict is brought to you by Jen Bishop, the blogger behind the successful Interiors Addict and Damian Francis, who has years of experience writing about consumer technology. Between them they have two decades of journalism experience (and now they feel old)!

Jen bishop Damian Francis Appliance Addict

Jen knew many of her readers at Interiors Addict would also love to read about the latest coffee machines, stand mixers and vacuums but didn’t want to alienate those who just wanted the gorgeous rooms, furniture and homewares. So it made sense to set up this sister site. Here you’ll find appliances that help make life easier and more fun, that help keep your house clean, your caffeine levels up, your smoothies smooth, your food cooked and your bread toasted!

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Interiors Addict

Living with an interiors addict (by my fiancé)

In a very brave move, today I gave my fiancé Damian the chance to blog about what it’s like living with me. I must be crazy…

damian

I used to have a collection of interiors books which I kept in my Ikea Expedit bookcase in my bedroom. I was quite proud of them, from Terence Conran’s Storage to collections on small spaces. Sydney property prices being what they are, I was realistic about the size of my first property. I felt like I was in touch with interiors. An interest beat out only by Formula 1… and cars… and travel… and planes… OK, it was a distant fifth, but just go with me here.

In the middle of 2010 (I think – the last few years have been a bit of a blur), I moved in with Jen. We lived in a small two-bedroom Mosman apartment next to the local school. Handy if you had kids. We don’t. I had it in my mind that I was going to turn that apartment around and add New York and Paris inspired minimalist touches that would revolutionise what was quite a bland little pad (Jen hadn’t been there long enough to put her mark on it).

How clueless I was (and arguably still am).