Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well it’s been a eventful run up to Christmas this year and I'm looking forward to the break as the first few months of next year are shaping up to be busy. So Always Andri Wedding Design will be closed now until January 5th 2010, as we’re off for a family holiday in France straight after Boxing Day.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, looking forward to 2010!!

Andri x

Christmas Inspiration: Real Weddings in the Snow

Despite all this snow causing chaos on the roads, I do love winter weddings. I'll be looking forward to seeing the weddings that took place over the weekend in the coming weeks, but in the meantime check out these real weddings

Love the way the violet bridesmaids’ dresses stand out in the snow…

Winter Wedding here photo by Mthree Studio via With this Ring

This was a lovely inimate wedding with very personal details and oh my ...the dress…a 1947 New Look inspired wedding outfit designed by the bride and a friend that can be worn again and again...

Vintage Snow, here & here photos by Calla Evans Photography via Rock’n’Roll Bride via wedding bee

I originally found this wedding when I was looking at coloured shoes, which by the way are the most amazing green feathered Louboutin’s, it’s a beautiful wedding with lots of lovely details from feather hairpieces, succulent floral arrangements to lovebird cake toppers

Woodstock VT, here by Leigh Millar and here via Green Wedding Shoes

And if you can’t have you wedding in the snow, how about your engagement photos

‘An Engagement Session in the Snow’ here photos by Open Air Photography via Green Wedding Shoes

Christmas Inspiration: DIY projects

Feeling creative? Here are some festive DIY projects that could be incorporated into your wedding.


Love these great DIY Gift wraps, would look great on a winter wedding table as wrapping for favours, perhaps some locally sourced boxed sweet treat, or add a name tag and use as place settings wrapped round a napkin..

By Grey Likes Weddings via Style Me Pretty, here

An easy way to personalise simple candleholders which can then be used to adorn cosy winter fireplaces

By Beth Helmstetter via Style Me Pretty, here

I think these little trees would make cute table centres at a Christmas wedding, you could use the star to number the table.

By Sweet Paul

There are some great tutorials on DIY wreaths, I just love this one not only does it look like fluffy snow but is easy to make, cheap and would make a cute addition to your wedding décor

By Amanda of Ruffled via Design *Sponge, here

Christmas Inspiration: Winter Wedding Inspiration Boards

A small selection of some of my favourite Winter Wedding Inspiration boards

Love the pink poinsettias in this board, who says they always have to be red, delicate and simple.

By Snippet and Ink follow link for credits

With so many to choose from on the Perfect Palette’s ‘25 Days of Christmas’ it should have been a difficult choice but how could I resist a board of red and grey, after all they are Always Andri colours, and I so want those shoes-the perfect dark red.

By The Perfect Palette follow link for credits

Winter weddings are a great background for strong colours and I’m loving purple for weddings right now so how about this French fantasy.

By Wedding Nouveau follow link for credits

Merry Christmas! Winter Wedding Inspiration

With Christmas fast approaching I thought with my next few posts I’d take a look at some of the great Christmas and winter wedding inspiration to be found on the blogosphere from great inspiration boards, DIY projects and beautiful real weddings, my little way of wishing you a Merry Christmas!

I also recently did a Winter Wedding Inspiration board as a guest post for Segerius-Bruce Photography, you can find it here, and while you’re at it take a look at the rest of the blog to see some of the beautiful weddings that Chanelle and Bruce have photographed.

Adorable Christmas Finds

Feeling festive today- did some Christmas shopping and buying my tree tomorrow to put up over the weekend. Whatever time of year your are getting married, Christmas can be a great opportunity to find decorations to use for your wedding as decor around your venue, on your table or as favours, and if you shop in the new year you could get some fab bargains too.

So here are some Adorable Christmas finds for you which I’ve based around 3 themes popular at Christmas but just as good for weddings.

1-6 8 & 9 via Not on the High Street 7 via RE

1 via Lucas Bond 2, 3, 7 & 9 via Not on the High Street

4 & 6 via IKEA 5 & 8 V & A Museum

2 & 4 via IKEA 1, 3, 5-9 Not on the High Street

DIY Guest Book Idea

I saw this idea for an ABC Birthday Card on Design*Sponge by guest blogger Brooke Reynolds from the blog Inchmark recently and I thought it could be easily adapted to use at your wedding as a guest book idea. Not only will you end up with a unique guest book but it’ll act as a great talking point for your guests. You could provide each guest at their table with one of the letter cards and with instructions for them to fill it in for you both with a wish or advice or even just a descriptive word that starts with the corresponding letter. Depending how creative you’re feeling you could give each table the whole alphabet or spread them out between 2-3 tables per set.

