Hiya, Little Miss Weddingistas! I am a wedding planner and owner of Forever and Ever Events, a boutique wedding planning firm based in Primrose Hill, London. I was so thrilled when I was asked to guest blog about my favourite two topics: DIY and Styling.
As a wedding planner and event design consultant, I know how daunting DIY can seem to people, especially to those who don’t have much time to put it together! Never fear: here are some easy DIY tips that will most certainly inject your personalities and charm into your celebration. (Just don’t leave ordering some of these items to the last minute! Always factor in how long shipping/handling will take… just FYI!).
Photography by Alicia Pollett

10. Frame old photographs of you and your fiancé (individually, from toddler to adult, and as a couple), as well as photographs of your grandparents, siblings and, most importantly, your parents on their wedding day. Try and use pretty antique-style or gilt-edged frames. Set these framed photos around your reception venue or in the hotel lobby if you have exclusive use. It will instantly create a sense of an intimate party that celebrates your lives.

9. Remember chalkboards from school? Well, they don’t have to be associated with your ol’ school marm. Chalkboards can be extremely cute signage at a modern wedding reception and are also eco-friendly. All you need are large pieces of wood, plastic or metal and “chalkboard paint” from your local hardware store. Definitely apply multiple coats, but make sure the prior coats dry completely before adding the next layer. Use these babies as a welcome sign, to write out the evening’s menu, a dessert table sign, etc., and then reuse them after your wedding!

8. For a guestbook, find an old/antique typewriter on eBay or at a flea market/car boot sale. Set it on its own table with blank sheets of high-quality paper. Feed one paper through for guests to start on – and type your first message, such as, “This is our guestbook! Share a message with us! Love, M + D.” After the wedding, punch two holes in the left hand margin of each page, stack them up and feed a pretty ribbon through all the pages (front through back, twice to secure), double knot and tie a big bow. Now you’ve got a guest book with pretty binding.

7. If you can’t afford one of those amazing photo booths, why not create your own? Put together a Polaroid camera station! Ask an attendant or friend to take Polaroids of your guests and paste the instant photo into a book. Your guests can then leave a cute handwritten message next to their photo. Before the wedding, take a sample Polaroid and, using it as a guide, paste photo corners onto each page, so that it is super easy for your “photographer” to slide the instant photos onto each page.

6. Are you a music buff and picky about your DJ or band’s play list? Create your own wedding soundtrack and provide personalized CDs as wedding favours. All you have to do is burn the play list onto CDs and order personalized CD labels in your wedding colours. Make sure to get square envelopes that match your colour palette for the CDs and tie a ribbon around the entire packet so that it looks like a mini present.

5. Escort cards can be such a creative DIY platform. If you’re planning a destination wedding, get brown luggage tags for your escort cards. Use a typewriter to type up each guest’s name with their table assignment (e.g., “Mary Herrington | Table 4”) and line the tags up alphabetically in a large antique suitcase that’s displayed lying open on a table, propped against a wall. Type up a sign that says “Find your dinner destination!” or something cute like that so that your guests know to pick up their escort cards.

4. For instant charm, hang up bunting and fairy lights! It’s so easy to do – and fairy light don’t even require assembly! For the bunting, cut out triangles on patterned paper and sew the top of the triangles onto thin white ribbon with few inches of space in between each triangle. Then hang away!

3. Do you have a friend or family member who is awesome at baking? Put together a dessert table with their homemade treats! Mix up your mom’s famous pecan squares with your BFF’s cupcakes and your granny’s melt-in-mouth cookies. Set them out on a long table in your reception area on cake stands and pretty platters. Yum!
Photos by Berna V Photography
2. Flowers & centerpieces. For an outdoorsy or vintage reception, collect glass milk jugs, pickles jars and honey jars and arrange them in three’s in the center of a round table. Make sure you use fresh flowers and arrange different, yet thematically cohesive, flowers into each of the three vases, creating a vibrant centerpiece. For example, baby’s breath mixed with daisies and roses in the same colour palette. {Tip: it’s beautiful to mix ‘rough’ edged flowers and succulents with the traditional, like roses}.

1. And the easiest DIY styling idea? Candles candles candles! This is so cheap and so easy, you really don’t have an excuse. Candlelight instantly creates warmth and a romantic glow – and makes your evening reception look stunning in photos. You can get tea lights in bags of 100 at any local shop for less than £5. Order super cheap clear glass tea light holders from IKEA and set out loads of tea lights all over your tables. Gorgeous.

Most importantly – make sure you have FUN and inject YOUR personality into any DIY project for your big day. For more tips on event styling, DIY and wedding planning, visit Forever and Ever Events or visit my blog.

‘What do you think guys? Fab ideas? Do you have any other DIY ideas to add?‘

Photography: Jay Rowden
Church: St. John’s, Hartley Wintney, Hampshire
Reception: L’Auberge at The Cricketers, Hartley Wintney, Hampshire
Brides dress: Benjamin Roberts at Brides Visited, Ashtead, Surrey
Brides earrings: Porters, Hartley Wintney
Grooms suit: Moss Bros
Cakes: Catherine Wright, Hartley Wintney

There are lots more real life weddings on LMW – be sure to check them out.

