A Mad Hatter’s Party-Hen Party Idea

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a Mad Hatter’s Hat party run by Katherine Elizabeth Millinery at The Portal restaurant in London. I met Katherine at the Boutique Bridal Bazaar at The Portal a few weeks earlier with my good friend and fellow planner Helen Carter and we all thought it would be a great idea to get together with a group of wedding planners to try out the evening on behalf of all our lovely brides who might be searching for that perfect hen party idea.

We met at The Portal, but you can hold your party-be it hen, birthday or just a get together with friends at a venue of your choice or at Katherine’s studio in Clerkenwell. Greeted by a glass of champagne and a long table full of fun goodies from feathers to sparkly beads Katherine first demonstrated to us how to make our very own fascinators and then we all got stuck in making our own hats and fascinators guided by the expert hands of the Katherine Elizabeth Millinery team.

Here are some photos of the evening taken by Fanni Williams…

The parties come in two packages starting from £38 which includes material and small trimmings and you can also pay a little extra to have vintage tea and sandwiches, for the real Alice in Wonderland experience. They have also teamed up with Benefit cosmetics to offer makeup lessons too. For further information on the Mad Hatter’s Couture parties check out Katherine Elizabeth Millinery’s website here

It really was a fun evening and we all went away with some fabulous hats and fascinators. It would make a great hen party either as precursor to going out partying in the evening or a relaxed Sunday afternoon that your mum could join in with too,  where not only will you have a great time at but you’ll walk away with a lovely keepsake too.

And here I am in my finished hat...

And with some of my fellow UKAWP wedding planners wearing their lovely creations...

So thank you to Katherine Elizabeth Millinery for a wonderful evening, I now have a fabulous hat to wear to Ladies Day at Ascot in a few weeks, to Helen for organising the evening and Fanni for taking the lovely photos.

All photos courtesy of Fanni Williams

Sneak Peak: Secret Garden Photo Shoot

A special Saturday post today to show you a few photos from the Secret Garden inspired photo shoot I worked on a couple of weeks ago. Fiona Kelly the fabulous photographer was looking for people to get involved in a bridal inspiration shoot a few months back and having known Fiona for a while now I thought it would be great chance for us to finally work together. I sourced a fab location and we pulled together a great team who I’ve listed below. I’ll be sharing more photos from the shoot and info on the whole planning, design and styling process soon.

Photography Fiona Kelly Photography

Planning, Design & Styling Always Andri Wedding Design

Florist – Fairy Nuff Flowers

Dress Designer – Sally Lacock

Jewellery & Accessories – Olivier Laudus

Hair & Makeup – Sarah Dickenson

Props & Styling – Charlie Davis

Cakes – Cake By Sugar

Model – Terri ‘The Bride Fairy’

Venue The Walled Garden at Cowdray

For a few more photos from the day take a look at Fiona’s sneak peak here

Always Loves Inspired Creations Contest

Elizabeth Anne Design and The Sweetest Occasion have been holding their Inspired Creations contest where wedding vendors have to come up with a Glitter and Glam inspired wedding concept all for under $500. There are some lovely wedding designs this year full of fabulous ideas and cute DIY projects; you can see the round up here.

Here are a few of my favourites:

Dreamy loft Wedding

Photo by Kellie Kano via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Glamorous wedding style under the trees

Photo by Lavender & Twine via The Sweetest Occasion

Burlap & Bling

Photo by Kristyn Hogan via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Head on over to Elizabeth Anne Designs now where you can vote on your favourite one, which one will you choose?

A Quick Tip: Children

If you are inviting children to your wedding then consider hiring a specialist crèche or children’s entertainment service to look after them during the dinner and speeches. At the very least provide them with age appropriate goody bags at the tables to keep them entertained. My Little Party Bags have great selection of wedding busy bags, here.

