We’re slightly behind on our wedding planning and the To Do list is getting just a titch concerning. We’re trying to make the best decisions that work for us, and that takes time.

And some evidence that this method is working for us, not one but TWO of our vendors (actually our only two vendors) have won a VOWS award for 2009!

Lynsey McKelvie – for wedding coordinator for Lochside House Hotel (the venue has been nominated but did not win, booo)

Cherry Blossom – for flower arrangements

I’m so pleased that we picked them before they even won, and it tells us that our instincts are on the right track.  I’ll probably go back to the nomination list as well to look for our photographer and entertainment.

Now that I have my dress, I am totally content on having just the one dress (it’s so utterly loverly that I want to wear it all day, everyday).  But shoes, shoes are a different matter. Would it be so bad to have a couple of “shoe changes” during the day?  How about 5 of them?

The heart detail the poppy red  Kate Spade is just too cute and appropriate.  I love the sophisticated green of the Albertta Feretti t-straps.  The eggplant Me Too’s could also be great for bridesmaids.  The bright apple green Nina’s would add such a fun pop of color under a white dress.  And the Betsy Johnson’s are admittedly maybe a little over the top, but if I can’t be a bit over the top on my wedding day, when can I?

Craig and I are warming up to the idea of engagement photos.  Although we are getting married in Scotland, I like the idea of taking pictures down here in England, basically where we fell in love.  And also, London is a great backdrop.  I’ve been snooping around at some London photographer’s portfolios and they confirm to me how cool London is.

Segerius Bruce uses tourist icons with great effect:

That’s Tower Bridge. And they’re also able to find great little corners too:

Another photographer that has caught my eye is Marianne Taylor Photography for the way London is captured really subtly and it becomes just a really nice backdrop, like in this session that I loooooove. Beautiful couple aren’t they?

And then ZaraZoo, with these great shots of the couples from a distance, in 3 different styles:

I haven’t contacted any of them yet for ourselves, but they’ve been bookmarked! And I thought they were still worth highlighting in a post.

Here is also a hint of what else I’ve been doing this wedding workshop weekend:

I  have started to get word that the Save the Date have started to arrive so now I can finally share the design!

The front:

And the back:

Details:

We used Vista Print’s postcard service to make our own Save the Date cards. I’ve had a lot of fun looking at professionally designed ones, but we really couldn’t justify the cost for something that won’t even make it to the wedding day.  We could have skipped them entirely because they aren’t very common in Britain but  I wasn’t THAT successful in squashing that little voice in my head!

Since they were “homemade” and relatively cheap (seriously, the stamps cost more) the pressure was off and I wanted to have a bit of fun with them.  Sheep are quintessentially Scottish and I love to knit so I was really happy to find a cute free clipart image for the front of the card.  The background view is actually from the venue! Isn’t it gorgeous? We won’t be getting married outside (you can’t risk that in Scotland) but what a backdrop!

I am so in love with the back of the postcard if I do say so myself.  It came out exactly how I pictured it in my head and has just a hint of the vintage whimsy that I’d like to incorporate into the wedding.

Speaking of flowers, I’m very excited to show you these pictures today. My friend Elise has her own florist business and she sent me pictures from a recent wedding she just did and they are beyooootiful.

We had thought about having Elise do our own wedding flowers because she is very talented and so obviously passionate about her work but she is based in South England and the logistics of doing a Scotland wedding were a bit beyond us.  But it’s ok, we’ve retained her as  a trusted consultant on floral matters and more importantly, she can just have a good time as a guest!

So this wedding was a couple of weeks ago and the bride basically wanted a shower of roses, and boy did she get it. In spades.

Beautiful pink pomander.  Although it’s perfectly round I like that there’s still some variety of texture in the roses and the leaves were kept which makes it look a bit more organic and romantic.

Hi, did anyone order a romantic centerpiece?  I just love how it looks like she’s just plopped a garden on this candelabra. Sooo pretty and natural looking.  And I’m usually not a fan of thistles, but she’s beautifully incorporated them here.

Le. Swoon.  I have to get the name of those huge pink roses because I swore they were peonies but you can’t get them this time of year (which means I can’t get them for my wedding, *tears*) but dang, don’t they look like a good substitute?

Le. Swoon. You can almost smell them.

If you’re having a wedding in the South of England and looking for a seriously talented florist you gotta check Elise out.  She’s working on getting her website up but this is her email address and I’m going to get some more pictures soon!

Tags: bouquet, centerpiece, England, pomander, romantic, roses

The last time we went up to Scotland a couple of weeks ago, Craig and I made appointments to see a few florists.  See here for the type of things I have in mind in terms of style.

We actually saw 4 florists , 3 of them on the same day. Craig was such a trooper giving in lots of input and his parents were so nice and drove us all over the place.

For me, it was really between two florists.

The first florist company was Cherry Blossom.  It was quite a coincidence because we were in Glasgow for a wedding on the Saturday and we met them at the wedding venue we were at on the Sunday because they were doing the flowers there that day!  I really appreciated them squeezing us in (don’t worry they still had plenty of time for the wedding) and Laura and Jayne spent a lot of time really getting to know us and what we were looking for. They also had a TON of pictures to show us, which helped give us ideas.  And because they were setting up for a wedding I got to take a peek at some real bouquets and buttonholes they made and they were GORGEOUS!  Pretty darn close to what I am looking for.

The other company is Mary’s Flowers, in Ayr.  The wedding florist is Susan and she was also really great at the consultation.  We actually met her in her “studio” at the store and the great thing about that was that she was able to just pull out some sample flowers during our discussion to help show how things look together.

After about a week of debating in the end we decided to go with…

Cherry Blossom!

It was a really close decision. Both were so professional and knowledgeable.  They both took a lot of time to understand what kind of style we wanted and make helpful suggestions. In the end, we decided to go with Cherry Blossom because I just felt they just understood what I’m going for just a little better than Susan.  Seriously, it was close!  But my friend Elise who is also a florist (more on that soon!) advises that this connection is really the important thing because they need to be able to interpret my ideas into reality.

And because I like posts to have pictures, here are some example flower/foliage that I am totally loving (hopefully this isn’t giving too much away, I mean they still have to make the bouquets):

Purple Lisianthus

Viburnum berries

Wax flowers

“Cool water” roses

Lime Hypericum berries

Tags: ayr, cherry blossom, florists, glasgow

Holy jeebus it’s so obvious that they made this just to torture brides to be:

Carnaval Nodo Satin d’Orsay pumps from the incredible Christian Louboutin.

From Saks. (Thanks, Angie. Thanks a lot)

Tags: blue, love