Archive for the ‘Planning & Ideas’ Category

Splendid Affairs is a wedding decor company specialising in bespoke wedding decor – something personal, unique, stylish and always glamorous. The inspiration behind this table was  vintage glamor coupled with the latest trend of using cut glass, crystal and silver as a prominent wedding decor items. The flowers are kept to the minimum and the focus is placed on other decorative items. Each table can have different items displayed, which you can keep as sentimental keep-sakes from your wedding day to treasure forever.

Let’s hope the weather improves tomorrow, but even if it rains make your way to Toadbury Hall for some true English Country Style setting to meet the Toadbury Team, sample gorgeous canapes and sorbets, have a cup of coffee and meet some great wedding suppliers.

What more, a professional photographer Kat Forsyth will be at the venue to take some fun photos of the couples! So come over and experience just how rocking wedding planning can be!

Splendid Affairs is a free bridal publication packed with inspirational ideas, wedding planning tips and real life weddings.

This month’s bridal fashion shoot took place at Shepstone Gardens, featuring bridal wear by Dimity and Wedding Connexion. Sam Scaife of Lashline exercised her make-up artistry on our models, whilst  Kat Forsyth’s photographic talent can be seen throughout the pages of this digital magazine.

This wedding magazine is put together by Evegenia Poplett of Splendid Affairs Wedding Planning Company.

Click here to read it.

This brilliant wedding magazine is FREE and packed with great advice for brides palnning their own wedding.

Great professional advice, real weddings, stationery ideas, wedding flowers and decor and much more!

Click HERE to view it

I  was visiting mom’s vegetable garden and spotted her chernobyl spring onions overgrowing in the far corner. Out came the scissors and I happily snipped the ball-shaped buds of these unusually large species. On the way in I passed by the lavender bush and out came the scissors again.

I made this arrangement in minutes (without prior flower-arrangement knowledge), so I’m thinking: maybe this kitchen garden look could go with my Mad Hatter’s Tea Party theme?

Besides our day being perfect and honestly I can say I would hardly have changed a thing, there are still lessons to be learnt once you’ve gone through it all yourself.  Here are a couple of things I’ll share with you which may help with your planning:

1. Really!  Don’t sweat the small stuff!  People don’t even notice.  I spent hours and hours painting and spray painting our centrepieces.  I didn’t want any of the twig’s colour coming through so I made sure I touched up every little spot.  No one noticed!  I spent weeks and weeks trying to come up with different centrepiece ideas, decor ideas, etc and although you don’t want a slap dash wedding you also don’t want to drain yourself by putting together 50 ideas and not being happy with one.  Don’t worry about what people will think, just do what YOU want to do and what suits YOUR style.  If it isn’t there, people don’t even know the difference.

2. Make sure you’re happy with your hair and makeup. I thought my hair and makeup trials were stunning but deep down they weren’t really what I would have gone for first time.  I ended up changing my hair and makeup on the actual day.  Just remember, you still have to be YOU.  You don’t want to look at your wedding pics and think “who on earth is that?”!

3. You don’t need alcoholic welcome drinks.  They are so expensive and a refreshing fruit punch or mint water is good enough.  We save R1500 on our welcome drinks just from excluding the alcohol. Read the rest of this entry »

Seeing that I haven’t been great with my diet and am now regretting it, I thought I’d look up some beauty tips for all of us to try out whether it’s too late or not:

Source www.excitingweddingfavors.com

Hydrate – We all should do this all the time anyway… during the last week before the wedding be sure to drink a full sixty four (64) ounces of water per day. That is just over three twenty ounce water bottles. Yes, that is a lot of water, but our bodies need that water to a) Give your skin that soft, healthy glow, and b) Flush your bodies of excess salt and impurities. This allows our bodies to work their best and look their trimmest and healthiest.

Food Choices – Just as the old adage says, ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ What we put into our bodies has a direct impact on how our body looks on our wedding day. During the last weeks prior to the wedding celebration, if we concentrate on eating lean proteins, and fresh fruits and vegetables as the bulk of our diet, we will give our bodies the opportunity to tone up as much as the time frame allows.

Salt – Salt is an essential component to life. But too much of a good thing is not a good thing, and most of us get too much. More to the point, as we approach our wedding day and want to look as slender and healthy as possible, we are well advised to limit our total daily intake of salt by avoiding salty food entirely and only using the salt sparingly. Why? Because the more salt we have in our system, the more we will retain water instead of allowing the water to flush our system of impurities as it is designed to do.

Makeup – Makeup is arguably a bride’s best friend on her wedding day. It helps her look fresh… and it can also help to give her the appearance of having lost weight in time for her wedding regardless of whether she did or not. How? Simply by the use of highlighting techniques in the area of the cheekbone. Put in the most basic terms this beauty tip involves using a lighter shade on the top of the cheekbones and a darker shade underneath to create the illusion of sunken cheeks. To pull this off a bride should:

Read the rest of this entry »

I am absolutely not a fan of the bouquet and garter throwing traditions so I have been searching high and low for alternatives and have come across some very cute ideas.  My favourite is the longest married bouquet toss, but if you want to give your bouquet to your mom then you can award a stunning bottle of wine to the longest married.  Here are the ideas found on http://ezinearticles.com/?Six-Alternative-Bridal-Bouquet-Toss-Ideas&id=122526:

So as you can see, our big day is getting closer by the minute.  It’s quite unbelievable how time has flown by and the nerves are setting in.  I’ve never understood why, if we have everything sorted and planned, the nerves hit brides-to-be – but now I’m understanding it.  I’m also not so sure it’s nerves as much as anticipation (and of course hope that all goes off without a hitch).  So far I have (almost) everything under control.  Almost half of the guest list has RSVP’d on our wedding webiste which saved us rushing around getting official invites out.  What’s left is the bridesmaids dress fittings, my final fittings,  paying the decor company, hair and makeup trials, finalizing the suits …. and then the bachelor and bachelorette parties which will take place the weekend before our wedding.  Oh, I must also mention the stunning ostrich feather confetti we’re ordering and the suppliers who give great service.  The are in the Klein Karoo but delivery is effected within 4 days.  I got their details from the florist we are using and she swears by them.

www.kleinkaroo.com/showroom

I will however fill you in on a problem with the venue which is persisting and that I am very concerned about. Read the rest of this entry »

I have had such a hectic time with the decor arrangements and trying to cut down on the quote.  After thinking the first decor quote of R9000 was too expensive we ended up getting a much better decor idea from SA Wedding Decor which came to almost R20 000!  We’re moving towards a similar theme and feel to the below but after scrutinizing the quote and remembering that I am very creative, the centrepieces will be done by me and I am scrapping the white sheer organza overlays and the large white painted trees we were going to have as features on each side of the main table.  We have so much else going on that we can safely do without these things.  I’ve managed to get the quote down by R7000! 

www.mixmingleglow.com

We were also lucky enough to get the very best gift of all from one of our MC’s and good friend.  Read the rest of this entry »