Wedding - Part 1

When we started planning our wedding I wanted to do as much DIY as I could – obviously I couldn't do as much as I wanted but I thought I could share my ideas with you.

I wanted our wedding to be a bit different, not what everyone was expecting. For starters I wore a red and black dress that I got made in China. It was my second dress that I ordered as they made it to the wrong measurements. I chose a different company, and a different dress and got it made in a standard size – which didn’t fit me properly. I took it to a dressmaker to get it fixed but she said no (because she believed a bride should wear white)! So my talented mum fixed my dress and made it perfect! She also made her own dress while fixing mine and also altering my little sisters bridesmaid dress and making the sash I wanted.

Instead of holding bouquets of flowers I bought lace parasols that also had matching fans - mine were black and my sisters were white. I spent a lot of time trying out origami and beaded flowers but I didn’t really like any that I made.

Instead of flower boutonnieres I made them using feathers that I dyed red and black. I made those for my husband and his best man, our fathers and grandfathers and for our mums and grandmothers I added some beads in with the feathers. I also made mine and my sisters hair pieces out of the red and black feathers but added peacock feathers as well.

For our bon bons I wanted something different that reflected both of us a little. I found these mini metal bookmarks that you could decorate yourself and thought they were perfect. Ray and I both enjoy reading, as does a lot of our family so I thought they could be rather handy for a lot of our guests. They worked out to about $1 each in materials. I used moonstone because I like the colourful sheen they have in them. These also started the ideas I had for the full size metal bookmarks I make. We also had little red heart lollipops on the tables for the guests.