There’s a downloadable PDF which you can use to print out the letters onto card and then just cut them out to size. Or use it as inspiration to create your own letter cards which tie into your colours and lettering used on your stationery.

Guest Book Ideas

Photo by Sabine Scherer via Green Wedding Shoes, here

As well as your photographs and video, guest books can act as fabulous mementos of the day. To sit down with your husband after the big day reading heartfelt wishes from your friends and family can be a great way to relive those moments.

Photo by Brian Cummings via Style Me Pretty, here

A traditional guest book is a simple solution which you can tie into your colour theme to gather all those good wishes but can occasionally get lost doing the rounds so either assign a friend to keep an eye on it or make a feature of it and set up a table where guests can go to sit down and write out messages, the bar area is usually a good spot.

There are number of ways you can play around with the traditional guest book format.

Collect old postcards for your guests to write on and have them post them into a vintage mailbox or collect them in a large vase. You could even provide a vintage typewriter for them to type out their messages.

Or how about a Wishing tree, they make great focal points; provide guests with luggage tags and they can tie on their wishes, you could also add some family photos to the tree.

Photo by Caroline Tran via Ruffled, here

How about a modern alternative where you clip the cards onto a wire frame (ok this is a chandelier which costs about $1200, but think of it as inspiration…)

via Oh So Beautiful Paper

If you are having a pre-wedding or engagement photo shoot it can be nice to incorporate the photos into a guest book. Some photographers like Marianne Taylor, will offer this as a service or use your favourite image mounted into a frame which your guests can then sign (even after 8 years of marriage I still find myself looking at our framed guest wishes and reminiscing about our wedding)

Photo by Marianne Taylor

Photo by Tana Photography via Elizabeth Anne Designs, here

If you are having a photo booth you can put these images straight into a book, this might even be included as part of you package, or how about a Big Brother style video booth guestbook.

Why stick to paper, ask guests to write on pieces of fabric or vintage handkerchiefs which you can then sew together to create a large wall hanging or funky quilt.

Have giant pebbles for guests to write on which you could collect in a lovely bowl to be displayed in your new home together.

If you are having a lot of children you could have a craft table where they paint panels that can be put toether into a large piece of art.

Or how about what they did at this wedding, the couple asked guests to write onto tiles which they planned on turning into a table top…

Photo by Leigh Miller via The Inspired Bride

Who says you need to stick to best wishes, you could ask for advice on a happy marriage, a much-loved memory they have of you (ask them to bring an old photo showing it), a great holiday destination or share a favourite recipe which you could turn into a little book to give as thank you gifts.

What about no words at all-at this wedding they had a fabulous fingerprint tree, where guests stamped their prints onto branches of the tree and then signed their names; available from Etsy seller Lovli Day

Designed by the bride Cassie, Photo by Jonas Peterson via Rock’n’Roll Bride

At this vow renewal there was a time capsule box, do check it out as she explains exactly what that involved; it’s a great idea which not only provided a great keepsake full of memories but really involved and entertained the guests…

Photo by Jenna Cole via Elizabeth Anne Designs

 

So get creative and have some fun with your guest ‘book’, make it something that you’ll want to look at again and again. What are you having for your wedding day?

We Make London Christmas Fair

If you love handmade goods, Etsy and Folksy then you’ll love We Make London, sponsored by The Make Lounge they’re holding a Christmas fair at Chelsea Town Hall, King's Road London this Saturday 5th December, where you can buy directly from the designers.

Check out the blog where they are showcasing the designers at the fair: loads of great ones to choose from, here are a few that could be useful for your wedding.

Stationery designers Atherton Lin

Place cards from Pocket Studio

Gift Boxes and Christmas ornaments by Paper Red Shoes…great for favours

For fabulous headpieces Treasure Me

And hats from Hatastic

I could go on but there are far too many, do check out the blog and pop down to the King’s road if you can.

