Amazing Boutonniere Button-Holes for your Hubby

As I was writing up my recent {and fabulous} feature - 100 Ideas to Personalise Your Wedding, I realised that Before the Big Day neglects grooms. It's true, they're often not as interested in weddings as future brides, but I figure the more attention we pay them, the more likely they're going to get infected with our wedding enthusiasm! So when I discovered these incredible buttonholes or boutonniere {the French term now also used by Americans}, I had to feature them on the wedding blog! They're made by Tim Fritts & Erin Rosenow {aka Fritts Rosenow} in San Fransicso, and they're completely handmade and bespoke. So if you visit their shop, and you don't see a boutonniere that will work, then contact them, and they'll mock up something spectacular!

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A Natural Homemade Sunshine Yellow Wedding - The Reception

With wedding details galore, I've fallen hook, line, and sinker for this beautiful farm wedding. There's nothing more stunning than the British countryside on a summer's day, and Abi and Simon got seriously lucky with their wedding weather. With a barn wedding venue and a rustic theme based around DIY details, I love the coherence of their blue and yellow colour scheme. More stealworthy ideas include the naked wedding cake, the raffia ties around the napkins, the mum-made bunting and the home-grown table flowers and wedding favours. Stunning pictures published with thanks to Jo Richards Photography - just take a look at that view!

Our wedding photographer was Jo Richards Photography. We originally had a friend doing our photography, but she pulled out with four months to go, and I did some research to find someone local. 

I had three interviews with wedding photographers in one morning, but Jo won hands down. She totally 'got' my family and our ideas, and also her photos were amazing. Our formal wedding photographs were a breeze, and I am loving looking through them all now.

Our biggest DIY project was our barn wedding venue. It was full of combine harvesters, 150 tonnes of fertiliser, and shipment containers! But it was worth it. Also our mums were amazing. They made the wedding cake, homemade chutney to go with the cheese, and grew the flowers for the table decorations.

My husband proposed with a yellow diamond as he said I am a girl who is colourful and bright, so yellow was always a theme - then the blue naturally appeared. The reception was all about natural and homemade. 

We designed and made our Order of Service, and we found our traditional-with-a-twist wedding invitations online. But we made good use of my sister's amazing handwriting! After two hours, a bottle of wine, and a good system, she had written, 160 name cards, table settings and table names for us!

My mum made all the bunting for my sister’s wedding 4 years before, so it was great for us to use it as well.

Our wedding favours were flip flops for the ladies! Surviving heels for a whole wedding is always a struggle. The men received an Ivory Rose silk pin on entering the church. This is where British favours originally come from, so we thought we would bring back the tradition.

My Mum made my sisters wedding cake, so was something of a family tradition for her to make ours. Our caterer, Janice, from Out Sauce Catering, decorated it with fruit and flowers. We wanted something homemade that would be eaten, and all our guests loved it as dessert!

My advice to future brides is plan and enjoy. There are so many apps and spreadsheets out there to help you be organised, and then we decided to do one thing every day, and keep the planning bite-size. That way we never felt too overwhelmed! 

I LOVED planning our wedding. It was fun! There were no tears - just plans that all worked. I am super-organised, so for me it was a dream. There's a slight Monica from friends element in me!

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A Natural Homemade Sunshine Yellow Wedding

There's nothing I like more than a lovely sunshiny yellow-themed wedding to brighten up my Friday - particularly when it's teamed with a Grand Designs-style barn venue, and royal blue bridesmaids. Abi and Simon chose the traditional route of getting married in Abi's home town...or in this case, village. A family friend offered them a barn for their wedding reception, and they completely transformed it from a fertiliser store into the perfect, pretty venue. Talk about inspirational stuff! Simon proposed to Abi with a yellow diamond, to represent her bright personality, so it was a natural theme colour for their wedding. Teamed with all their DIY wedding details, including miles of mum-made bunting and handmade wedding cakes, it's up there with one of my favourite DIY weddings. Huge thanks to Jo Richards Photography for her stunning pictures - more to come from their reception tomorrow!

We celebrated our wedding on 10th August 2013 in Aldbourne in Wiltshire.

I grew up in the area, so I wanted everything in the same village. We both wanted somewhere that we could make 'us' and our family friend said I could have any barn on his property for our reception, so we picked one as our wedding venue.

Our florists were all local people, and friends, so all I had to say was the colours, and they know me personally, so knew what to do. We chose Polly's Petals for the bouquets and men's buttonholes, and then a friend for the church, and The Allium Design Company for the church archway.

My husband proposed with a yellow diamond, as he said I am a girl who is colourful and bright, so yellow was always a theme - then the blue naturally appeared. 

My bridesmaids' dresses came from an online boutique. We all went shopping one day, so I could find a style they all liked, and then I researched online and found the dresses. We teamed them with matching blue shoes and silky yellow sashes.

My wedding dress was Pronovias from a boutique called Mirror Mirror in London. My veil was borrowed from my sister, and the shoes had to be yellow! 

All the bouquets were silk and handmade from Polly's Petals, because I wanted for us all to be able to keep them.

Simon's morning suit was bespoke-made in London by his tailor. His ushers wore morning suits as well, with traditional grey waistcoats and blue ties. Simon had a yellow waistcoat and yellow socks to tie in with our theme colours.

My mum made the bunting for my sister's wedding, and it was great to use it for ours as well.

