OUR PERFECT DAY

On the 12th of March I got to marry my best friend.
The day was absolutely perfect. There was not a cloud in the sky, even though it was forecast to rain! We were so blessed and we had a fun filled day shared with friends and family.

Photos were done by the tremendously talented Sutherland Kovach Studio. I love their style and they were so much fun to work with. I'd highly recommend them! Here are some of the snaps they took during the day... You might want to go grab a hot drink, this post is a long one!

These beautiful flowers were done by the lovely Angela Rogers.
The wedding was a real DIY job and I tried to make/do as much as I could myself... I found these cute peach flower hair clips for my bridesmaids which I also used to make the boys buttonholes. I made the leaves out of fabric and added dried berries and pearls. I also decided to make my own fasinator/birdcage veil... which I was still finishing the morning of the wedding! It was craft–mania!

Clever Ruth Perry made my dress from a couple sketches that I gave her.

I collected birdcages over the course of our engagement from all sorts of places. I put them on a collection of old books I had and used them as centerpieces. I found glass bird tealight candles for $1.98 each! It was such a steal and my Dad and I painted them peach to brighten up the tables. I used an assortment of glass jars and glued scrabble letters on for the table numbers. They also doubled as vases for the flowers.
For name tags I hand wrote everyones names on paper dollies.
We got a stamp made with our names and two birds on it, the same ones I used on our invitations. It's such a cost effective way to add detail and tie everything together. We used a peach ink pad and stamped them on all the napkins.

I really wanted to have a lolly table as I have such a sweet tooth! I sourced as many white lollies as I could find and put them in different sized jars. I got our names and birds screen printed on calico which I then cut into hearts and hand stitched onto more calico that was then sewed into bags! It was a lot of work but so worth it... They were a hit! A nice little keep sake too :)

PHOTOBOOTH

As a bit of a prelude to posting some wedding photos here are a few (ok, well a lot) of the photobooth snaps that got taken before the reception. Brendon and I are always pulling ridiculous faces and we love a bit of silliness so this was a fun way for us to add a bit of that to the wedding.
Besides, who doesn't like a good stash?

Thanks Jessie for making me such beautiful bunting! xx

T&B INVITES

After posting the fiesta wedding invite I thought it might be a good idea to put up some pictures of my own wedding invites. I've been a bit obsessed with birds for a wee while and they some how managed to sneak on here... And then proceeded to permeate the whole wedding!
This is a two piece (double sided) design that was tied together with cotton and a circle rsvp card.
I used a fiskars embossing corner punch to do the edges and make it a little more special.

I also decided to make my own envelopes (New Zealand seems to have a very limited variety of envelopes). I was hooked on the string and button styled envelopes and could only ever find them in a long skinny size or large A4. It's a good thing weddings are a one–off deal... I had very sore hands after all the punching, cutting and tying :)

FEIJOA WINE : part one

My husband and I have a lovely feijoa tree in our yard and just before autumn hits they drop from the tree by the hundreds... Not much fun when it's time to mow the lawns! With some encouragement from Brendon's brother we decided to have our first crack at making feijoa wine.

After freezing and defrosting the feijoas we mashed them in a sterilised bucket and added some sultanas.

After a few days of hanging in the bucket we separated the juice from the pulp. The feijoas were looking more like gherkins at this stage! Then we added sugar water and a bunch of yeast, nutrients and the like.

It's hanging out for another couple of days, then we get to put it in the demijohn! It's exciting checking on it each day to see how it's doing. I don't know if I'll be able to wait four or so months to taste it!

ADVENTURES AT SEA

So I finally got my underwater camera developed from summers gone by. The quality isn't great – it's a disposable after all – but it's still fun to see how they turned out.

Paddling around Goat Island in a glass bottom kayak.
That little black smudge in the water is a wee penguin that swam along with us for a while. We named him Larry.

SOME LIKE IT HOT

In this months New Zealand Weddings Magazine (Autumn 2011) there is a feature called Some Like It Hot which is based on a Mexican Fiesta!

The talented photographers at Sutherland Kovach Studio shot these cute photos and asked me to design them an invite for the theme.

Check out more of the photos here or go grab yourself a copy of the magazine and check out the full article.

Plus photos of my own wedding (also shot by Sutherland Kovach) are coming soon!

JUMPING ON THE BANDWAGON

Well I've finally decided that it was about time I jumped on the blogging bandwagon. I thought I'd start off with a few shots I snapped today of the city in my favourite season... Autumn. Hamilton always looks so lovley at this time of year, but it also starts to get a bit cold! I bought myself a cute pair of gloves this weekend to prepare myself for winter.

Gloves :: Roxy