Getting married is the most special day of your life and you want every detail to be perfect. Couples spend so much time on working up a design and theme for a wedding these days, the era of the traditional white wedding is well and truly behind us.
One of the biggest trends in wedding fashion of recent years has been the rustic, crafty style weddings that rely on a more casual and relaxed approach. Gone are the formal top hat and tails, the clouds of white tulle and troupe of adorable bridesmaids – replaced with a more laid back couple in bare feet, pretty hippy fashion and a bunch of hand picked wild flowers. Of course, this rustic and relaxed approach is actually far from being a breeze – to achieve that look of tousled abandonment and serenity is quite an art. Read on for tips to give your own wedding a shot of craft inspiration to make your special day super stylish…
Invitation Inspiration
To quote the wonderful Julie Andrews, ‘Let’s start at the very beginning…’ Once the date has been set you need to start thinking about the invitations. The invitation will be the first most of your guests will have heard about your imminent nuptials, so it needs to set the right tone. Those planning a rustic, informal country wedding with heavy craft overtones should start as they mean to go on with a hand made arty/crafty invitation. The best way of achieving exactly what you want is to make the invitations yourselves. Don’t be daunted by this idea, there are many exquisite art and craft supplies available online to help you put together the most beautiful invitation. When you design the invitation yourself you can think long and hard about the colour scheme, the text that you choose and all the other details that need including on an invitation. If you have decided on a blue and silver wedding, for example, your invitation can mirror this. It is essential that your invitation is coherent with your design plans for the wedding. Using hand made paper in blue or silver sourced from art and craft supplies, perhaps with a twine or silver thread detail or ribbon and a pressed cornflower in intense blue gives a wonderful first impression. Consider taking calligraphy classes so that you can write in elegant script on each personally addressed invitation.
DIY Floral Finery
Modern wedding flowers are less formal than they once were. Many brides and grooms are taking on the challenge of creating their own bouquets and buttonhole displays. Choosing floral combinations that work is the most vital factor and if you feel stumped as to which flowers work well with others, keep it simple and opt for a single colour scheme. A bouquet in one shade can be just as striking as an ornate, multi-coloured froth of floral fantasy. Look on You tube and online for tutorials giving advice on DIY wedding flowers – you’ll be surprised at how simple it is. And the simple ideas are always the best.
Do us a Favour!
Wedding favours have become quite big business in recent years and it certainly doesn’t look as if the trend is going away. Most wedding guests have come to expect a token gift awaiting them on the table at the wedding reception. If you have a lot of guests in attendance, giving them all a gift can inflate the wedding budget. Keep prices nailed down by creating hand crafted gifts with a personal and thoughtful feel. Ideas such as home-made foods or drinks are always a winner. Whether it’s specially brewed and labelled beer, chutney or jam prettily packaged, home baked cookies or fudge attractively boxed or powerful sloe gin bottled and tagged up in style. It is understood and accepted that wedding favours are a small token gesture of appreciation, thanking the guest for their attendance. Where you really win with favours is in the presentation and packaging – you can raise a humble pot of jam into a sumptuous, gastronomic event when you dress it with a perfectly chosen fabric lid cover, label and gift tag.
Other good craft ideas that won’t break the bank include handmade candles or soap, customised flip flops for tired dancing feet, personalised poems or photos and hand embroidered lace, silk or cotton handkerchiefs.
Getting married in style is totally possible when a little art and craft ingenuity is exercised. Save money and make your nuptials stand out against all the others with its own unique crafty twist on wedding style…
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