There’s a new wedding registry on the block and it’s all about styling your home, with ex Belle interior design editor Imogen Naylor on board to help newlyweds on their decorating journey.
“We are different in almost every way from traditional registries,” says co-founder Jacqui Scruby. “But the main difference is our style proposition – that a couple’s wedding registry should ‘style their home’ and make Pinterest dreams become a reality.”
I just have to share my wedding invitations with you now they’ve all safely arrived to our guests here and overseas. I am so in love with them. I really can’t imagine anything better (other than a letterpress version, which I couldn’t afford). I worked with the ever patient Kate Reeves Robertson at The Story of Us to create my dream invites and the perfect start to our big day countdown.
When I received my printed goods back from Kate, I almost shed a tear. You dream about getting married for years (I wasn’t one of those girls with a scrapbook and all, but I won’t lie and pretend I hadn’t imagine what my wedding stationery might look like, being a paper nerd). Putting them together in the right order, addressing the envelopes (Damian’s job), inserting the envelope liners and getting the right stamps for overseas and domestic mail was a much bigger job than imagined and saw our dining table become a production line for three solid nights. (Top tip: use post-its!) It was fun though, despite the sore necks.
Pinch punch first of the month, it’s 7 Vignettes time again! And it’s my birthday today. Happy birthday to me! Don’t forget, the awesome prize is your own personalised stationery set by The Story of Us, so give it your best shot!
Everything you need to know for this month is here, and about the photo challenge in general if you’re a newcomer (welcome!) is here. Best of luck!
7 Vignettes is just a week away! Yay! It starts on 1 July, which just happens to be my birthday, so let’s make it one big instagram party! Our judge and sponsor this month is Kate Reeves Robertson from The Story of Us, who make amazing stationery and wedding invites. They happen to have just done mine and Damian’s and we could not love them any more! (I can’t show you them just yet as some are winging their way to England and I don’t want to spoil the surprise for our guests).
Anyway, the winner of this month’s challenge gets a brilliant prize: their own custom stationery set, designed from scratch (they don’t do templates!) by Kate herself. If, like me, you believe in the power of the handwritten note, the ‘just because’ note, the ‘I think you’re awesome’ note and the thank you note, you’re going to love this! Kate’s work is really special and often includes elements of handwritten calligraphy combined with her graphic design.
Kate is a big fan of 7 Vignettes and the top photo above is one of her own previous entries. She is very excited to be judging next month!
And here’s the list in advance. I hope you like it and I can’t wait to see what you come up with next month. Note the birthday-themed theme for 1 July, not that it’s all about me or anything!
You need to use the #7vignettes hashtag and tag Kate (@story_of_us) and I (@interiorsaddict). You must submit all 7 images by midnight on Sunday 7 July and be an Australian resident to be eligible to win the prize. The prize comprises the design and print of 25 notecards with envelopes worth $260. Everything else you need to know can be found here.
I’m really bad at asking for help. Always have been. So when it comes to my wedding, and with all my bridesmaids overseas, it’s been a little tricky. I mean, you can’t ask non-wedding party friends to help. That’s just AWKWARD.
So I’m very grateful for friends who have offered their help (because that’s ok) and got all kinds of excited for me. And then there are the people, pretty much strangers, who have offered their help too, which is almost even more amazing. My future mother-in-law has been fantastic and one of the most excited people about our big day. Not having my own mum anymore and having no bridesmaids here to call on has left me feeling a little sad and lost at times, so I’m very grateful for her advice and enthusiasm.
Last month I was thrilled to be invited to the first ever Start Up Salon (“a meeting of online mavens for women doing awesome things in the creative and online world”) and the launch of a lovely new blog called Ooh! by gorgeous sisters Kate and Lu Reeves. Lu is an interior designer and Kate is my almost-neighbour and the talent behind my wedding invitations (which must remain secret for a little longer) at The Story of Us.
Kate and Lu are the kind of glam domestic goddesses who make people like me, who are, shall we say challenged in the kitchen, feel inadequate. Luckily they are delightful and really nice girls, otherwise I would hate them…
I’m no stylist. I think we all know that…
But when Ikea Australia asked me to take part in its wedding table styling challenge, as a bride-to-be, I thought it sounded like a lot of fun! And it was.
The challenge was to create any kind of wedding table setting using nothing but what you can buy in Ikea, apart from large ticket items like the table itself, for under $500. And above is the result, my very pink and floral dessert station. I know it isn’t very good but hey, you can’t take yourself too seriously! Everything there, edibles aside, is from Ikea, right down to the faux flowers (really not that bad, don’t you think?), the frames, the napkins, the table covering, all of it. Tempting as it was to get one of my many stylists friends to do it for me, I think you can probably tell I didn’t!
Adore Home Magazine’s Loni Parker launched a second online magazine all about weddings yesterday and it’s lovely, literally.
Lovely Wedding Magazine has an emphasis on stylish nuptials and I was delighted to be involved by writing three wedding profiles for the first issue. Read it free here.
I’ve spent a lot of time on Etsy this week, getting inspiration for wedding styling, favours, stationery, you name it! Etsy is becoming THE place for wedding stuff. You can even buy FOOD on Etsy. Did you know that? Anyway, today’s Etsy Tuesday isn’t strictly homewares, but it is very cool stuff.
First up, I love these wooden neon salad bowls. Aren’t they gorgeous? US$64 for two.
Then I found some homemade marshmallows (I KNOW!). US$12.
i tend to believe that by the time ‘everybody’ catches on to something, it is well and truly over… you know?
as well as styling interiors, i also design, style and implement events. corporate. PR. product launches. and, yes…weddings.
hmmm. and herein lies the problem.
go back for a second to statement number one.
‘i tend to believe that by the time ‘everybody’ catches on to something, it is well and truly over.’
on the whole, i love dealing with brides. their enthusiasm is boundless…their passion second to none. I love it. really.
until they say this. “i want something really different. something no one has done before. something VINTAGE”.
ok.
then they will go on to say “i like typewriters..a want a whole table of typewriters…..and mason jars filled with flowers,. you know,.flowers that a sweet seven year-old girl with flowing flaxen locks and a white cotton dress has lovingly plucked from a field and shoved into a jam jar. and i want a field covered with bunting, bunting that flutters in the warm breeze. oh,..and I LOVE VINTAGE mismatched crockery and whimsical pink champagne glasses. and VINTAGE cameras. and vintage suitcases stuffed with apples. and a DESSERT or lolly table with a vintage tablecloth! and CUPCAKES! you know? something DIFFERENT….something vintage, vintage, VINTAGE!’.
yah. different. totally different to all the other millions of folk who also wanted something different.
and, that’s ok. i’ll totally deliver that. it’ll be dreamy, and romantic and whimsical and VINTAGE. but different? not so much.
i think all the vintage is becoming souless. people are trying so hard to add character and personality through ‘vintage’ that they are ending up doing the exact opposite. their events are looking like carbon copies of the event that was held in the same ‘vintage friendly’ venue the week before.
the same goes for interiors. has anyone watched The Block recently? it’s all replica furniture and vintage styling. mainstream. safe. dull.
so.. here’s a shout out to the world. let’s move on from vintage, folk! Let’s find something else to love, something else to be inspired by…and something else to lust after.
United we can do it! Call me..I’ll help you.