P.S. Take a look at The Make Lounge website if you’re looking for alternative hen party ideas -from cup cake decorating to making your own bath and body products or if you’re thinking of making your own accessories they have tiara and fascinator workshops too.

Tissue Paper Pompom & Pomander Inspiration

On Monday I looked at how you could make your own tissue paper pomanders for your bridesmaids young or old to hold, here are some photos showing how you can use tissue paper pompoms and pomanders in all sizes and areas of your wedding

Create a backdrop for your ceremony

Photo by Katherine O’Brien Photography via Rock’n’Roll Bride, here

Hang on the end of chairs or pew ends either side of your aisle; you can then easily transfer them to your reception venue.

Photos by Jessica Johnston via Ruffled Blog, here

Decorate the reception space; hang then all round the space to add colour, highlight a feature of the room such as the windows or cluster them together to create a focal point around your head table

I love the ribbons hanging from these and different colours used for a Mexican inspired rehearsal dinner designed by Lisa Vorce of Oh How Charming! a US wedding planner.

Photo by Aaron Delesie, via Style Me Pretty

First photo and above by Q Weddings via Style Me Pretty here & here

They look great combined with Chinese lanterns

Photo by The Nichols via Style Me Pretty, here

They look just as fab, whatever the scale; small ones make fun napkin rings and look like mini-hydrangeas

Photo by Sugar Love Weddings via The Bride's Café, here

I love tissue paper pompoms, they’re fun and whimsical and great for adding splashes of colour. They can easily be made but if you don’t feel up to it check out Etsy as there are a number of tissue paper pompom sellers there.

DIY Tissue Paper Pomanders

At the weekend I was discussing with one of my brides what her younger flower girls could hold rather than flowers and I suggested she used tissue paper pomanders, they’re simple to make and easy for the girls to hold.

Here are the basic instructions for making the flowers/ pompoms (inspired by Martha Stewart’s large hanging pompom instructions, here) which you can either gather together in a ball like I have or for a more sturdy pomander stick into a polystyrene ball as shown here on the Ruffled Blog.

You will need Tissue paper, florist’s wire, scissors and ribbon.
(If attaching to a polystyrene ball you will also need a glue gun)

1. Take a sheet of tissue paper and fold 3 times so you have 8 rectangular pieces to cut out and then stack on top of each other as shown.

2. Concertina fold the paper, roughly 2-3cm wide, to the top. Fold in half to mark the centre point.

3. Wrap a piece of floral wire around the middle. It works better to keep the wire flat rather than scrunching up the paper. Trim the edges to give a rounded petal shape.


4. Then holding from the wire gradually pull out all the folds, pulling alternatively left and right until you have created your flower.



5. Gather you flower heads together to create your pomander and twist your wires together. Take a ribbon and tie to the centre of the pomander to create a handle to hold the pomander by. I’ve used 3 flower heads here for a loose pomander but you could use more to create a fuller more packed pomander.

You don’t have stick to one colour either you could use contrasting colours for individual flowers or layer different shades of the same colour within a single flower as well.

Adorable Finds: Jade & Peacock Blue

Here are the adorable finds for the Jade and Peacock Blue colour inspiration

I love the richness of these colours and I think they work wonderfully for an autumn or winter wedding.

I think the great thing about this colour palette is that you can mix it up for your bridesmaids; let them choose their own styles in a range of shades and have fun accessorising

1 Goddiva 2. Net-a-Porter 3 Monsoon 4 Monsoon 5 Net-a-Porter 6 Coast via House of Fraser

1 Feather Comb from Monsoon 2 Blue and Jade Bangle from Aldo 3 Peacock Burst Ring from Top Shop 4 Peacock Clutch from beegee bags via The Brides Café

Lots of great invitations can be found using the peacock as inspiration, here are a couple I found on Etsy.

Invitations from Etsy shops Izzy & the Bean Design and Peacock Invitations

Peacock place cards from Etsy shops Timeless Paper

A peacock on a cake might be a bit much but I like the use of jade icing detailing on this cake.


Cake Inspiration here, via Elizabeth Anne Designs photo by Laura Peacock (the name is a coincidence I promise.)

Always Andri News:You Magazine Feature

I was featured in You Magazine at the weekend, the article looked at women who have made the most out of being made redundant. You can read the online article here.

Image by Sam Holden