Hi everyone,
Since my last update at the beginning of January, where I listed our massive To Do list, we have been really busy ticking off as many of those items as we can off the list! Of course we also managed to add more things to it along the way, and hopefully most of those have also been ticked off!

The biggest task I completed {and hence my reason for the lack of posts lately} was completing and posting the invitations! I revealed them on my blog already(OurDaybyDesign) so to follow on from my previous post about our Save the date’s, I thought I would let you all know a little bit more about our invitations; what I used to make them and where I found all of my supplies.

Pocketfolds – Colorplan Col25 Amethyst 145mm Book Pocketfold – PDA Card & Craft;
Gatefolds – Colorplan Col25 Amethyst 145mm Gatefold creased cards – PDA;
Purple Card {ribbon bellyband seal} – Dark purple card – the Paper Mill;
Grey Card {invite/rsvp backing & bellyband seal} – Colorplan Col29 Dark Grey Card – PDA;
Paper – Sparkling White Iridescent paper from the Folio range at Paper State – Hobbycraft;
Purple Ribbon – Purple Satin ribbon – Kate’s Paperie;
White Ribbon – White Organdy ribbon – Kate’s Paperie;
Grey Ribbon {ribbon bellyband} – Smoked Grey ribbon from Berisfords – Swift-Hart Boxes;
Stamp – Linden Branch Stamp – Unity Stamp Company;
Ink – Violet Versacolor ink from Tsukineko – Hobbycraft;
Tools – Stamp-a-ma-jig; Fiskars Paper Trimmer; Fiskars Drops corner rounder;
Glue – Double sided permanent transfer tape from Stix 2 – Hobbycraft;
Translucent Envelopes – 155mm Square Envelopes – Ideal Envelopes;
White RSVP Envelopes – 120mm Square Envelopes – PDA;

To print everything I just used my standard inkjet printer and it coped very well with the load! The information & map / directions insert sheets were both double sided which also turned out great.

All of our guests loved them and I have had loads of lovely comments about them. Everyone thought the insert sheets were really helpful and loved that we had included an RSVP sheet & envelope which also included the transport option on it. My mum is currently collecting them all together as we used their address since the invites came from both sets of our parents. We wanted to do this since they are both helping us with the wedding and we thought it was a lovely touch for those friends of my parents who wouldn’t know Grahams parents and vice versa. My aunt, who we obviously know is coming, doesn’t want to send the rsvp back as she wants to keep the whole invite together to show people and another friend had to contact me to get our gift list details as she had taken the invite to show her mum and left it there. Other friends of my parents also told me on Sunday that they had all been taking them everywhere to show everyone!

For our evening invites, we amended the main wording to suit and then amended the other insert sheets accordingly. They were then put in a gatefold card to make them a bit different but they used the same ribbon bellyband & envelopes.

Since we didn’t actually send invites to our parents, as they came from them, both my mum and Grahams mum wanted a version to keep as well so I amended the main invite wording just to say ‘request the pleasure of your company’ rather than a name as per the other guests ones. I now also need to do 1 of both the day and evening invites for us to keep too.

I haven’t really counted the total cost of them yet but that wasn’t the reason I decided to make them. I really wanted to design and make my own stationery right from the start and knew that this way I could get something that no one else had that was totally unique to us. Obviously I did look at loads of different ideas online and when I first started searching for ideas I found this US wedding blog {http://roadtotheaisle.blogspot.com which was my original inspiration to also start blogging} and I loved the ribbon bellyband idea she had done. Since then I also found loads of examples / ideas from sellers on Etsy.

The rest of our stationery also uses the same them and we have already completed the favour boxes using the same seal as the ribbon bellyband. We have also completed the order of service’s and menu’s which used the same purple card, sparkly paper, grey ribbon and a card & paper seal like the invites. The table plan, table names and placecards also used the same card & a thinner version of the purple ribbon, but we also used a different punch on those. Since the tables are going to be named after buildings in New York, which is my favourite city and where we got engaged, we found a Martha Stewart edge punch which had a city skyline on it. We have used it on the top of the paper on the individual placecards, each table name and each table list on the table plan, which I think all look really good.

To drink, serve your guests Pimms, the perfect thirst quencher for those sunny afternoons, or go for a light summer prosecco. To nibble on mini cupcakes or chocolate dipped strawberries served from delicate cake stands. To finish off the look make sure that you serve it all from vintage crockery such as these lovely plates and saucers pictured here. There are lots of companies that specialize in hiring out vintage crockery and glasses, ranging in price and location. A few that seem to keep cropping as reputable options up are My Vintage Party, The English Tea Party or The Crockery Cupboard based in London

Add jars of old fashioned sweets to each of the tables or wrap them up and give them as favors to your guests -coconut ice, liquorice allsorts, candy sticks and butter toffees – Candy buffet is a good place to start but there are lots of sites out there that sell sweeties en masse.

Give your bridesmaids posies of seasonal flowers, and adorn the venue with gladioli and other summer foliage, that has been grown locally, not only the greener option but will complete the look perfectly. Fill old jam jars with posies of sweet peas and summers grasses and arrange these on vintage styled tables. Give your guests dried rose petal confetti in paper cones, much prettier than the paper version.