Children's table photo by Mathieu Photogrpahy via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Featured on Love My Dress

Back in March I put together a team of local wedding suppliers for a bridal photo shoot at Beauberry House in Dulwich, South London. I’m very pleased to say that on Wednesday the lovely Annabel from UK Wedding Blog Love My Dress featured it, you can see the fabulous photos taken by Fanni Williams and the full list of suppliers involved here. I’ll be posting some behind the scenes images on the blog soon so watch this space.

Floral Inspiration: Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley, a beautiful spring flower, only in season from April to May, with an adorable scent used beautifully as the main flower in Kate’s bouquet at the Royal Wedding seemed the perfect choice for some floral inspiration.

A delicate, flower it works well on its own in small bouquets and combines well with other blooms too.

1. On blue Pool Road via Frolic 2. Lillian & Leonard via Rock My Wedding 3. Little White Dress via Project Wedding 4. Myrtle & Marjoram Photography  via Style Me Pretty 5. Susan Dean  via Snippet & Ink 6. Polly Alexandre via Rock My Wedding

   1. Zofia Photography via Elizabeth Anne Designs 2. Segerius Bruce Photography via Love My Dress 3 & 4.  Elizabeth Messina via Snippet & Ink & Snippet & Ink

A Quick Tip: Table Names

A great way to add a bit of personality to your day is to name your tables after something important to you both; the groom loves football? How about naming the tables after favourite footballers. For loads more great ideas on table names check out Little Miss Wedding here.

Photo by Elemental Weddings via Little Miss Wedding here

A Royal Wedding: My Thoughts

Well I feel I’m coming a little late to the party on this one as to be honest my focus recently has been on my lovely couple Anne & Seb’s wedding which took place on Saturday. So after watching the wedding on my net book while working and then having a few days off I’ve been spending some time catching up on all the Royal wedding news and now feel a little less out of the loop.

So what are my thoughts on the Royal wedding –well let’s start with the dress because surely that was at the top of everyone’s list whether they were into royal weddings or not. I’m pleased to say I wasn’t disappointed. I’d always pictured her in a Grace Kelly inspired dress-something about the timeless elegance that felt it would be the perfect inspiration for a modern day princess. Now I maybe slightly biased, I wore a long sleeved jacket on my wedding day,  but I think we’ll be seeing a lot more long sleeved wedding dresses from now on. There was a number of long sleeved gowns seen at the Golden Globes earlier this year as well as at the New York bridal market recently and I think it will be trend that continues to grow.

Now I also liked her second dress but can’t get over the niggling feeling that I wish she’d been a bit more adventurous with the design-after all the pressure was off by this point and the evening do was her chance to let her hair down a little and with Sarah Burton as designer, why not?

For the less traditional bride I think Kate’s sister Pippa’s slinky white sheath dress will also be great inspiration not just for your maids but for brides too, who wouldn’t want to look that fabulous on their wedding day, so I think white for your bridesmaids and slinky wedding dress will be very popular.

Other great details I liked were the lovely Halo tiara, great choice considering she probably had her pick of some amazing royal tiaras; her cute little Lilly of the Valley bouquet, which I imagine smelt divine; the majestic maple trees in the Abbey-although I would have loved to have seen blossom filled trees, perfect for a spring wedding; the top 4 tiers of the wedding cake and the fact that Kate chose all the flowers that were to be on it based on their symbolic meaning and I would have loved to have eaten the grooms chocolate cake-yum! (It was made to a secret royal recipe but you could try one of these recipes here and here)

As a young couple in love but with the pressure of the world looking on I think it was always going to be interesting to see how they injected themselves into their day. There were some lovely touches from the Sweet William flowers in her adorable Lily of the Valley bouquet to leaving Buckingham Palace in William’s Aston Martin but by far the loveliest thing for me was seeing how genuinely happy they both were on the day (I do love a smiling bride) and their little sweet asides to each other.

So congratulations to William and Kate a lovely day all round which many will remember for a long time. What were your thoughts on the royal wedding?

All photos via BBC News here. Cake photos here