Our wedding photographer was Jo Richards Photography. We originally had a friend doing our photography, but she pulled out with four months to go, and I did some research to find someone local.

I had three interviews with wedding photographers in one morning, but Jo won hands down. She totally 'got' my family and our ideas, and also her photos were amazing. Our formal wedding photographs were a breeze, and I am loving looking through them all now.

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Wedding Decoration Idea & Theme - Ribbons

I discovered ribbons too late in my own wedding planning to use them in my decorations. So now I'm going to have to come up with some excuse to have another wedding, so that I can put this gorgeous wedding decoration idea to use. Just check out the inspirational pictures below for all the ways in which you could use them, and don't miss my Pinterest page for loads more wedding ideas.

Photo Credits {clockwise from top left} - 1. Katherine OBrien via Rock n' Roll Bride, 2. via Sugar and Charm, 3. Cameron & Kelly via Style Me Pretty, 4. via Botanical Brouhaha, 5. Our Labour of Love via Green Wedding Shoes, 6. Brittany Hildebrandt via Uschi & Kay, 7. via Sugar and Charm, 8. Cameron & Kelly via Style Me Pretty

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Vail Newborn Photographer - Lily's Newborn Photos in McCoy, Colorado.

I had so much fun taking Lily's newborn photos recently.  Lily is one lucky girl, living on a real wild wild west ranch, named Black Mountain Ranch in McCoy, Colorado.  I had never been to McCoy before, but I have done a lot of rafting around the neighboring State Bridge area.  It was quite a spectacle to drive onto the ranch and see dozens of horses roaming around on a beautiful Sunday morning.

Lily was so cooperative and she did a great job of letting me capture her.  We even had time to take a few family photos outside.  Here are a few photos from our session.

Click on the link to see more Children and Newborn Photos in Vail, Colorado.

A Modern Navy-Blue, Pink & Purple Themed Wedding - The Reception

There's tonnes of fantastic wedding inspiration in this gorgeous spring wedding. Ruth and Mark chose an on-trend jewel colour palette of navy blue, hot pink and purple for their wedding theme, and carried it through all their wedding details. The bridesmaids' dresses, the flowers, the cake - even the DIY'd table stationery, all match perfectly. It's the wedding planner effect without a wedding planner!! DIY brides will find Ruth's efforts hugely inspiring - she even made her own FIVE tier wedding cake - and it couldn't look more professional if it tried. With favours made my Ruth's brother-in-law, marquee-style letters made by her Dad, and a ring-pillow made my her mum, this really was a family project. Enjoy the gorgeous pictures by Matt and Sarah-Jane Ethan. I love the modern-style portrait shots!

We chose Matt and Sarah-Jane Ethan as our wedding photographers. They stood out to us on our search. They totally “got” what we wanted from our photographs which was informal and relaxed. Also your wedding photographer is with you most of the day, so I think it is important to get on with them, and we really did!

 I came across a navy blue, pink and purple look, and I loved the contrast of the colours together. It looked very modern, and I was keen for our wedding to feel modern as well as classic.

We used L’Amour flowers in Kingston Park. L'Amour is a small independent company so the owner was very open to ideas, and this was important to me. I love flowers and am constantly in the garden so I knew exactly what I wanted. I choose freesias, as my Mum had them at her wedding, and added white hydrangeas. We decorated the chairs in the wedding ceremony with pink hydrangeas as well.

We celebrated our wedding at Wynyard Hall in Cleveland on 26th May 2013. 

We loved Wynyard Hall because it was beautiful enough inside that if the weather was rainy or cold, it wouldn't be a bad thing to be stuck inside. On the other hand, if the weather was nice {which it was!}, then they had beautiful grounds, and plenty of nice areas for people to relax outside.

We had lots of DIY projects! We made the confetti cones and jam-jar lanterns. We were getting people to collect jam jars for two years before our wedding! I wanted them all different shapes and sizes, and decorated them with hearts, pearls and diamante.

I designed our own wedding stationary {we wanted it to look modern and sleek}, my Dad made a big 'MR & MRS' sign, my Mum made flowers for the table plan and our wedding ring cushion and the table plan was made on a mirror from our house. We also put together our own photo booth with props borrowed from friends and a polaroid camera. This was also our guest book so guests took a photo and stuck it in the book. This was the best part of the wedding as we got to sit the next day and look and read through it all and it was so special.

I had a great deal of trouble finding wedding favours, as they are all very expensive. A few months before our wedding day, my brother-in-law offered to make some gluten-free cookies. I thought this was a great idea, and as many favours get forgotten or left, an edible favour seemed perfect. I decorated them using the same style of home-made stationary that we had made for our invitations.

I made our wedding cake. It was gluten-free as was the wedding meal and the favours. I was diagnosed with Celiacs disease two years ago, and I’ve found it very difficult to be 'different', and constantly having to ask if foods are gluten free, so this was very important to me. I decorated it with the same flowers that I had in the centre pieces.

I did enjoy planning our wedding, but after years of thinking about it, I didn’t actually start 'doing' many of my plans till 6-12 months beforehand. I was very busy with work at the time, so it meant that it actually became very rushed and stressful - so I wish I had started earlier.

My advice to brides would be to give yourself plenty of time to decide what you want, and plenty of time to enjoy planning. Don't worry about the little details. I did, but on the day it really doesn't matter as much as you think. You are getting married to the one that you love, and your family and friends are there to support you, and that is all that matters at the end of the day.

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