What we couldn't make we had made for us by our crafty friends or other handmade small businesses.
Our rings we bought from jewellers as we couldn't afford bespoke pieces. After looking for nearly 12 months for a second hand vintage band I finally found a replica, very affordable and just down the road at the local shops! Pete found his ring online.
I made the ring dish from air drying clay. You can't see the detail but I used a doily to 'etch' a pattern into it. I will add a tutorial if there is any interest!
All the girls wore a necklace. Our accessory colour was silver so we all had silver swallows with a string of 5 pearls (to represent Love, Patience, Grace, Kindness, Respect). each one was handmade by me.
Peter bought me a bracelet made by a local artisan from The Swich Contemporary Art Space in Ipswich. It is made from some vintage spoons and a pearl. Absolutely gorgeous. I'm fairly sure the spoons themselves are over a hundred years old.
We sourced the swallows used as boutonnières from the UK. They are Victorian replicas made from pewter signed by the maker AR Brown. I also made these into mini fascinators in all the girls hair. Every member of the bridal party had a swallow as did each one of our parents. Very easy for people not familiar with our parents to locate them on sight!
I embroidered the swallows for the clutches onto silver satin and my friend Belinda from Sybella turned them into beautiful clutches!
Kim and I bought flowers two days before the wedding. We bought them from Northside Flower Market We picked bunches of seasonal that matched our colour scheme and I made the bouquets on Friday night. I had originally wanted to use snap dragons but they are so fragile there is no way they would have lasted and made the trip to Tamborine. We used dusky pink roses, wax flowers, silver suede, and I can't remember the name of the yellow number! I made 5 bouquets and the flowers cost less than $80. Win. We tied the bunches together and wrapped wide lace around the stems. Then I used a ribbon in the colour of the bridesmaid around the centre of the lace so each lady could find her bouquet.
We had a minor crisis with the centrepieces. The ones we selected from the venue became unavailable so Pete and I decided to make our own as the others seemed too tropical. I used my collection of doilies and stitched them together to create the table toppers. We hired some lanterns, I bought some faux aloe vine from a small local business and we cut, moulded and assembled the flowers for the tables.
We decided to give everybody plants as bonbonierres. We served desert with the meal and we had cupcakes for our guests (we kept the cake to ourselves YUMMO) so we used Rosemary and Lavender (virtue, love, loyalty, fidelity) and I was quite surprised how well people too to them!
I painted a tree on a canvas and we used leaf shaped stamps for our guests to use as a guest book.
We also had printed some postcards which we asked our guests to use to give us their well wishes or advice.
We dressed up some bird cages for our wishing well.